The author of the spiritual classic, The Cloud of Unknowing, written in the fourteenth century, desires to acquaint his readers with contemplative prayer in order to persuade them to pursue this most elevated state of Christian experience. According to the author, the contemplative life is the best way to live. It offers higher experiences than the active life - experiences which are a foretaste of eternity (58). Using the story of Mary and Martha as his starting point (Luke 10:38-42), the author encourages his readers to choose the contemplative path of Mary over the active path of Martha. Through contemplation one enters "the cloud of unknowing" where all love is centered on God, "desiring him for his own sake and not his gifts" (48).

The Contemplative Life

The contemplative life is the highest path of Christian experience. "In the contemplative work God is loved above every creature purely and simply for his own sake. Indeed, the very heart of this work is nothing else but a naked intent toward God for his own sake" (80). This "naked intent toward God" (56) or "simple love" (80) is a pursuit of God divested of knowledge in the form of thoughts, ideas, and concepts. The author states that "knowledge is a hindrance here" (92) for "the experience is beyond words" (84).

Just because the contemplative life is the best and highest stage of Christian experience does not mean that everyone is equipped to embark on the contemplative path. Those who consider contemplation should fulfill at least four requirements. First, they should feel that God is leading them to the contemplative life. Second, they should have "sincerely forsaken the world" and "set aside the concerns of the active life" (84). Third, they should have purified their conscience of particular sins through the Sacrament of Penance offered by the church. Finally, they should retain a spiritual guide in order to keep from error (176).

The Cloud of Forgetting

The contemplative is positioned between the cloud of unknowing and the cloud of forgetting. With the cloud of unknowing above and the cloud of forgetting beneath, the contemplative approaches God.

The cloud of forgetting is "between you and every created thing" (53). All creaturely thoughts and connections must be given over to the cloud of forgetting. "Do all in your power to forget everything else, keeping your thoughts and desires free from involvement with any of God's creatures or their affairs whether in general or in particular" (48). The intense labor and toil experienced at the beginning of the contemplative path is explained by the difficulty of detaching oneself from created things. "The labor… is in the unrelenting struggle to banish the countless distracting thoughts that plague our minds and to restrain them beneath the cloud of forgetting" (83).

In order to still one's thoughts, it may be necessary to retain a word to focus upon. "If you want to gather all your desire into one simple word that the mind can easily retain, choose a short word rather than a long one. A one-syllable word such as 'God' or 'love' is best. But choose one that is meaningful to you" (56). The value of the word lies in simplicity. Simple prayers of one word pierce heaven "because it is the prayer of a man's whole being" (96).

The Cloud of Unknowing

With the cloud of forgetting beneath her the contemplative seeks to embrace and penetrate the cloud of unknowing above, the cloud that separates the contemplative from God. This cloud is "a kind of darkness about your mind" (48), a darkness that arises because of human limitations and God's incomprehensible being. "When I speak of darkness, I mean the absence of knowledge... a darkness of unknowing that lies between you and your God" (53). The author advises the contemplative, "Learn to be at home in this darkness... For if, in this life, you hope to feel and see God as he is in himself it must be within this darkness and this cloud" (49).

Human limitations and the unfathomable greatness of God limit the contemplative to approaching God solely through the cloud of unknowing. These same two realities - human limitations and God's being - guarantee that the cloud will always remain between the contemplative and God. "Implicated with mystery, the cloud of unknowing will never disappear, but it can to some distance be penetrated" (4).

How then is the cloud of unknowing entered if not by knowledge? The cloud of unknowing is not pierced by knowledge but by love (63). "He whom neither men nor angels can grasp by knowledge can be embraced by love" (50).

Rational creatures such as men and angels possess two principal faculties, a knowing power and a loving power. No one can fully comprehend the uncreated God with his knowledge; but each one, in a different way, can grasp him fully through love. Truly this is the unending miracle of love: that one loving person, through his love, can embrace God, whose being fills and transcends the entire creation (50).

It is impossible to comprehend God with our minds but we can apprehend God with our love. "A man may know completely and ponder thoroughly every created thing and its works, yes, and God's works, too, but not God himself. Thought cannot comprehend God. And so, I prefer to abandon all I can know, choosing rather to love him whom I cannot know. Through we cannot know him we can love him" (54). Knowledge is limited, unable to fully embrace God. Love, on the other hand, can completely apprehend God. "[O]nly love can touch God as he is in himself, never knowledge" (59-60).

