The Background and Centrality of Apophatic Theology in Bábí and Bahá'í Scripture

by Stephen Lambden

"God (ḥaqq) in His Essence (bi-dhátihi) and in His Own Self (bi-nafsihi) hath ever been unseen, inaccessible and unknowable." (Bahá'u'lláh, ESW:139 trans. 118)

"Immeasurably exalted is His Essence above the descriptions of His creatures... The birds of men's hearts, however high they soar, can never hope to attain the heights of His unknowable Essence... Far be it from His glory that human pen or tongue should hint at His mystery, or that human heart conceive His Essence" (Bahá'u'lláh, Tablet to Hashim. GWB XCIV:192)

The following paper will attempt to trace aspects of the history of the theological position of the incomprehensibility-unknowability of God in past major Abrahamic religions and to highlight its importance and significance for contemporary Bahá'ís. Born out of a concern with the ultimate Godhead/ Reality /Truth, the roots of the idea of the unknowable God are disputed. It is likely that the idea has both eastern and western roots; multifaceted interrelated origins in for example, Greek philosophical sources (e.g. Plato, Parmenides, 137cff) Hellenistic Judaism and Gnostic mythologies as well as the writings of the Christian apologists and Fathers -- not to mention the sometimes related dimensions of the via negativa ("negative way") in Asian religious (Hindu and Buddhist) sources.

It will, I hope, become absolutely clear that the Bahá’í position, far from being new or unique in all its aspects, is rooted in the propositions of past religious and philosophical thinkers. The Bahá’í via negativa is most directly rooted in Bábí theology and in Islámic / Shí`í / Shaykhí texts which have apophatic ("negative") theological dimensions.

Any student of the Bábí and Bahá'í religions will readily come to realize that the doctrine of the unknowability of the ultimate Godhead is foundational. One can only say what God is not or use negative (apophatic) language. The incomprehensibility of the nature of the Divine Essence (dhát; dhát al-dhát) is, in one way or another, frequently celebrated in Bábi and Bahá’í Scripture -- the extensive Arabic and Persian writings of Sayyid `Ali Muhammad the Báb (1819-1850) and Márzá Ḥusayn `Alí Bahá'-Alláh (1817-1892), the founders of the Bábí and Bahá’í religions respectively. In their writings apophatic ("negative") language is quite frequent. [1] No Bahá’í systematic theology could be written without locating the ultimate Divinity beyond the infinite cosmos and totally beyond human knowledge.

Any Bahá'í theology would however, identify the Manifestation of God as the locus of His indirect "knowability". While the Divine Essence is the centre of negative (apophatic) theology, the person of the Manifestation of God, who is born from age to age to communicate the Divine Will to humankind, is the centre of a positive, an affirmative (cataphatic) theology of nearness and knowability of God. It is by virtue of this that the Divine immanence is realized without incarnation but through the perfect manifestation of the divine Names and Attributes in nature, humanity and in the loving Fatherhood of the Manifestation / Messengers of God.

The Bábá-Bahá’í doctrine of the unknowability of God is not a "bloodless abstraction" (a phrase of Louis Jacobs, 1967:4) but rather one which points to and celebrates the truth of the fact that through His Messengers God is "closer to humanity" than their, "jugular vein" (Q.50:16b; see below). By virtue of the Manifestation of God, the divine "image" is deep within the soul of every individual though the Absolute Deity ever remains outside of the human universe of discourse.

Judaism

"Truly, thou art a God who hidest thyself, O God of Israel, the Saviour." (Isaiah 45:15).

The Hebrew Bible does not contain a systematic theology, theogony or theodicy. It champions the oneness and supremacy of the inconceivable yet personal, universal God of Israel (Heb. `Eloha, `Elohim, YHWH = Yahweh, etc). Though hardly directly spelled out in Hebrew scripture the belief that the nature or essence of God is unfathomable came to be important in Jewish religious thought. Implying that God is incomparable, Isaiah posed the rhetorical question: "To whom then will you liken God, or what likeness compare with him." (40:18). Indeed, no likeness can be made of the invisible God of Israel (Exodus 20:4) who created the heavens and the earth (Genesis 1f).

The absence of images of God in the ancient Israelite cultus has been reckoned a "most striking feature" (Ringgren, 1966:39; Freedman, 2005 ). In referring to the God of Israel as One supremely, One thrice "holy" (Heb. qadosh), the implication is that He is, One distinctly "set apart" (see the trisagion, Isaiah 6:3 etc). Direct vision of this transcendent God Who dwells in "thick darkness" (Heb. araphel, Exod 20:21; I Kings 8:12) is denied Moses and other human beings (Exod 33:20; Jud. 13:22): "The Lord reigns.. Clouds and thick darkness are round about him.." (Psalm 97:2). It has sometimes been reckoned that the mysterious hiddenness of this Self-Existent God is reflected in His terse Self-designation (RSV. loose trans.) "I AM WHO I AM" (Heb. `ehyeh `asher `ehyeh, Exod. 3:14).

During the second Temple period (6th Cent. BCE -> 1st Cent. CE) reverence for the transcendent God was greatly underlined. Biblical anthropomorphisms were often avoided or reinterpreted. Both the writing and the uttering of His personal Divine name YHWH ("Yahweh") came to be strictly outlawed -- it was indirectly pronounced (vowelled) 'Adonai ("Lord"). The Qumran Jewish faction (Essenes?) which preserved the so-called `Dead Sea Scrolls' at some stage observed a Community Rule (Serek ha-yaḥad, 1QS. c.100 BCE?) in which the following rather extreme guideline is contained:

"If any man has uttered the [Most] Venerable Name even though frivolously, or as a result of shock or for any other reason whatever, while reading the Book or praying, he shall be dismissed and shall return to the Council of the Community no more." (trans. Vermes, n.d.:70).

