An Apophatic Approach to Theism

The place of reason in understanding the ultimate nature of reality

In my last article ‘A Pan(en)theist Vision of Reality’ I explored my conception of the universal consciousness through the lens of panentheism. Whilst exploring what are commonly thought of as the “divine attributes”, I insisted that these concepts should not be thought of a logical propositions per se, but something more akin to analogies or metaphors. I want to expand on this thought and explore why I think that our human reasoning has limits, and what this means when we are discussing the nature of “God”. In doing so, I’m not going to present logical arguments (please see the last article for that), as part of my thesis here is that this approach is inherently limited, but will instead rely on a synthesis of the various religious and mystical traditions.

The Limits of Reason

In my article ‘How Consciousness Constructs Reality’ I give a brief overview of a concept that I have discussed over and over again throughout my articles, that is; the distinction between phenomenological and ontological reality. Towards the end of that post I say:

“We could split this [reality] into three main layers; individual subjective reality, inter-subjective reality (what is often called “objective”), and ontological reality (how reality really is). The epistemic implications of this are that as human subjects, the only circle of reality that we have complete and unfiltered access to is our own subjective one. Inter-subjective reality can become increasingly transparent to us through collective integration and synthesis of different perspectives. Ontological reality however will always remain just out of reach, and we can only gesture to and speculate about what it may actually look like.”

This claim only makes sense when rooted in my broader metaphysics, so feel free to read that article in full for more details, but for now suffice to say that we have no direct access to how reality actually is, only what our perception tells us. Dr Bernardo Kastrup (who is becoming a regular mention on this blog) likes to use the analogy of an aeroplane dashboard. The dashboard is made up of all kinds of dials that give accurate and useful representations of the sky outside the plane, but its trivially true the data presented on the dashboard is not the sky itself, but particular measurements of it. The dashboard is not the sky, the map is not the territory, and perception is not reality. So whilst our conscious experience of the world tell us about reality, it is not reality itself.

This has drastic epistemological implications, which I have explored a bit in previous articles. To be clear in the here and now though, this means that the tools of science and philosophy can only tell us, with any level of certainty, about the nature of a) our own subjective reality, and b) our shared perception of reality that we can communicate across distinct human minds through language (what we might call inter-subjective reality). What lies beyond all of this is ontological reality; how reality actually is in essence. This ultimate metaphysical nature is what lies beyond our grasp. Human language and concepts can only take us so far then, and certainly should not be mistaken for reality itself.

What this ultimately means is that all concepts we apply to this fundamental essence, or “God”, will break down under the shear weight of the limits of human reason. This isn't to say that logic and reason are completely useless however, nor is it to embrace a radical scepticism. What it does mean however is that human concepts and categories, whilst they can tell us something useful and accurate about ontological reality, are only really equipped to exhaustively describe our phenomenological one. This entails that when we apply our concepts to the realm beyond our epistemic boundary, we must concede that we are only speaking analogically.

The Infinite Darkness

Remember, the way I’m using the word “God” could basically be understood as a placeholder for whatever the nature of ultimate reality is. If you don’t like the word God and prefer the simply speak of “the universe”, or “consciousness”, or an “impersonal force”; then I am perfectly happy. I am not emotionally or rationally wedded to theistic language, and even sometimes feel repulsed by it given my recent bad experiences of Christianity. My panentheistic conception allows me sufficient flexibility without dogmatically committing to classical forms of theism that lack openness to revision. Panentheism is just my preferred way of making sense of this mystery through rational reflection and poetic analogy, but there are other legitimate ways that don't resonate with me intellectually or spiritually.

