Pseudo-Dionysius

hello and welcome this is the history of medieval philosophy and my name is Marc Doris beam in this video we're gonna be taking a look at the problem of reason and mysticism in early medieval Christian philosophy in particular we're gonna take a look at boethius's discussion of the Trinity and then finally we'll look at pseudo-dionysius there up a guide in terms of in terms of that work or that authors writing on Christian mysticism and so really at the core of the discussion today is the role of Reason in its relationship to theology and ultimately to the philosophy of God if you will so let's begin by articulating let me begin by articulating the framework by which I want us to begin to look at these two writings the first is the key prompt for medieval thinkers concerns the relationship between our natural ability to reason in the edicts faith and so one of the things we need to do is clarify what that relationship is one of the questions we could ask for instance is what is the logical priority is it reason or is it faith or what is our piston illogical States in terms of philosophy versus theology so because on the one hand if we decide to go with our reasoning then it looks like what we have to ultimately articulate is we have to ask what can be known through reason and what cannot be known through reason and this is where we'll bump up against the idea of religious mysticism but on the other hand if we say that faith ultimately has our logical priority then it looks like that the edicts of faith should ultimately organize what we understand now it is important here to recognize though we won't see the author's in these passages actually making this distinction but it's poor to recognize that there is perhaps a role though we might call natural theology where a natural feel theology is a theology that was similar to Aristotle's I'd move mover that articulates some notion of the divine but ultimately purely as a consequence of reasoning and nothing else this is not the case in the Middle Ages because as Christians and then of course if we're gonna later on we're gonna be looking at is longing philosophy and so as Muslims or when we look at a Jewish philosophy or as Jews well we have to ask is what is the role here what which one of these is is going to be driving our discussion is it going to be reason or is it gonna be these edicts of faith and how are the two related for instance when I talk about logical priority two things can occur at the same time but one can have a logical priority over another so for instance yeah when I'm driving my car having gas in the tank is logical priority to my pushing down the accelerator pedal because the accelerator pedal can only work so long as there's gas in the car but notice it's not a it's not a priority in terms of time because you have to have both of them at the same time but we would say the fuel has logical priorities so organized differently we could say what is our priority here is it what can be known through reason or is it the edicts of faith so for instance one of the things we're gonna look at in particular is the Trinity and the Trinity and Christian and philosophy is a notable problem for Christians and which is not a problem for the Jewish or Islamic philosophers in fact there's long flies philosophers we'll see later on are very critical of the Christian theologians precisely because of this notion of the Trinity as well as the idea that God becomes man so what is the Trinity well the Trinity refers to the idea that God is one right God's infinite God is a sort of super substance as I'm sorry a simple substance and we saw this discussed in the consolations of philosophy with boethius but the other notion here is the God is also three persons in classical Christian theology so God is both God his father got his son and got his spirit so there's seven who were three persons of God and so we end up with this sort of paradox where if God is both one and God is three which is on the one hand a contradiction but when you affirm a contradiction in both ways you doubly affirm a contradiction you have a paradox so we have here as a paradox and what and what are we going to do with the paradox well if we really just in this to illustrate my discussion it's not in the writings I'm talking about here but if we really want to say that our reason is what should guide us then that means that a paradox is actually a contradiction a contradiction has to be false so we should reject the notion of Trinity without be the most rational conclusion but you can see faith here would argue that that the Trinity is a consequence of Revelation God has told us so it is it's a divine mystery that we need to treat as being true but this raises the question whether or not theology is actually a type of sophistries in which ultimately reason is just in service of justifying things which are already taken to be is true and this raises some very serious questions regarding the nature the epistemological nature of theology and then what exactly is going on there on the other hand if we move over to the notion of religious mysticism well we're gonna see is that you can keep reason in place but we have to recognize that gods truly transcendent and it say that gods truly transcendent is to enter into a religious mysticism in which ultimately God is beyond all knowledge God is beyond all articulation in fact God is beyond all theology and we're gonna see this is an early sort of interesting insight where the idea that we're gonna see it's being propelled in a religious missis's in your with Dionysius is the idea that ultimately God is like a dark cloud of unknowing in which ultimately God transcends our transcends the spirit as well as the body and ultimately God is beyond our reasons as much as he's beyond our sensation and in that regard ultimately one the only way in which one can has a word gain knowledge of God is by actually ceasing thought and ceasing these things so a sort of divine religious mystery so we're gonna talk about that today as well so let's sort of jump in and look at boethius now boethius we're only looking at his passages on the Trinity and so so that's so we're not gonna do a full-fledged video here on the Trinity but we're gonna start here with the training and you're gonna see how the Trinity raises in