Apophatic theology as a resource for eco-theology

ABSTRACT

This essay explores the potential for eco-theology as a part of the (Christian) theological tradition that, so far, has only been analyzed to a limited extent with regard to what it might contribute to forms of theology that further more sustainable forms of humankind’s (co-)inhabitation of the world: the tradition of apophatic theology. The question is: ‘can dimensions of the apophatic tradition be identified that can contribute to the development of eco-theology in the Christian tradition by informing the shaping of the relationship between humankind and the rest of creation?’ The question will be answered affirmatively, for which this essay takes the following steps. First, the conditions under which apophatic approaches can inform the relationship between humankind and the rest of creation are considered. Second, a recent discussion of apophatic theology by Rowan Williams is used as a point of departure to discuss apophatic theology, epistemology and representation. Third, the theology of icons, expressive as it is by forms of relational and ‘decentered’ observation, that can be understood as being closely connected with apophatic concerns, is considered as a model for humankind’s relating to the rest of creation.

KEYWORDS:

• Apophatic theology
• eco-theology
• non-human nature
• perception
• decentralization/decentered knowing
• icon(s)?

Introduction¹

This essay explores the potential for eco-theology as a part of the (Christian) theological tradition, that, so far, has only been analyzed to a limited extent with regard to what it might contribute to forms of theology that promote more sustainable forms of humankind’s (co-)inhabitation of the world: the tradition of apophatic theology. As the first treatment of this topic, the question that is asked here is also exploratory in nature: ‘can dimensions of the apophatic tradition be identified that can contribute to the development of eco-theology in the Christian tradition by informing and shaping the relationship between humankind and the rest of creation?’ The question will be answered affirmatively, for which this essay takes the following steps. First, the conditions under which apophatic approaches can inform the relationship between humankind and the rest of creation are considered. Second, a recent discussion of apophatic theology by Rowan Williams is used as a point of departure to discuss apophatic theology, epistemology and representation. Third, the theology of icons, expressive as it is by forms of relational and ‘decentered’ observation, that can be understood as being closely connected with apophatic concerns, is considered as a model for humankind’s relating to the rest of creation. Conclusions sum up the results of the thought experiment that is at the core of this essay. It should be recognized that much has already been written on apophatic theology in relation to eco-theology. This essay’s relevance lies in its own particular contribution to both eco-theological as apophatic discourses, namely by situating it in a ‘modern’ North-Atlantic discourse of the perception (and representation) of non-human nature (or creation), which is largely dominated by a mechanistic understanding of the (non-human) world² and in which the decentralised subject and sensory experience – other than sight and hearing – are still considered quite controversial. The development of less objectifying forms of perception and representation is oftentimes seen as being at the very core of the project of eco-theology³.

In presenting this argument, this paper both builds on and goes beyond current research in a number of ways. First, it draws systematically on a number of theological approaches regarding God’s presence in creation that have fed into the apophatic tradition yet does not use these to revise language about God in an eco-theological way, but as a vantage point for speaking apophatically about creation⁴. Second, it explores an analogy with apophatic anthropology as an additional resource for arguing for an apophatic approach to non-human creation. Third, the paper develops the epistemological consequences of an apophatic approach to creation by drawing on the recent discussion of ‘negative’ theology by Rowan Williams, arguing in favor of a forms of ‘decentered’ knowing (in relationship and in communion), expanding this by discussing it in relationship to the theology of icons. In doing so, also Keller’s suggestion that the apophatic tradition can offer language about creation that goes beyond dominance is developed further (albeit without the process framework that she uses)⁵. Finally, the paper explores a number of ways in which human perception can be revisited concretely and in doing so further develops what Meyer has argued for in relation to eco-theology and apophaticism: ‘An apophatic reconception of human agency and human entanglement with fellow creatures offers a significant alternative and a rich starting point for ecotheology.’⁶ All of this also contributes to ways of engaging non-human creation in a manner that is at least capable of relativizing anthropomorphisms that can lead to creation speaking on human terms by stressing receptivity, rather than control, when it comes to the sensorial encounter with the ‘other’ in creation.

Apophatic theology: a characteristic

Apophatic theology is concerned with finite language for the infinite and, therefore, with human knowledge and representation of the Divine. The rich tradition of apophatic theology in Christian theology witnesses to this. To be sure, apophaticism (‘negative’ theology) always exists in a dialectic with cataphatic (‘positive’ theology), which is never-ending and presents the practitioner of theology with a paradoxical situation, given that every apophatic surpassing of a cataphatic statement is itself, in a way, also cataphatic in its nature and, therefore, needs to be cataphatically transcended again, without giving up on the (very partial but nonetheless real) truth expressed by cataphatic statements (e.g., affirming that God is Father is a true cataphatic statement, yet it, apophatically speaking, God is not father at all, as no experience of human fathers can do justice to God’s fatherhood, yet, the latter statement is also affirming something, i.e., that God is not like human fathers, which, in the end, is also unknowable and can be overcome by allowing the word Father, when used with reference to God, to be filled with revealed content only, which, of course, will lead to another series of cataphatic and apophatic statements and relativizations, etc.). That apophatic theology (in its inextricable relationship to cataphatic theology) is closely connected with contemplation need not surprise, nor that it leads to a strong openness for (or even preference for) non-conceptual language for doing theology. As

Apophaticism is the way and attitude in which the Orthodox Church considers knowledge of its truth. Apophaticism means rejecting limiting the knowledge of truth to its mere formulation. Its formulation is necessary, as it defines truth, it distinguishes truth from and leads it beyond any distortion. However, this formulation does not constitute nor is it limited to the knowledge of truth, which is always lived experience, a way of life and not a theoretical construct. Apophatic attitude leads Christian theology to using the language of poetry and icons rather than the language of conventional logic and conceptual schematizations, in order to interpret dogma⁷.

On this background, an important question to address is why and how it would be appropriate to use the apophatic tradition to say something about other creatures, rather than about the Creator. Answering this question can draw on previous work in the field of apophatic theological anthropology⁸.

