Apophatic Theology (The Starry Void)

Apophatic thinking is like describing a secret present by saying what it is not. It is not heavy, it is not loud, it is not a toy. By crossing out all the wrong things, you get closer and closer to the truth without ever having to put it in a tiny box. Faith is often like this. God or the universal truth is so big that our words are too small to catch it. Doubt is just us crossing out the small ideas that are not big enough to be true. It is okay if the truth is a mystery — mysteries are what make life an adventure.

It is okay if the truth is a mystery — mysteries are what make life an adventure. God is not a man. Okay, cross it out. God is not a woman. Cross it out. God is not a place. Cross it out. God is not a thing. Cross it out. Every time you cross out what God is not, what remains gets bigger. Not smaller. This is the secret of apophatic theology. Subtraction leads to expansion. The box gets bigger every time you remove a wall. Eventually there are no walls. And what is left is everything. The mystery is not the enemy of faith. The mystery is the fuel of faith.

Apophaticism (via negativa): approaching the divine through negation. Active set thresholding — removing noise and false positives to find the unique truth that remains. By acknowledging what we cannot know (the epsilon), we increase the informativeness of what remains. Subtraction leads to expansion. The mystery is not the enemy of faith. The mystery is the fuel of faith.

SOUND: The ringing in your ears when it is too quiet: the sound of your brain trying to hear what has no sound.

SMELL: The smell of snow — which is actually just very clean air: purity defined by what is absent.

TASTE: Your mouth after a miracle berry: reality rearranged on the tongue.

TOUCH: Moving your hand through a cloud of steam: touching something that is there and not there.

SIGHT: A negative space drawing: seeing the shape by seeing what surrounds it.

BODY: Floating in water where you cannot feel your weight: the body experiencing what it means to have boundaries disappear.

Music: Lord I Need You by Matt Maher

Part of Faith & Doubt — RELIGION — Education Revelation