Certain Jewish thinkers and various Christian Biblical exegetes have found hints of God's unknowability in the Hebrew Bible. In for example, the mention of the fact that Moses "drew near to the thick darkness where God was" (Exod. 20:21b) and that he was refused direct vision of God's "face" (Exod 33:18f). In A Jewish Theology, Jacobs states that in the history of Jewish religious thought there is, "a definite tendency among some thinkers to negate all attributes from God. He is to be described, if He is to be described at all, as unknowable." (1973:38)

The Jewish philosopher and scriptural exegete Philo of Alexandria (Judaeus c. 20 BCE - c. 50 CE) "has some claim to be called the Father of negative theology" (Louth, 1981:19). In his allegorical interpretation of the Greek Septuagint (= a Greek version of the Hebrew Bible) he often had reason to underline the supreme transcendence and unknowability of the ultimate God of Israel, `the Existent' (Gk. to on cf. Plato Timaeus 27Df). God is "unknowable" (Gk. akataleptos; see De. Som. I:67; De Mut. nom. 10; De post. Caini, 169, etc). Human beings can grasp the truth of the existence of God but not the nature of His unknowable Being: "Do not… suppose that the Existent that truly exists is apprehended by any man... why should we wonder that the Existent cannot be apprehended by men when even the mind in each of us is unknown to us?" (Mut. II:7, 10). God is only knowable through His works.

Commenting on "And the Glory of the Lord came down upon Sinai" (Exodus 24:16a), Philo rejects a literal reading. He denies "movements of place or change in the Deity". It is the "Glory of God" which descended not the "essence of God". For Philo it is fitting that "Sinai" signifies something "inaccessible" for "the divine place is truly inaccessible and unapproachable, for not even the holiest mind is able to ascend such a height to it so as merely to approach and touch it." (Qu.Ex. II:45). [2]

The late Harvard Professor of Hebrew Literature and Philosophy H. A. Wolfson (d. 1974) entitled a lengthy chapter of his Philo: Foundations of Religious Philosophy in Judaism, Christianity and Islam, `The unknowability of God and Divine Predicates' (II:94ff) and wrote, "One of the most familiar facts about Philo is that to him God was the Absolute, a single and unique Being beyond even the Monad and the number One, as well as beyond the Good and all other categories." In sketching the Philonic doctrine of the unknowability of God he noted Philo's going beyond Plato and Aristotle by holding that "it is wholly impossible that God according to His essence, should be known by any creature" (Post. C 48:168) for as One "unnamable" and "ineffable" He is "not comprehended by the mind" (Immut. 13:16) (Wolfson II:111).

For Philo, God is indirectly knowable through His powers (dynameis) -- for example, the intermediaries, "Logos", "Idea" and "Angel". While he gave great weight to the ultimate unknowability of God, his ontology and anthropology neither rule out the human ecstatic mystical experience of the Godhead nor the vision of His blinding Light (Opif. 71; Abr. 74-6).

The largely occasional Rabbinic perspectives extant in the Midrashic and Talmudic literatures (1st BCE -> 6th cent. CE) contains relatively little precise theological speculation. A few references which approach a `theology of negation' have been registered by Louis Jacobs. He noted, for example, that the Palestinian teacher R. Abin said: `When Jacob of the village of Neboria was in Tyre, he interpreted the verse, "For Thee, silence is praise, O God" (Psalm 65:2) to mean that silence is the ultimate praise of God' (Jacobs, 1973:47-8).

Influenced by Neo-Platonism, the medieval Jewish philosophers generally held to a negative theology. They held the belief that God transcends all human knowledge and experience. In discussing the significance of the unity of God in his The Book of Direction to the Duties of the Heart, Baya ibn Pakudah (c. 1050-c.1156 CE) propounds such a negative theology. Human beings should negate from God all human and finite limitations and hold that He is unknowable or beyond human comprehension: "The essence of your knowledge of Him, O my brother, is your firm admission that you are completely ignorant of His true essence." (Ibn Pakuda, 1973:143, cf. Jacobs, 1973:39f)

The great Spanish Jewish philosopher Maimonides (Moseh ben Maimon, c. 1135-1204) in his Guide for the Perplexed dwelt at length on aspects of a negative theology of the nature or essence of God. For him talk about attributes of the divine nature was tantamount to polytheism. Even negative attributes cannot be befittingly predicated of God: "In the contemplation of His essence, our comprehension and knowledge prove insufficient; in the examination of His works, how they necessarily result from His will, our knowledge proved to be ignorance, and in the endeavour to extol Him in words, all our efforts in speech are mere weakness and failure." (Guide LVIII, Maimonides, 1956:83).

The ancient Jewish Kabbalistic tradition (partly rooted in antiquity) on the other hand, upholds an esoteric theology in which the ultimate Godhead is the unknowable and incomprehensible En Sof ("without limit"). The Infinite without name and beyond attribute is one with, though beyond, the emanated ten Sefirot ("Spheres") which are His instruments in the seen and unseen cosmos. Writing about God in the Kabbalah Gershom Scholem has stated, "From the sayings of some early kabbalists, it is apparent that they are careful not even to ascribe personality to God. Since He is beyond everything -- beyond even imagination, thought, or will -- nothing can be said of him that is within the grasp of our thought." (Scholem, 1972:661).

While the doctrine of the incomprehensibility of God is not exactly central to mainstream Judaism key medieval and other Jewish thinkers have subscribed to an apophatic theology.