Apophatic theological anthropology

A recent (and representative) exponent of this approach is Georgiana Huian, who, drawing on the work of Gregory of Nazianze, offers the following reasons for the use of the apophatic theological approach to anthropological topics in the context of Christian theology⁹. First, she highlights that ‘The anthropology of Gregory of Nazianzus gravitates around the central idea that the human being is the image of God. The composite of soul and body, mind and dust, spirit and flesh, has to regain, through contemplation and theosis, the beauty of the “image of God”.’¹⁰ Because of the presence of ‘the image of God in the human being,’ a human also ‘bears … the mark of the incomprehensibility of the invisible God.’ In fact, the more a human being participates in the process of theosis, the more it is ‘enriched with the ineffability of the eschatological condition.’ Huian concludes: ‘Therefore, the human being requires, in its iconic constitution, a necessarily apophatic approach.’ As an eikôn of God, a (fellow) human being is not something to be defined and controlled, but to encountered in relationship, in which the other presents itself to oneself as a mystery that reveals itself in the encounter, which is, in the end, an encounter of God, meeting and ‘knowing God through his divine image’ in a receptive manner, of which silence that makes space for the other is an essential component¹¹. In doing so, Huian, following the footsteps of Nazianze, also arrives at a relational way of knowing that is appropriate for inter-human relationships because it is appropriate in relation to God, an insight which is also formulated succinctly by Yannaras in a statement about apophatic theology in general that clearly has the same anthropological implications as Huian’s discussion of Nazianze:

No intellectual definition (whether conceptual or verbal) can ever exhaust the knowledge afforded us by the immediacy of relationship, consequently the logical definition of essence (as the common principle of examples of the same form) follows and does not precede the otherness of each existent, which I know in immediate relationship with it. Thus, if God exists, he is primarily known as a person (hypostasis) in the immediacy of relationship, and not primarily as an essence with its conceptual definition. And given the inadequacy of reason to replace or exhaust the cognitive immediacy of relatedness (particularly as regards the hypostasis of the person, where otherness is not simply phenomenological, but the freedom of the subject’s self-determination of its mode of existence), we may speak of the apophatic character of any definition that is given of the personal otherness of God¹².

Apophatic theological anthropology thus rests on the conviction that human beings are images of God, therefore have an ineffable dimension, and are to be approached apophatically for that reason. With regard to an apophatic eco-theology, this begs the question as to whether there are identical, or at least sufficiently similar ways of thinking God’s presence in creation, to permit an apophatic approach to the same. God’s presence in the world is, of course, a topic that has been much discussed; for the current essay, no full discussion of this topic is required, but only an anchoring of the idea of God’s presence in creation that is sufficiently substantial to permit an apophatic approach to the same. The following four ways of approaching the issue offer such a foundation, while other ways are surely available: (a) approaching the rest of creation in terms of an icon of God as well; (b) the notion of the logos spermatikos; (c) the Palamic notion of the divine energies present in creation; (d) the ethos of otherness implied in Christian theology. Even these three ways cannot be discussed in detail here, but it can be indicated how they provide a substantiation for an apophatic approach to creation beyond humankind (as humans are, of course, part of creation itself).

First, the argument has been put forward, for instance by Clough and considered (but ultimately rejected in favor of the proposal to view non-human as sharing in God’s likeness – and not God’s image, following Aquinas’ distinction between the two) by Deane-Drummond, that non-human creation can also be seen as sharing in the ‘imago Dei,’ as has recently been discussed by Van Urk-Coster¹³. Yet, Clough’s argument is worth recalling, given that his interpretation has a Christological, more specifically: incarnational basis, as he argues that the hypostatic union is in the end a union (in the sense of a koinonia, not a merging, of course) between Creator and creation, which, as such, is rather uncontroversial¹⁴. As it is Christ who is the icon of God according to texts such as Col. 1:15, the entirety of creation can be seen as sharing in Christ’s image bearing (and not just humankind). This is an argument based more on conciliar Christology than on Gen. 1 (which, Clough admits, is reread from the perspective of Christology) and more exegetical considerations are for Van Urk-Coster an important reason for not following Clough’s argument. Nonetheless, the incarnation of the divine Word and the (resulting) hypostatic ways are certainly ways of thinking God’s presence in, even identification with (in the sense of the hypostatic union, i.e., both hypostases share in each other’s lives to a very full extent, as the doctrine of the communicatio idiomatum indicates, and which makes it possible to say that God in Christ suffers without giving up on divine impassibility and unchangeability)¹⁵. This incarnational line of thinking can be explored further by looking at a second approach.

Second, the early Christian notion of the logos spermatikos, as it entered the tradition of Christian theology through Justin Martyr can be drawn on. This doctrine is relatively straight forward and states that God is present in creation (and non-Christian cultures) through the word that was ‘sown into’ creation due to the word’s role in creation. In its fuller development, it can also be found in the theology of thinkers such as Maximos Confessor, whose position Louth summarizes as follows:

Maximos makes a play on meanings with the word for face, prosöpon in Greek, which also means person. The radiant face of Christ, on which the disciples cannot look, is the hidden mystery of the being of the Divine Person that he is: beholding the light that reveals and blinds, the disciples acknowledge the divinity of Christ by apophatic theology, that denies any human access to the being of God himself, revealed in the face. The shining garments of Christ are creation and Scripture: the created order in which the God is revealed through the divine principles, the logoi of creation, and theScriptures in which God is revealed through the verbal logoi of the text. This represents cataphatic theology: words, ideas and images which enable us to say something about God¹⁶.

Third, a vantage point can be found in the Palamic (or hesychast) tradition that seeks to understand the (experience) of God in the world in terms of the experience of God’s uncreated energies that are to be distinguished from God’s ‘being,’ yet are nonetheless fully God¹⁷. The conceptuality and history of the Palamic tradition is complex and not uncontroversial, yet it enables speaking of God’s presence in the world in a manner that would justify an apophatic approach to creation. Since, if God can be encountered in creation in a manner that goes beyond admiring the distant creator for what he has so beautifully made, the challenge is how to speak about the presence and encounter of the absolutely transcendent in the absolutely immanent¹⁸; the Palamic model permits then this by proposing that God’s energies, uncreated and fully God, facilitate this encounter and are expressive of God’s communion with creation on its way to its own theosis. If this is the case, then an encounter with creation can be thought of as an encounter with God as God is present in creation through the divine energies¹⁹. An apophatic approach to such presence and to creation in which this presence dwells, would become viable – and the Palamic emphasis on silent contemplation is certainly expressive of such an attitude. As happens frequently, for instance in the work of Theokritoff, the notion of the logoi and of the divine energies are combined to arrive at one ‘panentheistic’ way of viewing the world²⁰.