boethius a number of important questions which ultimately will point us in the direction of what looks like religious mysticism now I don't want to be overly simplistic here Boethius is not a religious mystic and so but we're just coupling the readings together so as I mentioned before the Trinity asserts that God is three persons but one God so God is three and one so the booyah this begins by saying okay so you how we have this notion of the Trinity what does that mean how can it be the case that God is simple substance and that's what we saw in the consolations of philosophy but the God is one well it means that we have to first understand what difference is because to say that anything is a multiple or something else is ultimately to distinguish something that has difference now when I say that something has difference or rather policías gives the example that things things which can be things which have difference are things which can be augmented or they can be diminished that you can add to them you can take away from them but in terms of taking away and adding that would mean that would be the notion that that not God is three but anything that is plural has difference in its plural that means we're trying to augment ation or diminishment in terms of the substance of something so for instance I can put up here three cups of coffee for instance and you recognize that there are three different things because they're different and they're different because they can be changed in various ways and we can recognize them they're even different in terms of their very place so that to first understand this distinction between unity and plurality now something very very I think insightful and important gets mentioned and that's the notion of plurality and the principle of plurality boethius argues these other nests other nasir is the notion that i am me and everything else outside of me is an other to me in philosophy this is what we call the problem of alterity or the problem of other nests right and and the principle of plurality is the idea that there can be others so you can't have a plurality without a division between being and some sense right so for instance if if if you found something that which was undividable in principle then that would mean that it has a unity this at bottom that can't be differentiated right notice the language there without division you don't have differentiation without differentiation you don't have plurality so the principle of plurality is other nests in every plurality also has a diversity within it so for instance we can talk our theses argument here is that a plurality can be understood in terms of its genus in terms of its species or in terms of its number and we're gonna see that boy he's gonna break these down for us but the argument here is really about our language our language we can refer to the plurality of things by talking about the the essence of which it shares with other things we can talk about what it is as opposed to other things we can also talk about its numeration or its quantity so we get this distinction importantly between what we might say is the difference between the same and the other or the diverse and I would prefer the distance between the same and the other but ultimately the language boëthius chooses is the difference between sameness and diversity the diverse okay so let's talk about sameness to start the same something can be said to be the same in three different ways right first is the genus way where you can say for instance human and horses are the same insofar as they're both mammals right so notice I can understand sameness in terms of its genus right the second is I can understand the same as in terms of its species so I can say Kato and Kato is the same as Cicero in the sense that both of them were men that lived during the Roman Empire right so they're both species of human right and we can also differentiate the same things can be said to be the same in terms of their number so maybe I see Tully and Cicero standing over there and I say totally and sister are both the here the same they're both counted as being the same so I can even understand things as being the same in terms of their quantities now diversity or other nasir can also be broken down in these same three categories now the genus and species one is pretty clear right because I can say that humans and horses are different types of what I can say let's let's maybe the mics man it's example of easier to if those humans and reptiles are different because they're both have different genus now humans and horses also have different genus at least if team the biological schema that gets used but you can differentiate in terms the genus you can also differentiate in terms of the species so Kate is not the same person as Cicero right so Cato and Cicero may be of the same genus but they're different in terms of their species right if I just think of them as different individuals and then you can also understand things in terms of their difference by their number and this is pretty much the way which we principally think about difference in diversity is in terms of the number the quantity an example that Boethius focuses on here is the notion of the variety of accidents so for instance I'm a human being but there's different features I have which are not necessary for me so the accidental is opposed to the necessary that's the first thing we can recognize so for instance I'm a human being which means that I have to have a brain and eyes and I have to have at least a brain and I have to have a nervous system and the genetic structure etc etc that's indicative of human beings but notice there are other features of me which are purely accidental so for instance I have blue eyes and sort of brown hair but those are accidental features because they could change well they're not going to change but if they were different it wouldn't change the fact that I'm a human being so for instance so we can focus on the notion that every being has different accidental features and we recognize the differences of individuals by these features but the important thing here is that it's not just a distinction in terms of the mind because each of these accidents quite simply has a different place within space and time so the features are not the same so they