PARADOX // n.d.

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Language had become feeble to describe his experience. As St Dionysius would begin to express it, the truth of it would shift back out of view, words themselves buckling under the Ineffable. God wasn't only beyond comprehension, but entirely incommunicable. But then, He was also found inscribed in every place- the heavens declaring, the day pouring forth speech, in the mouths of birds and beasts and infants. "Namelessness and Multiplicity of Names; Unknowableness and perfect Intelligibility; universal Affirmation and Negation in a state above all Affirmation and Negation." The God of paradoxes. He overflowed creation in two simultaneous streams without independence: one so high above as to be hidden completely from mankind (no eye had seen, no ear had heard); the other thrumming below in every movement of soul and soil, mingling with the world in emanations- Himself moving beyond Himself- Light from Light.

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The world was a system of references. Every object, every person, every location had particularities that could be described and understood by its attributes, by its similarities or dissimilarities to other points of reference. But God was beyond the system entirely. Creation could reveal mere echoes of His attributes, but it could not reveal Him as He was. He did not fit into the system of references called existence, nor was He non-existent because He is the Source of existence. Being and Non-Being; Darkness by excess of Light; the Ineffable revealed in Word. The infinite assertion of the phrase "I Am that I Am" was again expressed by Dionysius in terms of infinite negation: He is not.

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This expanse of paradoxes caused Dionysius to struggle against language itself to express a God beyond utterance; a God most clearly defined by indefinition. It was only by paradox that paradox could be conceived in the mind, and only by faith that it could be received in the heart. It is this hope of movement through paradox and toward the experience of God that has given Christianity its basis for mysticism and transformation; the hope of the God transcendent moving toward mankind in love forever.