A fourth approach is a derivative of views regarding God’s presence in creation, as it depends on a view of human beings existing in the image and likeness of God; it concerns the ‘ethos of otherness’ that has been developed by, for instance, Zizioulas²¹, and that demands a recognition of the otherness of the other and the requirement of encountering the other in a manner that makes space for this other (and gives up on a more ‘controlling’ manner of encounter the other). This relational approach to the other derives from Zizioulas’ stress on a relational ontology, which has its ultimate ground in his conviction that the Triune God has left an imprint on humankind²². As the Anglican-Orthodox dialogue (in which the influence of Zizioulas’ theology is palpable) shows, this line of thinking can be easily applied to relationships between human and non-human creation. In fact, there might be even reason to do so a fortiori compared to its application to intra-human relationships, given the difference between human beings and other parts of creation (e.g., plants, the sea, etc.), which would demand an even stronger ethos of otherness and space for the other in the encounter²³. In fact, the Anglican-Orthodox dialogue, which is much influenced by the theology of Zizioulas, applies this thinking in terms of an ethos of otherness precisely to creation:

Protecting the dignity of all life, caring for the created order, and aspiring to holiness are essential manifestations of the true response of humankind to God’s calling. Human capacity for freedom implies responsibility. We are called to view the created order as our fragile ‘other’, a subject rather than an object, in need of protection and creative and imaginative nurture²⁴.

These three theological approaches to God’s presence in creation (and the one model based on an ethos of otherness, which, in the end, has its roots in an understanding of humans existing in God’s image as well) – as stressed before: other models are also possible – offer sufficient substantiation for an apophatic approach to creation, because of God’s presence in it, to continue with the next step of this argument: considering what an apophatic approach would amount to in terms of content, moving beyond what has been said about its formal side: (a) its requirement for speaking or contemplating the ineffable; (b) the appropriateness of an apophatic approach to creation (because of God’s presence in it).

Apophatic theology and the representation of the divine

When considering what apophatic theology means, a recent publication by Rowan Williams is a helpful guide²⁵. Drawing on his work permits avoiding having to outline the history of apophatic theology here. Williams discerns helpfully between four styles of apophatic (or, in his terminology: ‘negative’) theology, dwelling the most extensively on the last one.

His four approaches are the following. First, there is negative/apophatic theology in the sense of ‘grammatical negation,’ which, using an alpha privative (e.g., ‘uncreated’ – αδημιούργητος), indicates that ‘any theological speech must avoid speaking of God as an agent with a context and a history, as a presence alongside other presences.’²⁶ The expressions point to God’s being unlimited and unrestricted: ‘the “privative” expressions are a way of indicating fullness not lack.’²⁷ The second style has to do with ‘qualificatory negation’: ‘a biblical text or a doctrinal or liturgical formulation is hedged about with the cautionary reminder that the sense in which some words are used cannot be the primary and familiar one.’²⁸ ‘Metaphysical negation’ is the third style that Williams identifies, it comes down to ‘a claim that there is never anything that can be positively said about what it is “like” to be God, not because this is some sort of open question with no satisfactory answer but because there is no position from which a finite mind could have adequate perspective on unlimited actuality as such, no way of “characterizing” unlimited actuality. Questions about God cannot be intelligibly formulated.’²⁹ The fourth style is ‘descriptive negation’ and sets out ‘the ways in which actual finite subjects come to the boundary of what can be said.’³⁰

In this reflection of these four styles, Williams makes an overarching epistemological point with regard to apophatic theology, which

… invites us to look at the models of knowledge we employ in theology and at the underlying assumptions we make about personal being. If the denials involved in apophatic practice are indeed necessary and appropriate, God is never … an object in a “field,” which we could in principle walk around in imagination, whose movements and reactions we could reliably chart from an independent vantage point. Thus, any truthful words about God would need to be uncoupled from the model of a knowing subject standing in the same plane as the known object and definitely mapping the latter within its horizons, or with a mental geography in which the knowing self is the focal orienting point. Truthfulness in such a context would be a matter of locating myself-as-knower in a field of which I am not the centre; where the appropriateness of where I am standing is specified by a complex of factors to which I do not have complete and definitive access. That this transition to a different territory affects intellect, imagination and feeling alike is clear from the constant dialectic in the contemplative tradition between apophasis as a matter of theological speech on the one hand and the experience of radical loss and affective disorientation in the developing awareness of the contemplative, in and out of prayer³¹.

Thus, Williams sees the apophatic tradition as something that speaks to epistemology in general, proposing a ‘decentered’ way of knowing that would be very compatible with Zizioulas’ ‘ethos of otherness’ that was mentioned above (while Williams’ theology would also be compatible with the other substantiations of an apophatic approach to creation given above). If a decentered approach to knowing ‘objects’ is appropriate in general, it is also appropriate in relation to creation (for the reasons offered above). In fact, it would invite exploring manners in which the ‘other’ (the ‘object of knowledge’ that has now become a counterpart in an encounter) can be seen as communicating itself to oneself as the observer, in particular when in this other the ineffable divine can be thought of as being present³².

Finally, it is also of importance to note how Williams develops apophatic theology as a communal practice:

To use an analogy that has sometimes been applied to in this connection, my knowing in this context is more like the experience of entering a field of activity – a game, a ceremony, a musical performance – of which I have at best a rudimentary understanding. Appropriate moves in this field will come into focus gradually, perhaps painfully or with a degree of struggle, and will be generated not by my individual interaction with a clear set of phenomena but by a cumulative pressure; I learn to sing in tune and in time, say, by attending to the convergent response of others to the requirements of a practice that all have opted into and whose ‘sense’ is inseparable from the convergence of the response. Sharing the practice in a fully appropriate and intelligible way is a matter of learning not a new individual repertoire of actions but the skills of listening and adjusting to the ways others are performing – just as my own presence mandates others to listen and adjust so as to generate a properly common activity³³.