Christianity

As with the Hebrew Bible and Rabbinic literatures, the New Testament does not contain a systematic doctrine of God (Gk. theos; kyrios = `Lord') -- there is neither a use of the word trinity nor a sustained deification of Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus Christ frequently spoke intimately of the God of the Hebrew Bible as the divine "Father" (Aram. `Abba') though His transcendence was not compromised. The Pauline and pseudo-Pauline letters He cannot be visioned for "No one has ever seen God.." (John 1:18a). As a divine manifestation however, Christ the "Son" has indirectly "made him known" (Jn 1:18b cf. Jn 6:46). [3]

From the early second century CE occasional and then numerous Christians writers in one way or another held to a negative theology. The "incomprehensibility" of God was widely affirmed. The partially preserved apocryphal Preaching of Peter (Kerygma Petrou 110 CE?) contains one of the earliest explicit Christian references to God being "incomprehensible"; the "Incomprehensible who comprehends all things" (Hennecke II:99 cf. ERel. 6:19).

Many early and later Christian and non-Christian gnostic groups viewed the Ultimate Godhead as One unknown/ unknowable. He is the `Wholly Other' not responsible for this material sphere of darkness. Such is the basic theodicy of many gnostic groups (Zandee 1964:21). Presenting itself as a revelation of "the mysteries" by Jesus the Saviour to John Son of Zebedee, The Apocryphon of John for example opens with an extended negative theology (see Robinson, 1984:99ff). The early gnostic theologia negativa has been thought to be "an anticipation of the speculations of the Church Fathers, especially of the mystics among them" (Quispel 1955:57).

Due in part to the influence of eclectic contemporary Middle Platonism and Hellenistic Judaism, a negative definition of God "appears occasionally and incidentally among the apostolic fathers.. and is a significant feature among the apologists (Palmer, 1983:224; see Grant, 1988). Like Philo, various early Christian apologists use such negative theological epithets as "uncreated", "uncontained", "unnameable" (Daniélou, 1973:323f, cf. their uses of "invisible", "impalpable", "impassible"; "uncontainabele"). By this means they underlined the transcendence of God.

Justin Martyr (c.100-165 CE) was perhaps the most important second century apologist. He sates that God the Father is "nameless" and "unbegotten" and adds, "The name Christ.. contains an unknown significance, just as the title `God' is not a name, but represents the idea, innate in human nature, of an inexpressible reality.." (Apologia II.5 cited Bettenson, 1969:63). Christ the "Logos" is a subordinate Deity distinguished from the ultimate unknowable Godhead. He is a "visible God" -- "God" born from "God", like Fire lit from another Fire or Light radiating from the Sun (Dial. 128).

In the late 170s CE Athenagoras of Athens in his Presbeia ("Supplication") refers to "the One God" as "incomprehensible" (Suppl. 10.1 cited Prestige, 1952:3). Theophilus bishop of Antioch (late 2nd c. CE) in his Ad Autoclycum ("To Autolycus") declared, "The form of God ineffable.. in glory He is uncontainable, in greatness incomprehensible, in height inconceivable." (ad. Aut. I.3; cited Prestige ibid).

The famed author of the anti-gnostic Against the Heresies (Adversus haeresus), Irenaeus bishop of Lyons (fl. c.115-190 CE) spoke of Christ the Logos as the Mediator of revelation. The Son (Jesus) safeguarded the invisibility of the Father (God)" for the invisible, incomprehensible God "in his true nature and immensity cannot be discovered or described by his creatures" (Adv. Haer. IV.20.6 cited Bettenson, 1969:74).

Brought up in Carthage the, the African theologian Tertullian (160-220) wrote a large number of polemical treatises. He often refers to God as invisible and incomprehensible. In his early Apologeticum (c.197 CE) he refers to God as "..invisible, though he is seen, incomprehensible, though manifested by grace" (Apol. 17 cited Bettenson, 1969:103).

Clement of Alexandria (c.150-c.215 CE) reckoned God both One and beyond Oneness, a transcendent Deity that human thoughts can never match. He reckoned Moses a true Gnostic (gnostikos) since he did not attempt to "encompass" the transcendent God Who "cannot be encompassed"; not setting up any representative "statue" of Him in the "sanctuary" (the Holy Place / Holy of Holies, at the centre of the Tabernacle or Jerusalem Temple), "thus making it clear that God is a mystery, invisible and illimitable" (Strom V 11:74.4 cited Daniélou, 1973:326). Like Philo, Clement and other apologists -- including Theophilus of Antioch (d.c.180 CE; refer Ad. Autolycum I,3) and Athenagoras (2nd cent. CE; see Supl. 10) -- specifically refer to God as One "unknowable" (Gk. akataleptos; Clement, Strom V.12.82 etc).

Son of a Christian martyr the erudite Origen (c.185-c.254 CE), perhaps the most prolific and learned of the fathers of the Church, in his De Principiis ("On First Principles") and other works propounds a primarily negative theology. He asserts that without doubt God is "incomprehensible and immeasurable", beyond the grasp of the human mind (De Prin. I.1.5). God comprehends all things but is comprehended by none among His creatures. Human minds cannot behold God as He is in Himself (ibid IV.4.8; I.1.5f).

Plotinus (205-270 CE; the founder of Neoplatonism) settled in Rome around 245 CE and subsequently composed his fifty-four treatises known, after their grouping by his disciple Porphry (d.304 CE) as the Enneads (`Nines' 6x9 = 54). He was an important source of negative and mystical theology (Clark, 1987:368) for it was "he who raised the concept to philosophical respectability" (Walker, 1974:9). Among his teachings is that the Divine exists in a "Triad" of three entitles (hypostases) the highest degree of which, the `One' transcends Psyche ("Soul") and Nous ("Intellect"), is unknowable, beyond human thoughts, essence, existence and oneness (Ennead V. 3.13; 5.6, etc). It can only be inadequately described negatively.

Plotinus' work directly or indirectly through such of his followers as the anti-Christian Porphyry (232-305 CE), Iambilicus (c.245-326 CE) and Proclus (c.412-485), influenced both the Church Fathers and emergent Islamic philosophy (see Baine Harris, 1976:1ff). It was partly under the influence of eclectic Middle and Neo-Platonic philosophy -- which directly or indirectly held to the transcendence/incomprehensibility of the `Absolute' -- that many of the Church Fathers championed a negative theology in which the incomprehensibility of God is fundamental.