can be truly enumerated so there's both is just sort of getting us to understand the basic framework for understanding the difference between oneness the monotheism of God holds meaning and plurality the three personhood nature of God so now let's talk about the Trinity in particular or less says Louise here it says let us begin and investigate each point insofar as it can be understood in grasped for it seems most well said that it is the learned man's job to try to adopt a belief about each thing that conforms to the way it is so that means that in order for us to articulate what we think about the Trinity well we first have to do is what to figure out the way it is ultimately and the way God is and we're gonna see ultimately that I don't think that Boyd is I know he doesn't solve the mystery of the Trinity but what he does really spend his time coming to the conclusion of is that God has to be one and God has to be a unified substance without diversity so this sort of raises some difficulty here right how our ultimen is supposed to understand the training but let's take it in terms okay well first boethiah says there's three parts of speculative science now speculative science obviously what we're gonna see here is that is science being the the attempt to understand how things are in speculative mean i suppose for this in this case speculate in the sense that we have to know how things are beyond with the way we normally take them and so the first thing way we can understand the science is in terms of the nature of something right the natural science of something and a natural property is not abstract it's in motion and it's ultimately form together with matter and this is a really really important feature here is again the emphasis here is that boethius is well well-read in terms of Aristotle's metaphysics and Aristotle's metaphysics and I'll talk about this in a little bit really distinguish the difference between form versus matter so for Aristotle everything that exists has both form another so here's an example I've got this book here at history of philosophy by Roger coppleson great essay on the stuff we're reading today or create excerpts about in summaries but this below this is a book so it's one thing which has existence but that existence can be broken down analytically into into on the one hand it's a matter it's made of stuff it's material composition but on the other hand that matter has a certain form a structure to it so the natural non abstract science studies things which are not abstract and in motion where the form is taken as being together with the merits altogether so think about the way in which a botanist treats a plant right they're interesting the idea of both the form and the matter of the plant the other way in which a specular science can approach its subject matter is mathematics for boethius now mathematics he says is not studies the non abstract and things which are but there are things which are not in motion now they're not abstract because for instance we can study for instance the size of things you can measure something as it were and that's not an abstraction as it were but it's not in motion either because mathematics ultimately studies form without motion or rather yeah form without motion because mathematics the forms don't change right the Pythagorean theorem is not changing but it's also not just a pure abstraction now you have to notice here when I say non abstract or when boethiah says no now he's trying he doesn't mean abstract in the really generic way that most people would think of abstract as because in another way you might say all of this is abstract but that's not his claim the third possible science is the science which studies the theological and the theological here we can identify as being God's substance or the infinite substance now the theological has no motion but it is abstract why is it abstract because the theological is not grounded God is not grounded as being a sensible object in space right and you can never you can't count God he can't look at God you can't sense God God is purely something which is known intellectually as a word I'm at least in the theological scientific sense the other thing is that the theological studies the separable qualities of God as it were right and notice here that the notion of the Trinity is the theological claim it's not a natural claim it's not a mathematical claim so part of what Boethius is doing here it is getting us to first recognize that within the order of science that one is doing because there's different objects and that because there's different objects of study for a particular science that means that there's going to be different relationships of reason within that science and certain things will be taken for granted and other things won't be for instance now each discipline that means approaches its subject matter differently but always according to the object of its own study so for instance the natural always precedes in what we says is a rational manner mathematics proceeds in what he says is a disciplined manner whereas the theological proceeds in what he calls an intellectual manner now it's pretty clear here that rational disciplined and intellectual are taken to be three different things and exemplified in each of these three different domains or Sciences now this is somewhat difficult for us because we typically do not think of it the sense for us in the modern world most of the time when we talk about something being a rational manner we mean in the same sense that it's also intellectual and if its intellectual and rational we also recognize it's disciplined so in that from the modern perspective at least from my perspective in terms of reading it I'm not exactly sure about how these different distinctions break down probably the closest answer here would have us take a look at the work of Aristotle but let's take a look what does boëthius say about what the intellectual manner is quote therefore with topics and Natural Science one we have to proceed in a rational manner with mathematics in a disciplined manner with divine topics in an intellectual manner and not be drawn away to the products of imagination but rather gaze upon the very form that is truly a form and not an image and that is being itself and that from which being comes so ok