Fittingly, Williams develops this line of thought into an argument for apophatic theology as an ecclesial, that is to say: communal, practice³⁴. The develop of knowledge (or ‘sense’) in an apophatic manner is thus both communal and ‘decentered’ (as far as the knowing subject is concerned) because all knowing is relational and participatory in nature. Although Williams seems to think of a community of human beings here, his own ecclesiology gives every reason to think of this community as that of the entirety of creation³⁵, which certainly is a theme in other strands of orthodox(-inspired) theology, such as the Anglican-Orthodox dialogue that was quoted earlier already, and which connects the inclusion of humankind into the unity between Christ with the Father as inclusive of creation: ‘When Jesus prayed that we might be taken up into the unity that exists between himself and the Father (Jn 17.21–23), this should be understood as implying the inclusion of the whole of creation.’³⁶

Following this line of reasoning, it becomes inviting to consider in some more detail, both by making use of practices associated with the apophatic tradition and by proposing to go slightly beyond it by drawing on the theology of icons (and iconic perception) and on the use of the (human) senses.

Iconic perception

So far, the term ‘icon’ has figured a number of times in this essay: with reference to Christ as the icon of God, to human beings as divine image bearers (and an iconic approach to theological anthropology), to possibilities of thinking the creation as an icon of God, and to the Eastern orthodox preference for icons when it comes to expressing dogma, also in the context of apophatic approaches to theology. Here, the connection between especially seeing creation as an icon of God (due to God’s presence in it, even identification with it – depending on the theological model for thinking God’s presence in creation that is followed)³⁷ and human perception of creation, an integral part of the construction of humankind’s relation to creation, will be explored further. It will be argued that if nature can be seen as an icon of God and that because of that an apophatic approach to it is appropriate (just as it is vis-à-vis of human beings as ‘icons’ of God), then the theology of icons can help to further develop what it means to relate to creation as an icon of God, especially along the lines of Williams’ fourth understanding of apophatic theology, i.e. as a decentered form of perception. Our argument with regard to creation here parallels Huian’s argument, referred to above, with regard to intra-human relationships.

Icons and their manner of representing the divine by being ‘windows’ for it find themselves squarely in the midst of the dialectic between cataphatic and apophatic modes of theology, something to which the iconoclastic controversies (and the continuing controversial character of icons, also beyond the Second Council of Nicaea, 787 CE) are witnesses. Icons, on the one hand, represent God on the basis of incarnational considerations, on the other hand, they do also in a manner that indicates that what they represent does not in any way mean that human beings can truly see and thereby, as it were, ‘grasp’ God. This has many features and dimensions, but, at least in what has become the classical Byzantine tradition of icons³⁸, the inversion of perspective is a particularly interesting one for the purposes of this essay. Whereas in Western painting, at least from the Renaissance onwards, the vanishing point of a painting is within the painting, thereby imitating the human way of looking at the world as an object, icons have a reversed perspective, which suggests that the vanishing point is not within the picture, but in the one looking at it. This has the effect that one is being looked at more, when contemplating an icon, than that one looks at it oneself³⁹. In this way, the divine (and everything associated with the divine, such as saints) eludes the grasp of the human gaze and offers itself as a partner in a relationship, rather than as an object that is to be mastered through one’s careful perception of it (as Chryssavgis puts it: “‘I see” means that ‘I am seen’, which in turn means that I am in communion.’)⁴⁰ The mystery of the “other” (God, in this case) is thereby safeguarded, while, at the same time, real communication, facilitated by the “self-representation” of the divine, through the icon, takes place: the eyes of the divine and the human (beholder of the icon) meet, as it were. Relationship replaces perception and mastery and contemplation, rather than analysis becomes the appropriate attitude vis-à-vis of God. This, of course, also means a loss of control and power on the part of the observer, which can well be encapsulated with the term kenosis, as, for instance, the Anglican-Orthodox dialogue does⁴¹.

This readjustment of perception is, in fact, a form of the readjustment of the senses, a topic close to (at least) one strand of apophatic theology, the philokalic tradition, as it has been explored recently by, again, Williams⁴². In this context, he offers an interpretation of (one of) the aim(s) of this tradition, of which the readjustment of the senses appears to be a part: proper incarnation, or fulfilled embodiment (rather than disembodiment or a denial of the body, as the ascetic practices associated with the philokalic tradition have often been misunderstood). He writes the following:

Our problem, if this reading of the Philokalia is correct, is not that we are embodied spirits, but that we are incompletely embodied spirits – that is, that we are as yet unable to live in this material and mutable world without clinging to our impressions, distorting our impressions, or compulsively marking out our territory. The things of the world – and our human neighbours in the world – appear either as food or as threat to the ego. Unless we become able to receive the truth of what is before us as it stands in relation to God, not to us, we are failing to be embodied in the sense of being properly part of creation: we are caught in an implicit idolatry, the effort to separate ourselves from the order of which we are part⁴³.

If the readjustment of perception of (non-human) creation, informed by apophatic insights, following the lead of the theology of icons, and based on an understanding of creation as, at least in some form, a bearer of God’s image (or the site of God’s real presence, which would have the same effect for approaching it), as it would be suggested by the models for thinking God’s presence in creation discussed above, would lead to a way of relating to ‘nature’ that goes beyond viewing it either as a threat or as food and that would invite humankind to conceive of itself as part of a koinonia of which the members receive their dignity from God’s indwelling in them (in whichever way) and which are, therefore, inviolable on the one hand and that demand a relational (and apophatic) way of related on the other, then, we would submit, much has been won when it comes to living as part of God’s creation in a sustainable manner⁴⁴. Indeed, as Williams suggests (with reference to Yannaras)⁴⁵ with regard to the soteriology and theological anthropology of the Philokalia:

Restored humanity is humanity properly embodied, and this embodiment includes the freedom to relate to the things and the persons of the world as they are in relation to God. It is in this connection that the spirituality of the philokalic tradition may rightly be seen as the foundation for a social and environmental ethic capable of addressing the major public crisis of or own time.

