On Learned Ignorance

This book [available from that link as a .pdf online for free] is a text by 15th-century German Catholic cardinal & polymath Nicholas of Cusa, although to read it you could be pardoned for assuming it's a work of ancient Greek philosophy, so inchoate & fundamental does it seem in its scope & gist.

   Whereas other medieval mystical Christian texts concern themselves with the nature & practice of contemplation or the spiritual rigours of a life as a disciple, in this extremely concise & precise work Nicholas presents us with a solid axiomatic procedural argument for the fundamental incomprehensibility of God in his infinitude, yet given the nature of that infinitude he remains knowable, relatable to, enjoyable even, in his personal triune essence. The logic undergirding this position draws on mathematical geometric truth [similarly to Spinoza's method but superior, as it employs geometry as essential fact rather than merely the axiomatic method of logical procedure], pure as it is, to fabricate images of infinity & possibility, thereby to provide handholds for the imagination in its fruitless attempts to imagine anything more transcendently perfectly plausibly than the Trinity itself in its divine community & personality.

   This is easily the most compelling argument for Christianity that I have ever read - an apologetic for our admittedly weird & paradoxical notions of God in his truest fullest being that proceeds not from eclectic esoterica or theological winds but from extremely basic self-evident truths about consciousness, cognizance, structured thought & imaginings & possibility, walking you straight up to the doors of perception of God then ringing the doorbell & running away, leaving you to stand empty-handed & dry-mouthed to explain yourself to the triune God whose ineffable presence has just been more or less proven yet about whom you realise you can say or know nothing suitable. God is bigger, God is more beautiful, God is far beyond - as much as right here. This text achieves what in my view is one of the most outlandish victories in the history of philosophy, and I am alarmed that old Nick isn't better-known (see - he doesn't even get a single mention in Russell's History); it's also extremely readable, far more so than the majority of philosophy or theology books that pop up on this blog. I would implore anyone to read it & take a serious hammer of intentionality to see whether there are any cracks in the edifice of this text's idea, because I can't discern any.

   I'll leave you with a copy-paste of the book's contents page, as the chapter titles alone should give you a pretty good idea of how the argument proceeds:

1. How it is that knowing is not-knowing.

2. Preliminary clarification of what will follow.

3. The precise truth is incomprehensible.

4. The Absolute Maximum, with which the Minimum coincides, is understood incomprehensibly.

5. The Maximum is one.

6. The Maximum is Absolute Necessity.

7. The trine and one Eternity.

8. Eternal generation.

9. The eternal procession of union.

10. An understanding of trinity in oneness transcends all things.

11. Mathematics assists us very greatly in apprehending various divine [truths].

12. The way in which mathematical signs ought to be used in our undertaking.

13. The characteristics of a maximum, infinite line.

14. An infinite line is a triangle.

15. The maximum triangle is a circle and a sphere.

16. In a symbolic way the Maximum is to all things as a maximum line is to [all] lines.

17. Very deep doctrines from the same [symbolism of an infinite line].

18. From the same [symbolism] we are led to an understanding of the participation in being.

19. The likening of an infinite triangle to maximum trinity.

20. Still more regarding the Trinity. There cannot be fourness, [fiveness], etc., in God.

21. The likening of an infinite circle to oneness.

22. How God's foresight unites contradictories.

23. The likening of an infinite sphere to the actual existence of God.

24. The name of God; affirmative theology.

25. The pagans named God in various ways in relation to created things.

26. Negative theology.

Ignorance of the learned type described herein is a powerful humbling tool in the quest to know God; here, with brute-force mathematical logical brushstrokes, Nicholas of Cusa makes it easy - we are able to shake the hand, in a tiny, silent, virtually meaningless manner, of the triune God who defies knowledge.