Phil Le Cheminant - Apophatic and Cataphatic Theology in The Cloud of Unknowing

In this essay, I will describe and critically analyze the author’s use of apophatic and cataphatic theology in The Cloud of Unknowing, commenting on the relationship between revelation, reason and mystery.

Apophatic and cataphatic

The Cloud is paradigmatically a method of apophatic contemplation. Hillary Kelleher offers us the words of Aquinas in the preface to his Summa Theologiae, “We cannot know what God is, but only what he is not.”[1]This is the undercurrent that runs through The Cloud. However, it must be observed that the anonymous author also makes recourse to cataphatic methods throughout. Harvey Egan writes, “Despite the apophatic emphasis of the Cloud, its kataphatic basis and moments stand out in bold relief.”[2]

The Cloud

Somewhat simplistically, the author categorizes people into four degrees of Christian living: “ordinary, extraordinary, unique, and ideal.”[3]Those transitioning from extraordinary to unique are led by the author down a path of spiritual contemplation reserved for the spiritually mature.[4]Here, the contemplator will “experience a darkness, a cloud of unknowing.”[5]This process is reminiscent of moving from ‘unconscious incompetence’ to ‘conscious incompetence’ as defined in the realm of psychology. Mary Frohlich reflects, “The more one knows God, the less one knows what one knows. The more one abandons oneself to God, the more one is ‘in the dark’ about what God is up to.”[6]

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[1]Aquinas, Summa Theologiae: Questions on God, ed. Brian Davies and Brian Leftow. Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 1st Part, Q. 3., cited by Hillary Kelleher, “'Light thy Darknes is': George Herbert and Negative Theology,” George Herbert Journal 28 (Fall 2004/Spring 2005)

[2]Harvey D. Egan, “Christian Apophatic and Kataphatic Mysticisms,” Theological Studies 39 (1978): 399–426, p. 409.

[3]Bernard Bangley, The Cloud of Unknowing (Brewster, Massachusetts: Paraclete Press, 2006), 3.

[4]Bangley, The Cloud, xix.

[5]Bangley, The Cloud, 6.

[6]Mary Frohlich, “What I Know and Don't Know: A Christian Reflects on Buddhist Practice,” Buddhist-Christian Studies 21 (2001): 37–41, p. 41.