Dialogue and Via Negativa

By Fr. Tomas Maltus, OSB Cam

Dialogue is communion among persons who accept their differences and seek unity in the truth. Interreligious dialogue recognizes religious differences within the context of this common search. Unity is seen as both a given and a goal, but on the way the differences have positive value too.

Why do I, a Christian monk, engage in dialogue? Because it is here, in dialogue, that I find truth. Although I find truth first of all in my own religion, I am not forbidden to seek truth and to find it in what other persons and other religions say. But at the same time, I know that truth cannot be found, nor can there be dialogue, in the mixing together or the melting down of all religions into one amorphous mass.

Truth is found in dialogue, because it is found in communion. Truth, by its very nature, demands to be communicated and shared with others, even though sometimes a particular truth can seem impossible to put into words. Only those who seek the truth find it. The discovery of truth is the fruit of dialogue among seekers. Truth is betrayed by thinking that it is some kind of private property I can acquire on my own and for myself alone. No one has a first mortgage on truth. Truth is also betrayed by claiming to possess it in such a way that there is no longer any need to seek it. “I do not believe, I know!” has been taken to be the affirmation of a wise man, and it may be a kind of wisdom. But true wisdom is expressed by saying, “I seek to know, therefore I believe.”

The source of truth, as I know it and seek it, is God, who is existentially a communion and an intercommunication. The religion of the Trinity, Christianity, is a religion of dialogue. The truth of Christianity, as I see it, lies in its capacity for dialogue and communication. If the doctrine of the Trinity means anything beyond the statement that God is one being in three persons, it must mean that Christians are called to be a people in dialogue, seeking truth in such a way that they no longer need to seek it; and saying this, they imply that they no longer need to believe. Only a person of deep convictions can engage in dialogue. Only if I am deeply convinced of what I believe can I remain unthreatened when I discover truth in what others believe.

What does this mean for me as a monk? Christian monasticism defines itself as God-seeking. The monastic call arises from within the attitude of faith and the desire to know, which means a state of unknowing. Perseverance in the monastic search means abiding in faith and unknowing. And there is a higher unknowing which is a fruit of the monastic search.

To the monastic way of unknowing corresponds a theology called “apophatic,” also called “negative theology” or the via negativa. Apophatic theology does more than just deny of God the imperfections of creatures. It says that there is a mystery in God which cannot be affirmed at all in human terms. There is a profound abyss of meaning in God which the human mind cannot sound out.

Negative theology is more than just a special kind of discourse or “God-talk.” Monks have always appreciated the saying of Evagrius Ponticus: “If you truly pray you are a theologian; if you are a true theologian, you pray.” Theology is prayer; it is experience. In terms of experience the via negativa is the sense of the “divine darkness.” God is dark not just because He is an excess of light or because He exceeds the capacity of our faculties. God is dark not just because He is an excess of light or because He exceeds the capacity of our faculties. God is dark because He exceeds being.

The “theologian” par excellence is the author of the fourth gospel. The summit of Johannine theology is the confession of Thomas in chapter 20: “My Lord and my God!” This is theology without grammar or syntax. It may be taken as a prayer, and it is certainly the outward expression of what we can call a mystical experience.

Because of our Western cultural prejudices about what is or is not theology, we always want to add a subject and/or a predicate to the exclamation of Thomas. We want to make him say: “You are . . ., ” “I believe. . ., ” “Now I understand. . .,” “. . . is here,” “. . . did this.” Not that these additions are meaningless; nor would I say that they betray the sense of John 20:28. But to elaborate on the text in this way means to withdraw from the immediacy of the experiential moment, when we know that God is not only above names and above knowing, but also above being.

In other words, I find a special quality in the experience of God, as narrated in monastic writings, that implies a certain understanding of what it means to know God or to know anything. This understanding corresponds closely with the one implied in apophatic theology. And so, in my search for truth and God, I take as my guide the axioms of the via negativa: “If God is, we are not; if we are, God is not; God is not only above knowing; He is also above essence.”

Apophatic theology, then, leads to silence before God and silence about God—you might call it “adoration theology.” As such, it is a condition for true dialogue and for, dialogue in the search for what is true. Dialogue among religious truth-seekers, and especially among monastics of different religions, begins with silence, and then perhaps words can be exchanged. In our search for unity in truth through dialogue, we can best approach and understand our religious differences by the way of unknowing and of silence. Only in this way, I believe, can the recognition of our differences become an integral part of the search and a necessary stage on the way to the goal of unity in truth.