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OnNotBeingSilentintheDarkness:Adorno's
SingularApophaticism
JamesGordonFinlayson

HarvardTheologicalReview/Volume105/Issue01/January2012,pp132
DOI:10.1017/S0017816011000514,Publishedonline:21December2011

Linktothisarticle:http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0017816011000514

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JamesGordonFinlayson(2012).OnNotBeingSilentintheDarkness:Adorno's
SingularApophaticism.HarvardTheologicalReview,105,pp132doi:10.1017/
S0017816011000514

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On Not Being Silent in the Darkness:
Adornos Singular Apophaticism*
James Gordon Finlayson
University of Sussex, U.K.

QThe Deprecative Comparison


Adornos late work has often been compared to negative theology, yet there is
little serious discussion of this comparison in the secondary literature. 1 In most of
the existing discussions virtually nothing is said about negative theology, as if it is
obvious what it is and what the parallels with Adornos ideas are. The truth is that
negative theology is not self-evident, and neither are the parallels with Adorno at
DOOREYLRXV7RQGRXWZKDWWKH\DUHZRXOGUHTXLUHDGHWDLOHGDFFRXQWRIERWK,Q
this article I shall make a start in this direction.
Let me begin by provisionally characterizing negative theology as a discourse
about God based primarily upon denial or negation, which is sometimes known
as apophatic theology. The Greek word apophasis stems from the verb ajpovfhmi,
*
Many thanks to the two anonymous readers for this journal for their insightful and helpful
comments. The paper is improved because of them. Special thanks also to Peter Poellner, David
A.D. Smith, Stephen Mulhall, Michael Rosen, Lydia Goehr, Evelyn Wilcock, Nick Royle and to
all the members of the North American Critical Theory Roundtable in New York, September 2008,
notably Max Pensky and Matthias Frisch.
1
-UJHQ+DEHUPDV7KHRGRU$GRUQR7KH3ULPDO+LVWRU\RI6XEMHFWLYLW\6HOI$IUPDWLRQ*RQH
Wild, 3KLORVRSKLFDO3ROLWLFDO3UROHV (trans. Frederick Lawrence; Cambridge: MIT Press, 1983)
107; idem, Post-Metaphysical Thinking: Philosophical Essays (trans. William Mark Hohengarten;
Cambridge: MIT Press, 1995) 15; Albrecht Wellmer, The Persistence of Modernity: Essays on
Aesthetic, Ethics, and Postmodernism (trans. David Midgley; Cambridge: Polity Press, 1991) 7;
Herbert Schaedelbach, Dialektik als Vernunftkritik. Zur Konstruktion des Rationalen bei Adorno
in Adorno-Konferenz (ed. Jrgen Habermas and Ludwig von Friedeburg; Frankfurt am Main:
Suhrkamp, 1983) 70; Susan Buck-Morss, The Origin of Negative Dialectics: Theodor W. Adorno,
Walter Benjamin and the Frankfurt Institute (Hassocks, U.K.: Harvester Press, 1977) 195; Zoltn
Tar, The Frankfurt School: The Critical Theories of Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno (New
York: John Wiley & Sons, 1977) 18189.

HTR 105:1 (2012) 132


2 HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW

meaning to deny or negate. It contrasts with cataphasis, which means afrmation.2


Apophatic theology was a central preoccupation of the Hellenized Judeo-Christian
tradition of theology, and arose from the conuence of two sets of ideas: broadly
Judaic notions of Gods transcendence, and ancient Greek ontological questions
about the nature of God. The ontological question in what Gods essence or being
consists poses peculiar difculties when God is supposed to be wholly transcendent
and therefore unknowable and ineffable. Apophatic theology is the strategy of
responding to these peculiar difculties through negation or denial, the so-called
negative way.
Comparisons between Adorno and negative theology were drawn quite early
on in the assessment of his work. Objections levelled by inuential critics such as
Jrgen Habermas, Albrecht Wellmer, Herbert Schndelbach and various others,
at Adornos conception of non-identity, or the non-identical then brought
the comparison into the mainstream of the secondary literature on Adorno.3
Habermaswho can be taken as representative of a signicant segment of the
literaturecompares Adornos thought with negative theology largely because of
the role that the notion of non-identity or the non-identical plays in his late work..4
Mystical experiences were able to unfold their explosive force, their power of
OLTXHI\LQJLQVWLWXWLRQVDQGGRJPDVLQ-HZLVKDQG&KULVWLDQWUDGLWLRQVEHFDXVH
they remained related in these contexts to a hidden, world-transcendent God.5

Although this passage is highly compressed, the reference to mystical experiences


and Christian traditions suggest that he has the comparison with apophatic
theology in mind. Evidently, the comparison is meant deprecatively: That is,
the claim that Adornos late work is analogous in certain respects to apophatic
theology is an objection to it. Indeed, Habermas levels four related objections to
the irrationalism, mysticism, emptiness, and incoherence of Adornos late work.