The adoption of consubstantial (homoousios) trinitarianism by more than 300 (largely Eastern) Christian bishops at the Council of Nicea (325 CE) did not prevent most Church Fathers from continuing to champion the Absolute Mystery of the Godhead. The doctrine of the incomprehensibility of God was not eclipsed by either a literalist incarnationalism nor a trinitarianism of "substance" (ousia) Athanasius (c. 296-337 CE) the youthful champion of Nicean orthodoxy and anti-Arianism, in a `Letter to the Monks' (358 CE) stated that "..even if it is impossible to grasp what God is, yet it is possible to say what he is not." (Hanson, 1970:448).

The various major Cappodocian theologians of the fourth cent. CE. in different ways spoke about the incomprehensibility of God. Gregory of Nyssa (c.335-395?) for example, regarded the heights of mystical contemplation as the realization of the incomprehensibility of God. In his writings (influenced by Neo-Platonic works) is layed the foundation of a `mysticism of darkness' based upon an exegesis of Moses' Sinaitic ascent (Exodus 24:15ff). It is related to the three stages of 1) being in the "light" (phos) = purification 2) being in the "cloud" (nephele) = contemplation of intelligibles and 3) being in the "darkness" (gnophos; Exod. 20:21) = the termination of knowledge before the ultimate inaccessibility of God and the mystical "ascent" through divine love: "Moses' vision of God began with light; afterwards God spoke to him in a cloud. But when Moses rose higher and became more perfect he saw God in the darkness.." (Comm. on the Song XI:1000; cited Louth 1981:83)

Among the many illuminating passages in the writings of Gregory it must suffice to quote a brief extract from his marvellous exegetical treatise On the Life of Moses,

What then does it mean that Moses entered the darkness and then saw God in it? [Exod 20:21]... as the mind progresses, through an even greater and more perfect diligence, comes to apprehend reality, as it approaches more nearly to contemplation , it sees more clearly what of the divine nature is uncontemplated. For leaving behind everything that is observed, not only what sense comprehends but also what the intelligence thinks it sees, it keeps on penetrating deeper until by the intelligence's yearning for understanding it gains access to the invisible and the incomprehensible, and there it sees God. This is the true knowledge of what is sought; this is the seeing that consist in not seeing, because that which is sought transcends all knowledge, being separated on all sides by incomprehensibility as by a kind of darkness. Wherefore John the sublime, who penetrated into the luminous darkness, says No one has ever seen God, [John 1:18] thus asserting that knowledge of the divine essence is unattainable not only by men by every intelligent creature.

When therefore, Moses grew in knowledge, he declared that he had seen God in the darkness, that is, that he had then come to know that what is divine is beyond all knowledge and comprehension, for the text says, Moses approached the dark cloud where God was. What God? He who made darkness his hiding place as David says [Psalm 17:12] who was initiated into the mysteries in the same inner sanctuary." (Gregory of Nyssa, 1978:94-95).

Writing in the Platonic and Alexandrian tradition, the influential bishop and theologian Athanasius (d. 377 CE) in his Letter to the Monks (358 CE) wrote that `..even if it is impossible to grasp what God is, yet it is possible to say what He is not." (cited Hanson 1970:448). He occasionally described God as incomprehensible (Gent. 2.35.40). Referring to Psalm 138:6 and other Biblical texts, Basil of Caesarea (d. 379 CE) warned that it is "presumptuous to claim to know what is God's essence (ousia)." (Turner 1977:302). A homily on the `Incomprehensible nature of God' is extant from the great orator and one time bishop of Constantinople, John Chrysostom ("golden mouth" c. 354-407 CE) (Graffin, & Malingren, 1972). Though not exactly a proponent of negative theology, the influential Christian theologian Augustine of Hippo (d.430 CE) advised when talking about God, `Put everything from your mind; whatever occurs to you deny it ... say, He is not that." (Enarr. 2 in Ps 26:8; MPL xxxvi, col. 203 cited Turner 1977:301).

The writings of the unknown philosopher-monk Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite (fl. c. 500 CE cf. Acts 17:34) present a synthesis of Christian doctrines and Neoplatonic thought. Perhaps of Syrian provenance, they are very important texts in the history of Christian mysticism. Lossky reckoned that they "have enjoyed an undisputed authority in the theological tradition of the East, as well as that of the West" (Lossky 1957:24). Following Proclus (d. c. 487) Pseudo-Dionysius seems to have the first Christian thinker to have made use of the theological terms `apophatic' ("negative [theology]") and `cataphatic' ("affirmative [theology]") [4] Subsequently they became familiar terms in Byzantine theology, from the time of the Greek theologians Maximus the Confessor (d.662 CE) and John Damascene (d. c. 749 CE) (see Louth, 1989:87). For Pseudo-Dionysis "the reference of both apophatic and cataphatic theology is the One God.. It is of the same God that we are to make both affirmations and denials" (Louth 1989:87). For him God in Himself is beyond the God we know through cataphatic theology. God is more adequately "known" through apophatic theology, the paradoxical mystical theology of denial or unknowing:

"God is known in all things and apart from all things; and God is known by knowledge and by unknowing. Of him there is understanding, reason, knowledge, touch, perception, opinion, imagination, name and many other things, but he is not understood, nothing can be said of him, he cannot be named. He is not one of the things that are, nor is he known in any of the things that are; he is all things in everything and nothing in anything; he is known to all from all things and to no-one from anything. For we rightly say these things of God, and he is celebrated by all beings according to the analogy that all things bear to him as their Cause. But the most divine knowledge of God, that in which he is known through unknowing, according to the union that transcends the mind, happens when the mind, turning away from all things, including itself, is united with the dazzling rays, and there and then illuminated in the unsearchable depth of wisdom. (DN VII.3: 872A-B)

The first chapter of The Mystical Theology poses the question `What is the Divine darkness' and opens with a beautiful prayer in which the supplicant says,

"Lead us up beyond unknowing and light, up to the farthest, highest peak of mystic scripture, where the mysteries of God's Word lie simple, absolute and unchangeable in the brilliant darkness of a hidden silence.." (cited Rorem, 1993:184).

