“The two ways of knowledge” In Vladimir Lossky's Mystical Theology

In “The Mystical Theology of Eastern Church”, Vladimir Lossky’s writes:

“The eastern tradition has never made a sharp distinction between mysticism and theology; between personal experience of the divine mysteries and the dogma affirmed by the Church. The following words spoken a century ago by a great Orthodox theologian, the Metropolitan Philaret of Moscow, express this attitude perfectly: ’none of the mysteries of the most secret wisdom of God ought to appear alien or altogether transcendent to us, but in all humility we must apply our spirit to the contemplation of divine things’. To put it in another way, we must live the dogma expressing a revealed truth, which appears to us as an unfathomable mystery, in such a fashion that instead of assimilating the mystery to our mode of understanding, we should, on the contrary, look for a profound change, an inner transformation of spirit, enabling us to experience it mystically. Far from being mutually opposed, theology and mysticism support and complete each other. One is impossible without the other. If the mystical experience is a personal working out of the content of the common faith, theology is an expression, for the profit of all, of that which can be experienced by everyone. Spirituality and dogma, mysticism and theology, are inseparably linked in the life of the Church. As regards the Eastern Church, we have already remarked that she makes no sharp distinction between theology and mysticism, between the realm of the common faith and that of personal experience. Thus, if we would speak of mystical theology in the eastern tradition we cannot do otherwise than consider it within the dogmatic setting of the Orthodox Church.”

Note: (Excerpted from The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (London: James Clarke & Co., LTD, 1957), pp.7-22;

Mysticism in general refers to a direct and immediate experience of the sacred, or the knowledge derived from such an experience. In Christianity this experience usually takes the form of a vision of, or sense of union with, God; however, there are also nontheistic forms of mysticism, (as in Buddhism). Mysticism is usually accompanied by meditation, prayer, and ascetic discipline.

For Vladimir Lossky, theology is by its very nature mystical and that theology is rooted in religious experience, and religious experience leads into theology. Here is no separation in our Orthodox tradition, according to Lossky, between dogmatic and religious practice, as he states:

"Christianity is not a philosophical school for speculating about abstract concepts, but is essentially a communion with the living God.”

With this idea comes the style of his writing which is extremely complex, extremely orderly in its argument and contention, yet actually elegant in how the Orthodox Christian life is portrayed in its heavenly and mystical sense. His dependence on Early Fathers is not simply a source for authority, but there is definitely a continuance of the same devotional quality couched in elaborate philosophical expressions that the Fathers perfected.

The starting point for understanding Vladimir Lossky is the primacy of apophatic theology, which we will cover more in details. Essentially, this means that the most perfect way of discussing God is by stating not what God is, but rather discussing what God is not; or God in His essence is unknowable; we have no possible way of understanding that which is beyond us, and have no analogy for that which has no equal. His reality leads to the complete inability for a believer to ascend towards God by way of intellectual pursuit.

True theology in the Orthodox conception is relational not philosophical, concerned with communing with God, and abandoning conceptions which limit the limitlessness of the Divine. This is not to say, however, that nothing can be said about God; or although God in his essence is indeed beyond comprehension, he has been revealed to us in various ways. While we cannot know the God who is in His essence, we can know the God who does in His energies. One of the most delightful aspects of Vladimir Lossky's theology, and our Orthodox thought in general, is the very high regard the Trinity is held, not only in dogmatic assertions as in oftentimes true in the West, but in the actual working out of theology.

The core, on the other hand, of Lossky’s theological system remains ontology of divine-human communion and he interprets the implications of this ontology for theological epistemology differently. For Lossky, an ontology of divine-human communion results in a theological epistemology that is apophatic and an understanding of theology as “antinomic”[Latin “antinomia”; Greek “antinomía” a contradiction between laws] that is rooted in the very being of God, which itself is a being-in-antinomy insofar as God is simultaneously transcendent and immanent.