,UUatioQaOisP
Habermas has two different versions of this objection. To begin with, he accuses
Adorno of abandoning reason in favor of some other mode of apprehension of
XWRSLD,QKLVFULWLTXHRI$GRUQRLQTheory of Communicative Action, he follows
Axel Honneth, in convicting Adorno of withdrawing behind the lines of discursive
thought to a mindfulness of nature, an objection that Habermas also levels

2
$ *UHHN (QJOish /H[icoQ (ed. Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, and Henry Stuart Jones;
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996) 22526 (hereafter LSJ III).
3
Tar, 7hH )UaQNIXUt 6chooO 28189; Habermas, 3hiOosophicaO3oOiticaO 3UoOHs, 107; Habermas,
3ost0Htaph\sicaO 7hiQNiQJ, 15; Wellmer, 3HUsistHQcH oI 0oGHUQit\, 7; Schndelbach Dialektik
als Vernunftkritik, 70.
4
See for example Habermas, 3hiOosophicaO3oOiticaO 3UoOHs, 107; Habermas, 3ost0Htaph\sicaO
7hiQNiQJ, 15.
5
Habermas, 3ost0Htaph\sicaO 7hiQNiQJ, 183.
JAMES GORDON FINLAYSON 3

at Heidegger.6 In Philosophical Discourse of Modernity, however, Habermas


distinguishes Adorno favorably from Heidegger and Derrida in this respect:
$GRUQRVFULWLTXHRIUHDVRQGRHVQRWWDNHWKHIRUPRIWKHUHQXQFLDWLRQRIGLVFXUVLYH
reason in favor of some kind of immediate non-discursive apprehension of the good
or of being. Adornos Negative Dialectics, he claims, at least remains internal to
WKHVHOIUHIHUHQWLDOFULWLTXHRIUHDVRQ7

0\sticisP
Apophaticism is a close cousin of mysticism. However, until we know more about
what mysticism is and why it is philosophically reprehensible, the claim that
Adornos late philosophy resembles mysticism will not be very illuminating, nor
will it count as an objection. Habermas appears to make two claims: First, that
apophaticism is eo ipso mysticism since it posits a divine, wholly transcendent being
WKDWLVFRQVHTXHQWO\LQHIIDEOHDQGXQNQRZDEOHDQGVHFRQGWKDWDSRSKDWLFLVPLV
mysticism since it holds out the prospect of an extra-conceptual experience of the
divine presence, won through the dialectical self-subversion of discursive reason.8

,QcohHUHQcH
The third objection is that Adornos uncovering by means of reason of reasons
complicity with domination is a totalizing or self-stultifying form of criticism.
Habermas contends that by claiming that the primary concern of philosophy is
to think the non-identical, Adorno makes performative contradiction . . . into
the organizational form of indirect communication.9 It is this incoherence, in
+DEHUPDVVYLHZWKDWOD\V$GRUQRRSHQWRWKHQDOREMHFWLRQ

(PptiQHss
Negative dialectics, Habermas claims, is simply an exercise [Exerzitium], a
drill [bung], and a mere procedure of determinate negation.10 Again there are

