words about silence

"Since God is so ultimately unknowable–the divine light is so dazzling that it blinds us–perhaps it is reasonable to say that the word of God is so overpowering that we can experience it only as (and through) silence.

“As soon as I say that, however, another paradox emerges, for I am using words to testify to God’s ‘meta-wordness.’ This paradox has been part of the mystical tradition since the days of the biblical writers (if not before). We cannot put God into words. And, it appears, we cannot stop trying to do just that.”

McColman, Carl. The New Big Book of Christian Mysticism: an Essential Guide to Contemplative Spirituality. Minneapolis: Broadleaf Books, 2023, p. 167.

contradictions and paradoxes

“Before long it occurred to me to do what historians are professionally equipped to do. Live with a cluttered mental attic; run a spiritual antique shop; resist the impulse to throw anything away. Hang on after the avant-garde rejects. Save, shuffle, classify, enjoy the relics. Eventually shapes emerge. One learns to live with contradictions and paradoxes, but what is new about that in theology?”

Martin Marty in Theology Today, January 1972, p. 472.