Revelation is, according to Lossky, the condition for the possibility of knowledge of God. The meaning of revelation, however, is a source of controversy in theology both in terms of its possibility and its content. For Lossky, knowledge of God in terms of revelation means that in order for humans to know God, God must take the initiative. Humans cannot know God unless God allows such knowledge to be possible. Such knowledge requires that God reveal God self. This revealing, according to Lossky, may assume many forms, each of which entails an encounter between humans and God. The type of revelation determines the degree of knowledge. For example, creation is a revelation of God in which, among other things, humans learn of God’s goodness. The revelation of God occurs in the incarnate Christ, who makes known God’s “Trinitarian” being and makes possible a deeper knowledge of God through union with God. It is not simply a revelation of God but “the revelation of God the Holy Trinity—the Father, Son and Holy Spirit,” that forms the basis of all Christian theology; it is, indeed, theology itself, in the sense in which that word was understood by the Greek fathers, for whom theology most commonly stood for the mystery of the Trinity revealed to the Church. This type of revelation, however, would not be possible if it were not for the Incarnation, which, for Lossky, makes “theology possible.” The Incarnation reveals God as Trinity as “a primordial fact,” i.e., a word or proclamation about God’s being. However, the Incarnationis more than revelation as descriptive information about God’s being. It is the event of the giving of God’s very being in creation, of divine-human communion. As such, the Incarnation is the starting point of all theology. The Incarnation makes possible a theology that does not simply state facts, but expresses a mystery in order to lead one toward a deeper union with God as Trinity.

Understanding of the Trinity is the most magnificent of all doctrines, and essential to understand how God works in the world. Although God is one, God is three, and this antinomy is the highest level of understanding and communion with God; even as He is three in persons; so He is three in activity, with each person of the Trinity expressing an individual part of the continued creation and sustenance of the world, but each part intertwined and interacting with the others. These individual activities and roles are called “economies”[Greek: οἰκονομία, oikonomia] . Spirit remains mysterious to us, as we do not have another image from within the Trinity from which to learn leading Lossky to say that: "the doctrine of the Holy Spirit has the character of a secret, a partially revealed tradition. ”However, the work of the Spirit, according to Lossky, is practically different in another way; or while the work and goal of the Son is to bring unity and wholeness, gathering together those who have been scattered, in the church of which he is the head, the work of the Holy Spirit is to take that which has been made whole and bring diversity to those individual parts. Christ transforms human nature, allowing humanity to find wholeness and restoration, and restores community to humanity. The Holy Spirit is more "personal" dealing with each person in the church, allowing the individuality and personality of each believer to find his or her own fullness, marking each member of the Church with a seal of personal and unique relationship to the Trinity, becoming present in each person.

In Western thought, Christology is oftentimes seen as the apex of theological study, but for us Orthodox Christians, as seen in Lossky, pneumatology is equal if not greater in importance for we believe that the fullness of Godhead, the ultimate fulfillment toward which all created persons tend, is revealed in the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit is the source for any understanding, and any participation with or contemplation of the Divine being. However, this expression of the importance of the Spirit does in no way diminish the roles of the Father or Son, but instead is delightful in its celebration and articulation of the Triune God.The Spirit is shown to be a full participating member of the Godhead, rather than a fully affirmed in creeds, but diminished person in theology (as often seen in the west).In the Orthodox Church, Holy Spirit is the life being the only avenue that a believer can see or know Christ, and through Christ the Father. Hence, for Lossky, the doctrine of the Holy Spirit is essential for understanding the doctrine of the church, or the doctrine of Christ, and thus crucial for understanding theology as a whole. All that we can know about God, in all of his Triune glory, and his work is due to the work and economy of the Holy Spirit in the life of the Church.

Now that we understand Incarnation, as the evident of divine-human communion, as both the starting point and end of all theological discourse, Lossky’s leads us to two types of knowledge of God: cataphatic and apophatic.

Cataphatic knowledge, in its simplest terms, is positive knowledge of God. An example of cataphatic knowledge is the affirmation “God is good.”

Apophatic knowledge is negative knowledge of God; it is knowledge of Godin terms of what God is not. For example, God is not a stone.

The significance of the two types of knowledge for Lossky are not what they say about God, for even apophatic theology is a kind of saying something about God, but their role as means to what is considered the only real knowledge of God, which is union with God’s very life. Furthermore, one could read Lossky’s as saying that the only legitimate forms of knowledge in light of the Incarnation are cataphatic and apophatic theologies, since they are the only means to union with God. In addition, Lossky’s argues for the priority of cataphatic and apophatic theologies and how, in fact, his particular interpretation of the Incarnation as the event of divine-human communion leads necessarily to cataphatic and apophatic theologies as means toward union with God. These arguments are linked in his retrieval of two important Greek patristic figures, Dionysius the Areopagite and Gregory Palamas; but however, Dionysius was a prominent figure in Lossky’s work and that is why he was determined to offer an alternative interpretation of Dionysius than the prevailing Thomistic and neothomistic interpretations of the time. Additionally, Lossky’s attempted to establish the thought of Dionysius as pivotal to the Greek patristic emphasis on “theosis”, or divine-human communion, and to the understanding of “theosis” in terms of the divine energies of God. Evident throughout Lossky’s analysis of Dionysius is his own concern to affirm the centrality of divine-human communion in theological discourse and his understanding of cataphatic and apophatic theologies in light of divine-human communion. Perhaps Lossky’s saw the clearest and most coherent expression of the insights of the earlier texts with regard to the question of knowledge of God from Dionysius. By reading Dionysius, Lossky’s quickly emphasized that Dionysius’s synthesis is Christological and not neo-platonic. Its foundation is not the neo-platonic understanding of the One but the unity of the created and the uncreated in the person of Christ; and in addition Dionysius’s use of cataphatic and apophatic theology, Lossky’s asserts that this is not the way of eminence, whose outlines can be found in Middle Platonism—the way towards which Thomas Aquinas(1225 – 7 March 1274) wished to channel the Areopagite’s apophasis(ἀπόφασις from ἀποφάναι—apophanai, "to say no”) in order to restore an affirmed signification to God, denying merely the human mode of signifying Him. Lossky writes:

It is thus that St. Thomas Aquinas reduces the two ways of Dionysius to one, making negative theology a corrective to affirmative theology. In attributing to God the perfections that we find in created beings, we must (according to St. Thomas) deny the mode according to which we understand these finite perfections, but we may affirm them in relation to God modo sublimiari. Thus, negations correspond to the modus significandi, to the always inaccurate means of expression; affirmation to the res significata, to the perfection which we wish to express, which is in God after another fashion than it is in creatures. We may indeed ask how far this very ingeniousphilosophical invention corresponds to the thought of Dionysius.

Note: (Excerpted from: The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (London: James Clarke & Co., LTD, 1957))

When Lossky reads Dionysius he would establish his own theological agenda. On that subject, for Lossky the divine-human communion is the center of all theological discourse and central significance of the Incarnation. This leads us to conclusion that Lossky’s theology is Christological grounded, but in a particular understanding of Jesus Christ as the person in whom is realized the event of divine-human communion.

The common sense of divine-human communion in Christ leads necessarily to cataphatic and apophatic forms of theologies. Agreeing to Lossky both apophatic and cataphatic theologies are “implied in the paradox of the Christian revelation: the transcendent God becomes immanent in the world, but in the very immanence of His economy. . . . He reveals Himself as transcendent, as ontologically independent of all created being.”

Cataphatic and apophatic forms of theology are embedded in God’s very being as transcendent to and immanent in created being. These forms of theologies are given their clearest explication, according to Lossky, in the thought of Dionysius.

Now then one might ask how we to understand Lossky’s arguments for the priority of cataphatic and apophatic theologies, and what he means by these forms of knowledge. To find an answer it is necessary to look at Lossky’s analysis of Dionysius, and additionally, we have to realize that throughout this analysis this reflects much of Lossky’s own theological presuppositions.

If we look in Dionysius we, can find that cataphatic theology is positive form of knowledge, therefore as a form of knowledge, it expresses itself through divine names or better yet names of God. According to Lossky, Dionysius’s “Divine Names” is a treatise arguing for the possibility of naming God. He adds that the basis for Dionysius’s understanding of cataphatic theology and the condition for its possibility lie in a particular understanding of an “ecstatic” (mystical)God who transcends being, but in whose very transcendence is immanent in the incarnate Christ, “the central event of revelation.” As a result, cataphatic theology is one side of the Incarnational coin, the side of immanence. It is the form of theology that gives expression to the positive form of knowledge given in the Incarnation. On the other hand, how about, the divine existence of God? Well, the other side of the knowledge given in Incarnation is the divine existence of God and the affirmation that God is simultaneously unknowable. This simultaneity of God’s transcendence and immanence, of the God who is both known and unknown, is expressed in the well-known essence/energies distinction. God is unknowable in God’s essence, which is really “hyper-essence” to express its transcendence beyond any created essence, beyond being. As well we can say that God is knowable or immanent to creation through God’s energies. The essence/energies distinction is rooted in the realism of divine-human communion in Christ and expresses the God who is transcendent and immanent. This distinction, according to Lossky, though present in the tradition from the beginning, is first given its clearest expression in the thought of Dionysius. And it is the manifestation of the energies of God in creation and in the Incarnation that allows for the possibility of cataphatic theology.

Dionysius uses two energies of God “proodoi or dunameis” This difference is based on a prior one between the “unions”(enoseis) and the “distinctions”(diakriseis) in God. “The “unions” are the super essential nature of God that remains eternally inaccessible. As Lossky clarifies, the “distinctions” on the other hand, are the processions (proodoi) beyond Himself, His manifestations (ekphanseis), which Dionysius also calls virtues or a force (dunameis), in which everything that exists partakes, thus making God known in His creatures.”