Mystical union with God is only possible in terms of the darkness of "unknowing" (agnásia). It is never an actual or complete union with the Unnameable God, the transcendent Divinity Who is beyond Being (huperousios). The Dionysian corpus had a major influence upon a range of key Christian thinkers and mystics most of whom made significant theological statements about the incomprehensibility of God.

At the end of the Patristic period, John of Damascus (d. 749) taught that positive statements about God do not reveal His nature. Nothing can be said about Him beyond what has been indicated in revelation. In his On the Orthodox Faith (I.4) he states that the existence of God is clear though His nature is incomprehensible: ".. what He is by His essence and nature, this is altogether beyond our comprehension and knowledge." (PG. 94, 797b cited Ware, 1963:??). The Irish theologian and Neoplatonist philosopher John Scotus Eriugena (d.c. 875 CE) translated the writings of Pseudo-Dionysius into Latin and gave a central place to apophatic theology. He mediated apophatic theology to the theologians of the Latin Middle Ages. The doctrine of the incomprehensibility of God was frequently voiced in the Middle Ages. It was upheld by the Christian Scholastics and by notable Reformist theologians.

The Italian Dominican theologian Thomas Aquinas (d. 1274 CE) in his magnum opus, the Summa Theologica discussed whether God is the object of the science of theology. He noted the point that theology does "not start by making the assumption of defining God; as St John Damascene remarks, In God we cannot say what he is..." (Ia.7; Aquinas, 1964:25). In various of his works Aquinas echoes his words "What God actually is always remains hidden from us. And this is the highest knowledge one can have of God in this life, that we know Him to be above every thought that we are able to think of Him." (De Veritate cited Happold 1971:31). In the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) incomprehensibilitas is explicitly declared to be a property of God.

The unknown English, possibly Carthusian author of the mystical treatise The Cloud of Unknowing (14th cent. CE) gave preeminence to spiritual love in the quest for experience of the unknowable Godhead beyond reason. Much influenced by Pseudo-Dionysius (= Saint Denis) -- cited as having said, "The truly divine knowledge of God is that which is known in unknowing" (LXX) -- this work which is addressed to a young contemplative monk. It has it that the mystic quest is beyond both intellectual study and the imaginative faculty. In the humble lifting up of the heart to God one finds a "cloud of unknowing" for, "This darkness and cloud is always between you and your God, no matter what you do, and it prevents you from seeing him clearly by the light of understanding in your reason, and from experiencing him in sweetness of love in your affection." (III:33 trans. Walsh, 1981:120).

The German philosopher Nicholas of Cusa (d.1464 CE) wrote a treatise On Learned Ignorance (1440 CE). Much influenced by Dionysius and Erigena he reckoned `learned ignorance' to be the most advanced stage of knowledge. This in the light of the unknowability of absolute truth and of the Godhead beyond names and positive attributes. He regarded negative theology as fundamental.

Martin Luther (d.1546) frequently referred to the All-Powerful God, as One hidden Deus Absconditas (hidden God) "in distinction from the Deus Revelatus (revealed God) as still a hidden God in view of the fact that we cannot fully know Him even through His special" (Berkhof:31)

Best known for his monumental The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, Vladimir Lossky (d. 1958) is widely recognized as having been a pre-eminent Russian Orthodox émigré writer. He considered negative theology' (apophasis) to be normative in Christian dogmatic reflection (Williams, 1980:96).

The influential Swiss Reformed (Protestant) theologian Karl Barth (d. 1968) in his incomplete though massive Church Dogmatics (1927>) devotes a section to `Limits of the knowledge of God' (II § 27;179-254), the basic `Hiddenness of God'. A useful sketch of the history of the Christian affirmation of the incomprehensibilitas Dei is registered. The unknowability of God has a "basic and determinate position" relative to those doctrines surrounding the knowledge of God (Barth 1957:185)

In the article `Trinity' in the recent Encyclopedia of Religion (ed. Eliade et al. 1987) the incomprehensibility of God is clearly stated, "First, God is an ineffable and Absolute Mystery, whose reality cannot adequately be comprehended or expressed by means of human concepts." (ERel. 15:55).

Islam

The Arabic word Alláh (probably a contraction of al+iláh = `the deity') is the Islamic proper name indicative of the Essence of God (occurring over 2,500 times in the Qur'án). It is basically the same as several of the Biblical Hebrew (and other Semitic) designations of God (El, Eloah, Elohim). According to Gardet, the term Alláh describes God "in his inaccessible nature as a deity both unique and one (tawád) whose essence remains unrevealed.." (ER 6:29). Without bypassing the divine providential immanence, the Qur'án repeatedly underlines God's transcendence. It refers, for example, to God as greatly exalted above human theological and other concepts. God is "above and beyond all categories of human thought and imagination, for He is "beyond all that they describe [of Him]" (Q. 6:100b cited Nasr, 1987:314). He is One Who "cannot be comprehended by vision" (Q. 6:101): "Vision comprehendeth Him not, but He comprehendeth [all] vision". He is One incomparable -- "There is naught like unto Him" (Q.42:11; cf. 16:60; 32:27) -- and supremely "All-High", "Transcendent" or "Exalted" (al-`alíy Q. 4:34; 22:62; 31:30).

