Mysticism as the End of Reason

Ascending the mountain, entering the cloud

…mystery and manifestations arise from the same source. This source is called darkness. Darkness within darkness. The gateway to all understanding.

- Tao Te Ching

So the people stood afar off, but Moses drew near the thick darkness where God was.

- Exodus

“Mysticism is the end of reason.”

For many, such a statement could only signal the dialectical opposition often thought to hold between mysticism and reason. Mysticism, we are told, is the embrace of irrational ecstasy and the ineffable as a basis of belief, while reason is the embrace of rational, sober reflection, and an objective epistemic standard. One might also seek to contrast the “life of mysticism” (or the “life of faith” - more on which below) with the “life of reason.” One, a life defined by the relentless pursuit of truth through logical inference; the other, a life defined by the abandonment of logic for the esoteric and inscrutable. In short, these are, to some, two mutually incompatible modes of life and engagement with reality. One must choose: The life of Aristotle, or the life of St. Francis; the life of Galileo, or the life the Buddha.

This dialectical opposition is also sometimes used to dichotomize entire cultures, as well as entire religious traditions. There is the rationalist West, and the mystical East; the scholastic Catholic tradition, and the mystical Orthodox tradition.

Here, I’d like to challenge this interpretation of the relation between mysticism and reason—and, relatedly, the relation between reason and faith. Mysticism is indeed the end of reason, but the end understood as telos, goal, or purpose. In my view (and I claim no originality here),¹ reason proceeds from faith and rests in mysticism. Faith is the root, reason the stem, mysticism the flower; faith the impulse, reason the movement, mysticism the fulfillment.

Faith: the origin

Faith, understood as a fundamental orientation of trust in something (or someone) that cannot be entirely grounded in discursive reason, lies at the foundation of reason. This is because the very possibility of reason assumes that the world we inhabit is intelligible; that the structures of mind and those of the world are in some sense isomorphic and “open” to one another.

Reason seeks to unify various phenomena, for example, under general explanatory principles. It’s conceivable, however, that the world does not meet this expectation of reason (or might have not). It’s conceivable that the world is fundamentally disorganized, chaotic, and random, in such a way and at such a fundamental level that any attempt to understand it in terms of categories like genus, species, essence, cause, kind, member of a kind, and so forth, is either bound to fail, or if it has the appearance of success, is merely a convenient projection not reflective of the world’s mind-independent structure (or lack thereof).

Alternatively, it’s conceivable that the world has a rational order, but that this rational order in inaccessible to us and so has no correspondence to the rational order we believe it has on the basis of our best theories. This might turn out to be the case, for example, if we evolved in such a way that the manner in which we represent and perceive the world’s structure is in certain fundamental ways misleading.

No such possibility can be ruled out by reason itself on pain of circularity. Instead, the falsity of such possibilities is merely a presupposition of reason. And, as such, it is and must be taken on faith. The criterion of reason’s capacity to approach the truth of the world cannot be reason itself. Instead, it must reside in a fundamental act of trust—of faith. Faith that the world around us is logos, not chaos.²

Reason: the ascent

From this faith is born a desire to seek to understand and explore the world’s rational structure. This is the movement from faith to discursive reason, with all of its deductive and inductive inference, theory construction, and systematization.

Central to reason’s quest is the search for explanations of the existence of various kinds of thing. We ask, for example, “Why do atoms exist?”, “Why do animals exist?”, “Why do stars exist?”, “Why do plants exist?”, and so on.

A key principle that determines the form such general, existential explanations will take is this: Whatever serves as the explanation for the existence of members of a kind K cannot itself (or themselves) be a K. This is because, were the explanation for the existence of Ks itself a K, it would have to explain itself—which is circular, and absurd.³

So, for example, the existence of atoms as such cannot be explained by more atoms, for those additional atoms are members of the very kind or class for which we are seeking a general explanation in the first place (though, of course, the existence of some particular atom may be in part explained by the existence of some other particular atom(s)). Similarly, the existence of animals as such cannot be explained by more animals, for (again) the question we are asking is not why this or that subset of animals exists, but why any animals exist at all.

And so reason ascends from category to category, subsuming the existence of entities lower on the hierarchy under those that are higher.