These observations give rise to epistemological questions on a number of levels, which cannot be addressed in full here. However, one way in which such a more balanced, or reciprocal way of perceiving the other in the context of human – non-human interaction could be explored, as hinted at by Williams in the previous quotation, is by considering the kinds of senses that play a role in human perception and the manner in which the sensory perception of non-human nature is appreciated. This leads to the next – and most exploratory – section of this essay.

Nature communicating itself to humankind – sensual perception and epistemology

A final step of our argument moves from the more formal aspect of cognition and representation, which was discussed in the previous section, to the question ‘how’ non-human creation might then communicate itself to humans. In this step, some forms of communication will be highlighted that can also be understood as challenging preferred forms of communication among humans⁴⁶. For instance, it will appear that not just sight and hearing, senses that are often (albeit it not always) privileged in (post)modern hierarchies of the senses⁴⁷, but also the often less acknowledged senses smell, touch and taste are of importance. In doing so, the paper is informed by multisensory approaches, such as they are being developed, for instance, in the context of ‘wild’ pedagogy, although it does not discuss them in-depth for reasons of space⁴⁸. In particular, it will be explored how the senses can be understood in a more receptive sense. Biologically, senses are, of course, receptive in a very fundamental sense, given that they function as part of the processes by means of which humans receive and interpret impulses from outside of the individual, yet they are often referred to as a human activity that controls and understand, rather than in terms of (intentional) receptivity, which seeks to – literally and figuratively – listen and relate. In what follows, a number of brief examples are offered, which aim to be illustrative, certainly not exhaustive.

First, smell can be considered, a sense that is not always acknowledged as prominently as, for instance, sight or hearing. Yet, smell is a sense that can well make one more aware of the receptive character of the sense. For instance, an overwhelming smell puts a human being in a very passive position, and it is difficult to resist it. By contrast, research into smell also can make one aware how many smells one actually receives without being aware of it. Could this be regarded as a form of communication, or at least: interaction, between non-human nature and humans that one becomes only aware of, as such and as a viable, yet often neglected form of sensory interaction, that is only appreciate when intentionally permitting nature to ‘speak’ (that is ‘smell’) to oneself? Research into the smells of the North Sea led to forty types of smell – how many is a human walking the beaches of the Netherlands actually aware of?⁴⁹ In addition: certainly when compared to many (other) animals, humans appear to have a very poor sense of smell – which might encourage reflection on the ‘normality’ (and the normative character) of human sensing as part of the interaction with non-human nature.

Similarly, taste can be considered; again, it is a sense over which it is very difficult to exercise control, be it when something tastes particularly awful or when one’s taste has become habituated in a certain way (e.g., with regard to sugar). To what extent, however, is taste seen as a form of communication between non-human nature and humans? It would seem reasonable to suggest that this is not always the case: determining whether a kind of fruit is fit for human consumption takes priority over considering whether one might not be enlisted, as it were, to assist in a species proliferation (by preferring it over other species, or by aiding its distribution of seeds, etc.). Human taste may well place a human being in a much more receptive position vis-à-vis non-human nature (and its exercise of what may be called ‘affordance’) than one might be aware of.

With regard to touch, receptivity can also provide a vantage point for reconsidering it. This can pertain to the difference between an interpretation of standing with your feet on the ground (and thereby touching the ground) as an activity that I undertake or whether I interpret it as something that is shaped to a substantial extent by both the pull of gravity and the push of the matter that I stand on. In other words, is touch something that I do, or am I being touched just as much as I touch myself? When it comes to petting an animal, for example, one can wonder to what extent this is one’s own action primarily, or also a response to an animal presenting itself to a human being (inviting a particular kind of touch, which can be described as ‘affordance’). Going one step further, focusing on touch, one can also become aware of the fact how limited the human sense of touch is compared to that of many other animals, such as moles.

Reflection on hearing, which may well be a sense that is easily associated with receptivity (e.g., when it comes to allowing sounds to affect one’s mood intentionally), could give rise to an awareness of the limitations of human sensing (this applies to all sense, of course, but here it is elaborated upon in relation to hearing). For instance, although human beings would consider their own mode of hearing normal (absence of hearing is, accordingly, often seen as a defect), many animals exist that have a far superior sense of hearing. Would this hold the potential of creating a stronger awareness of the limitations of human sensory perception (and thereby make it less normative)? Of course, many tools exist that enhance human sensory perception (with regard to all the sense), but these only reinforce this point: humans are in need of (acoustic and other) aids, where many other animals are not.

Finally, sight is, as a sense that has been privileged in modernity (and also, given the continuing emphasis on the visible in late modernity, remains very prominent in epistemology) is treated last. A point that can be made about it in relation to the apophatic (and relational) epistemology that was outlined about that it is inviting to think of sight in receptive terms. It is not about how a human being actively and intentionally ‘observes’ an object, but rather about the impression that an ‘object’ makes on a person through the sense of sight. This, of course, always happens – human sight is receptive in nature –, yet an awareness often seems to be limited (the transitive use of the verb ‘seeing’ would suggest this, for instance – ‘I see something’ not ‘the light reflected by an object impresses itself onto my retina’); one way of enhancing the sense of reception in seeing would be an emphasis on time. Taking time to ‘see’ creates space for an encounter, in which the other also ‘speaks’ to the one beholding it. For instance Julia Enxing proposes to look, in this case: at photos of, suffering animals for a longer period of time, before reacting to them, which permits the animals on the pictures to ‘speak’ for itself in a more profound manner than when taking it in at a glance⁵⁰. This taking of time could, of course, also be applied to the other senses, but it would certainly also help to relative capturing and dominating notions of ‘sight’ and to work towards a more decentered employment of this sense.

