We have spoken about the feminine side to advent, a time of waiting, of pregnancy, of gestating in the dark. The Godhead is feminine and is grounded in mystery more than history. It speaks, if it speaks at all, to the apophatic dimension of divinity.
Credit: FORS Team, 8.2-meter VLT Antu, ESO
The apophatic dimension of divinity is called by Meister Eckhart “superessential darkness that has no name and will never be given a name.”
What does that tell us? What does that mean?
That we should entertain the possibility that much God talk is too much talk and not enough listening. We can easily deceive ourselves by projecting our or our tribes’ wishes upon a deity who is far from divine at all. A good example is the Roman emperor wrapping himself in language of being filius dei, the “son of God.” (A temptation facing many emperors or aspiring emperors since as well.)
Eckhart prayed this way: “I pray God to rid me of God.”
That is very much a prayer to the apophatic Divinity. That we move beyond one’s culture’s or tribe’s version of Divinity to a deeper place, that we allow the deeper Divinity to arise from a place of deep darkness and mystery.
Early Christians fought the blasphemy and idolatry of the Roman emperor proclaiming himself the “son of God” and paid a price for their resistance in the coliseums of Rome and elsewhere in the empire. They felt that a true “son of God” ought to be such not by the decree of earthly kingdoms but by being “nearest to the heart of God” (Jn 1.18).
It was their calling to represent the God-heart which is about love and compassion and service and not power for power sake. “No one has ever seen God” they declare, (Jn. 1.18)–an apophatic statement indeed.
This can translate (it hasn’t always done so) into the flourishing of the mammal brain of kinship and caring and resisting the reptilian brain of “I win, the empire wins, power-over wins,” and “you obey our orders.” A history that the Jews and many other minorities were subjected to in Jesus’ day under the empire. And, sad to say, under so-called Christian empires.
The repose and darkness of Advent invite us into the mystery of the Godhead but also into the apophatic Divinity, the holiness of darkness. To be continued.
Adapted from Matthew Fox, “The Apophatic Divinity: Meister Eckhart Meets Buddhism via Thich Nhat Hanh,” in Meister Eckhart: A Mystic-Warrior for Our Times, pp. 35-56.
See also Fox, Meditations with Meister Eckhart, pp. 36ff.
To read a transcript of Matthew Fox’s video teaching, click HERE.
Banner Image: A black hole, the focal point of everything and nothing at the same time. Photo by Jacob Granneman on Unsplash.
Queries for Contemplation
How do you practice the presence of the apophatic Divinity in a season of solstice, advent and darkness? And beyond? What gods do you pray to be rid of at this time of history?
Recommended Reading
Meister Eckhart: A Mystic-Warrior For Our Time
While Matthew Fox recognizes that Meister Eckhart has influenced thinkers throughout history, he also wants to introduce Eckhart to today’s activists addressing contemporary crises. Toward that end, Fox creates dialogues between Eckhart and Carl Jung, Thich Nhat Hanh, Rabbi Heschel, Black Elk, Karl Marx, Rumi, Adrienne Rich, Dorothee Soelle, David Korten, Anita Roddick, Lily Yeh, M.C. Richards, and many others.
“Matthew Fox is perhaps the greatest writer on Meister Eckhart that has ever existed. (He) has successfully bridged a gap between Eckhart as a shamanistic personality and Eckhart as a post-modern mentor to the Inter-faith movement, to reveal just how cosmic Eckhart really is, and how remarkably relevant to today’s religious crisis! ” — Steven Herrmann, Author of Spiritual Democracy: The Wisdom of Early American Visionaries for the Journey Forward
Meditations with Meister Eckhart: A Centering Book
A centering book by Matthew Fox. This book of simple but rich meditations exemplifies the deep yet playful creation-centered spirituality of Meister Eckhart, Meister Eckhart was a 13th-century Dominican preacher who was a mystic, prophet, feminist, activist, defender of the poor, and advocate of creation-centered spirituality, who was condemned shortly after he died.
“These quiet presentations of spirituality are remarkable for their immediacy and clarity.” –Publishers Weekly.
17 thoughts on “Advent, Solstice and the Apophatic Divinity”
Matthew, You tell us today that the Godhead is feminine and “is grounded in mystery more than history.” [A great line I must say!] It speaks, if it speaks at all, to the apophatic dimension of divinity.” Apophatic means what can we know about God by way of negation, or as in Medieval Scholastic theology it was also called “via negativa”– meaning what we know about God, by knowing what God is not (i.e. we know that God is not finite or restricted by space. The apophatic dimension of divinity is called by Meister Eckhart “superessential darkness that has no name and will never be given a name.” Then you ask: “What does that tell us? What does that mean?” And this is your answer: “That we should entertain the possibility that much God talk is too much talk and not enough listening.” Yes, the via negativa is not only about silence–it is also about listening to the voices of others in the silence. You say that we need to “move beyond one’s culture’s or tribe’s version of Divinity to a deeper place,” and then you use the early Christian martyrs as an example of that, but the martyrs were dying for their tribes understanding, just as gnostic Christians refused to be martyrs because of the different view of the Divine in their tribe. And as for me personally, I read and write for my time of silence, and I want to let go of the need [or desire] for so many things…
i am trying to subscribe to daily readings but it wont let me. i mean it says subscribe below but below doesnt happen… Can you help please?!