Mysticism: the summit

But now consider that the most general kind, or class, that beings fall into is being itself. That is, being understood as some intelligible essence combined (to use Thomistic terminology) with an act of existence. What do animals, plants, stars, black holes, minerals, minds, chairs, cathedrals, numbers, and forms have in common? They are all intelligible beings, existents with essences graspable by the intellect. What, then, could explain the existence of intelligible being itself? By the aforementioned principle, it could only be something non-intelligible; something which, or who, is not an essence-existence composite.

In other words, the source of being, so-understood, must be beyond being, beyond intellect, beyond form, condition, or quality. For if it were not, it could not explain intelligible, conditioned, qualified being as such. This Something can at best be described as the Pure Act of Existence Itself, rather than some essence-existence composite.⁴ In this sense, God (for what other name could we give the foundation of all reality?) is beyond intelligibility not because He is less than intelligible, but rather because He is super-intelligible (or “super-essential,” as one translation of the Christian mystic Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite has it).⁵

It is here that we reach the summit of reason’s ascent, which is an encounter with that which entirely transcends reason—the ineffable, the ungraspable, the, in a word, mystical. At the peak of the mountain, we must, with Moses, enter the dark cloud where God dwells. But it is also, paradoxically, from this dark cloud that light proceeds, illuminating all else on the mountain.

Reason, then, finds its consummation and rest in the mystical. Far from existing in dichotomous tension, mysticism and reason are essentially, inextricably connected. Reason impels us further upward, beyond its own greatest heights. In the words of Plotinus:

As one that looks up to the heavens and sees the splendour of the stars thinks of the Maker and searches, so whoever has contemplated the Intellectual Universe and known it and wondered for it must search after its Maker too. What Being has raised so noble a fabric? And where? And how? Who has begotten such a child, this Intellectual-Principle, this lovely abundance so abundantly endowed? The Source of all this cannot be an Intellect; nor can it be an abundant power: it must have been before Intellect and abundance were; these are later and things of lack; abundance had to be made abundant and Intellection needed to know.⁶

And, indeed, if intelligible reality had no such foundation in that which transcends the intelligible, intelligible reality would, well, become unintelligible—for there would be nothing that bestowed intelligibility on the beings which possess it. It is only by being grounded in a deeper, super-intelligible reality that the world reason explores could have ever existed, does exist, and continues to exist.

“The whole secret of mysticism,” wrote G.K. Chesterton in Orthodoxy, “is this: that man can understand everything by the help of what he does not understand. The morbid logician seeks to make everything lucid, and succeeds in making everything mysterious. The mystic allows one thing to be mysterious, and everything else becomes lucid.”

Stillborn Reason

Before concluding, I’d like to briefly consider an important consequence of this proposal regarding the relation between faith, reason, and mysticism: that reason pursued for its own sake, and only within an immanent, rather than transcendent, horizon, is essentially bent, broken, and entirely devoid of its natural telos.

Along these lines, St. Gregory of Nyssa, in his Life of Moses, wrote of “secular” reason—reason divorced from its proper transcendent, faithful context—as stillborn. In his allegorical reading of the narrative of Exodus, St. Gregory sees the Egyptian education with which Moses was raised as a symbol of this sort of fruitless pursuit of the rational, philosophical life. He writes,

For truly barren is profane education, which is always in labor but never gives birth. For what fruit worthy of such pangs does philosophy show for being so long in labor? Do not all who are full of wind and never come to term miscarry before they come to the light of the knowledge of God, although they could as well become men if they were not altogether hidden in the womb of barren wisdom?

Nyssen’s observation here is entirely consonant with the picture I have tried to paint about reason’s relation to mysticism.

Reason conceived as an interminable, indefinite dialogue or discourse, is reason that has tragically turned in on itself, become lost, and forgotten its true end. Such a “stillborn” conception of reason is all-too-common in the modern world, and indeed characterizes a variety of modern philosophies and approaches to the rational life (pragmatism and scientism come to mind, for example). We cannot begin the ascent, stop halfway up the mountain, and either camp out or circle indefinitely. We must, in the words of C.S. Lewis, continue “further up, and further in.”

And speaking of Lewis, I can think of no better way than to conclude this essay but by quoting at length a profound scene from one of my favorite of his books, The Great Divorce.