the rational manner right seeks to understand the way in which the form and matter of things are organized in a rational way mathematics proceeds because it has no motion it uses quanta as it were units and so it has to be disciplined in terms of the way it uses those units as I guess or as the intellectual since the object of the theological is purely form and it is not matter and it is not most that in its purely abstract that means that the intellectual must be that which is really most closely tied to the to the to the non sensible as it were and things which are not in motion there's a way in which this is all very reminiscent of the neoplatonism of the fits early fifth century here so this is sort of quickly where we begin to see a greater discussion of the distinction between form and matter and I already mentioned what form in matter is an Aristotle take a look at my other video if you like right but the first thing here is both his measures that every being is from form now this is really important because if we take this just in between form and matter and for instance here is a broad statue of a person or happily that's a person a man and you can recognize here is that if you ask yourself what is that pause the video pull someone in interior and to look at your phone or your computer and ask them what is that and they're gonna say it's a statue right and ask yourself how's the person can look at that picture and know that it's a picture of a statue well do you know it from the bronze right well not really because bronze enos as such doesn't make it's not the bronze that helps us see that it's a statue what it is is we recognize that it's the form of a man cast in bronze so in other words the statue ultimately in order to have the the comprehensibility or the cognition of a statue we actually have to go and understand the form of something not just the matter now that doesn't change the fact that the bronze that the form of a man has to be cast in some type of matter in this case bronze and it also doesn't change the fact that anything that's material is always informed so there's a relationship between form of matter which is always sort of one in the same as it were but if we're to ask ourselves which one of these is more fundamental that obvious for the for abstract ideas and which one is more fundamental in terms of our cognition of things the answer is clearly form now in so for instance boethiah says nothing is said to be because of its matter but because of its proper form so that means that form Trump's matter and in this one if you go back to the idea of the theological science if theology is ultimately under seeking knowledge of the divine substance which has no matter but its only form then it's quite clear here that that means that it's cognition that enables this and so hence it's it's the intelligibility of it which ultimately that's why you if not rat is rational but it's about just pure intelligibility so we can say is that the divine substance is form without matter but that means that it has to be one Boethius gives this quote we're gonna break it down here in just a minute he says for each thing has its being from the things of which it's made up of that is from its parts and is that and that that is its parts aren't joined together but not this or that taken singly so in other words it's not just the parts that are important it's not just the matter that's important or the form that's just important but it's both of them taken together right that's essential here now this raises the question of what is the this nosov god right so let's break this down and or this helpfully theists breaks it down you can start off with the human being right a human has two parts of to them as it were probably this a human has a soul and a body right and then we also have enough from but we have a form and matter right our body really refers to the material part of us and the soul is the form of us but we're both simultaneously so we can understand that for the human the soul in the body as being but this into that so the human is not a true unity though right because the human human is both soul and body not by the way notice here that whereas the Trinity is this concept that God is one and it seems to cause lots of problems most people don't seem to have a problem to say that a human is both soul and body right be theist certainly doesn't have a problem saying that so one of the questions here is is boëthius interested in extending this natural logic between parts and wholes to God now ultimately can't simply do that because God is a simple substance but we'll talk about that well it's right here actually right so what is God well God is ultimately a simple unity of form right because God has no parts because God has no matter which means you can't add to God or take away from God God is purely essence and being simultaneously so that means that God has two gods form must be a simple unity it's just one thing through and through because if it wasn't a one thing through and through then it could be God right so a simple unity for Boethius is the truest and the most beautiful and the strongest because it doesn't depend upon anything now remember here when we were studying the consolations of philosophy what we saw there was the notion that God is self-sufficient so make that make sense now right because a simple unity that you can't add or take away from is self-sufficient it is enough all on its own as it were so that means that if we're to talk about God the divine substance has no number and it has no subject now this is important what is be with you is talking about here well when we we in logically make claims we typically take a subject and then we predicate something to that subject right so for instance I can say this book has a softcover book right so what I've done there is I've made a subject the book and I've now taken a predicate or talked about it's accidental features in some way right that it has a soft cover it has a soft cover and I've essentially applied and synthesized those two concepts together right because every subject it can be you can predicate something of any subjects which means that if you you can add as it were to add or negate from the subject of something but in a strict metaphysical sense the divine substance since it's one