Silence and the Word: Negative Theology and Incarnation

Negative theology or apophasis - the idea that God is best identified in terms of absence, otherness, difference - has been influential in modern Christian thought, resonating as it does with secular notions of negation developed in recent continental philosophy. Apophasis also has a strong intellectual history dating back to the early Church Fathers. Silence and the Word both studies the history of apophasis and examines its relationship with contemporary secular philosophy. Leading Christian thinkers explore in their own way the extent to which the concept of the apophatic illumines some of the deepest doctrinal structures of Christian faith, and of Christian self-understanding both in terms of its historical and contemporary situatedness, showing how a dimension of negativity has characterised not only traditional mysticism but most forms of Christian thought over the years.

• Important new perspectives on negative theology • Relates theology to developments in continental philosophy • Broad historical coverage including mysticism and other traditions

Preface; Notes on contributors; Introduction Oliver Davies and Denys Turner; 1. Apophaticism, idolatory and the claims of reason Denys Turner; 2. The quest for a place which is ‘not-a-place’: the hiddenness of God and the presence of God Paul S. Fiddes; 3. The gift of the name: Moses and the burning bush Janet Martin Soskice; 4. Aquinas on the Trinity Herbert McCabe; 5. Vere tu es deus absconditus: the hidden God in Luther and some mystics Bernard McGinn; 6. The deflections of desire: negative theology in Trinitarian disclosure Rowan Williams; 7. The formation of mind: Trinity and understanding in Newman Mark A. McIntosh; 8. ‘In the daylight forever?’: language and silence Graham Ward; 9. Apophasis and the Shoah: where was Jesus Christ at Auschwitz? David F. Ford; 10. Soundings: towards a theological poetics of silence Oliver Davies; Select bibliography.