These reflections on the senses, which had an illustrative, certainly not exhaustive, character, show how intentional attention to the senses, in particular with regard to their receptive dimension, can further decentered forms of perception. In fact, they may even support the notion that a decentered form of perception is much more realistic than one that subscribes to the centrality of the knowing (sensing, perceiving) subject that is in control of the objects that it looks at. Anthropocentrism in epistemology may well be a way for humans to fool themselves. Both the fact that the ‘outside’ impresses itself on a human at least just as much as it is being seen and the fact that the human senses are but one way of sensory perception (other species sense differently, often prioritizing other senses, which are frequently much more sensitive than their human equivalents) decentralize human sensory perception, which resonates with the apophatic approach to perception that was outlined above on the basis of patristics and philokalic considerations. A less anthropocentric approach to perception, in which neither human perception qua way of perceiving is normative nor human control over perception is assumed, may well be the result, which opens up a space for more relational ways of knowing in the context of the communion of all creation.

Conclusions

In the preceding considerations, we have presented an argument that consists of the following steps. First, we argued, on the basis of existing apophatic approaches to theology and a number of theological models for thinking God’s presence in (non-human) creation, that an apophatic approach to nature is appropriate. Second, we considered what such an approach could mean in an argument informed by Williams’ recent discussion of apophatic theology. Third, we developed the decentered way of knowing that Williams favors by means of a discussion of aspects of the theology of icons, suggesting that an ‘iconic’ way of relating to (non-human) creation can help humankind to move beyond viewing it as either threat or food. Fourth and finally, we illustrated some ways in which (non-human) creation relates on its own terms to humankind and how that challenges human epistemological preferences even further. The result of this thought experiment is that apophatic theology can be understood as a viable and even promising way of thinking human-non-human relationships and the way in which humans approach knowing and representing non-humans in the context of an ecologically sensitive theology, in which precisely these epistemological questions are much highlighted.

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Notes on contributors

Iris Veerbeek

Iris Veerbeek obtained a bachelor’s degree in Theology and a master’s degree in Interreligious Studies at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam. In 2021, she received the Junior Fellowship ‘Ethics of the Anthropocene’. Currently, she is working on a research project at the Vrije Universiteit which aims to develop a fresh approach to secular and religious literature in higher education in the context of the climate crisis by integrating insights from Wild Pedagogies.

Peter-Ben Smit

Peter-Ben Smit holds doctoral degrees in New Testament studies (University of Bern) and Anglican Theology (General Theological Seminary) and completed his Habilitation in Church History at the University of Bern; he currently serves as professor of Contextual Biblical Interpretation and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and professor of Ancient Catholic Church Structures at Utrecht University; he is also research associate at the Faculty of Theology, University of Pretoria.

Notes

1. The authors are grateful to the participants of the workshop on plant-human relations on 8 October 2021 (VU Botanical Gardens, Amsterdam), part of the Amsterdam Sustainability Institute’s seed money project Interrelating in the Anthropocene (Harry Wels, Frans Kamsteeg, Kristine Steenbergh, Jessica Roitman, Peter-Ben Smit) and to prof. dr. Georgiana Huian (Bern) for initiate input and encouragement.

2. This is still a widespread and dominant view, even though current biological and cosmological research suggest a more relational and interdependent view of reality. Trees van Montfoort, Groene Theologie (Aguirre, 2019), 31–34; Fabian Scheidler, Der Stoff, aus dem wir sind: warum wir Natur und Gesellschaft neu denken müssen (Enxing, 2021), 15–21, 145–149.

3. See for a representative overview of the field, e.g., Van Montfoort, Theologie; the English translation of this work was still forthcoming at the time of writing but has since been published as: Green Theology. An Eco-Feminist and Ecumenical Perspective (Aldenhoven, 2021). For a brief articulation of epistemological challenges, see, e.g., Hyun-Shik Jun, ‘Tonghak Ecofeminist Epistemology,’ Theology Today 71 (2014), 310–322.

4. See for an approach that uses apophatic insight to develop an eco-theological way of speaking about God, e.g., Elizabeth A. Johnson, Ask the Beasts: Darwin and the God of Love (London: Bloomsbury, 2014), in particular in relation to evolutionary development (and diversity).

5. See Catherine Keller, The Face of the Deep: A Theology of Becoming (London: Routledge, 2003), x, ‘the potentiality of the apophatic gesture for a resistance to the discourse and practice of dominance remains, nonetheless, little more than hope and project.’ Her own emphasis remains on the fundamental openness that the apophatic tradition creates and she combines this with her own interest in process philosophy, see the discussion by Rick Benjamins, Catherine Keller’s constructieve theologie (Vught: Skandalon, 2017), 62–91, and in Van Montfoort, Theologie, 212–232; in particular, she argues against definite and clearly defined beginnings and endings of (salvation) history and controlling kinds of knowledge, as well as clear (dichotomic) distinctions, even, in a way, between God and creation. The present contribution further develops the notion of non-controlling knowledge in particular.

6. Eric D. Meyer, ‘They Fell Silent When We Stopped Listening: Apophatic Theology and “Asking the Beasts”,’ in: Julia Brumbaugh and Natalia Imperatori-Lee (ed.), Turning to the Heavens and the Earth: Theological Reflections on a Cosmological Conversion (Meyer, 2016), 26–44, 44.

7. Sebastià Janeras, ‘Introducción a la teología ortodoxa,’ in: Adolfo González Montes (ed.), Las Iglesias Orientales (Janeras, 2000), 133–254, 198, quoted in (his own) translation by: Federico Aguirre, ‘Theological Apophaticism and Philosophical Nihilism Towards a Theory of Knowledge,’ Teología y vida 60 (2019), 229–242, 232.

8. For discussions of pitfalls regarding the analogy between the human and the divine that this kind of approach uses, see, for example, Gijsbert van den Brink, ‘Social Trinitarianism. A Discussion of Some Recent Theological Criticisms,’ IJST 16 (2014) 331–350, and Lincoln Harvey, Introduction, in: idem. (ed.), Essays on the Trinity (Eugene: Cascade, 2018), 1–13.