This isn’t relativism, but the recognition that at the end of the day, of all these words and concepts are merely gestures towards and metaphors of a reality we cannot hope to exhaustively comprehend. As Joseph Campbell says; “God is a metaphor for a mystery that absolutely transcends all human categories of thought, even the categories of being and non-being”. This is the consensus of basically all mystics in every religion, and is the concession and ultimate realisation of the best theology that classical theism has to offer. Whether it be the Buddhist who speaks of nirvana, the Hindu who speaks of Brahman, the Platonist of the One, the Jew of Yahweh, the Christian of the Father, or the Muslim of Allah:

“Theologians may quarrel, but the mystics of the world speak the same language.” (Meister Eckhart)

As far as I can tell, Eckhart’s claim here isn’t the type that is the result of surface level investigation, nor merely finding the lowest common theological denominator, but one that is rooted in the mystical experience of nearly all religious traditions throughout history. It’s not simply a nice tagline, but speaks to a deep unity of experience, even when its expressed in varying metaphysical or cultural language. This means that all theological language is reducible to phenomenal metaphor. When mystics get glimpses of the divine nature, whether it be through intense prayer and meditation, or a truckload of DMT, what they come back reporting is an experience beyond all conception and description- even beyond experience itself.

Something that’s important to understand from a rational perspective, is that the nature of fundamental or ultimate reality is ineffable, and must transcend human categories. If God is ontologically infinite, then anything we say about him is basically incorrect. Any claim, even if capturing some of God’s attributes, would be infinitely more inaccurate than it would be accurate. We should be suspicious of the idea that any meaningful proposition can actually be made about him, for any attempt to do so creates a finite boundary that will always be transcended. Even the concept of infinity must be ultimately rejected. We must proceed with caution then, and always recognise that our categories are insufficient and our speculations whilst functional, are not describing the totality of the mystery. To end this section with another quote:

“Whenever God is discussed, we are not talking about a thing in itself, but a representation of a far deeper mystery.” (Rabbi David Cooper)

An Apophatic Approach

How then can we approach ontological reality? How can the philosopher talk of the ultimate? How can the theologian speak of God? To solve this, we may look to the two modes of theology that religious traditions hold in tension:

1. Cataphatic theology: making positive statements about what God is.

2. Apophatic theology: making negative statements about what God is not.

On a practical philosophical level then, we should see any cataphatic statement as merely analogous, and we should absolutely favour apophatic statements. As an example, Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite the great mystical Christian theologian, says that not only should we primarily describe God through negation, but must also affirm the negation of that negation. For Dionysius, God is love, but God is also not love, and also not-not love. When I speculated about the nature of the universal mind in my last article then, we should recognise that the concepts I applied and my interpretation of the divine attributes were simply useful ways of thinking, not analytic absolutes.¹

To take an example, Dr Bernardo Kastrup’s analytic idealism appeals to the process of dissociation to explain how one mind becomes many. We could understand this in the most literal sense, believing that the process taking place within the universal mind is essentially equivalent to that which we see in patients with Dissociate Identity Disorder. I, on the other hand, prefer to see dissociation as a helpful metaphor that invokes scientific ways of thinking in order to give some account of what is going on. I am equally content however, to use theistic language instead, and say that individual minds are like concepts present within God’s mind, and that’s how they come to be.

The key thing here is to not only legitimise analogous, metaphorical, and poetic language in philosophy- but to insist on it as a matter of necessity. This is not because I want to be overly wishy-washy or mystical about my metaphysics, but because I believe this is the logical entailment from my broader philosophical convictions. Reality is f*cking complicated. We can barely even make sense of our own lives, no matter the infinite depths of ontological bedrock. When we speak outside of the realms of our inter-subjective illusion, we ought to proceed with a level of intellectual humility far beyond what professional thinkers usually embody. Don’t get me wrong, this is not a call to silence, but a gentle suggestion that a healthy amount of agnosticism is necessarily required when addressing these questions.

Conclusion

Some might criticise my thesis here by saying it is too imprecise and unspecific, but this is kind of the point. Go ahead and try and logically deduce fundamental metaphysical truths and you will quickly find that you have a daunting, and potentially impossible, task ahead of you. Unlike some non-dual philosophers, I do not think this entails that we ought to be abandon our philosophical categories or methods altogether, but simply to carefully qualify them with important caveats. The transcendent may be beyond description, but we can still have a go at creating systems of thinking that allow us to logically and existentially reflect on the nature of ultimate reality, and most importantly, what it means for us.

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1. Here I probably depart from many contemporary philosophers, as it is all too common now to think that given enough empirical data or logical argumentation, reality will become transparent to us.