In that book, Lewis imagines that people can, if they desire, take a bus from hell to heaven. As tenants of hell explore the outskirts of heaven, they are met by various relatives and angels who try to convince them to leave hell—the “Grey Town”—and stay in heaven. One such tenant is a professor of theology, who becomes emblematic of the “stillborn” reason St. Gregory discusses.

This man has forgotten the purpose of reason—ultimate truth—and instead has twisted it into an infernal end in itself. His heavenly interlocutor attempts to convince him to remember the purpose of all his rational seeking, but to no avail, as the man, in the end, returns to hell for a meeting of the theological society to present a paper.

Their tragic dialogue is as follows:

"Will you come with me to the mountains? It will hurt at first, until your feet are hardened. Reality is harsh to the feet of shadows. But will you come?"

"Well, that is a plan. I am perfectly ready to consider it. Of course I should require some assurances ... I should want a guarantee that you are taking me to a place where I shall find a wider sphere of usefulness-and scope for the talents that God has given me-and an atmosphere of free inquiry-in short, all that one means by civilisation and-er-the spiritual life."

"No," said the other. "I can promise you none of these things. No sphere of usefulness: you are not needed there at all. No scope for your talents: only forgiveness for having perverted them. No atmosphere of inquiry, for I will bring you to the land not of questions but of answers, and you shall see the face of God."

"Ah, but we must all interpret those beautiful words in our own way! For me there is no such thing as a final answer. The free wind of inquiry must always continue to blow through the mind, must it not? Trove all things' . . . to travel hopefully is better than to arrive."

"If that were true, and known to be true, how could anyone travel hopefully? There would be nothing to hope for."

"But you must feel yourself that there is something stifling about the idea of finality? Stagnation, my dear boy, what is more soul-destroying than stagnation?"

"You think that, because hitherto you have experienced truth only with the abstract intellect. I will bring you where you can taste it like honey and be embraced by it as by a bridegroom. Your thirst shall be quenched."

"Well, really, you know, I am not aware of a thirst for some ready-made truth which puts an end to intellectual activity in the way you seem to be describing. Will it leave me the free play of Mind, Dick? I must insist on that, you know."

"Free, as a man is free to drink while he is drinking. He is not free still to be dry."

The Ghost seemed to think for a moment. "I can make nothing of that idea," it said.

"Listen!" said the White Spirit. "Once you were a child. Once you knew what inquiry was for. There was a time when you asked questions because you wanted answers, and were glad when you had found them. Become that child again: even now."

"Ah, but when I became a man I put away childish things."

"You have gone far wrong. Thirst was made for water; inquiry for truth. What you now call the free play of inquiry has neither more nor less to do with the ends for which intelligence was given you than masturbation has to do with marriage."

"If we cannot be reverent, there is at least no need to be obscene. The suggestion that I should return at my age to the mere factual inquisitiveness of boyhood strikes me as preposterous. In any case, that question-and-answer conception of thought only applies to matters of fact. Religious and speculative questions are surely on a different level."

"We know nothing of religion here: we think only of Christ. We know nothing of speculation. Come and see. I will bring you to Eternal Fact, the Father of all other facthood."

1. Apart from my own reflection on this issue over the years, I am especially indebted to the greater minds cited in this essay, in addition to (more recently) the thought of Stephen R.L. Clark and Eric Perl. Broadly speaking, I take something like the view I defend here to be characteristic of the Neoplatonic tradition as a whole, as well as other systems of thought with which it has an affinity.

2. For an argument along these lines, see Stephen R.L. Clark’s From Athens to Jerusalem.

3. This point is familiar from the literature on grounding and metaphysical fundamentality. Something like this point, I believe, has been made (for ex.) by Ricki Bliss.

4. Thomas Aquinas, in his On Being and Essence, set forth what is, to my mind, the most compelling theistic argument ever formulated in this vein. Beginning with a consideration of beings whose essence is distinct from their existence, Aquinas deftly argues for a source of all essence-existence composites in whom essence and existence are not distinct. God, then, is subsistent Being itself—"I AM that I AM.”

5. See Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, The Mystical Theology.

6. Enneads, First Ennead, Eighth Tractate.