Theological Epistemology and Apophasis

2020 ◽  
pp. 368-387
Author(s):  
Cyril O'Regan
Keyword(s):  
Peak Experiences ◽  
Close Attention ◽  
Meister Eckhart ◽  
Mystical Theology ◽  
Pseudo Dionysius

This chapter examines the epistemology of mystical theology. It begins with the ‘intellectualist’ line of thinking from Pseudo-Dionysius to Meister Eckhart, paying close attention both to the ‘protocols’ which are required to speak of God both as the ground of our language, beyond naming, and as one who can really be experienced. These epistemological protocols can also be identified in Augustine, and later in the more ‘affective’ line of mystical theology from Bernard of Clairvaux to Bonaventure, though in a rather different form. This renders mystical theology quite different from a quest for Jamesian ‘peak’ experiences and knowledge of them; rather, it entails disciplines of formation, involving regimes of discourse and practice, to learn a language and a subjectivity enabling a more intense relation with God.

Sculpting God: The Logic of Dionysian Negative Theology

1996 ◽  
Vol 89 (4) ◽  
pp. 355-371 ◽  
Author(s):  
John N. Jones
Keyword(s):  
Logical Structure ◽  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
Primary Task ◽  
Negative Theology ◽  
Close Attention ◽  
Dionysius The Areopagite ◽  
Postmodern Theology ◽  
History Of ◽  
Mystical Theology ◽  
Pseudo Dionysius

In recent decades, the theology of Dionysius the Areopagite (pseudo-Dionysius) has recaptured the attention of a number of scholars. These scholars address Dionysius's importance for the history of philosophy, for Christian aesthetics and liturgical and biblical symbols, and for postmodern theology. Much of this attention focuses on the brief and historically influentialThe Mystical Theology, written ca. 500 CE. For scholars, however, this text, like the God of which it speaks, seems to embody contradictions. I s there a consistent logic in the text, or is it deliberately inconsistent? In this essay, I shall analyze passages throughout the Dionysian corpus in order to interpret the sometimes dense expressions ofMystical Theologyand uncover the logical structure of Dionysius's negative theology. I shall suggest that Dionysius's primary task is to deny that God is a particular being. By identifying the patterns of language used to speak of beings, Dionysius can identify both affirmative and negative language that avoids such patterns and hence is appropriate for speech about God. This interpretation demands close attention to the distinction between particular assertions or denials and the assertion or denial of all beings. By focusing on this distinction and on the higher status of negative over affirmative theology, I shall show, against the dominant trend in Dionysian scholarship, that this negative theology logically coheres; it is neither self-negating nor logically contradictory.

À Denys: Tracing Jean-Luc Marion’s Dionysian Hermeneutics

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 ◽  
pp. 307-338
Author(s):  
J. Leavitt Pearl ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Center Stage ◽  
Present Essay ◽  
Distinct Portion ◽  
Mystical Theology ◽  
Pseudo Dionysius

Since his 1977 The Idol and Distance (L’idole et la distance), Jean-Luc Marion has almost continually drawn upon the work of the 5th-6th century Christian mystic Pseudo-Denys the Areopagite (Pseudo-Dionysius), not only within his explicitly theological considerations, but throughout his Cartesian and phenomenological work as well. The present essay maps out the influence of Denys upon Marion’s thinking, organizing Marion’s career into a three-part periodization, each of which corresponds to a distinct portion of the Dionysian corpus—in Marion’s work of the seventies the Celestial Hierarchy and the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy are foregrounded, in the eighties this emphasis is shifted to the The Divine Names, and in the nineties The Mystical Theology takes center stage. Insofar as these emphases directly correlate to the unique tasks that Marion has set himself in each of these various periods, Dionysius is revealed as a hermeneutical key, unlocking and clarifying crucial aspects of Marion’s theologically-inflected phenomenology.

scholarly journals "Seeing All Things as Naught": Meister Eckhart and the Incarnation

Lumen et Vita ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas Collura
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
The Other ◽  
Beatific Vision ◽  
Meister Eckhart ◽  
Creation Theology ◽  
Complete Obliteration ◽  
Union With God ◽  
Mystical Theology ◽  
The One