But what does this mean?

The literal meaning of these two categories means “going forth” or “powers”, and Lossky often refers to them as “energies”(or energia). By doing this, he is identifying Dionysius’s two categories with the notion of “energies” that received its clearest and most developed expression in the thought of Gregory Palamas, and which has become, in no small part due to Lossky’s influence, the central category in our contemporary Eastern Orthodox theology for expressing divine-human communion.

Reading Lossky’s work further, we can see that he is trying to make connection, or the thought of all the Eastern patristic writers, but especially that of Dionysius and Gregory Palamas. In addition, he is determined on showing that Dionysius’s “dunameis” is equivalent in meaning to Gregory’s “energia”, and that both are grounded in the centrality of divine-human communion for theological discourse. This concept of the energies of the God basically means the activity of God as opposed to the essence of God. God is not a “static essence” or a motionless “what”. The “proodoi or dunameis” of God,(according to Dionysius’s language) are the activity of God. They indicate a going forth of God outside God self toward another. The created cosmos is the product of this activity of God, and is the activity of God insofar as it participates in the “proodoi” of God. This partaking, however, does not imply releases’ or a necessary link between God and creation. The “proodoi” are eternal, but creation is dependent since it is based on God’s freedom. Created being is a product of the divine “proodoi” and, in order to exist, must participate in these “proodoi”. Now then, if creation is a product of God’s free activity and that this free activity participates in the energies of God, then this manifests something real about God. This leads us further that, cataphatic theology results from the creation itself and that this creation participates in the energies of God, which are God. In conclusion, the type of knowledge depends on the degree of participation. As understood, through reflection on creation, produces names for the sake of knowledge; it is also able to name God through reflection on God’s glory that manifested in creation. Such names as goodness, wisdom, and lifeindicate something real in God without exhausting who God is.

Perhaps we can say that, cataphatic theology is like a ladder, whose steps are images; or ideas intended to guide and to fit our abilities for contemplation of that which exceeds all understanding. As a result, cataphatic theology does not end with reflection on creation.

On the subject of revelation of the Holy Trinity, Lossky often said that it is “summit of cataphatic theology”.

“The Incarnate Word represents the fullness of the divine manifestation and the summit of all the theophany’s in creation . . .being, thus, the foundation of cataphatic theology.”

These two above statements, are in fact paired. The Incarnation is the summit of cataphatic theology insofar as it reveals the fact that God is Trinity.

Unlike the Good, Being, or the One, Trinity is a name which lies beyond thought and can only be known through revelation. It is the name that surpasses all names in that it indicates the very being of God as both one and many, as transcendent and immanent. In order to attain the highest possible knowledge of God it is eventually this name that one must consider.

Cataphatic theology is a “real possibility” because of the initiative of God in creation and in the Incarnation. This incarnation reveals that God is a knowable God who comes toward creation in order to be known; and this is what we call product of God’s own energies; because creation is itself a product of the going forth of God from God self toward. In conclusion, positive knowledge of God is possible because these energies are God.

Earlier I said that, the Incarnation is the summit of cataphatic theology, in revealing the fact of the Trinitarian God. So with this cataphatic theology, Dionysius affirms the positive side of the theology of Clement of Alexandria and Origen, but not without the attention of the Cappadocians. Dionysius supports the real content of divine names, while affirming the limits of names and of thought that produces the names.

So at the conclusion, if you are dealing with cataphatic theology you must add apophatic theology, because this will prevent you becoming idolatrous. According to Lossky, apophatic theology is not a denial of any knowledge of God, but a form of knowing itself; but this form of knowledge of God, for Dionysius, for example, has a greater perfection than cataphatic theology. To review: cataphatic theology is a positive knowledge of God through reflection on created being, apophatic theology leads to ignorance more superior than cataphatic theology. This definition leads us to argument of disagreement and distinction of methodology between each other.

Apophatic method is the negation of all positive names of God based on the affirmation that God is beyond being and thus beyond all positive knowledge, which is inherently linked to being. Apophatic theology is the fruit of such an exercise in the form of an “ecstatic” union with God beyond affirmation or negation; beyond being itself. Furthermore, according to Dionysius, the negation begins with those names of God that are least likely to express God’s nature and as a result, apophatic theology in itself is a process of knowing God by affirming what God is not. Now we start the process of elimination, meaning that in eliminating those names one begins the assent in isolating those names which more closely express positive knowledge of God. Accompanying this negation is contemplation, because in the process of negation one is contemplating the appropriateness of names concerning God and thus contemplating God. The final result is: the more appropriate the names, the higher the contemplation and in its reliance on names, apophatic theology relies on cataphatic theology.

