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Foreword
In
this short commentary on the two principle works of St. John of the Cross
– the Ascent of Mount Carmel and the Dark Night of the Soul –
we will, as I stated earlier, be primarily concerned with examining the
possibilities of developing a coherent mystical epistemology, that is to
say, a theory of knowledge relative to the mystical experience in
which the rational elements of this unique experience will become explicit
to us, and so enable us to usher at least some very crucial aspects of
this phenomenon into the arena of rational discourse. Certainly, this will
not make mystics of us. Indeed, this understanding itself is by no means
propadeutic to the mystical experience, as we shall later see; that is to
say, an understanding of the metaphysical principles underlying the
mystical experience is not requisite in the way that, say, an
understanding of the relation between rational numbers is presupposed in
the exercise of pure mathematics. The mystic, unlike the mathematician,
may in fact dispense with such an understanding altogether.
This type of
understanding, however, is requisite to the inquiring mind, which
is to say, to those of us standing, as it were, outside, peering in
through the sometimes-obfuscated lens of rational inquiry. We can,
however, only achieve this through carefully examining the various and
sometimes involuted arguments which St. John articulates in the
development of what must be understood as his mystical philosophy; a
philosophy which only gradually, even reluctantly, emerges from the text.
Our inquiry, then, essentially boils down to an examination of certain
rational features of the mystical experience
which lend themselves to the possibility of being so organized as to
constitute something systematic enough to be incorporated into what we
have come to understand as epistemology. And this, of course, presumes
order, sense, meaning and logic. One surprising consequence of our
analysis, in short, will be the disclosure of the mystical experience not
as antipodal to reason (as some have supposed), but as profoundly
consonant with it. However, this reason we seek in St. John’s
account is, we hasten to add, and for reasons that we shall later explain,
implicit only; from the outset it often requires patient analysis,
but the results will be no less, – in fact, all the more – compelling
for the effort.
Given the broad and
inevitable complexity of the issues involved, it appeared to me that the
best way to proceed in this type of examination would be through an
analysis of the central moments in the movement to mystical union
as they logically occur in the two texts. Where there is logical or
chronological order to begin with, it seemed to me best to construct an
analysis parallel to the already existing continuum. Not only should this
help us in a comparative analysis of the text, but it serves to constrain
us to the text as well – while at the same time allowing us the
necessary latitude to extrapolate from it in an attempt to construct an
epistemological analysis of our own. In doing so we will find ourselves
moving from an examination of those factors external to the mystical
experience and generally spoken of in terms of predisposition, to
those elements more or less explicitly involved in the actual mystical
experience itself and in turn generally spoken of in terms of union.
Our purpose, then, is to examine the normative, as well as the descriptive
elements in St. John’s account. To do this, it is vital for us to
provide the often-isolated elements which occur in the text with a
coherent epistemological framework. This in turn requires us to draw out
the logical implications of his statements,
examine their premises, however suppressed, elicit their conclusions,
however latent, and in the end attempt to demonstrate the coherence, if
any, which obtains between them.
A certain antagonism
with the text is inevitable. These are fertile but not necessarily
congenial grounds for purely philosophical inquiry. There are, for
example, certain tacit assumptions, both theological and philosophical in
nature, to which St. John often adverts; assumptions, more often than not,
in the form of suppressed theses which, if we are at all to succeed in our
examination, must be lifted from the text as so many copulas to the
intelligibility or our account. We must endeavor, then, to show not merely
that certain experiences or consequences follow any given moment in
the account, but why they follow logically (that is to say,
deductively, or necessarily) from the given moments. As we examine St.
John’s arguments in greater detail, we come to realize that it is not so
much an antagonism that we contend with in the account as it is a
recalcitrance encountered within the text itself: that certain later
statements and arguments essentially derive from earlier statements and
arguments is not always clear in the writings of St. John. It remains for
us to attempt to render these connections explicit, to endeavor to
demonstrate their logical coherence, and to organize them into something
systematic if we hope to succeed in articulating an epistemology of
mysticism – at least St. John’s mysticism. The ultimate aim of this
commentary, in the end, is to give philosophic form to St. John’s
arguments, in effect to develop a coherent philosophy of mysticism,
especially in light of the epistemological dimensions suggested within it.
St. John’s works
can be divided into three logical moments: Predisposition, Transition,
and Union. Part I of the Commentary, which I have entitled
the Presuppositions is principally concerned with the moment of predisposition,
that is to say, with the merely
mechanical features of mysticism which the latter two moments presuppose.
It forms the foundation upon which the mystical momentum builds and in
virtue of which much of the subsequent mystical experience is explainable.
Its principal feature, we will find, is the apophatic way, better known as
the Via Negativa (the Way of Negation, or the Negative Way) in all
its mechanical aspects upon which the entire metaphysical infrastructure
of mysticism depends. Detailed discussion of this central feature in
mystical philosophy is dealt with in Part II of this commentary
where it will be examined in detail.
Working from the
various principles elicited from St. John’s foundational work, the Ascent
of Mount Carmel, Part II, entitled the Metaphysics, is
an attempt to relate the evolving mystical experiences to these
principles (the via negativa, notions of participation, proximity,
proportion, contrariety, etc.) in order to demonstrate the latter to be,
in fact, the logical consequences of the former. It is an attempt to show
that, given certain statements concerning the function of these
principles, other statements about certain unique types of experience
(essentially states-of-being) not just follow, but necessarily,
that is to say, deductively, follow. But at the same time we must
also come to terms with the limitations inherent in the kind of
books St. John was writing; books addressing issues vital to a distinct
group of readers (issues that we shall discuss later in Part II ).
As a result, deductive relations which do in fact obtain between the
various elements in his philosophy are often obscure to the casual reader.
Suffice it to say at this point that St. John did not understand himself
to be writing an enchiridion on mystical theology replete with deductive
schematics to be later analyzed by, and subsequently vex, systematic
theologians. Deductive relations do in fact exist, but because of this
literary limitation, they must be elicited through careful reading if we
are to arrive at that
philosophic coherence we strive for in the works of St. John; a coherence
that, in fact, is always latent, even in his most abstruse
writings.
In the way of
explanation, I should like to point out that I have omitted treatment of
St. John’s last two works – the Spiritual Canticle and the Living
Flame of Love – not as an oversight, but simply because, for our own
purposes, the pertinent material found in these two treatises derives
from, and are largely more elaborate iterations of, the first two
principal works in which all the elements in his philosophy are
contained in much greater detail. As a final note, an addendum in the form
of a prolepsis follows the commentary proper. Within it, various
objections posed by skepticism, psychology, and orthodoxy, are briefly
considered and answered in light of our examination. This, in turn, is
followed by a brief biographical sketch, and an overview of the mystical
tradition culminating in the thought of St. John.
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The abbreviations
used in this commentary are as follows:
AMC
: Ascent of Mount Carmel
DNS
: Dark Night of the Soul
SC
: Spiritual Canticle
LFL
: Living Flame of Love
ST
: Summa Theologica (St. Thomas Aquinas)
Documentary
references are based upon the translation of St. John’s works by E.
Allison Peers: Ascent of Mount Carmel, Dark Night of the Soul,
Living Flame of Love, and Spiritual Canticle, Image
Books, Doubleday & Co., Garden City, NY, 1958, 1959, 1961, and 1962.
Scriptural references
are, unless noted otherwise, taken from The Jerusalem Bible, Doubleday
& Co., Garden City, New York, Copyright 1966
Introduction |