single unity and you can't add or take away from it that means it's not strictly speaking a subject it's not a subject not in the ordinary sense so that means that when I say God is three notice that the structure of that says I'm treating God as a subject and trying to predicate 3 to God right but the thing here is that since God is a simple essence a perfect unity that cannot be subjected that means that there's no statement the in which you can logically predicate anything of it so that means that when I say God is 3 it's quite literally a type of nonsense right now God is a form without manner matter and that means that God cannot be a subject and then and furthermore a form that is treated as a subject is actually an image so what Boethius things is that it's not so much that God is 3 but that we're confusing the image of God with the image of 3 so you can see believe theist is really sort of beginning to try to break down the way in which language becomes its own set of hurdles for us conceptually now that means that in God there can be no diversity there can be no multiplicity of accidental features and there can be no number so at the end of the day but if this is really protecting the idea of monotheism here right what boy who certainly would not want to do is argue that God is something else besides this simple substance so that's important so let me just take a look here and at the actual passage I'll just gonna read the parts they're highlighted right who atheist argues therefore that is truly one in which there is no number in which there is nothing besides what is neither can it be a subject for it is a form and forms cannot be subjects but a form that is without matter cannot be a subject and cannot be in matter for otherwise I'm sorry for it would not be a form but an image therefore in him in God there is no diversity and no plurality arising from diversity and there's no multitude from accidents and so there is no number and the way I understand it is that ultimately when we take the logic of God seriously in this theological sense right that God is a simple unity that can have no predications and knows ends is therefore not a subject that means that when we talk about the idea that God is through that the Trinity really seems to go beyond our reasoning or in some sense it has to be understand differently from our reasonings right or guys that have here right and therefore in order for the cause of the train to make sense it cannot assert any accidents or plurality of God so either the Trinity on the one hand false right if we think the Trini means that God is one and three or one equals three that has to either be false or it means something else entirely and it means something that we cannot fully articulate and so this brings us to the idea of mysticisms of pseudo-dionysius the airport guide in and I have to say a little bit by word about this the first is that boëthius that's all the rides on believe this we're gonna take like look at in terms of the Trinity and there's not always a natural progression between these two thinkers so I don't want you to think that these two writings are necessarily related to each other but I want you to see that the subject matter compels us to ask the question of mysticism that is what exactly can we really know then if about these edicts of faith can theology or philosophy even touch these sorts of divine mysteries as it were now pseudo-dionysius now why is it as you know pseudo means false and so this means the mysticism of the false down you see is the airpo guide and this is a this comes from a riding from the early 5th I'm sorry from the late 5th and early 6th century AD and it was this writing was originally attributed as being an authentic writing to Dani CEA's of Greece and in fact if you look in the New Testament of the Christian Bible and you read acts 17 you see that st. Paul proclaim is one of the apart of the late apostles one of Jesus I guess 12 or 13 apostles in which Paul proclaims Christ he actually goes to Athens and he goes to so so for this is a picture of Athens right here and up here this is the Acropolis and this is the Parthenon parthenons well back but you can't see the partner butts back here over here is the this is the temple of nike I believe I forgot the name of this temple but this is the Acropolis in downtown Athens but this is sort of a park you just climbed down the hill and right here is this hill now the hill has traditionally been known as Mars Hill but that was that was that's the Roman name for the hill but it's also called the airpo kites and what would frequently happen is that that well this case Paul was in Athens and he was talking to people about Christianity and trying to convert people to Christianity and he was invited by the Epicureans and the Stoics philosophers to come stand on this hill because you can look out over a large crowd stand on this hill and then explain for instance the monotheism of the Christian faith and so famously Paul actually the historical Paul really did go to this hill and give this speech and but here's where it sort of turns to legend a little bit which is supposedly there wasn't a lot of converts that day but down easiest was converted and he eventually became known as Dionysius the airpo kite and that's because that's the airport that's the arc of the ax which is the same thing is the name of the hill so this is one of the converts the Philosopher's who was converted now we it's called pseudo-dionysius here because we know that this was written in the 5th century because of its grammatical structure so that's you know 500 years or 450 years after the death of Christ so it's highly and because of the current grammar that we know that it actually wasn't written it so we know for instance that this writing is not an authentic writing from someone who lived in the first century but enduring antiquity late antiquity it was treated as authentic and people believed it it was the author claims to have been taught by Paul personally the authors also addresses the other apostles as well as the other as well as other members of the early church then it's also there's a reference not in the text we're looking at but in the text attributed to this thinker that they actually attended the funeral of the Virgin Mary and that they observed celestial