The Arabic third person masculine pronoun هو huwa = `He is' is many times used of God (Alláh) in the Qur'án. An extended form of this word هوية huwiyya (lit. "He-ness") indicates the Divine Self Identity, the Ipseity. [5] [=60] In medieval and later Islamic mysticism it was a term used to denote the transcendent Divinity. In his Meccan Revelations (al-Futūḥát al-Makkiyya) and other works, Shaykh Muḥyí al-Dín Ibn al-`Arabá (d.1270 CE)

It has been said that Ibn `Arabí, who championed the unknowability and unmanifest nature of the Absolute Essence, "experienced the vision of the highest divine essence in the shape of the word hū, "He," luminous between the arms of the letter CHECK há’ " (Schimmel, 1975:270).

There is a section on huwiyya (“He-ness”) in the important al-Insán al-kámil.. ("The Perfect Man...") of `Abd al-Karám al-Jílí (d.c.832/1428). This Persian Shí`íte Sufí writes in this work:

"The Ipseity of the True One (God; huwiyya al-ḥaqq): this indicates His hiddenness (ghayb), the manifestation of which is impossible save by means of the totality of the [Divine] Names and Attributes. This since their Reality alludeth unto the interiority of the Divine Uniqueness (báin al-wáidáya); it alludeth unto His Being (kun) and His Essence (dhát) by means of His Names and Attrubutes: `The Ipesity (al-huwiyya) is the hiddenness of the Divine Essence which is Uniquely One (wáhid)...” (Jílí, al-Insán [1956] 1:96-7).

Also related to the Arabic letter ﮫ "h" (há') and هو huwa (`He is') is the designation of the Divine Essence dhát, (loosely) `the sphere of the Divine Ipseity'. Traditionally it lies `above' and `beyond' the ever more elevated succession of spheres or `worlds', [1] Nását ("this Mortal World"); [2] Malakūt ("the world of the angels or the Kingdom [of God]"); [3] Jabarūt (`the sphere of the divine decrees or celestial Powers"); [4] Láhūt ("the realm of the Divine theophany"). The term هاهوت Háhūt is modelled on the names of these `realms' -- themselves rooted in Christian Aramaic or Syriac theological terminology (see Arnaldez, `Láhūt and Násūt'). References to Háhūt are found in the writings of Muslim theosophical writers and mystics.

The Qur'án accords God various "Names" indicative, anong other things, of the Divine perfections. Certain of these Qur'ánic `Names of God' are traditionally reckoned among the ninety-nine `Most Beautiful Names [of God]' (al-asmá ' al-ḥusná, see Q. 20:8). Certain of them indicate the divine unknowability just as others indicate the divine immanence. Of obvious relevence in the former respect is God's being al-ghayb ("the Mystery", "the Unseen") which occurs a number of times in the Qur'án (2:3 see Kassis, 479-80) Relevant also is the hapax legomenon (`once occuring') and Divine attribute, the name amad (loosely, "Impenetrable", "Eternal", "Everlasting") which occurs only in the centrally important Sūrat al-Tawḥíd ("Sūra of the Divine Unity", 112:2). The Arabic root Ṣ-M-D has the primary meaning "without hollow" or "without cleft" perhaps indicating, as Louis Gardet has recently argued, the Divine impenetrability or unknowability (Gardet, ER 6:28). The same writer has translated the name of God `Aẓím as "Inaccessible" (Q. 2:255;42:4, etc) indicating One "well beyond the bounds of human understanding, which cannot limit him in any way or compare him to anything (ibid, 31). Qur'án 57:3 not only describes God as the "First and the Last" but also the "Manifest and the Hidden (ẓáhir wa'l-báin)." While His attribute ẓáhir implies the possibility of His being "disclosed", "manifest" or "outward", báṭin indicates his being "Hidden", "Unmanifest" or "Inward".

It is sometimes reckoned that the supreme or "Greatest Name of God" (al-ism al-a`ẓam) is the "name of God's Essence (al-dhát) as well as of all the Divine Names (asmá') and Qualities (ṣifát) as related to and "contained" in the Divine Nature." (Nasr, 1987:312). The many attributes of God (ṣifát Alláh) are fundamentally appellations and actions of the Divinity. From early medieval times attempts were made to systematize and classify them. [6] The relationship of the various Attributes and the Essence was much debated. The most basic attribute was wujūd = "Existence" which has been equated with the dhát Alláh, the "Essence of God" and with the nafs Alláh or "Self of God" which is several times mentioned in the Qur'án (Q.3:28; 6:54; 5:116; 20:41).

Some Muslim "theologians", furthermore, spoke of the `Attributes of the Essence' (ṣifát al-dhát) which indicate aspects of the divine transcendence (e.g. Qayyūm = `Self-Subsisting') which are (in varying ways) differentiated from other supplementary divine attributes e.g. various divine powers, providence and immanence. Islamic theologians and philosophers disagreed as to whether the divine attributes are [1] the very Essence -- the opinion of various Mu`tazilites and philosophers; [2] something different from the Essence, or [3] neither the Essence nor something different. (al-Sharkawi, 1983:30) [7] Sh í`í Muslims have often made a sharp distinction between the attributes of the divine dhát ("Essence") and the other divine attributes which they generally understood figuratively. Worth quoting in this connection is Imám `Alá's declaration: "Absolute unity (kamál al-tawhád) excludeth all attributes (al-ṣifát)" (cited AQA 3:15 = SV:15).

