‘Here it is perhaps also worth raising the issue of what might be taken to be the unduly negative, the unduly dry and dismal, take on the apophatic I have been presenting. Have I not, with my simple insistence on what cannot be understood, on lack of insight, on questions that cannot be answered, missed the point of true apophaticism? Is it not itself bound up with contemplation? Surely denial and negativity are never employed for their own sake, and it is not a matter of a sheer blank, of simply hitting a wall, in thought and speech about God. Surely something much richer is gestured towards in apophasis: it is a response to excess, to God’s superabundant richness. Where is this, one might ask, in the account I have been giving of an apophatic trinitarianism
‘Richness, excess, this overwhelming quality of what we cannot comprehend should, on the view I am developing, be located precisely at the level of our contemplation in the Trinity, rather than at the level of contemplation of the Trinity. It is enough to acknowledge infinite depths that exceed our grasp in the Father who is contemplated through the Son – we do not need to look for such infinite depths and dazzling darkness in the very notion of three-in-oneness or perichoresis. And it is precisely because of the sense of excess and transcendence associated with contemplation in the Trinity that there ought properly to be, on the view I am exploring, a resistance to, a fundamental reticence and reserve surrounding, speculation on the Trinity,’ Karen Kilby, ‘Is an Apophatic Trinitarianism Possible?’ International Journal of Systematic Theology 12, no. 1 (2010): 65–77.
‘Richness, excess, this overwhelming quality of what we cannot comprehend should, on the view I am developing, be located precisely at the level of our contemplation in the Trinity, rather than at the level of contemplation of the Trinity. It is enough to acknowledge infinite depths that exceed our grasp in the Father who is contemplated through the Son – we do not need to look for such infinite depths and dazzling darkness in the very notion of three-in-oneness or perichoresis. And it is precisely because of the sense of excess and transcendence associated with contemplation in the Trinity that there ought properly to be, on the view I am exploring, a resistance to, a fundamental reticence and reserve surrounding, speculation on the Trinity,’ Karen Kilby, ‘Is an Apophatic Trinitarianism Possible?’ International Journal of Systematic Theology 12, no. 1 (2010): 65–77.
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