6
Habermas, 7hH 7hHoU\ oI &oPPXQicatiYH $ctioQ (trans. Thomas McCarthy; 2 vols.; Cambridge,
U.K.: Polity, 1984-87) 2:385; trans. of 7hHoUiH GHs NoPPXQiNatiYHQ +aQGHOQs (2 vols.; Frankfurt
am Main: Suhrkamp, 1981) 2:516. Wellmer make the same objection when he claims that Adorno
can only conceive mimesis as the Other of rationality. 3HUsistHQcH oI 0oGHUQit\, 13.
7
Habermas, 7hH 3hiOosophicaO 'iscoXUsH oI 0oGHUQit\ (Cambridge, U.K.: Polity, 1987) 185. In
3ost0Htaph\sicaO 7hiQNiQJ, Habermas repeats the earlier objection, accusing Adornos late work
of taking a turn to the irrational. Habermas, 3ost0Htaph\sicaO 7hiQNiQJ, 37 and 2829. Arnold
Knzli makes a similar objection. Arnold Knzli, Irrationalism of the Left, in )oXQGatioQs oI
thH )UaQNIXUt 6chooO oI 6chooO 5HsHaUch (ed. Judith Marcus and Zoltn Tar; New Brunswick, N.J.:
Transactions Books, 1984).
8
In his earlier criticism of Adorno, Habermas uses the word gesticulation/gesture [Gebrde] to
denote the non-discursive relation to whatever it is that is outwith the bounds of discursive thought
that Adorno is proposing instead. Habermas, 7hH 7hHoU\ oI &oPPXQicatiYH $ctioQ 2:385; trans. of
7hHoUiH GHs NoPPXQiNatiYHQ +aQGHOQs 2:516.
9
The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity, 18586.
10
Habermas, 7hH 7hHoU\ oI &oPPXQicatiYH $ctioQ 2:385; trans. of 7hHoUiH GHs NoPPXQiNatiYHQ
4 HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW

two separate claims here. First, that negative dialectics, like negative theology, is
theoretically empty insofar as it renounces the goal of theoretical knowledge of
its object.11 Second, the empty procedure (negative dialectics) is unproductive
or pointless.12 This second objection feeds into Habermass wider criticism of the
absence of any viable political dimension to Adornos critical social theory.
The deprecative comparison and the four associated objections presuppose a
FHUWDLQUHDGLQJRI$GRUQRVFRQFHSWRIQRQLGHQWLW\DVWKHJXUHRIZKDWLVZKROO\
other to discursive thinking.13 So we should ask whether this readinglet us call
LWWKHVWURQJUHDGLQJLVMXVWLHG
Adornos notion of non-identity is one of the most notoriously elastic and
SRO\VHPRXV WHUPV LQ KLV SKLORVRSKLFDO YRFDEXODU\ DQG FRQVHTXHQWO\ VFKRODUV
contest its meaning. Still, an examination of the role of non-identity in Adornos
Negative DialecticsVKRZVWKDWLWFDQEHFRQVWUXHGDVWKHJXUHRIVRPHWKLQJZKROO\
beyond reason and completely other to discursive thought, and hence ineffable and
unknowable. Two sets of considerations support this contention.
First, the non-identical has to be radically other than, and discontinuous with,
the totally administered social world, which, according to Adorno, furnishes the
social and material conditions of concept formation. Adorno claims that the
concern [Interesse] of philosophy is to think the non-identical.14 He uses the
term Interesseconcern/interestin the emphatic sense of the early critical
theorists for whom it denoted the aim of emancipation, social transformation,
and happiness.15 Interests in Frankfurt School parlance are internally linked to the
practical aims of critical theory.16 So Adornos claim about the non-identical goes
hand in hand with the claim that philosophy (and critical theory) must aim at utopia,
+aQGHOQs 2:516; idem, 7hH 3hiOosophicaO 'iscoXUsH oI 0oGHUQit\,186.
11
Habermas, 7hH 7hHoU\ oI &oPPXQicatiYH $ctioQ 2:387; trans. of 7hHoUiH GHs NoPPXQiNatiYHQ
+aQGHOQs 2:518.
12
Like exiles we wander about lost in the discursive zone: and yet it is only the insistent
force of a groundless reection turned against itself. Habermas, 7hH 3hiOosophicaO 'iscoXUsH oI
0oGHUQit\, 186.
13
Habermas glosses Adornos position thus: The wholly other may only be indicated by
indeterminate negation, not known. Habermas, 3hiOosophicaO3oOiticaO 3UoOHs, 107.
14
Adorno, 1HJatiYH 'iaOHNtiN (ed. Rolf Tiedemann; vol. 6 of 7hHoGoU : $GoUQo *HsaPPHOtH
6chUiItHQ; Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1997) 1920 (hereafter, *6 6).
15
For instance in Traditional and Critical Theory Horkheimer refers to three such interests:
the interest in reasonable conditions, the interest in social transformation, and the interest in
the elimination ($XIhHEXQJ) of social injustice. Horkheimer, Traditional and Critical Theory, in
ibid, &UiticaO 7hHoU\ 6HOHctHG (ssa\s (trans. Matthew J. OConnell et al.; NewYork: Herder and
Herder, 1972) 199, 241, 243; trans. of .UitischH 7hHoUiH (iQH 'oNXPHQtatioQ (ed. Alfred Schmidt;
2 vols.; Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 1968) 2:147, 189, 190.
16
Habermas still uses the term iQtHUHst in its emphatic sense in .QoZOHGJH aQG +XPaQ ,QtHUHsts
Habermas, (UNHQQtQis XQG ,QtHUHssH (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1973 [1968]). Frankfurt School
critical theory conceives the interest of theory as the material expression of the practical, i.e., the
remedial aim of critical theory: the rational society or social transformation for Horkheimer,
utopia or reconciliation, for Adorno, emancipation from social oppression, and 0QGiJNHit for
Adorno and the young Habermas.
JAMES GORDON FINLAYSON 5

