Brian Hamilton-Vise

I know that what I am asking is impossible. But in our time, as in every time, the impossible is the least that one can demand. —James Baldwin

Beyond being, yet praised in creation

“Since the union of divinized minds with the Light beyond all deity occurs in the cessation of all intelligent activity, the godlike unified minds who imitate these angels as far as possible praise it most appropriately through the denial of all beings. Truly and supernaturally enlightened after this blessed union, they discover that although it is the cause of everything, it is not a thing since it transcends all things in a manner beyond being. Hence, with regard to the supra-essential being of God–transcendent Goodness transcendently there–no lover of the truth which above all truth will seek to praise it as word or power or mind or life or being. No. It is at a total remove from every condition, movement, life, imagination, conjecture, name, discourse, thought, conception, being, rest, dwelling, unity, limit, infinity, the totality of existence. And yet, since it is the underpinning of goodness, and by merely being there is the cause of everything, to praise this divinely beneficent Providence you must turn to all of creation…. All things long for it.”

—Pseudo-Dionysius, Complete Works: The Divine Names, p. 54.

18 January 2007 | Comments (2)
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» On 18 January 2007, Jay said: 
<p>I really enjoyed this post!  I&#8217;m a sucker for the apophatic traditions.  I agree with Pseudo-Dionysius so many respects.  It&#8217;s interesting how an acknowledgement of God&#8217;s unfathomable transcendence does not lead to a world-denying faith, but an affirmation of the created world.</p>
» On 18 January 2007, Brian Hamilton said: 
<p>Isn&#8217;t it fascinating, and so strangely appealing? The frequency with which Ps-Dionysius returns to the visible, the created, the named is astonishing; throughout his apophatic work, there&#8217;s an underlying insistence that a complete disconnect between God and beings needs to be denied as much as anything else. The paradox is profound and stimulating. &#8220;Realizing all this, the theologians praise it by every name&#8212;and as the Nameless One.&#8221; </p>

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Brian Hamilton-Vise is a Ph.D. student in moral theology at the University of Notre Dame, where his research is in the history of Christian political and economic thought. His side interests are in the development of negative theology and in recent political theory. Email him at bdhamilton@gmail.com.

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