INDifference. — In an ascetical sense, it is the habitual disposition of the will by which it does not prefer one thing to another until it knows what God’s will is. This indifference is rooted in the spiritual realization that, in relation to one’s own perfection, all things are as nothing unless they correspond to the dispositions of the divine will regarding oneself.
Indifference has no place where God’s will is already known, for in such a case indifference must yield to readiness and dedication in embracing and executing the revealed divine will. Thus, for example, one cannot be indifferent toward things commanded or forbidden by God in the Decalogue or imposed by the duties of one’s state in life. Indifference is exercised, in fact, only in those matters that, considered objectively, have no necessary connection with the ultimate end.
Indifference is necessary for anyone aspiring to the perfect life. It brings the soul to a great spiritual freedom. Even though a thing may please or displease it according to feeling, the soul 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 over the love of creatures. By loving creatures only in God and for God, it cuts away disordered inclinations and unreasonable attachments to things, persons, places, offices—seeing all these solely in terms of their value for eternal life and preparing itself to choose them from this perspective. Hence indifference is praised by ascetical writers (v. APATHY) as a sign of a magnanimous heart, ready to use creatures only insofar as they lead to the ultimate end, while the lack of indifference is the passion (v.) to which all moral deviations are attributed.
Thus understood, indifference is an element of conformity to the will of God, to whose execution the soul is perfectly disposed, while it prepares for the virtue of abandonment (v.); and it presupposes the virtues of self-denial (v.) and mortification to be acquired in a high degree.
It is a characteristic virtue of Ignatian asceticism: “It is necessary that we be indifferent to all created things, insofar as it is permitted by our freedom and not prohibited” (Ignatius of Loyola, *Spiritual Exercises*, ed. F. Cervós, [Monumenta historica S. I., 2nd ser.], Madrid 1919, p. 253; cf. p. 1230).
Indifference was falsely interpreted, especially in the 17th century by Molinos and the Quietists (v.). Innocent XI condemned among the errors of Molinos the conception of a surrender of free will to God, whereby the soul “should no longer concern itself with anything, neither Hell nor Paradise; nor should it desire its own perfection, nor the virtues, nor its own holiness, nor its own salvation, of which it must purge all hope” (Denz-U, 1233 ff.), and Innocent XII condemned with the brief *Cum alias* of March 12, 1699 the doctrine according to which one in the state of holiness should no longer have voluntary and deliberate desires for one’s own good (Denz-U, 1330). It is erroneous to suppose that genuine indifference requires the soul no longer to will its own salvation as its own salvation, as eternal liberation, as the reward of its merits, or as its own interest (Denz-U, 1332).