Books on popular spirituality often refer to Meister Eckhart's mystical theology as "incarnational," apparently due to its emphasis on the role of the Word made flesh, rather than of the Passion or of the Resurrection of Christ, in our salvation. In fact, Eckhart is ambivalent at best about our incarnate reality, seeing it as a fall from the perfect oneness and wholeness of God, to whom all of creation is called to return. For Eckhart, this return implies a radical death to self, the complete obliteration of our individual identities in the pure unknowing that is God. This paper departs from a consideration of the "uncanniness" ("unheimlich" - literaly, "not-at-home-ness") that characterizes Eckhart's description of union with God; moves through an analysis of the theme of the incarnation in his metaphysics, Christology, creation theology, and eschatology; and briefly contrasts his apophatic vision with the beatific vision of Aquinas, on the one hand, and certain New Testament images of the Resurrection, on the other.

Postmodern theology

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Merold Westphal
Keyword(s):  
Literary Theory ◽  
Negative Theology ◽  
Death Of God ◽  
Meister Eckhart ◽  
Postmodern Theology ◽  
Theological Discourse ◽  
Postmodern Philosophy ◽  
Absolute Knowledge ◽  
Knowledge Claims ◽  
Pseudo Dionysius

The term ‘postmodernism’ is loosely used to designate a wide variety of cultural phenomena from architecture through literature and literary theory to philosophy. The immediate background of philosophical postmodernism is the French structuralism of Saussure, Lévi-Strauss, Lacan and Barthes. But like existentialism, it has roots that go back to the critique by Kierkegaard and Nietzsche of certain strong knowledge claims in the work of Plato, Descartes and Hegel. If the quest for absolute knowledge is the quest for meanings that are completely clear and for truths that are completely certain, and philosophy takes this quest as its essential goal, then postmodernism replaces Nietzsche’s announcement of the death of God with an announcement of the end of philosophy. This need not be construed as the death of God in a different vocabulary. The question of postmodern theology is the question of the nature of a discourse about deity that would not be tied to the metaphysical assumptions postmodern philosophy finds untenable. One candidate is the negative theology tradition of Pseudo-Dionysius and Meister Eckhart. It combines a vigorous denial of absolute knowledge with a theological import that goes beyond the critical negations of postmodern philosophy. A second possibility, the a/theology of Mark C. Taylor, seeks to find religious meaning beyond the simple opposition of theism and atheism, but without taking the mystical turn. Finally, Jean-Luc Marion seeks to free theological discourse from the horizon of all philosophical theories of being, including Heidegger’s own postmodern analysis of being.

Christianity’s Content: (Neo)Platonism in the Middle Ages, Its Theoretical and Theological Appeal

Numen ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 63 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 245-270
Author(s):  
Willemien Otten
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Thomas Aquinas ◽  
The Other ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
Meister Eckhart ◽  
Marguerite Porete ◽  
Christian Thought ◽  
Book Of Genesis ◽  
The One ◽  
Pseudo Dionysius

The development of medieval Christian thought reveals from its inception in foundational authors like Augustine and Boethius an inherent engagement with Neoplatonism. To their influence that of Pseudo-Dionysius was soon added, as the first speculative medieval author, the Carolingian thinker Johannes Scottus Eriugena (810–877ce), used all three seminal authors in his magisterial demonstration of the workings of procession and return. Rather than a stable ongoing trajectory, however, the development of medieval Christian (Neo)Platonism saw moments of flourishing alternate with moments of philosophical stagnation. The revival of theTimaeusand Platonic cosmogony in the twelfth century marks the achievement of the so-called Chartrian authors, even as theTimaeusnever acquired the authority of the biblical book of Genesis. Despite the dominance of scholastic and Aristotelian discourse in the thirteenth century, (Neo)Platonism continued to play an enduring role. The Franciscan Bonaventure follows the Victorine tradition in combining Augustinian and Dionysian themes, but Platonic influence underlies the pattern of procession and return — reflective of the Christian arc of creation and salvation — that frames the thought of Thomas Aquinas. Echoing the interrelation of macro- and microcosmos, the major themes of medieval Christian Platonic thought are, on the one hand, cosmos and creation and, on the other, soul and self. The Dominican friar Meister Eckhart and the beguine Marguerite Porete, finally, both Platonically inspired late-medieval Christian authors keen on accomplishing the return, whether the aim is to bring out its deep, abyss-like “ground” (Eckhart) or to give up reason altogether and surrender to the free state of “living without a why” (Marguerite), reveal the intellectual audacity involved in upending traditional theological modes of discourse.

