Knowing God, Eating God

On apophatic theology

In a short essay entitled “Meditation in a Toolshed,” C.S. Lewis distinguishes two ways of knowing: “looking at” and “looking along.” While standing in a dark toolshed, he notices a beam of sunlight shining through a crack above the door. Initially, he describes how he perceives the beam itself: seeing dust particles floating in it, noting its brightness, and “looking at” it as an object from the outside. However, when he steps into the beam and looks along it—out through the crack in the door—he sees the world outside: leaves on trees, the sun, and the broader landscape.

Modern science clearly privileges “looking at” over “looking along,” with the former supposedly dealing with objective “facts,” while the latter concerns merely subjective perceptions, imaginations, and beliefs. Yet, upon minimal reflection, it becomes clear that “subjectivity” has an “objectivity” of its own, one that cannot be reduced to something other than the subjective experience itself. No matter how much information I know about the nervous system, without actually experiencing pain, I will remain ignorant of what pain truly is. In this case, the “subjective experience” is the thing-in-itself, which can only be known through participation, not mere uninterested observation. 

Knowledge of God is, likewise, participatory as opposed to observational. God is not a finite being among beings but Being as such. He is not merely “true” but Truth itself. He is not merely the brightest light in the world but the Light of the World. God is not “out there,” He is not the “old man in the sky” the fedora-tippers imagine. Rather, He is the Light along which all things are seen, and only in His Light do we see Light. 

Someone who studies the Christian religion can know many facts about God–He is infinite, He is Being, He is omnipotent, etc. Such theoretical knowledge–while certainly of some value in this life–is derived through “looking at” the dogmas of the Christian faith or philosophical proofs. But this knowledge is never capable of extending beyond abstract negations into any sort of positivity. Yes, God is infinite, but the word “infinite” is simply a negation–“not finite.” God is, of course, Being as such, but without an actual experience of His Being, we, like Hegel, will be led to a purely “indeterminate” or empty notion of being, in which we simply say that Being as such “is not” beings. And yes, God is omnipotent, but without an actual experience of this power, all we know is that God is not limited the way creatures are. 

Many people mistakenly associate this purely abstract and negative knowledge with what is known as “negative” or “apophatic” theology. But, at least in the Orthodox tradition, apophatic theology does not concern mere negative pronouncements without any corresponding positivity but precisely the positive experience of the infinite depth of God. In this experience, we come to know–in the most intimate and personal (that is, experiential) manner–that God transcends all categories of being and could never be exhausted by any experience, let alone any word or concept. As St. Dumitru Staniloae puts it:

Progress in the understanding of dogmas is possible, on the other hand, because their content is infinite and hence apophatic (ineffable), that is, it can never be comprehended in notions or words that might exhaust it. Apophaticism of the Eastern tradition “teaches us to see above all a negative meaning in the dogmas of the Church: it forbids us to follow natural ways of thought and to form concepts which would usurp the place of spiritual realities. For Christianity is not a philosophical school for speculating about abstract concepts, but is essentially a communion with the living God.”¹

More than anyone before him, St. Dumitru emphasizes that apophatic theology is “apophatic” precisely as the perpetual progress of personal communion with God. In this communion, there is never a point where we reach the “end” of God, but rather, we continuously realize that every potentially idolatrous conception we form of Him is insufficient. This is “mystical knowledge, not because it is somehow ‘mysterious,’ but because it is not external to man: it is lived by the ‘inner man’ of the heart as a gift of the Holy Spirit.”² Experiential knowledge of God is communion with the Light, along which all things are truly known. In this Light, we perceive the hidden logoi of things, the meanings and purposes God has woven into His creation. As St. Gregory Palamas says, the experience of God is beyond knowledge as it is the “indwelling of the Holy Spirit within us,”³ so that God is not an external object to be perceived but a living person who reveals Himself–in His true nature–within our souls, a revelation that is just as transformative as it is enlightening. 

“Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent” (John 17:3). Knowledge of God is only found in communion with God, which is only possible if one conforms one’s own mode of being (by the grace of God) with His. Like God, we must become humble and loving because to know God is to know His humility and His love as revealed in the person of Jesus Christ. To live selfishly is to blind oneself to the Light, a Light that is essentially self-giving. And again, the knowledge of God is, ultimately, experiential, which is equally participatory. To participate in the being, life, and joy of God, one’s mode of being must conform with His so that we can truly live His life. To know God is to live and be God by grace.

Eternal life is knowledge of God. But knowledge of God is communion with God. Hence, the sacrament of the Eucharist, through which we literally commune with God, perfectly fulfills the “dialogical reciprocity” that constitutes knowledge of God. In this Eucharist, man’s offering of bread and wine is transformed into God’s offering of Himself to us, through which we “taste and see” the Divine Mystery. Only through this tasting and seeing, the “internalization” of God, do we receive knowledge of Him:

When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight. They asked each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us? (Luke 24:30-32)

The two disciples on the road to Emmaus walk and dialogue with the Risen Christ, but they do not truly see Him until He offers them His body to eat (the eucharistic nature of this passage is uncontroversial, at least amongst apostolic Christians). 

For the modern mind, the fact that communion with the infinite God takes place through something as mundane and seemingly arbitrary as eating is puzzling, if not totally ludicrous. But think about what eating is: it is one of the primary ways we make something “other” internal to ourselves. Eating food gives us the energy necessary for our bodies to function, and the metabolized energy truly becomes part of us, being transformed into the very material that our bodies consist of. Through eating God, we receive the energy necessary for our soul to live, and we are truly transformed into Him by participation. Our God does not bypass the “mundane” realities of everyday life but transfigures and glorifies them, making them means of communion with Him. Our knowledge of God comes through our gradual transformation as persons who reflect and share His eternal love and life in this life, as we are right now. It is, therefore, just as “existential” as it is “spiritual,” for the latter is realized in the former. Just as God Himself was revealed and glorified in time and history, we become sons of God through gradually responding to the revelation of God in time, becoming glorified by His glory. This is inseparable from the historical particularity of the Incarnate Lord, who transfigures us as concrete persons in space and time by forming a community of transfigured persons (the Church) that reflects and shares in His own communal life. 

1. Dumitru Staniloae, The Experience of God (Vol 1).

2. Archimandrite Zacharias, Remember Thy First Love.

3. Paraphrasing a line from The Triads.