Hi Bridget,
Thanks for reaching out! Would you please email Team@dailymeditationswithmatthewfox.org so we can get your correct email address and subscribe you? Thanks!
Matthew, you’ve done a great job as usual of reminding us and summarizing for us which gods we should get rid of! Meister Eckhart would be (his spirit is) very proud of you! The biggest god most humanity has had trouble getting rid of, and it’s a patriarchal value and sin, is our egocentricity where each individual is valued as more the center of our lives than the Godhead~God, our Divine Creator and Living Source~Sustenance! This toxic egocentricity separates us from the awareness/realization of the Presence of the Divine Love within us and among us in All of Living ongoing co-Creation~Evolution in our Loving Diverse Oneness and multidimensional/multiverse Cosmos, including our Sacred Mother Earth….
🔥💜🌎🙏
The statement, “The Godhead is more mystery than history… as well as “Divinity is superessential darkness”, speaks to me of the unknown. We humans generally aren’t very comfortable with mystery, with the unknown, with darkness. My sense is that for most people, to silently listen, just being with this mystery, this unknown, this superessential darkness, seems to be fearful.
We want answers to all our questions… who, what, where, why, and how is God… we want to know the TRUTH after all. It seems as if this endless seeking and searching for TRUTH, has somehow distracted us from the gifts to be found in mystery, the unknown and the superessential darkness… which I sense is more about being present in the moment, to the Divine essence through imagination, creativity and transformation… the letting go of history… the past… in order to bear forth and birth the unfolding, evolving emergence of something completely new.
I remember years ago, someone saying to me, the story of the Bible is a MYTH, as are all the other sacred books of religion. At the time, I was quite disturbed by this comment… being a seeker of TRUTH after all. What keeps rising to the surface, in response to todays query, “what God do you pray to be rid of in this time of history?”… is John Lennon’s song, IMAGINE… imagine there’s no religion….
Jeanette, Today you write: “What keeps rising to the surface, in response to todays query, ‘what God do you pray to be rid of in this time of history?’… is John Lennon’s song, IMAGINE… imagine there’s no religion….” Yes, imagine there’s no religion, rather only compassionate spirituality and mysticism…
“We have spoken about the feminine side to advent, a time of waiting, of pregnancy, of gestating in the dark”…
Reminds me of a poem I wrote for Advent issue of Catholic New Times several decades ago:
++++
In the fullness of time
she waits
watching for signs
afraid it is time
Her eyes can her strange
stomach stretched large
into life
Her fingers gently trace
limbs straining their
tight swaddling of flesh
World noises mingle then
wither away
she turns inward
she spins her own
cavernous space
it echoes with sounds of
the whole human race
In stillness she waits
a handmaid of time
false labour brings fear
and joy to her eyes
Contractions subside
The whole cosmos waits
breathless
Who is it this time?
I love you small stranger
I love you mySelf
this whole swollen
body is broken
for you
Life stirs within while
Death holds her hand
++++
As to Eckhardt warning against naming God, I am reminded of Moses at the Burning Bush….asking for the name of god… and being given the name “I AM WHO I AM.” In Hebrew: Hayah ash-er’ Hayah [to exist] and asher (ash-er’) a primitive relative pronoun meaning of every gender and number, also who, which, what, that; also (as an adverb and a conjunction) when, where, how ….
Source http://letusreason.org/Biblexp297.htm
Gwen, Thank you for sharing your Advent poem–it is just perfect for the occasion. And you are right, God’s “name” –“I AM WHO I AM” comes from the h Hebrew: “Hayah ash-er’ Hayah [to exist] and asher (ash-er’) a primitive relative pronoun meaning of every gender and number, also who, which, what, that; also (as an adverb and a conjunction) when, where, how ….” which sounds like a apophatic name…
Considered to be a statement hinting to it as a mystical experience, it’s also a majestic taste of the strangeness and mind-stretching nature of a traditional mystical revelation. And it’s presented in the Bible with a delicious twist of gentle humor: Moses, thinking himself to be very clever, tries to sneakily ask God to identify Himself (and clarify what type of nice, recognizable god He is). God’s answering revelation, which implies Moses fully participated mystically in it, hardly clarifies and profoundly astonishes. You can just imagine Moses’ response:
Moses: “So…..which god should I tell people was calling? Your name is…?”