phenomena during the crucifixion and so all of these though it's sort of the whoever it is who wrote this claimed to have really been right at the heart of the early Christian Church it seems highly unlikely for us today maybe maybe there's some truth in it we don't really know but we do know that in the antiquity late antiquity they did treat this text as actually being the real deal we think it's when we take a look at now scholars recognized within the text there's a strong evidence on this sort of 5th century neoplatonism that we see other philosophers in particularly pro kleh arguing in fact we think that this text is highly influenced by the mystical theology of pro CLIs so there's some question there as proquest not necessarily real author but is he really the source material for this we don't know some of the key emphases that take place in this text is obviously the discussion of mystical theology the notion of the transcendence of God but importantly the in capability of the human intellect to ultimately cog knives God we're also going to see I'm gonna review this here rather than as I go through the text that there's really three ways in which we can talk about the divine substance the way we can talk about about God either we can talk about God or have knowledge of God in terms of the via affirmative ax the affirmative way and that's when we understand God is having positive characteristics so when I say God is love right notice I'm just taking the subject God and then I'm predicating a positive characteristic to that substance or that subject so this is when we articulate or gain knowledge or make claims about God in the positive sense this is the via affirmative ax now the other possibility and this is the more common way probably particularly for natural theology is the Vietnam oh we're gonna see this come back a lot particularly in the work of Aquinas later on the via negativa is the idea that we can gain knowledge of God by reasoning what God is not and that as we understand increasingly what God is not we gain by default a greater or a more precise picture of what God is or who God is and this is important because if God is infinite I think if I say God is infant it really what I'm saying is God is not finite right if God is not finite then whatever's left is what God is and in this case of course that means that to say God is infinite is actually a via a statement that's via negativa as it were and then the final one we're going to see is the possibility of the via and the net tshe and I probably mispronouncing that because I don't speak Latin but we can say is this would be via God's imminence and this is when we make expressions or statements about the being of God in in terms of recognizing God's being in God's transcendence so we recognize the beyond nature of God so we're gonna see that these three things are gonna play a pretty important role here in the way in which this mystical theology gets laid out now the text itself is actually fairly short it's five short chapters I mean it's called the mystical theology and the mystical theology really represents I guess probably the yeah the theological argument regarding what why it is that or how it is that God is ultimately a mystery to be contemplated but not a concept to be cognizant understood now the five different chapters the first chapter here concerns what is the divine darkness and their woman he talks about the divine darkness what we're gonna see is that ultimately we have to recognize that God cannot be understood and that means that God is a sort of darkness actually where are they in which are the light of reason as where it can not penetrate the second chapter concerned is titled how one must be united with and tell the cause of the all which is above all things so there the question is how can we be united in understanding God or not in understand but how could be united with God I should say and then number three is where we see a discussion of what theology is and what the affirmative the negative theology is ultimately are we're gonna see that mystical theology ultimately utilize the via negativa and moving towards ultimately the via the eminent way in Chapter four we see a discussion of the cause and super abundance the notion that God cannot be a sensible thing and then in chapter 5 we see the argument that God cannot be an intelligible thing so God is neither sensible nor is God intelligible hence God is this divine darkness so let's sort of take it through the here's a quote here from the this sort of entry in intro passages quote they're like hidden the simple unconditioned and unchanged mysteries of theology that outshine in deepest darkness what is most super brilliant and that in the holy intangible and invisible fill eyeless intellects to overflowing with super beautiful splendors so the notion here is that the divine darkness then we're talking about this notion of what God is and what we can't comprehend of God actually outshines the rational clarity the theology might give us about God so the divine darkness here is preeminent and it's it's so super abundant that even in its darkness it just shines greater than all the positive truths we might talk about God in this first chapter we also see an exhortation to Timothy who's really important early Christian thinker we're actually there one of the books of the Bible is named after and Dionysius says here's that he says the Timothy needs to leave behind sensations and intellectual activities and leave behind all the sensible and the intelligible things all the non beings and beings and be lifted up in an in an unknowable manner to the unity of what is above all being and knowledge so we're talking about something that's very difficult to talk about he says that ultimately what one has to do if they're to try to understand God in God's transcendence if they have to leave behind the notion of something else in the notion of nothingness they have to leave behind the notion that you can sense things and you can think things that there's being and non-being alike so what are we talking about there well in the one hand you don't really know and that's the darkness part of it now one of the things that Dionysius says here is that this is not an argument for the uninitiated that is not an argument for someone who is who is not ready