The Call to Radical Theology by Altizer Thomas J. J. McCullough Lissa

Author:Altizer, Thomas J. J.,McCullough, Lissa. [Altizer]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781438444536
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Published: 2012-09-22T04:00:00+00:00

—NOVEMBER 2001, REVISED SEPTEMBER 2009

7

MARION

Dionysian Theology as a Catholic Nihilism

Surely nothing could be more theologically audacious than an apprehension of the Crucified God by way of the mystical theology of Pseudo-Dionysius, the most purely mystical theology in the Christian tradition and also the most deeply Eastern thinking that has entered the Western world, just as it is the purest theological expression of the ancient Christian quest for mystical deification. A dialectical language is primal here, for absolute light can only be spoken and envisioned as absolute darkness, as Dionysius declares in the first part of Mystical Theology:

Trinity, Super-Essential, Super-Divine, Super-Excellent! You

Who instruct Christians in your heavenly wisdom! Guide us to

That topmost height of mystic lore which exceeds light and

More than exceeds knowledge, where the simple, absolute, and

Unchangeable mysteries of heavenly truth lie hidden in the

Dazzling obscurity of the secret Silence, outshining all

Brilliance with the intensity of their darkness, and surcharging

our blinded intellects with the utterly impalpable and invisible

fairness of glories which exceed all beauty! Such be my prayer,

and you, dear Trinity, I counsel that, in the earnest exercise of

of mystic contemplation, you leave the senses and the activities

of the intellect and all things that the senses or the intellect can

perceive, and all things in this world of nothingness, or in the

world of being, and that, your understanding being laid to rest,

you strain (so far as you may), towards a union with Him whom

neither being nor understanding can contain. For the unceasing

and absolute renunciation of yourself and all things, you will in

purity cast all things aside, and be released from all, and so will

be led upwards in the Ray of that divine Darkness which exceeds

all Existence. (Rolt translation, somewhat modified by author)

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