Abstract
This paper intends to append the frame of dialectic upon St. John of the Cross’ delineation of mysticism. Its underlying hypothesis is that the dialectical structuring of St. John’s mystical theology promises to unravel the web of relational concepts embedded within his immense writings on this unique phenomenon. It is hoped that as a consequence of this undertaking, relevant pairs of correlative opposites that figure prominently in mysticism can be elucidated and perhaps come to some form of resolution.
Notes
Karl Popper interprets dialectic as a method that professes to create its own logic that cavalierly disregards the law of non-contradiction and hence, rendering it impervious to criticism (since contradictories can comfortably reside together), and thereby seriously detracts itself from being a reliable method of reasoning. See Popper 1963. Popper, I think, seems reluctant to look upon dialectic as perhaps a method that is distinct from deductive logic and scientific empirical enquiry, and yet valuable in the area of theoretical discourse.
Hegel 1991 This translation uses ‘singularity’ instead of ‘individuality’.
See Aristotle 2004
In St. John of the Cross, The Ascent of Mount Carmel in The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross, trans. Kieran Kavanaugh and Otilio Rodrigues (Washington, D. C: Institute of Carmelite Studies Publications, 1991) p. 125, Bk I, Ch 4:4, we read: ‘Compared to the infinite goodness of God, all the goodness of the creatures of the world can be called wickedness.’
[Infinitude-finitude] is logically prior to [(infinitude-finitude) – (possibility of overcoming the divide)] in a parallel sense as an animal’s being a mammal is logically prior to its being a dog. The absence of the logically prior pairing (infinitude-finitude) would imply the absence of the logically posterior pairing between this divide and the confidence in bridging the divide, for the obvious reason that if there is no divide there would be no necessity for attempting to bridge it. Note also that it is the logically prior that is incorporated into the logically posterior. The intensional properties (not the multitudinal quantity of extensional denotation) of the genus class is incorporated into that of the species class. Likewise, the moment of the latter pairing above incorporates the fundamental premise of the former pairing, infinitude-finitude.
Ascent of Mount Carmel, Collected Works, pp. 160–161, Bk II, Ch 4.
Ascent of Mount Carmel, Collected Works, p. 118, Bk I, Ch 1.
Ibid., p. 119.
The Spiritual Canticle, Collected Works, p. 480, Stanza I, 6–8.
The Ascent of Mount Carmel, Collected Works, pp. 121–122, Bk I, Ch 3: 1–2.
The Living Flame of Love, Collected Works, pp. 696–697, Stanza 3: 57–59.
Harvey Egan confirms that for St. John, mystical revelations ought not to be at variance with reason and church, Egan 1984.
The Ascent of Mount Carmel, Collected Works, p. 123, Bk I, Ch 4: 1.
Ibid., p. 124, Bk I, Ch 4:3.
Ibid., pp. 141–142, Bk I, Ch 11: 1–2.
Ibid., p. 149, Bk I, Ch 13: 6.
Ibid., p. 122, Bk 1, Ch 3: 3.
Even moral virtues and pious meditations can be an encumbrance for the mystic who dwells upon the delights accrued from them. See The Spiritual Canticle, Collected Works, p. 491, Stanza III, 5.
The Dark Night, Collected Works, pp. 448–449, Bk II, Ch 21: 11–12.
Ibid., p. 432, Bk II, Ch 16: 7.
Ibid., p. 368, Bk I, Ch 4: 3; p. 415, Bk II, Ch 9: 8. See also Flynn 1996.
See Turner 1995 Also, The Dark Night, Collected Works, pp. 387–388, Bk I, Ch 12: 6.
The Dark Night, Collected Works, p. 436, Bk II, Ch 17: 3.
Herrera, op. cit.,p. 87.
The Living Flame of Love, Collected Works, p. 639, Prologue: 3.
The Dark Night, Collected Works, p. 419, Bk II, Ch 11: 2.
The Spiritual Canticle, Collected Works, pp. 622–623, Stanza 39: 3.
The Living Flame of Love, Collected Works, p. 713, Stanza 4: 14. This is consistent with the theological premise that grace as divine presence is offered to all.
Egan, op. cit., p. 212. Egan also believes that even though transformation of the soul is valuable in itself the ultimate raison d’être of mysticism is the mystic’s loving relationship with God.
Inwood, op. cit., p. 289. For Hegel, to posit the existence of the thing-in-itself is to envelop it within the logical category of ‘existence.’ It is also to categorize it as being in an undifferentiated abstraction, what Hegel calls the ‘abstract reflection-into-itself’, an entity that has no determinate concrete form but is assumed to exist. See The Encyclopaedia of Logic, p. 194 § 124, Addition. I suspect that Kant’s sometimes fluid use of the term ‘thing-in-itself’ (occasionally using it synonymously with ‘noumenon’ to include abstract universal concepts and transcendentals) has some bearing upon the above dispute. The Kantian ‘thing-in-itself’ essentially refers to the unknowable aspect of a thing that is responsible for emitting the knowable phenomena.
Geoffrey K. Mondello, “The Metaphysics of Mysticism: Toward a Theory of Cognitive Transcendence, A Commentary on the Mystical Philosophy of St. John of the Cross,” [database online]; available from http://www.johnofthecross.com/the_metaphysics_-_dark_night_of_the_soul.htm; Internet: accessed 12 February 2007.
The Spiritual Canticle, Collected Works, pp. 623–624, Stanza 39: 4–6.
Aquinas inferred from the unconditioned and infinite nature of God that there is no potency in God. Otherwise, God can be moved by another and hence, be not the Prime Mover. Therefore, God must be Pure Act. See Gilson 1948.
See Herrera, op. cit., p. 95.
The Living Flame of Love, Collected Works, pp. 644–646, Stanza 1: 9–15.
Turner, op. cit., p. 19–20.
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Gan Chong Beng, P. Union and Difference: A Dialectical Structuring of St. John of the Cross’ Mysticism. SOPHIA 48, 43–57 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11841-008-0083-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11841-008-0083-2