God: “I AM that I AM.”
Moses: …..(long pause)…..”Oh.”…….(longer pause)…….”um……thanks……..”……..(sigh).
Jewish writers preserve and celebrate that eternal moment of mind-bending awe and astonishment by writing the Holy name as “G*d” as a reminder of the nature of that sacred mystical revelation given to Moses and to all people, and as a warning against shrinking God to fit our concepts.
Thank you Melinda.
I relate to the Jewish ‘take’ on things. Your few lines imagining Moses’ experience asking the question are delightful. I will follow your example in using “G*d”.
I know of several songwriters and poets who have written poem or song titled ‘I Am’ including Neil Diamond. I Am I cried, to no one there…. https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=neil+diamond+i+am&view=detail&mid=7EC4259A9148A0247D5D7EC4259A9148A0247D5D&FORM=VIRE0&PC=HCTS&cc=CA&setlang=en-US&PC=HCTS&cvid=9d2bfc325233470b99e03e9cf03efc16&qs=LT&nclid=D31183A2D2F69964620BBA0F34B21AF3&ts=1671498386462
Melinda, The way you have this laid out it could almost be a kind of “Talmudic” stand-up routine !!!–
Moses: “So…..which god should I tell people was calling? Your name is…?”
God: “I AM that I AM.”
Moses: …..(long pause)…..”Oh.”…….(longer pause)…….”um……thanks……..”……..(sigh).
I love it !!!
Sitting in a Quaker meeting some years ago, my friend would rise each Sunday as
a response to the affirmation “to live in the light,” with “may we, also, cherish the
dark.” A challenge for our society is to find other expressions to describe fear,
ignorance, evil and suffering than “darkness.” We must, also, consider the person
of color who bears the stigma that western society associates with darkness.
There is the toll this dichotomy takes on each of us living in a dualistic reality
that forces us out of shame to deny the mysterious and shadow-side of our
own soul life.
Marijo, What you say here is so true, and should not be forgotten: “We must, also, consider the person
of color who bears the stigma that western society associates with darkness. There is the toll this dichotomy takes on each of us living in a dualistic reality that forces us out of shame to deny the mysterious and shadow-side of our
own soul life.” Thank you for your comment !!!
Great Mystery, Divine LOVE revealed through Incarnation—both cosmic and human… https://cac.org/daily-meditations/the-second-incarnation-flows-from-the-first-2022-12-19/
Silence is the only way to experience the Divine in any season. I agree with Marijo that we need to be very cautious about darkness being a negative thing and stress the mystery and beauty of it–all things gestate in darkness, animal and plant alike.
There are no God’s to ‘get rid of’ if we purposely and consciously ask to desire to act and move from knowing to unknowing, move from untruth to truth, move from ignorance to enlightenment. This all involves living with the certainty of uncertainty. Why? Because what we know is limited and to not know allows the limited to expand in all directions. We don’t know what we don’t know because we don’t know what we don’t know.
Take the smartest, most clever and information absorbing intellect. Ask them to describe the names of the top academics that will be awarded at a university anywhere in the world. That person just does not know. Do they know who that might be at the nearest university? Maybe, the point is that there is infinitely more that we do not know about the world, its 8 billion inhabitants and the universe than we can ever know if our flesh and bones body even with the brightest of minds. And that is ok, because we only need to know what is within and that takes us everywhere else.
It is best to shut our eyes and see the darkness, a dark slate. On that slate start to think of something that is impossible for you to know. Now we have drawn a blank and that is ok if we stay there as long as we can. When we start to think again, we ask ourselves another impossible question to answer. Now we can become comfortable about not needing to know. Now we can be ‘present’ to nothing and everything can flow through us. — BB
Bill, Thank you for your comment. I would just like to make a couple of comments myself. You write with reference to Eckhart’s statement: ” “I pray God to rid me of God”—“Maybe, the point is that there is infinitely more that we do not know about the world, its 8 billion inhabitants and the universe than we can ever know if our flesh and bones body even with the brightest of minds. And that is ok, because we only need to know what is within and that takes us everywhere else.” I think that is Eckhart’s point. So, when you say that: “There are no God’s to ‘get rid of’”–there are, if our views of God our wrong–seeing God as not all-loving or vengeful or finite. But then you say: “if we purposely and consciously ask to desire to act and move from knowing to unknowing, move from untruth to truth, move from ignorance to enlightenment. This all involves living with the certainty of uncertainty.” And this is an admission that we need to be freed from wrong views of God. The idea of the apophatic God is that while we may not know everything God is, we can know what God is not…