It should be obvious by now that the mystagogical path traced here is not fashioned principally as an “answer” to atheism, in the sense of adducing various arguments to meet intellectual challenges to theistic faith. There is a place for such an endeavor, and some of the best examples draw liberally from traditions of negative and mystical theology in order to highlight the limited nature of atheistic denials. To state the matter briefly, if somewhat provocatively, too often atheistic critique isn’t atheistic enough. It is insufficiently rigorous in its denials, too confident in claiming to know what “God” actually means, as indeed it must if its denials are to stick. The main shortcoming with most arguments against theistic faith is the deep-seated habit of conceiving of God as a being among others, as some force or cause within universe, an Intelligent Designer, perhaps a superlative being alongside (and therefore negatively defined by) the universe. Virtually every atheistic objection to faith presupposes some contrastive logic in its construal of the God-world relation, as though God and world were situated within a spectrum of being, within an encompassing horizon of potency and value, with God as the “highest” being acting upon “lesser” beings. Yet in all such cases we are really referring to something like a demiurge, to a god-like entity operating within a network of causes, a superior subject within an immemorial flow of becoming, not the inexhaustible, eternal wellspring of all that is—the eternal One who freely gives all things “to be.” To begin speaking of God properly so that we might know what we are denying requires following a series of denials that go well beyond the usual compass atheistic critique. This is why Turner describes modern atheism as a form of “arrested apophaticism.” It denies, but only so far. By denying that God “exists,” an atheist might find it surprising to learn just how readily a Pseudo-Dionysius, or a Thomas Aquinas, or a Meister Eckhart would agree, all of whom deny that God can be said to “exist” in any univocal sense, i.e., as an existent among others. “It falls neither within the predicate of nonbeing nor of being,” writes Pseudo-Dionysius. “It is beyond assertion and denial.” Or the Angelic Doctor: “Now, because we cannot know what God is, but rather what He is not, we have no means for considering how God is, but rather how He is not.” Or Meister Eckhart with his typical homiletic daring: “For God is nothing: not in the sense of having no being. He is neither this nor that that one can speak of: He is being above all being. He is beingless being.”
To appreciate why such statements are not absurdities requires serious intellectual effort, and not a little intellectual humility. But it also entails a self-implicating discipline to fully explore. Along these lines, David Bentley Hart complains that those who seem the most confident in their public denunciations of theistic faith, and who routinely demand knock down proofs and empirical demonstrations, seem the “least willing to undertake the specific kinds of mental and spiritual discipline that all the great religious traditions say are required to find God.”
Hart is referring here to various public intellectuals who have gained notoriety for their atheistic (or even anti-theistic) stances, couched usually within a naturalistic worldview. The point is more broadly applicable than to vocal polemicists, however. The invitation includes anyone with a sincere interest—atheist, agnostic, and theist alike—in discovering what “God” might really refer to, or what it opens up for the genuine seeker. If truly serious in investigating the question of God from an experimental standpoint, and not only through argumentation, then one ought to be prepared for at least consulting those practical traditions that are exquisitely attuned for just such an exploration. Though by no means the only appropriate discipline to commend in this respect, Hart suggests that contemplative discipline “is peculiarly suited to (for want of a better word) an ‘empirical’ exploration of that mystery.” This is so because, as “a specific discipline of thought, desire, and action,” it is “one that frees the mind from habitual prejudices and appetites, and allows it to dwell in the gratuity and glory of all things.” Far from being anti-intellectual, the practice of contemplative prayer “is among the highest expressions of rationality possible, a science of consciousness and of its relation to the being of all things, requiring the most intense devotion of mind and will to a clear perception of being and consciousness in their unity.”
The appeal to science here is meant in the ancient sense of the term—as practical wisdom (phronesis) rather than technical mastery. For while there is an obvious sense in which contemplative practice is a discipline involving repeated acts of attending and discerning, often through the skillful coordination of body, heart, and mind, such repeated acts, as they become habitual, are not meant to acquire something special, whether peaceful feelings or discrete unitive experiences, but more simply to notice and gradually become released from the various compulsions to “have” or “do” or “be” anything at all.