The Apophatic Way

In The Cloud of Unknowing, the author is committed to the apophatic way, a spiritual tradition that emphasizes that "God is best known by negation: we can know more about what God is not than what he is" (24). Near the end of The Cloud of Unknowing the author plainly states his position: "What I am trying to say is that man knows the things of the spirit more by what they are not than by what they are" (139). He continues,

For however much a man may know about every created spiritual thing, his intellect will never be able to comprehend the uncreated spiritual truth which is God. But there is a negative knowledge which does understand God. It proceeds by asserting everything it knows: this is not God, until finally he comes to a point where knowledge is exhausted. This is the approach of St. Denis, who said, 'The most divine knowledge of God is that which is known by not-knowing.' (139)

Since "God is unlike anything we know: we must keep in mind that the ideas we have of him are totally inadequate to contain him" (26). Ideas and concepts - even good ones - divert attention away from God. Therefore, contemplation is not nourished by reflection on God's attributes. No matter how laudable this is "it is far better to let your mind rest in the awareness of him in his naked existence and to love and praise him for what he is in himself" (54). Nothing must be allowed to fill the mind if the cloud of unknowing is to be pierced. "You must come to loathe and regret everything that occupies your mind except God, for everything is an obstacle between you and him." (102)

When understood properly, there is a certain logic in the mystical way. When God's "godness" is kept in mind, the apophatic way makes sense. We cannot possibly know the fullness of God. "Tell me, what is the substance of man's ultimate, human perfection and what are the fruits of this perfection? I will answer for you. Man's highest perfection is union with God in consummate love, a destiny so high, so pure in itself, and so far beyond human thought that it cannot be known or imagined as it really is" (169). We cannot possibly contain the fullness of God in our minds, but "we do know that if we knew it in its fullness we would find it more wonderful than words can describe and images depict" (5).

Our experience always goes beyond our ability to verbalize and conceptualize. Often, words and thoughts are inadequate to communicate what we feel, who we are, what we love. In our deepest moments of intimacy and communion with others, words and thoughts only get in the way. The experience of communion with God that the contemplative participates in is an experience too deep for words. "God forbid that the experience itself become so degenerate as to fit into the narrow confines of human language" (169).

The Razor's Edge

The subtlety of the author's argument in particular, and of the apophatic way in general, holds open the possibility of misunderstanding and abuse. Thinking deeply about how to refrain from thinking deeply is paradoxical at the very least. It is a very subtle nuance that demands much from the contemplative. Only careful precision can make piercing the cloud of unknowing comprehensible. Thus, the author walks a razor's edge. Following are a few areas of possible misunderstanding.

With the rejection of the sufficiency of rationalism, it may appear that the author embraces absurdity. Yet, the author does not discard knowledge altogether. He simply reveals the limitations of knowledge. God is bigger than the mind and cannot be contained in our thoughts. Our "clear conceptualizations" often get in the way of knowing God and therefore must be rejected (60). Put simply, if our knowledge of God is too tidy, neat, and simplistic, then we are not experiencing the true God. We are merely experiencing a god of our own imagination.

With the dismissal of the active life, it may appear that the author embraces quietism. Though contemplative work is set in contradistinction to the active life, it is a work that is not without its benefits. It enriches others "even if you may not fully understand how" and purifies and strengthens one's own spirit more than all other efforts combined (48). The contemplative path involves work - but a work that is wholly interior. "For it is not a work of the flesh but an interior vital adventure pursued in the Spirit" (122).

With the denunciation of the adequacy of language, it may appear that the author undermines biblical revelation. As knowledge demonstrates its limitations in the presence of God, so does language, being the chief vehicle through which knowledge is communicated. Contemporary philosophers like Ludwig Wittgenstein and Jacques Derrida have exposed the inherent limitations of language. Without despairing of ultimate reality - namely, God - the author of The Cloud of Unknowing embraces our human limitations in order to transcend them in God.

With his call to forget all creaturely things, it may appear that the author embraces gnosticism. But the author is not gnostic. He is well aware that seeking to free the mind "from involvement with any of God's creatures… will seem like an irresponsible attitude" (48). However, the author does not wish to demean creation, simply put it in its proper place. "For truly, I do not mean to deter you from external expressions of love. God forbid that I should separate body and spirit when God has made them a unity. Indeed, we owe God the homage of our whole person, body and spirit together. And fittingly enough he will glorify our whole person, body and spirit, in eternity" (109).