9. Georgiana Huian, ‘The Human Being as Image of God according to Gregory of Nazianzus,’ in: Theresia Hainthaler, Franz Mali, Gregor Emmenegger and Alexey Morozov (ed.), Imago Dei (Innsbruck: Tyrolia, 2021), 292–306. The key argument of Huian, in the footsteps of Nazianze, i.e., that an apophatic approach to human being is appropriate because of human beings’ endowment with the divine image, is also the foundation of many forms of contemporary theological anthropology that stress the relational nature of humankind by underlining its being created in the image of the triune God, who is Godself relational; here also both the real presence of God that is indicated by iconic language and the real distinction between God and creator should be kept in mind, see, for instance: Peter-Ben Smit, ‘Was hat die Dreifaltigkeit mit Politik zu tun? Zum öffentlich-theologischen Potential altkatholischer Theologie,‘ Internationale Kirchliche Zeitschrift 110 (2020), 60–88.

10. Huian, ‚Human Being,‘ 305.

11. It can also be noted that an apophatic (theological) anthropology also has a pastoral dimension, or, at least, can be seen as having pastoral implications: if it is true that one affirms that ‘God is always greater [than human cognition, the human heart’ (‘Deus semper maior corde nostro’ – cf. 1 John 3:20) as a(n apophatic) theological principle, then one would also have to affirm that a human being always exceeds the limits of one’s ‘heart’ (and cognition), which creates space for the acceptance of ‘incomprehensible’ human being. For a concrete instantiation of this conviction and theologically informed pastoral approach the life and work of the Old Catholic archbishop Antonius Jan Glazemaker: Lydia Janssen, Antonius Jan Glazemaker (1931–2018) aartsbisschop in een tijd van verandering (Utrecht: KokBoekencentrum, 2020).

12. Christos Yannaras, On the Absence and Unknowability of God. Heidegger and Areopagite (London: T&T Clark, 2005), 29–30.

13. See: Eva van Urk-Coster, ‘Created in the Image of God: Both Human and Non-Human Animals?,’ Theology and Science 19 (2021), 343–362. For relevant works by Clough, Fergusson and Deane-Drummond, see: David L. Clough, On Animals I (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2012); David Fergusson, ‘Humans Created According to the Imago Dei: An Alternative Proposal,’ Zygon 48 (2013), 439–453; Celia Deane-Drummond, The Wisdom of the Liminal: Evolution and Other Animals in Human Becoming (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2014).

14. See for a number of examples taken from Orthodox everyday life: Elizabeth Theokritoff, Living in God’s Creation. Orthodox Perspectives on Ecology (New York: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2009), 28, see also: Van Montfoort, Theologie, 237.

15. See for a succinct discussion, e.g., Marcel Sarot, ‘Suffering of Christ, Suffering of God?,’ Theology 95 (1992), 113–119.

16. Andrew Louth ‘Between Creation and Transfiguration: Environment in the Eastern Orthodox Tradition,’ in David G. Horrell, Cherryl Hunt, Christopher Southgate and Francesca Stavrakopoulou (eds.) Ecological Hermeneutics (London: T&T Clark, 2010), 211–222, 217. – Kind reference of Trees van Montfoort, MA. See also: David Bradshaw, ‘The Logoi of Beings in Greek Patristic Thought,’ in: Bruce Foltz and John Chryssavgis (eds.), Toward an Ecology of Transfiguration: Orthodox Christian Perspectives on Environment, Nature, and Creation (Fordham University, 2013), 9–22, as well as: Vladimir de Beer, ‘The Cosmic Role of the Logos, as Conceived from Heraclitus until Eriugena,’ Philosophy and Theology 27 (2015), 3–24, and John Chryssavgis and Frederick Krueger, ‘Working with Orthodox Forms of Christianity,’ in: Hilda P. Koster and Ernst M. Conradie (eds.) T&T Clark Handbook of Christian Theology and Climate Change (London: Bloomsbury, 2019), 229–239, 235. – Like the Palamic tradition, which will be discussed next, this approach would seem to be very compatible with Keller’s stress on ‘apophatic panentheism’ and a kind of ongoing incarnation, as she stresses in Face; for a succinct discussion, see Van Montfoort, Theologie, 238–239.

17. For this paraphrase and argument, see: Herwig Aldenhoven, ‘Die Unterscheidung zwischen einer erkennbar-zugänglichen und einer unerkennbar-unzugänglichen Seite in Gott und die Trinitätslehre. Zur Auseinandersetzung westlicher Theologie mit der ostkirchlichen Lehre von den ungeschaffenen Energien Gottes,‘ in: idem, Lex orandi – lex credendi. Beiträge zur liturgischen und systematischen Theologie in altkatholischer Tradition (ed. Urs von Arx with Georgiana Huian and Peter-Ben Smit; Münster: Aschendorff, 2021), 182–199, 182.

18. Both of which are necessary in Christian theology; as Aldenhoven puts it: ‘Für den Glauben an Gott ist es wesentlich, dass Gott wirklich in der Welt wirkt und für uns zugänglich und erkennbar ist, aber ebenso sehr, dass er die Welt übersteigt, deshalb für alles Welthaft-Geschöpfliche unzugänglich und ein undurchdringliches Geheimnis ist.’ (Aldenhoven, ‘Unterscheidung,‘ 182).

19. See for an ecologically focused contribution on this topic: Metropolitan Kallistos (Ware), ‘Through Creation to the Creator,’ in: Foltz and Chryssavgis (eds.), Ecology, 86–105.

20. See Theokritoff, Living, 42ff., 63ff., for a paraphrase, see: Van Montfoort, Theologie, 238–240.

21. See: John Zizioulas, Being as Communion: Studies in Personhood and the Church (Crestwood: St Vladimir’s Seminary, 1997), 81–83.

22. See Zizioulas, Being, for a paraphrase that also indicates the broad ecumenical compatibility of this approach, see Smit, ‘Dreifaltigkeit.’

23. As Zizioulas has also argued, difference is the precondition for relationship (and communion), see his Communion & Otherness: Further Studies in Personhood and the Church (London: T&T Clark, 2007).

