Thursday, September 1, 2011

Mystery Spoiled by a Word

One motif for understanding theological method is built on three approaches that work together in balance: Cataphatic, Pietistic, and Apophatic*. Cataphatic is the part of doing theology that deals with reason. This involves using one's mind towards the development of doctrine. The Pietistic approach involves the worshipful aspect of knowing God. This requires that we experience God and interpret belief about God existentially.

The third approach, Apophatic, deals with the aspect of mystery. While Pietistic and Cataphatic approaches have much to affirm intellectually and existentially, Apophatic approaches preserve the aspect of mystery within Christian theology, while at the same time affirming reason and experience. It supports the idea that we are limited in not only our knowledge of God, but our ability to know God. This is due to epistemological challenges from the human perspective, as well as to the nature of God - who is infinite, omniscient, and wholly 'other'.

These three aspects of theological method provide a nice balance for one another. If the Pietistic approach is too accentuated then the emotional and existential is too emphasized. If the Cataphatic approach is too emphasized then our reason will become god, and the search for truth primarily an intellectual pursuit. If the Apophatic is too emphasized then it's easy to, as one of my professors used to say, "punt on second down." We will too quickly chalk everything up to mystery instead of doing the hard work of discovering truth. 

But despite the contribution of all three, the Apophatic approach is especially interesting to me. This may be due to the traditions from which I come, which speak very little about mystery. It may be due also to my lack of knowledge regarding Eastern theology.

I am reading Brennan Manning's book The Relentless Tenderness of Jesus (previously titled Lion and Lamb) from which this quote comes:

"When Catherine of Sienna, a dynamic contemplative in action, was asked to describe the God of her personal experience, she cried, "He is pazzo d'amore, ebro di'amore" - crazed with love, drunk with love. Yet her words are feeble and inadequate, as are all human words, because Mystery is spoiled by a word."

Words are useful, and I think they help our understanding of God - after all, God speaks to us through his word. But although they contribute to our understanding of God, they don't complete it. Knowing God is a holistic affair - mind, body, heart, soul, strength, experience, etc. God desires our whole selves

But the inadequacy of words is not an excuse for not using them. The word musterion appears in Paul's letter's often, describing the work of the gospel in bringing the Gentiles into the fold and creating what we know as the church. The mysteries of God are the deep and ineffable things of God which we believe and proclaim, but only partially understand. Perhaps on the day when we see Christ face to face we'll fully understand those truths. Whether or not we'll have the words then to describe what we experience remains to be seen.



*I have Dr. Scott Horrell to thank for introducing me to this method.

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