Pseudo

Entering the darkness that surpasses understanding, we shall find ourselves brought, not just to brevity of speech, but to perfect silence and unknowing.

Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite

Hello everyone.  It has been some time since my last post. I could chalk up this lapse to my propensity for laziness, but in fact there is more to it than that.  I just wanted some quiet. Additionally, I didn’t want to contribute to the noise.  It seems as if everyone is shouting and no one is listening. I had to unplug before suffering from sensory overload.

In the meantime, I have been quietly exploring my faith. What I am finding in my explorations is that our conception of God is just too limiting.  Of course, how could it be otherwise? We are limited by both our intellect and our language. As we are reminded in the book of Isaiah –

⁸ For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
    nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord.
⁹ For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
    so are my ways higher than your ways
    and my thoughts than your thoughts.

Anything we say or think about God falls short of the reality of God. That is why I am attracted to apophatic or “negative” theology: The negative way emphasizes God’s absolute transcendence and unknowability in such a way that we “cannot say anything about the divine essence because God is so totally beyond being.” (Deidre Carabine)

If you are looking for hard and fast answers, negative theology is not for you. If you like black and white and are uncomfortable with gray areas, negative theology is not for you.  If you have the capacity to live with ambiguity, if you prefer to live with the questions, then it just might be for you.

In her book The Pastor, Norwegian writer Hanne Orstavik chronicles the struggles of a pastor named Liv who is no longer content with the limited language of the church and its theology. Liv longs for freedom –

I wanted to keep things open.

That was what I wanted. It was all I wanted.  It was what I was compelled to do.

To keep everything open in its vastness.

Not fence things in and pin them down.

{There was} something greater than what they said, greater than their systems and theories and models.

There was more, there was so much more.

That is the desire I have also have, to “keep everything open in its vastness.” Christians get into trouble, I think, when they answer questions that really cannot be answered.  Nature abhors a vacuum, so we try and fill these unknown spaces with our own projections. That is problem one. Problem two is setting certain beliefs in stone. St. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians –

“For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.

Perhaps it is arrogance that causes us to believe we have all the answers, or maybe it is fear, fear of what will happen if questions go unanswered. Either way, it causes us to say things about God that are really beyond our knowing.

Sometimes silence is the best answer. Silence leaves the explanations to God. Being silent is not the same thing as being passive; silence is the humble recognition that we are not God, It is in silent prayer that I hear God most clearly.

Certainly, none of this is new.  I’m currently reading the works of Pseudo-Dionysius, a Greek theologian who lived at least 1500 years ago. Dionysius famously wrote –

“Let thy speech be better than silence, or be silent.”

Good advice for all of us.

Grace and peace. Mark