24. In the Image and Likeness of God: A Hope-Filled Anthropology. The Buffalo Statement Agreed by the International Commission for Anglican-Orthodox Theological Dialogue (London: Anglican Communion Office, 2015), p. 8.

25. See Rowan Williams, Understanding and Misunderstanding ‘Negative Theology’ (Milwaukee: Marquette University, 2021).

26. Williams, Understanding, 13.

27. Williams, Understanding, 14.

28. Williams, Understanding, 14.

29. Williams, Understanding, 15.

30. Williams, Understanding, 18.

31. Williams, Understanding, 21–22.

32. Williams’ approach also resonates with proposals made by Sarah Coakley with regard to a théologie totale, for instance in her God, Sexuality, and the Self: An Essay ‘On the Trinity’ (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 2013), both have (also) in common that they plead for contemplation as a part of academic theology (and of the academic enterprise at large).

33. Williams, Understanding, 22.

34. Williams, Understanding, 23–29.

35. The relationship between God, Christ, creation and the church are a key theme in his, Christ. The Heart of Creation (London: Bloomsbury, 2018).

36. Image, p. 14.

37. Following, for instance, Theokritoff, Living, 146ff., see Van Montfoort, Theologie, 243–245.

38. The question as to what an icon is, cannot be answered with reference to one tradition of iconography only; the Byzantine tradition of iconography, certainly as it has been reinvigorated in the course of the revival of (neopatristic) orthodox theology in the 20^th century, is a very important and venerable tradition, but other traditions exist as well and icons make in these other traditions, including quite ‘non-Byzantine’ (and very ‘Western’) images, such as copies of Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper, are also venerated as icons (which makes it hard to deny that they really are icons).

39. See for one of many discussions of this topic the classical treatment by Léonid Ouspensky, La Théologie de l’icône (Paris: Cerf, 2003).

40. John Chryssavgis, ‘Icons, Liturgy, Saints: Ecological Insights from Orthodox Spirituality,’ International Review of Mission 99 (2010), 181–189, 183.

41. See: Image and Likeness, pp. 8.11.

42. Rowan Williams, Looking East in Winter. Contemporary Thought and the Eastern Christian Tradition (London: Bloomsbury, 2021).

43. Williams, Looking, 26. Another way of arguing that an apophatic style of theology leads to a non-violent attitude vis-à-vis of the ‘other’ (who- or whatever the other may be) is put forward by Brian Robinette, ‘The Difference Nothing Makes: Creatio ex nihilo, Resurrection, and Divine Gratuity,’ Theological Studies 73 (2011), 525–557, 529 (quoted by Johnson, Ask, 217; kind reference of Trees van Montfoort, MA): ‘Far from making the origin and ground of creation accessible to full comprehension, the statement requires the work of an apophatic discourse that opens up human understanding to the utter gratuity of creation. Nothing is necessary about creation at all. It derives wholly from the incomprehensible mystery of the creator God whose relationship to creation remains one of loving freedom and fidelity. Rather than implying an agonistic picture that situates God and creation in a relationship of rivalry – such a picture only underwrites the serialization of binary and hierarchically arranged terms (e.g., power/weakness, higher/lower, spirit/body, male/female, active/passive, etc.) – creatio ex nihilo in fact ruptures such a picture as it emphatically denies that God is “part” of any continuum whatsoever.’ See on Gods’ character as ‘non aliud’ and its consequences for God’s relationship to creation also: Williams, Christ, in which book this is a key tenet.

44. See on relationship, communion, epistemology, and ecology also: Chryssavgis, ‘Icons,’ 183: ‘The icon converts the beholder from a restricted, limited point of view to a fuller, spiritual vision, where one sees everything as reconciled and as united in a single reality “in Him through whom all things live, move, and have their being” (Acts 17:28). For the light of the icon is the light of reconciliation, the light of restoration, the light of the resurrection.’ – Theokritoff, Living, 146ff., is one of the theologians exploring creation as an icon; Yannaras, Absence, 29–30, has similarly stressed a relational and ‘personal’ approach to all entities that can be seen as reflecting God’s presence, which agrees with Huian’s apophatic approach to human beings for the same reason (‘Human Being.’)

45. Christos Yannaras, Ontologia tis schesis (Athens: Ikaros, 2004); English translation by Norman Russell: Relational Ontology (Brookline: Holy Cross, 2011).

46. Here, the line of thought of Meyer, ‘They,’ is taken up and developed further.

47. See for a succinct discussion: Caro Verbeek, Ruiken aan de tijd. De olfactorische dimensie van het futurisme (1909–1942) (PhD dissertation; Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, 2020), 15–19, cf. also: Mark M. Smith, ‘Producing Sense, Consuming Sense, Making Sense: Perils and Prospects for Sensory History,’ Journal of Social History 40 (2007), 841–858.

48. See, for example Marcus Morse, Bob Jickling, and John Quay, ‘Rethinking Relationships through Education: Wild Pedagogies in Practice,’ Journal of Outdoor and Environmental Education 21 (2018), 241–254; John Quay and Aage Jensen, ‘Wild Pedagogies and Wilding Pedagogies: Teacher-Student-Nature Centredness and the Challenges for Teaching,’ Journal of Outdoor and Environmental Education 21 (2018), 293–305. The presentations of dr. Harry Wels and Reineke van Tol, MSc, in the context of the workshop on animal-human relations, organized as part of the project ‘Interrelating in the Anthropocene’ (see note 1), provided important input and confirmation for the present essay from the vantage point of multisensory, multispecies and ‘wild’ approaches.

49. See for a report on the appertaining research: https://www.ambassadevandenoordzee.nl/projecten/veertig-geuren-van-de-zee/ (accessed on 11 November 2021).

50. Julia Enxing, “How far we (should not) have come. Theological Reflections on “HIDDEN. Animals in the Anthropocene”,’ lecture at the conference ‘Rethinking Theology in the Anthropocene’, 15 July 2021, https://anthropocene.ts-tr.eu/. For the book ‘HIDDEN’ see https://weanimalsmedia.org/our-work/hidden/#ourphotographers.