scholarly journals Gott vor dem Sein. Ansätze einer „Proontologie“ bei Johannes von Skythopolis, Maximus Confessor und Meister Eckhart

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Fabien Muller
Keyword(s):  
Present Article ◽  
Divine Nature ◽  
Meister Eckhart ◽  
Christian Thought ◽  
Pseudo Dionysius

The present article focuses on the idea that divine nature is prior to being. This idea was first articulated in John of Scythopolis’s commentary on Pseudo-Dionysius. It was adopted by Maximus Confessor and re-used in Meister Eckhart’s first Quaestio Parisiensis. The main tenant of this idea is that, if God is the origin of being, he must be more fundamental than being. Thus, being cannot be identical to divine nature. The conclusion that can be drawn from the discussion of this idea is that the importance that has been traditionally attached to the „Exodusmetaphysik“ must be reconsidered, and that the pre-ontological conception of divine nature consistutes an autonomous tradition in Christian thought.

God beyond Being

2020 ◽  
pp. 120-138
Author(s):  
Michael C. Rea
Keyword(s):  
Divine Transcendence ◽  
Mystical Theology ◽  
Pseudo Dionysius

Theologians divide as to how best to understand God’s transcendence. Famously, towards the end of his Mystical Theology, Pseudo-Dionysius characterized God’s transcendence by saying that God is ‘beyond every denial, beyond every assertion’ and that God ‘lies beyond thought and beyond being’. Many in his wake have followed him in these affirmations. Contemporary analytic philosophers commonly dismiss such claims as unintelligible or inconsistent with basic doctrines of Christianity (e.g. that God exists, is personal, became incarnate). But they are so deeply entrenched in the tradition that it seems a worthwhile effort to try to do them justice. This chapter develops an intelligible account of divine transcendence that accommodates the language of beyondness while at the same time remaining consistent with the truth of central Christian doctrines.

Mystical Theology and Human Experience

2020 ◽  
pp. 44-64
Author(s):  
Edward Howells
Keyword(s):  
Mystical Experience ◽  
Human Experience ◽  
Current Debate ◽  
Divine Presence ◽  
Teresa Of Avila ◽  
Spiritual Senses ◽  
Meister Eckhart ◽  
Transformative Process ◽  
Mystical Theology

Human experience is central to mystical theology but it cannot define it, because, according to mystical theology, the experience is not merely human but divine. After an orientation in the current debate on mystical experience, the puzzling quality of the experience, as both fully human and more than anything human, is elaborated through an exposition of three historical examples, Augustine, Meister Eckhart, and Teresa of Avila. The dual, expansive character of the experience elicits growth into an enlarged capacity for seeing God as both immediately present and wholly other. An increasing integration of key tensions—between divine presence and divine absence, inner and outer knowing, spirit and body, and contemplative and active—emerges in this transformative process. This perspective is finally reviewed with reference to the tradition of the ‘spiritual senses’.

scholarly journals Some Notes on “playing Logos” in Ambiguum 71 of St Maximus the Confessor

Scrinium ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Dmitry Kurdybaylo
Keyword(s):  
Practical Philosophy ◽  
Material World ◽  
The Third ◽  
Single Structure ◽  
Mystical Theology ◽  
Maximus The Confessor ◽  
Pseudo Dionysius

Abstract In the Ambigua to John 71, Maximus the Confessor discusses a passage of Gregory Nazianzen describing divine Logos that “plays in all kinds of forms.” The article emphasises four main approaches of the Ambiguum 71 to ‘acquit’ the image of ‘playful’ God. Firstly, St Maximus involves the hyperbolic language of Pseudo-Dionysius to indicate the superiority of divine ‘game’ over any kind of prudency or playfulness. Secondly, God’s playing can be discovered in His providence towards the sensible creations. The third step introduces all the material world as a God’s plaything, which can nevertheless be an object of natural contemplation. The fourth approach is merely moral, and its pathetic language conceals tensions between St Maximus’ and St Gregory’s patterns of thinking. Finally, all four parts are linked in a single structure derived from the triad “practical philosophy – natural contemplation – mystical theology,” which was often used by St Maximus.

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