Eckhart's Apophatic Theology


Book Description

Vladimir Lossky’s posthumously published masterwork is now made available in English for the first time. Eckhart’s Negative Theology is the culmination of a long process, whereby the renowned Orthodox philosopher and theologian embraced the ways of thinking of a thirteenth-century German monk and mystic. While refusing to simplify Eckhart’s theology to a system or single motif, Lossky explores in detail the various ramifications of Eckhart’s insistence on the ineffability of God. Is God to be regarded as ‘being’, or the ‘One’, or ‘Intellect’? Does God’s pure expression of each of these preclude the others? Framed by six key statements about God’s essence, Lossky lays out Eckhart’s approach to this dilemma. His understanding of the problem, guided by careful engagement with a multitude of sources, is exhaustive. Scholars will welcome this eagerly-anticipated translation.




Eckhart's ApophaticTheology


Book Description

Vladimir Lossky's posthumously published masterwork is now made available in English for the first time. Eckhart's Apophatic Theology is the culmination of a long process, whereby the renowned Orthodox philosopher and theologian embraced the ways of thinking of a thirteenth-century German mendicant and mystic. While refusing to simplify Eckhart's theology to a system or single motif, Lossky explores in detail the various ramifications of Eckhart's insistence on the ineffability of God. Is God to be regarded as 'being', or the 'One', or 'Intellect'? Does God's pure expression of each of these preclude the others? Framed by six key statements about God's essence, Lossky lays out Eckhart's approach to this dilemma. His understanding of the problem, guided by careful engagement with a multitude of sources, is exhaustive. Scholars will welcome this eagerly-anticipated translation.




Passion for Nothing


Book Description

Passion for Nothing offers a reading of Kierkegaard as an apophatic author. As it functions in this book, “apophasis” is a flexible term inclusive of both “negative theology” and “deconstruction.” One of the main points of this volume is that Kierkegaard’s authorship opens pathways between these two resonate but often contentiously related terrains. The main contention of this book is that Kierkegaard’s apophaticism is an ethical-religious difficulty, one that concerns itself with the “whylessness” of existence. This is a theme that Kierkegaard inherits from the philosophical and theological traditions stemming from Meister Eckhart. Additionally, the forms of Kierkegaard’s writing are irreducibly apophatic—animated by a passion to communicate what cannot be said. The book examines Kierkegaard’s apophaticism with reference to five themes: indirect communication, God, faith, hope, and love. Across each of these themes, the aim is to lend voice to “the unruly energy of the unsayable” and, in doing so, let Kierkegaard’s theological, spiritual, and philosophical provocation remain a living one for us today.




Eckhart's Apophatic Theology


Book Description

Vladimir Lossky’s posthumously published masterwork is now made available in English for the first time. Eckhart’s Negative Theology is the culmination of a long process, whereby the renowned Orthodox philosopher and theologian embraced the ways of thinking of a thirteenth-century German monk and mystic. While refusing to simplify Eckhart’s theology to a system or single motif, Lossky explores in detail the various ramifications of Eckhart’s insistence on the ineffability of God. Is God to be regarded as ‘being’, or the ‘One’, or ‘Intellect’? Does God’s pure expression of each of these preclude the others? Framed by six key statements about God’s essence, Lossky lays out Eckhart’s approach to this dilemma. His understanding of the problem, guided by careful engagement with a multitude of sources, is exhaustive. Scholars will welcome this eagerly-anticipated translation.




Seeking the God Beyond


Book Description

Apophatic theology, or negative theology, attempts to describe God, the Divine Good, by negation, to speak only in terms of what may not be said about the perfect goodness that is God. It is a way of coming to an understanding of who God is, which has played a significant role across centuries of Christian tradition but is very often treated with suspicion by those engaging in theological study today. This book seeks to introduce students to this oft-misunderstood form of spirituality. Beginning by placing apophatic spirituality within its biblical roots, the book later considers the key pioneers of apophatic faith and a diverse range of thinkers, including C. S. Lewis and Keats, to inform us in our negative theological journey. A final section explores what difference a negative theological approach might make to our practice and our liturgy.




The Mystical Thought of Meister Eckhart


Book Description

From the world's foremost authority on Christian mysticism, the definitive story of Christianity's greatest mystic, Meister Eckhart, his insights into God, his relation to the tradition, and how he learned from the women religious of his day.




Derrida and Negative Theology


Book Description

This book explores the thought of Jacques Derrida as it relates to the tradition of apophatic thought--negative theology and philosophy--in both Western and Eastern traditions. Following the Introduction by Toby Foshay, two of Derrida's essays on negative theology, Of an Apocalyptic Tone Newly Adopted in Philosophy and How to Avoid Speaking: Denials, are reprinted here. These are followed by essays from a Western perspective by Mark C. Taylor and Michel Despland, and essays from an Eastern perspective by David Loy, a Buddhist, and Harold Coward, a Hindu. In the Conclusion, Jacques Derrida responds to these discussions.




Negative Theology and Philosophical Analysis


Book Description

This book is the first treatment at length of negative, or apophatic, theology within the analytic tradition. Apophatic theology holds that there is a significant sense in which we cannot say what God is. Important negative theological elements are present in a host of Christian thinkers, from Gregory of Nyssa to Aquinas, and yet apophaticism is neglected in philosophical theology as practiced within the analytic tradition. By contrast, Hewitt shows how apophatic theology is integral to how Christians have thought about God, and how it can be defended against standard attacks in the philosophical literature. Hewitt diagnoses the unease with apophaticism amongst contempory philosophical theologicans as rooted in a certain picture of how language functions, here called referentialism. Arguing that this picture is not compulsory, an account of language which sits more comfortably with negative theology (originating from work of later Wittgenstein) is invoked, and applied to key themes in philosophical theology including divine personhood, the Trinity, the Incarnation and the afterlife.




Meister Eckhart (CWS)


Book Description

Meister Eckhart (c. 1260-1327) was a Dominican philosopher and spiritual master whose thought is among the most daring and difficult in the history of western mysticism. This volume contains his technical Latin writings and more popular German sermons.




Meister Eckhart on Divine Knowledge


Book Description

Meister Eckhart on Divine Knowledge is not only the most profound study of the core theological and philosophical themes of Christianity’s greatest mystic ever written. It is also the greatest exegesis of Christian non-dualism ever published. Of all Christian mystical teachings, those of the Dominican theologian Meister Eckhart (c. 1260–c. 1328) are increasingly recognized as the most compatible with the non-dualistic traditions of Buddhism and Hinduism. Based on the author’s three decades of formal study and spiritual practice, this book offers a clear path to understanding the breadth and depth of Eckhart’s unique achievement. C.F. Kelley argues that the fundamental principle that elevates Eckhart above all other Western mystics, and links him to Eastern spiritual approaches, is his insistence that we “think principally” in divinis—that is, from within the mind or orientation of the Godhead or “Divine Knowledge” itself. “What is here presented to the reader supersedes all former interpretations of Eckhart’s teaching. It refuses to ignore what he precisely and repeatedly says cannot be ignored, that is, his exposition of the doctrine of Divine Knowledge in terms of the highest and most essential of all possible considerations.” —C.F. Kelley, from the Preface