For we explain not what God is but candidly confess that we have not exact knowledge concerning Him. For in what concerns God, to confess our ignorance is the best knowledge.
– Cyril of Jerusalem
Some years ago I was introduced to apophatic mysticism through a Gungor song, Long Way Off. The verse in question goes:
The erudite composed a thesis,
Everything we see is all there is.
But as an apophatic mystic,
Were a long way off.
I was captured by the idea that our best intellectual efforts to objectively describe reality will always fall short of the (often definitive) subjective reality of an individual’s experience.
We live in an age where certainty is now regularly unmasked as a constructed conservative idol; a false safety in which it is always tempting to retreat or claim too much.
Fuelled by hubris, unknowable matters become ‘absolute truths,’ as a deafening deluge of cries try to claim pre-eminence in the marketplace of ideas. (Perhaps this blog is no different to such cries!?)
My possible ranting aside, Apophatic mysticism, for me, has provided a sanctuary from this noise by offering a sacred space of experiential grace and unknowing.
By this I mean I now feel free to not know. In fact, I will go even further and say I have been freed by my unknowing; unlearning; unclaiming.
Apophatic mysticism allows us to release God from our theological prisons, choosing instead to simply be. In our new uncomplicated being and thinking/not thinking, we are able to open ourselves to Divine mystery in new ways, listening more than speaking; learning more than claiming; experiencing more than knowing.
Apophatic mysticism has not quenched my thirst for knowledge, but it has provided much peace in my not knowing, helping me to relax into living a spiritual life.
In the classic Christian mystical treatise, The Cloud of Unknowing, the unknown author speaks of,
…emptying out all knowledge of what is unknowable… to …be united with God in the best way; and in knowing nothing, [we are] made to know beyond understanding.
Some might describe it as ‘heart-knowledge’ as contrasted with ‘head-knowledge.’ It is accepting that not knowing is okay, and that unknowing can be enriching.
Away from the clamouring cacophony of competing religious and philosophical voices, this community of apophatic mystics have, throughout many ages, learned what it means to live a peaceful and meaningful spiritual life in the absence of theological certainty.
I have experienced a strange sense of ‘welcomeness’ as I too arrived here, uncertain; unsure. Relievedly not alone in my unknowing. A novice, admittedly, with much to learn and unlearn, yet feeling at peace in an ever-new place that feels indescribably like a previously unknown spiritual home.
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