The role of unbelief in the mystic theology of Pseudo-Dionysius (original) (raw)

Negative theology and ‘unbelief’ play a crucial role in reminding us that what we deny about God is no less important, and perhaps more appropriate, than what we affirm about God. The roots of the Judeo-Christian tradition, e.g. Exodus 3:14, 20:2-4, Deuteronomy 6:4, et al, warn against the abhorrence of idolatry, of mistaking the created things or concepts for their transcendent Cause, which cannot be contained, grasped, made subject to categories, if it is true God. However, both the affirmations and the denials fall necessarily short of ‘capturing God’, since anything ‘captured’ is guaranteed not be the God. What they can do is to create the tension, the ‘unknowing darkness’ in between, that points towards the One that cannot be circumscribed or categorised. In doing so the language is stretched to breaking point, indeed must break down, for the same linguistic and conceptual framework that allows us to think is the same framework that needs to be transcended on the way to union with its transcendent Creator: ‘it is the encounter with the failure of what we must say about God to represent God adequately.’ This goes all the way to the ‘existence’ of God, since ‘any understanding we have of the distinction between existence and non-existence fails of God’, and neither ‘being’ nor ‘non-being’ can be predicated of the One who is the Cause of being.