to understand this argument and who are the initiated well the uninitiated are those persons who are quote tangled up in being and he thinks that what do we mean by tangled up and being well Tunisia says quote those who imagine that there is nothing super substantially above beings but rather think that by their own they can know him so here we see a sort of direct sweat against the notion of the via positive our firm ateva the notion that we can attribute affirmative positive characteristics of God particularly if we use our own knowledge and our knowledge of beings in the world of things that form and matter and we use that as our means of gaining knowledge he thinks that that's when you're tangled up and being because ultimately God is both beyond non-being nothingness but he's also beyond being and think of it if God is the cause of all beings if God creates the material world then God cannot be minute the material world God has to be transcendent of it right and the other in the same thing goes here with in terms of our intellect and our reason reasoning is something that God created if God created it then God is not in itself or herself or himself actually reason right God is beyond it so the cause of all beings is is beyond both non-being and peeing so it's not for the uninitiated because it's very difficult to understand there's another one here right so that means that mystical theology is on the one hand the greatest of theologies because it concerns that which is most is the cause of all things but it's also the smallest of theologies because it's not a theology that can actually articulate much right because what it is is mystical theology recognizes that God cannot in the strict sense actually be thought and here take a look at this quote where with dionysia says the good cause of all is both loquacious and taciturn and speechless as possessing neither speech nor understanding because it's super substantially lies above all things and appears truly and without disguise only to those who cross over all things polluted and pure climb above every ascent of all the holy Peaks leave behind all divine lights and sounds in heavenly words and enter into the darkness where as the scripture says he truly is who is above all whoops sorry my things thrown out of whack here okay and then he and then he gives the example of Moses right so when Moses meets God Moses climbs up the mountain and but he's not even allowed to see God right and here's the point is that Dionysius says that God cannot Moses cannot see God even at the highest point neither can we write mystical theology recognized that at God's highest point there is the one of whom no one can look as it were let's see here I think this is all out of whack here hold on okay sorry my apologies I somehow got lost there okay now I think this signifies that the most I'm sorry in the discussion Dionysia says quote I think that this signifies that the most divine and highest of things that are seen and understood are certainly subordinate reasons of things subject to what surpasses all so there the idea is that whatever is seen and known falls under that wishes surpasses all of them so that means that in order to gain knowledge of God for mystical theology the mystic has to a abandoned things that are seen you have to abandon the object of things but it's also been in the idea that there's one who sees you have to abandon the subject right and then that means only when both the subject and the object to the scene and the seer a band are abandoned can one enter into this mystical darkness of the unknown take a look at this quote he shuts out all cognitive apprehensions and emerges in the altogether intangible and in by the inactivity of all knowledge he is united in his better part with the entirely unknown and by knowing nothing he knows super intellectually so the notion of divine mysticism here right really demonstrates that there's a type of mystical practice going on the inactivity of all knowledge is a contemplation of the divine essence essentially and I think what we really have in mind here is you can understand this as ultimately type of meditative practice and I think that's there's there's a very close link here between what's being argued and ultimately what some Buddhists would argue no it's not the same and so I don't want to reduce those two together but the mysticism of the Christian early Christians here is very similar to the notion of the Buddhists who says that you have to recognize that there is no scene and there is no seer right there's only that which is beyond all of it and that seems to be the same insight so then the question is what's the method how can one actually gain this type of knowledge what does that mean well for down Nice's this means that the method comes through a blindness and unknowingness there's a blindness to it where you can't see God or understand God and that means you don't actually have knowledge of God so that means that the seen and the known so you see and no you see and no the not seeing and they're not knowing right so at the its pinnacle peak here what we see is that religious mysticism seems to articulate its own type of paradox where the only way in to gain the only way to see God indicating to have knowledge of God is by not seeing and not knowing so it's a sight beyond sight and knowledge itself it's a transcendental sight or if you will if the via a monisha right it's the knowledge of God through God's imminent presence to you right and that eminent presence is the divine darkness for he says this is really to see and to know because the truth of seeing and knowing lies in the super substantiality of God's being God is neither being nor none got a super substantial and that this is ultimately what true knowledge that lies in so this raises the question what are all these affirmative and negative theologies how can we understand them so you can sort of what Dionysian says is sort of recognize there's three different types of theologies the first is what he will he actually in particulars referencing text and he references with a text called the theological outlines which basically states all the core Christian teachings right that God is one God came to earth God Christ died for you and I saw it so on and so forth so you have these core theological teachings