Volume 9, Issue 2, June 1996

There appear to be, in Hosea, traces of the “unspeakable”, part of the text’s very being, albeit its underside, relating to stories of Baal and female partners.  If Asherah was part of the Israelite religious world, then religious images which may have been associated with a feminine image of deity might be expected to retain this reference among the many, even as they are re-used and adapted in new contexts for new tasks.  It is possible that the attempt to suppress the image of female divinity has not been total and that the voice of the feminine will not remain “unspeakable” despite Hosea’s efforts.

In the only gospel in which Peter is promised to be the foundation-stone of the church, few if any leadership positions are presented.  They are not denied; rather, Matthew describes a higher priority, using the title “brother” to include disciple and church member without further distinction, expressing the relationship of members with one another as with their master.  The Gentiles proffer an example of how not to lead; disciple members, however, are to become like their master.  Their task is to make disciples of all nations, the emphasis of this universal commission placing squarely upon each one the responsibility of working towards this end.

This article explores some of the important theological dynamics relevant to the Christian mystical tradition and suggests ways in which this tradition, in all its variety, might contribute to Christian self-understanding  within the context of religious pluralism.  It pursues this through an examination of the spiritual and theological pilgrimage of the eighteenth century Anglican divine, William Law (1686-1761).

To prepare ourselves as westerners for a dialogue with the traditional Aboriginal religion will demand an ability to “pass over” to what is clearly quite a different mentality.  There are two obstacles to this “passing over”.  First, where westerners have predominantly developed the intentionality mediation of meaning, Aborigines developed the symbolic or aesthetic mediation of meaning.  Secondly, the profoundly metaphorical or aesthetic cast of Aboriginal mentality and their religious experience of cosmic manifestations is at odds with western outlook.  The Aboriginal religion should be accepted within the tradition of kataphatic manifestation.  This understanding should help us accept that the sacred mystery should be approached as intra-cosmic Immanence as well as meta-cosmic Transcendence.

Maurice Blanchot is generally regarded as an atheist.  In this article I examine his work on Simone Weil, who can be linked to negative theology to the extent that God’s absence characterises her discourse.  Weil considers desire to be the condition for the possibility of salvation.  Blanchot subtilises the point, so that the condition for the possibility of salvation is also its condition for impossibility, dependent on what he calls “the neuter“.  The consequent experience, whilst almost identical to that of the mystic, differs to the extent that it is based on the impossibility of any unique being.  Language’s failure to represent God is seen to be an affirmation of itself, a celebration of the absence of absence.

This reflection takes a look at Aquinas' notion of God as "Being", especially as it emerges in the Summa Theologiae.  The author suggests that affirmation of God as Be-ing functions within an explicitly theological context so as to preclude any idolic fixations in our thinking and language.  The affirmation of divine "Be-ing" serves to enhance the realisation of our understanding of God as love, and thereby underscores a theology of gift.