We must not forget Scriptures when we contemplating the names of God through reason. For example, to negate the name “Good”, in relation to God, is not to affirm that God is not “Good”. Such a negation admits that the concept of “Good” is inexorably linked to thought, which is itself linked to created being.

Said all this, the goal of apophaticism is not to conclude that nothing can be known of God; it is rather to propel the aspiring Christian to a deeper union, which lies beyond being and thus beyond thought. Such a union is the highest form of knowledge, which is not knowledge per se, since knowledge is strictly linked to created being. Such a union is paradoxically an “unknowing” or “ignorance”, both of which are understood metaphorically to affirm a form of knowledge which lies beyond thought.

If we truly want to examine and clarify Lossky’s understanding of apophatic theology, we have to examine his interpretation of Dionysius and how does he distinguishes Dionysius from earlier forms of apophaticism, particularly that of Origen and Augustine. For both Origen and Augustine, for example, negative theology had a positive ring to it; but according to Lossky, this brings us closer to Plotinus. In addition, the result of this apophaticism for Clement is to deny any positive content to divine names; the purpose of this apophaticism for Origen is to reject “any notion obstructing the knowledge of the divine nature defined positively as the One.” Lossky sees Origen’s naming of God as “One” as resulting in anapophaticism in the service of cataphaticism.

Similarly, Augustine’s use of apophaticism, Lossky argues, does not deny a positive knowledge of God’s essence. It takes on the form of “learned ignorance ”for Augustine: “if no one is permitted to know God as He is, “utest”, itis equally true that no one can be ignorant of His existence: God is a mystery but He is revealed to all, “ubiquesecretus, ubiquepublicus” (Enarr. in Ps. 74).”

Unfortunately, theproblem for both Origen and Augustine is that apophaticism is limited andfails to negate any link between God and created being.

On the other hand, Dionysian apophaticismis based on different theological assumptions insofar as, for Dionysius, God is beyond being.

Lossky’s criticism of Origen’s and Augustine’s understanding of apophaticismis part of a broader critique of what Lossky considers “Western” understandings of apophaticism, in which he includes the thought of Thomas and his interpreters. One could almost read Lossky as defining the difference between “Western” and “Eastern” Christian approaches to theology by their different understandings of apophaticism, seen in the “West” primarily in the thought of Augustine and Aquinas, and in the “East” in the thought of Dionysius and Gregory Palamas.

Origen’s and Augustine’s, and also Aquinas’s, understanding of apophaticismin the service of cataphatic theology betrays what Lossky describes as a rational approach to theology, which understands knowledge of God in terms of ideas and propositions.

At the end, Lossky’s understanding of apophaticism and, hence, theology, does not get beyond the created intellect and, thus, creation itself. It falls short of real knowledge of God, which is nothing less than full union with the God who is beyond all being.

Union with God, however, is union with that which is ‘other’ to created being, which means that God must be beyond being, ontologically distinct from creation itself. Thus, union with God implies a transcendence, but not obliteration, of all that is created, including created intellect, toward communion with the radically transcendent God. The God who is beyond all being is radically transcendent to creation, but in whose radical transcendence is radically immanent to creation. For this reason, apophaticism cannot simply be a corrective to positive forms of knowledge, but an affirmation of the inadequacy of all forms of positive knowledge of God.

For Lossky, apophaticism does not lead to agnosticism, but is a kind of necessary spiritual exercise to avoid complacency with ‘rational’ knowledge of God that keeps one within the sphere of the created.

Apophaticism is thus the logical consequence of the notion of knowledge of the God who is radically “other” to created being, since knowledge of this God can only be a form of union in which creation itself is transcended, but not obliterated, toward a communion with that which is beyond creation, and hence, beyond being.

Summing up all the above, we come easily to the conclusion that the Fathers of the Eastern Orthodox Church, projecting the kataphatic and apophatic aspect of God and stressing the empirical base of kataphatic as much as of apophatic theology, they have outlined the frame of the true knowledge of God and decisively contributed to the formulation of a sense of Him freed from objectifications and anthropomorphisms. And this, as we have seen, had direct and substantial repercussions for the course of theology and for the spiritual inheritance and tradition of the orthodox East, in general. (*)

[(*) KATAPHASIS AND APOPHASIS IN THE GREEK ORTHODOX PATRISTIC TRADITION GEORGE D. MARTZELOS]