INDIFFERENCE. - In the ascetic sense, it is the habitual disposition of the will by which it does not prefer one thing to another, until it knows what the will of God is. Indifference is rooted in the appreciation that spiritually, with respect to one's own perfection, everything is nothing if it does not correspond to the dispositions of the divine will regarding oneself.
Indifference has no place where the divine will is already known, since in that case readiness and dedication in embracing and carrying out the manifested divine will must take the place of indifference. Thus, for example, one cannot be indifferent with respect to things commanded or forbidden by God in the Decalogue or imposed by the duties of one's state. Indifference is in fact exercised in those things which, considered objectively, have no necessary connection with the ultimate end.
Indifference is necessary for anyone who aspires to the perfect life. It leads the soul to a great freedom of spirit. Even though a thing may please or displease it according to feeling, it does not allow itself to be directed in the orientation of its life by these impressions, but solely by the love of God, which dominates the love of creatures. Loving creatures only in God and for God, it cuts off disordered propensities and unreasonable attachments to things, persons, places, offices, viewing them all solely from the standpoint of their value for eternal life and preparing itself to choose them under this aspect. Therefore indifference is praised by ascetics (v. APATIA) as a sign of a magnanimous heart, ready to make use of creatures only insofar as they lead to the ultimate end, whereas the lack of indifference is passion (v.), to which all moral deviations are attributed.
Indifference thus understood is an element of conformity to the will of God, for the execution of which it perfectly disposes the soul, while it prepares for the virtue of abandonment (v.); and it presupposes as acquired in a high degree the virtues of self-denial (v.) and mortification. It is a virtue characteristic of Ignatian asceticism: « Opus est ut simus indifferentes ad omnia creata, quoad concessum est libertati nostræ et non prohibitum » (Ignatius of L., Exercitia spir., edited by F. Cervós, [*Monumenta historica S. I.*, 2nd series], Madrid 1919, p. 253; cf. p. 1230).
Indifference was falsely interpreted, especially in the 17th century by Molinos and by Quietism (v.). Innocent XI condemned among the errors of Molinos the conception of a surrender of free will to God, whereby the soul « non deve più curarsi di alcuna cosa, né dell'Inferno, né del Paradiso; né deve aver desiderio della propria perfezione, né delle virtù, né della propria santità, né della propria salvezza, di cui deve purgare la speranza » (Denz-U, 1233 ff.), and Innocent XII condemned with the brief Cum alias of 12 March 1699 the doctrine according to which one who is in the state of holy indifference should no longer have voluntary and deliberate desires of his own interest (Denz-U, 1330). It is erroneous to suppose that genuine indifference requires that the soul no longer will its own salvation, as its own salvation, as eternal liberation, as the reward of its merits, as its own interest (Denz-U, 1332).
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Arnaldo M. Lanz