Seven divine Attributes are sometimes called the "Names of the Essence". Ibn `Arabí reckoned them as [1] "The Living" (al-ḥayy), [2] "the Knowing (al-`alám), [3] "the Wanting" (al-márid), [4] "the Powerful" (al-qadár), [5] "the Speaking" (al-mutakallim / al-qá'il), [6] "the Hearing" (al-samá`) and [7] "the Seeing" (al-baṣír). [8]

In sayings attributed to the Prophet Muhammad and the [Twelver] Imáms contained in a multitude of Sunná and Shí`í sources, many statements underlining the exalted transcencdence or unknowability of God are registered. A well-known Prophetic tradition cited by al-Ghazali (d.1111 CE) in his Mishkat al-anwár ("The Niche of Lights") -- and occasionally referred to by the Báb and Bahá'-Alláh -- has it that, "Before God are 70[000] veils of Light and Darkness. Should they be unveiled, the Splendours of His Countenance (subuhát wajhihi) would assuredly set ablaze all who discern Him with their vision." (cited al-Gházálí, 1964:39)

In summing up aspects of Shá`á cosmology it has been noted that "The essence of the Creator is separated from the creation by veils (ḥejáb), curtains (setr), and pavilions (sorádeq) impregated with the divine attributes.." (EIr 6:317). [9]

Among the significant traditions of the Imáms cited by Kulayná is his Uṣ ul al-Káfí is the following attributed to Abū Ja`far,

"Talk together about the creation of God (khalq Alláh) but do not talk about God Himself for direct discussion about God increases naught but the bewilderment the one who indulges in it." (Káfí, I:92)

"Talk together about everything but never talk about the Essence of God (dhát Alláh)." (ibid).

The inacessibility and unknowability of God are indirectly expressed in Islamic cosmology in a multitude of different ways. Neoplatonic influence was early felt in Islam. A recension of the last three books of Plotinus' Enneads with some commentary was early on translated into Arabic (and Syriac) under the erroneous title `The Theology of Aristotle' (Uthálájiyá Arisṭáṭálís). Widely known from the mid 9th century CE the Pseudo-Aristotelain `Theology' was commented upon by early Muslim philosophical theologians; including al-Kindá (d.c.870 CE) and Al-Farabá (d.950) the so-called `Second Teacher' (al-mu`allim al-thání) whose highly influential `Opinions of the Inhabitants of the Virtuous City' commences with a Neoplatonically influenced chapter `On the First Being' (Lawson, 1991:118). One of the Arabic Plotinus sources Fá al-ilm al-iláhá ("On the Divine Science") has it that, "Whoever wishes to describe the Almighty Creator must remove from Him all attributes" (from the Arabic Enneads fragments, cited Walker 1974:13). This is echoed in many Islamic and Bábá-Bahá’í sources.

In addition to writings of Plotinus, certain works of Porphry and Proclus were also available in Arabic "as a result of the Hellenistic scholars having took refuge in Persian courts after Justinian closed the then Neoplatonic Platonic academy at Athens in 529." (Morewedge, 1992: viii). As a religious philosophy Neoplatonism was utilized by Avicenna (Ibn Sina d.1037 CE), Averroes and other Islamic theologians and philosophers. It had a significant effect upon major Jewish and Christian medieval philosophers and theologians.

Fazlur Rahman succinctly sums up the influence of Neoplatonic streams of thought about the One into early Islam:

"On the basis of the Plotinian idea of the ultimate ground of Reality the One of Plotinus, as interpreted by his followers and endowed with a mind that contained the essences of all things, the philosophers reinterpreted and elaborated the Mu`tazilite doctrine of the Unity of God. According to the new doctrine, God was represented as Pure Being without essence or attributes, His only attribute being necessary existence. The attributes of the Deity were declared to be either negations or purely external relations, not affecting His Being and reducible to His necessary existence. God's knowledge was thus defined as `non-absence of knowable things from Him'; His Will as `impossibility of constraint upon His Being'; His creative activity as `emanation of things from Him', etc."

At one point in his Mishkat al-anwár ("Niche of Lights") the great Muslim theologian Abu Hámid al-Ghazali (d.1111) writes that "..none knows Allah with a real knowledge but He Himself; for every known falls necessarily under the sway and within the province of the Knower.." (Gairdener, 1952:107)

In his article `The Unknowability of God in al-Ghazali' Burrell writes, "So the upshot of God's unknowability for Ghazali, is to render speculative inquiry into God and the things of God effectively incompatible with the essential human task of responding wholeheartedly to the lure of the One -- from whom all things derive. For such inquiry is bound to fall short of its goal, and to the extent that it pretends to carry us to that goal, we will be misled and diverted from setting out on the path which can take us there

The aforementioned Ibn `Arabá underlined the unknowability and unmanifest nature of the transcendent Divine Essence: "The Divine Essence (al-dhát al-iláhiyya) cannot be understood by the rational faculty..." (Ibn `Arabi, Futuhát II:257; Chittick, 1989:60). The Divine Essence is transcendent above the cosmos, "independent of the worlds" (Q. 3:97 ibid II:502). The Great Shaykh often cited the the following prophetic tradition: "Reflect (tafakkur) upon all things, but reflect not upon God's Essence." (cited ibid 62). Any attempt by human beings to fathom the Divine Essence is futile as implies in the Qur' ánic phrase, "God would have you beware of Himself (nafsihi)" (3:28/30).

Chittick sums up key aspects of Ibn `Arabá's theology when he states, "God is known through the relations, attributions, and correlations that become established between Him and the cosmos. But the Essence is unknown, since nothing is related to It."

"In respect of Itself the Essence has no name, since It is not the locus of effects, nor is It known by anyone. There is no name to denote It without relationship, nor with any assurance (tamkán). For names act to make known and to distinguish, but this door [to knowledge of the Essence] is forbidden to anyone other than God, since "None knows God but God." So the names exist through us and for us. They revolve around us and become manifest within us. Their properties are with us, their goals are toward us, their expressions are of us, and their beginnings are from us...Reflection (fikr) has no governing property or domain in the Essence of the Real, neither rationally nor according to the Law. For the Law has forbidden reflection upon the Essence of God, a point to which is alluded by His words, "God warns you about His Self" (3:28). This is because there is no interrelationship (munasaba) between the Essence of the Real and the essence of the creatures. (Futuḥát I:230)

In our view there is no disputing the fact that the Essence is unknown. To It are ascribed descriptions that make It incomparable with the attributes of temporal things (al-ḥadath). It possesses eternity (al-qidam), and to Its Being is ascribed beginninglessness (al-azal). But all these names designate negations, such as the negation of beginning and everything as aproprlate to temporal originatlon." (Futuḥát II:557 cited Chittick, 1989:62).