With his demand to lose self, it may appear that the author is embracing the complete loss of individual personality. However, the author advocates finding our truest self in God through union with the divine. William Johnston, in the Introduction to The Cloud of Unknowing sheds important light on this:

As for the paradox that all is one and not one, Teilhard answers with a principle that runs through all his work: in the realm of personality, union differentiates. When I am most united with God, I am most myself. Here union is clearly distinguished from annihilating absorption: it is in union with the other that I find my true self. Incredible paradox? Yet we explain the Trinity in some such way... In the deepest and most loving union with another, far from losing ourselves we discover our deepest selves at the core of our being. If this is true of human relationship, it must also apply to the most intimate union of all: that of Yahweh with his people. (15)

With his desire to experience God personally, it may appear that the author has rejected corporate spirituality. Yet he calls each potential contemplative to participate in the Sacrament of Penance offered by the church. He also demands that every contemplative retain the use of a spiritual director in order to refrain from error.

In many ways, the author rides the razor's edge of truth, so precariously balanced between two extremes that he is easily misunderstood. He seems aware of this potential and argues for "the importance of reading [his book] all the way through" (144). The danger: "If a person reads only one section and not those which complement and complete it, he may easily be led into great error" (144).

The Apophatic Way in a Postmodern World

In many ways, The Cloud of Unknowing is a very helpful corrective in our day. It maintains a near-impossible tension in regard to extremes. He is rational without embracing rationalism, contemplative without embracing quietism. He recognizes the limitations of language while maintaining a high regard for Holy Scripture. He renounces all creatures while remaining convinced of the glorious transformation of all creation. He advocates losing self but not losing individual personality. He advocates personal experience of God without rejecting participation in the corporate expression of faith. These are all difficult positions to maintain. The tension remains high as does the potential for misunderstanding and abuse. Yet the author does an amazing job of maintaining these tensions throughout his work.

The author's subtle nuances allow for extreme precision without succumbing to a dead rationalism. He preserves the mystery of knowing God, making knowledge of God possible, but only by admitting and embracing the complete inadequacy of knowledge to know God fully. God can only be fully known in love, not by thought. Thought, concepts, and ideas are insufficient to embrace the fullness of God. Only love can embrace God's fullness and pierce the cloud of unknowing.

The centrality of love and its priority over the intellect are important themes to preserve in our world. It is easy to excuse our need to love by rational arguments and precise ideologies. Yet, loving God first and loving others as the fruit of loving God are at the heart of the Christian faith, proving more than anything else that we are genuinely participating in the life of God through Christ and in the Spirit.

The Cloud of Unknowing speaks to our postmodern world by exposing our human limitations without abandoning the dignity of human nature. Humans are capable of unfathomable transformation through participation in the divine life of God through love. We cannot possibly comprehend God's glorious being, but we can comprehend how much we are unable to comprehend God's glorious being.

The apophatic way is the much-needed reminder that God is God and we are not. It positions us to humbly and lovingly participate in God through recognizing our own inherent limitations - limitations that do not prevent us from knowing God if we are willing to admit, embrace, and then seek to transcend our limitations through the contemplative path.

© Richard J. Vincent, 2004

Reading "The Cloud of Unknowing" is like hitting the "Mother Lode".Pity all of us Westerners who continue to insist we will apprehend God by our intellect. It's taken me 25yrs to exhaust Western religionand I've just gone through my first introduction into "unknowing" and now know that it is OK NOT to know-actually knowing is a hinderance and NOT KNOWING is the pathway to union with God.Here's apossible hint for other seekers - just prior to God's giving me a "not-knowing" preparational experience, He dismantled and de-valued reason and rational thinking in me. I'm looking to meet and share with other saints along this pathway. Are you out there????
--Paula Nicholson ( mspaulanicholson at yahoo dot com ) on 3/8/2005; 11:19:25 AM

Congratulations! Very well done. This is the tension that's needed in the postmodern world. Anyone who doesn't understand this is still trapped, wandering around aimlessly in a worn out world.
--Tom Hohstadt ( Hohstadt at cableone dot net ) on 5/14/2004; 6:50:21 AM

Huh?????????????????????????????????
--Steve Jacobs ( icrtnl at netscape dot net ) on 5/9/2004; 10:05:55 AM