so this is the first stage of theology Christian theology and this theological stage is one in which it's it's a lot of subject-predicate statements it's a via positiva right and then he then mentions there's another type of theology and here Emerson's a book called the symbolic theology which basically takes the core Christian teachings and extrapolates them characteristics of God's divine essence or God's form thinking about the notion that God is a sort of mathematical infinite what might that mean this is sort of symbolic theology but notice that when you go from the theological outlines to the symbolic theology you're slowly shedding your ability to have sensible and intelligible knowledge and the highest form of theology is what the author claims is mystical theology but mystical theology in its greatest sense is transcends the variability of speech itself there is no speech he says quote for to the extent that we raise our heads toward the uphill slope general views of the intelligible just as even now and we enter into the darkness above intellect we shall find not brevity but total speechlessness and total absence of thought so the goal here mystical theology is ultimately to to to cease thought because thought cannot be God and because thought cannot be God only by ceasing speech and ceasing your thoughts can you actually begin to recognize the imminent presence of God right oops there we are that's how things got confused so chapter 4 here is really short in fact this is all of chapter 4 right and it's the idea that the cause is not something sensible so whatever this final super substantial cause is that goes beyond being and non-being it is not something you obviously sense and here's where we see the via negativa right he says we see therefore that the cause of all being above all things is neither it's a negative its negative theology it's neither insubstantial nor lifeless nor unreasoning nor mindless nor is it a body neither does it have shape nor or form nor form nor quality nor quantity nor mass neither is it in a place nor does it seem nor does it have a sensible feeling neither does it sense nor is it sensed neither doesn't have disorder in trouble disturbed by material possessions now there's a powerless subject to sensible misfortunes now there's it in need of light now there is it nor does it have alteration or corruption or division or privation or flowing away or anything else we attribute to being sensible things so all of the qualities that we know the world in if you take the five senses these bodily qualities God is none of these things so notice here we're using the negative theology here ultimately to begin to recognize that God is not any of these things that we attribute to things which are sensible so God's not sensed but here's chapter 5 the last chapter in which Danny sees claims that God is not thought either and this is quite different than for instance Aristotle or other thinkers Agustin in particular God has not thought and here I'm just gonna read you this isn't all passage but a pretty I apologize it's kind of a long quote but it's quite important here and it starts off with negative theology and then it denies positive theology right God is neither does God does it meaning God have imagination or opinion nor reasoning nor understanding neither is it reasoning nor understanding neither is it spoken of nor thought neither is it a number nor an arrangement now their greatness our smallness neither quality or inequality neither similarity or dissimilarity neither has it Stood Still nor is it moved neither is at rest nor does have power nor is it power light neither does it live nor is it life neither is it substance nor eternity nor time now there's their intellectual contact with it so that means that God is none of these qualities that we typically would attribute to God but neither is neither can our intellect even come in contact with it and continuing on midway through right he says neither as acknowledged nor truth nor Dominion nor wisdom neither one nor unity neither to divinity nor goodness neither is its spirit as we know it nor sonship nor fatherhood nor anything else of the non beings nor any of the beings neither do beings know what it it as it is nor does it know beings as they are beings now there's any reasoning about it nor a name nor knowledge now there's a darkness nor light nor error nor truth neither in general is there a positing nor a separating other separating of it rather we do positives and separates for things to come after it so God is ultimately this divine substance is not something that can even be intellectually captured and notice here that what I think I have to think in language and language requires difference which difference is a type of being which could be created that means God cannot be any of those things so God is strictly speaking not thought and this is really what religious mysticism is is the idea that ultimately God goes beyond reasoning to such an extent that it exhaust reasoning itself and the ancient mystics would go on we'll see other mystical philosophers in the Middle Ages come later an important text that would that was very important and religious mysticism in the you know a couple centuries after this would have been the prayer book the cloud of the unknowing and there are the ideas you have to think of God as a cloud and through certain types of prayer and meditations in which you would try to silence the mind and silence thinking you would be able to then feel the cloud of the knowning and feel the presence of God and so we see a sort of very very interesting discussion and beautiful mysticism arise now in it really is a religious form of mysticism but I think it's important for us because it provides a look into the early way in which reason and faith are on the one hand at odds with each other but also bedfellows within the medieval world thank you very very much for watching hey on next week we'll have another video coming out on medieval philosophy so stay tuned and I'll see you guys online

Channel: Mark Thorsby

Views: 2,014

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: Philosophy, Medieval Philosophy, Boethius, Pseuo-Dionysius, Trinity, Faith, Reason

Id: CdODQgVfy7c

Length: 53min 52sec (3232 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 24 2018