The darkness of God

by Denys Turner

"For the mediaeval mystical tradition, the Christian soul meets God in a 'cloud of unknowing', a divine darkness of ignorance. This meeting with God is beyond all knowing and beyond all experiencing. Mysticisms of the modern period, on the contrary, place 'mystical experience' at the centre, and contemporary readers are inclined to misunderstand the mediaeval tradition in 'experientialist' terms. Denys Turner argues that the distinctiveness and contemporary relevance of mediaeval mysticism is precisely in its rejection of 'mystical experience',. and locate the mystical firmly within the grasp of the ordinary and the everyday. The argument covers some central authorities in the period from Augustine to John of the Cross.