Nascent Ismá`ílí (Shí`í) philosophy was strongly influenced by Neoplatonic thought: "leading members of the Ismá`ílí sect accepted … a considerable dose of neoplatonic theory as a reinforcement for a dogma whose central proposition was the unknowableness of God" (Walker 1974:7). Neoplatonic cosmology and theology seems to have been introduced by the dá`í ("summoner") al-Nasafá (d. Bukhárá 332/943) who was influenced by an Arabic recension of Plotinus' Enneads -- in the form of the Pseudo-Aristotelan `Theology' (Walker 1993:40f). His ideas were developed by Abū Ya`qūb al-Sijistání (fl. mid. 10th cent. CE?). For al-Sijistání the ultimate Godhead is beyond `being' and attributes; the Divine Identity (innáyah) is way beyond unknowability. Even the logicality of apophatic theology is an inadequate indication of the nature of the Godhead. Negative theology is negated before the sublime mystery of the Ultimately Unknowable; the transcendent Godhead beyond unknowing. Before the God Who transcends being and non-being is the negation of the negated:

"There does not exist a tanzíh ["transcendence"] more brilliant and more splendid than that by which we establish the absolute transcendence of our Originator through the use of these phrases in which a negative and a negative of a negative apply to the thing denied." (Kitáb al-Iftikhár, cited Walker 1993:78).

Among other Ismá'ílí texts the unknowability of the God beyond attributes is all but registered in the Rasá'il Ikhwán al-safá' ("Treatises of the Brethren of Purity" 10th cent. CE?) which show the influence of various schools of Hellenistic wisdom (Netton 1982:39f).

Sayyid `Alí Muhammad Shirazi, the Báb (d. 1850 CE).

There is hardly a major or minor work of the Báb which does not contain a celebration of the Divine Transcendence. For the Messiah figure from Sháráz, the absolute Divine Essence (dhát al-dhát) is `Wholly Other'. Numerous exordiums to scores of the Báb's Arabic and Persian compositions contain verses in which the Ultimate Godhead is declared beyond the ken of the human mind. So central was the Báb's maintaining of the transcendence of God that He changed the basmalah (= "In the Name of God the Merciful the Compassionate" ) to "In the Name of God, the Inaccessible (al-amna`), the Most Holy (al-aqdas)." The last two Divine Attributes of this classical Islamic invocation -- present before all but one of the 114 suras of the Qur'án -- are replaced with two non-qur'ánic superlatives which, in one way or another indicate, the ultimate Godhead being set apart in His transcendent Holiness. Qur'án 42:11b ("There is naught like unto Him") is frequently quoted in his writings from the Qayyám al-asmá' (suras 30, 32, 33, etc) until the Kitáb al-asmá'.

Tafsír Du`a al-ṣabáh.

Among the minor works of the Báb is his Tafs’ír Du`a al-ṣabáh, a commentary upon a phrase within a dawn prayer ascribed to Imám `Alá (d. 40/661) the cousin, son-in-law and successor of the Arabian Prophet Muhammad (INBAMC 40:155-162). [10] The phrase commented upon is part of a prayer in which God is addressed as One "the proof of Whose Essen ce is furnished through this same Essence (dalla `alá dhátihi bi-dhátihi)" (Qummí, 1989:92). The transcendent Divine Essence is really only adequately testified to Its Own Self. Only God Himself can comprehend His "Essential Reality" (dhátiyyat) for the "bird" of the human "heart" has, for all eternity, been unable to "ascend" unto the domain of His mystery. Knowledge/ gnosis of the Eternal Divine Essence is impossible and inaccessible (ibid, 155-9). In this work of the Báb, the transcendence and unknowability of God is quite frequently underlined.

Tafsir hadíth of al-`amá'

Tradition has it that the Prophet Muhammad was asked, `Where was our Lord before He created the creation [or, `the heavens and the earth']? He is said to have replied, `He [God] was in a Cloud (`amá'), above it [or Him] air (hawá') and below it [or Him] air". [11] This reply probably originally expressed the conviction that God was hidden and self-subsisting in His own Being; dependent upon nothing. It perhaps indicated that before His work of creation, God was in obscurity, enshrouded in the cloud of His own Being, wrapped in a dark mist.

For Sufis like `Abd al-Karím al-Jílí (1365-1420) `amá' indicated the absolute hiddenness of the transcendent Godhead. It signfies "Being sunk in itself, bare potentiality", "the eternal and unchangeable ground of Being", the "absolute inwardness (buṭūn) and occultation (istitar)" of the transcendent Divine Essence (Nicholson, 1967:94-6).

Influenced by theosophical Sufism, both the Báb and Bahá'-Alláh used Sufi terminology extensively including the term `amá' though they rejected the monistic ontology that sometimes informs and determines certain attempts to locate the mystery of `amá'. In Bábí-Bahá'í scripture it is not always indicative of the hidden and unknowable essence of God.

In one of his early epistles the Báb commented in some detail on the `tradition of `amá' [12] He states that this tradition indicates God's isolated independence. The term al-`amá' ("the Cloud") only inadequately indicates the Divine dhát ("essence"). [13] In his interpretation, the Báb seems to underline God's absolute otherness to such an extent that the term `amá' only indirectly hints at his transcendent unknowability. God's nafs ("Logos-Self") and dhát ("Essence") are probably to be thought of as created and hypostatic realities indicative of, yet ontologically distinguishable from, His uncreated and absolute Ipseity.

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