Divine Darkness

J (4/21/12):

Here is Alan Watts' translation of Pseudo-Dionysius' Mystical Theology.

Note (1) in particular stood out to me:

(1) Unknowing, or agnosia, is not ignorance or nescience as ordinarily understood, but rather the realization that no finite knowledge can fully know the Infinite One, and that therefore it is only truly to be approached by agnosia, or by that which is beyond and above knowledge. There are two main kinds of darkness: the subdarkness and the super-darkness, between which lies, as it were, an octave of light. But the nether-darkness and the Divine Darkness are not the same darkness, for the former is absence of light, while the latter is excess of light. The one symbolizes mere ignorance, and the other a transcendent unknowing - a superknowledge not obtained by means of the discursive reason. [italics mine]

I love encountering images like these in the writings of these early theologians: the Darkness that is the "excess of light," a luminous presence so intense that it becomes a form of darkness, of "super-darkness."

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H (4/21/12):

One quick reaction (only because I can apply what I've learned in the Marias' book):

 "that no finite knowledge can fully know the Infinite One" is an extreme form of nomalism (originating in Medieval Scholasticism), one that William of Occam (Ockham) wrote about.  His theory was that only faith could give us access to theological truths (that is, bring us closer to God) and that reason had nothing to do with theology and God; reason is only used for science.