ZKHUHXWRSLDGRHVQRWMXVWVWDQGLQIRUDPRGLFDWLRQLPSURYHPHQWRISUHVHQWO\
existing society, but for a transformed society that has broken free of the mutually
constitutive relationship between conceptual thought and identity thinking on the
one hand, and the totally administered society on the other. In Adornos estimation,
thinking that which is wholly other to thought will help philosophy to achieve this
radical break. This is why he writes in his lectures that the two termscritical
theory and negative dialecticshave the same meaning.17
Second, Adorno is an austere negativist about the good, and the view that the
non-identical is ineffable and unknowable is essential to his austere negativism.
Austere negativism arises from a strict interpretation of Adornos dictum There
is no right living in the wrong life.18 On this strict interpretation Adorno makes
two claims: that there are no vestiges of the good, of utopia, or right living in the
present social world (in any relevant sense of vestige)19 and that under present
conditions we cannot so much have a reliable conception of the right life. This
is because in Adornos view to think is to identify, and concepts themselves are
incipient forms of domination and mastery. Hence even to form a conception of
the good is adventitious and complicit with the current context of domination
and delusion. The second claim is one that Adorno associates closely with the
prohibition against images, the Bilderverbot. These two claims, together with
his refusal to countenance forms of non-discursive access to the goodwhether
WKLVEHWKURXJKIDLWKRUIHHOLQJRUZKDW$TXLQDVFDOOHGV\QWHUHVLVRUDHVWKHWLF

17
Adorno, /HctXUHs oQ 1HJatiYH 'iaOHctics, 21.
18
Adorno, 0iQiPa 0oUaOia 5HHctioQs oQ a 'aPaJHG /iIH (trans. E. F. N. Jephcott; Radical
Thinkers 1; London, U.K.: Verso, 2005) 39 (hereafter as MM); trans. of MiQiPa MoUaOia (ed. Rolf
Tiedemann; vol. 4 of 7hHoGoU : $GoUQo *HsaPPHOtH 6chUiItHQ; Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp,
1997) 30 (hereafter as *6 4).
19
Take for instance Bonaventures distinction between vestiges (footprints) through which we
can contemplate God (per YHstiJia), and vestiges in which we can contemplate, that is, directly
experience God (in YHstiJiis). An example of the latter in Adorno would be the existence of lilacs and
nightingales which, he says, by their very existencewhere the universal net has permitted them
to survivemake us believe that life is still alive. See Adorno, Essay as Form, in ibid, 1otHs to
/itHUatXUH (ed. Rolf Tiedemann; trans. Shierry Weber Nicholsen; 2 vols.; European Perspectives;
New York: Columbia University Press, 19911992) 1:11 (hereafter as 1/ 1); trans. of 1otHQ ]XU
/itHUatXU (ed. Rolf Tiedemann; vol. 11 of 7hHoGoU : $GoUQo *HsaPPHOtH 6chUiItHQ; Frankfurt am
Main: Suhrkamp, 1997) 19 (hereafter as *6 11). On Bonaventures distinction see Denys Turner, 7hH
'aUNQHss oI *oG 1HJatiYit\ iQ &hUistiaQ M\sticisP (Cambridge, Mass.: Cambridge University Press,
1995) 109. An example of the former would be certain works of art, particularly works of music:
The enigma of artworks is their fracturedness. If transcendence were present in them, they would
be mysteries, not enigmas. Adorno, $HsthHtic 7hHoU\ (trans. H. Pickford; New York: Columbia
University Press, 1998) 126 (hereafter as $7); trans. of bsthHtischH 7hHoUiH (ed. Rolf Tiedemann;
vol. 7 of 7hHoGoU : $GoUQo *HsaPPHOtH 6chUiItHQ; Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1997) 191
(hereafter as *6 7). An austere negativist holds that there are no vestiges of utopia, or right living
in the present social world, nightingales are no more exemplars of right living than works of art
are symbols of transcendence through which the outlines of a good life can be discerned. Adorno
makes both claims, in different contexts. But as I argue below, he is not particularly concerned to
advance an internally coherent and stable philosophical theory.
6 HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW

intuitionmotivate his view that philosophy must aim to think the non-identical
understood as something wholly other to discursive reason or conceptual thought.
For these reasons I believe that the strong reading is correct. But my argument
does not rest on the correctness of this interpretation. That would be to take
a needless hostage to interpretative fortune. Textual evidence is prone to be
inconclusive, for it is in the nature of it to yield to more than one interpretation.
Moreover, in Adornos case there is another factor at work: he does not try to make
clear what he means by philosophical terminology such as non-identity, in the sense
WKDWKHUHIXVHVWRGHQHRUWRGLVDPELJXDWHKLVWHUPVIRUKHLVYHU\VXVSLFLRXV
of the drive for clarity and distinctness in philosophy, just as he repudiates the
formal aim of consistency. This refusal to accord clarity primacy in philosophical
GLVFRXUVHLVDFHQWUDOSDUWRI$GRUQRVFULWLTXHRISRVLWLYLVP20
0\FODLPLVWKHVRPHZKDWZHDNHURQHWKDWWKLVUHDGLQJLVMXVWLHGE\ZKLFK,
PHDQWKDWWKHUHLVVRPHWH[WXDOZDUUDQWIRULWLQVRIDUDVWKHJXUHRIZKDWLVZKROO\
other to discursive thought is one among a number of meanings that can be plausibly
given to the notion of non-identity. Habermas, Wellmer, and Schndelbach, all
of whom subscribe to the strong reading, show this to be the case. Furthermore,
Adorno has several apparently synonymous expressions for non-identity, including
the ineffable and the non-conceptual, which constitutes further prima facie
evidence for this reading.21 This weaker claim, that there is some textual evidence
for the interpretation of non-identity as that which is wholly other to thought, is
thus hard to dispute.
Most people, however, who want to defend Adorno from Habermass objections
tend to deny the strong reading of the non-identical, and on that very ground to
reject the idea that there is a parallel between Adornos late work and negative
theology.22 For the reason I have just recounted, however, namely that it rests on

20
Hence, also, the title of his third study on Hegel: Adorno, Skoteinos, or How to Read Hegel,
in ibid, +HJHO 7hUHH 6tXGiHs (trans. Shierry Weber Nicholsen; Studies in Contemporary German
Social Thought; Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1993) 89149 (hereafter as +76); trans. of =XU
MHtaNUitiN GHU (UNHQQtQisthHoUiH 'UHi 6tXGiHQ ]X +HJHO (ed. Rolf Tiedemann; vol. 5 of 7hHoGoU
: $GoUQo *HsaPPHOtH 6chUiItHQ; Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1997) 32676 (hereafter as *6
5). Skoteinos means the obscure one and was an epithet for Heraklitus.
21
On this, see Schndelbach, Dialektik als Vernunftkritik 70.
22
For example, Peter Osborne, J. M. Bernstein, and Simon Jarvis all reject Albrecht Wellmers
claim that Adornos philosophy of art is a kind of negative theology. Peter Osborne disputes the
reading of Adornos work as a negative theology on the grounds that Adornos aesthetic theory
afrms the possibility of metaphysical experience. Peter Osborne, Adorno and the Metaphysics
of Modernism: The Problem of a Postmodern Art, in 7hH 3UoEOHPs oI MoGHUQit\ $GoUQo aQG
%HQMaPiQ (ed. Andrew Benjamin; New York: Routledge, 1989) 23. The similarity between Adorno
and negative theology stops at the point where what is termed the absolute can be gathered only as
a result of negations. For Adorno these negations are determinate and not abstract. J. M. Bernstein,
7hH )atH oI $Ut $HsthHtic $OiHQatioQ IUoP .aQt to 'HUUiGa aQG $GoUQo (Cambridge, U.K.: Polity,
1992) 256. Simon Jarvis asserts contra Wellmer that Adornos thought cannot be adequately
understood as a negative theology. $GoUQo $ &UiticaO ,QtUoGXctioQ (Key Contemporary Thinkers;
Cambridge, U.K.: Polity, 1998) 112.
JAMES GORDON FINLAYSON 7

an interpretative issue that is not likely to be conclusive, this is not a promising


strategy. But there is something even more wrongheaded about this line of defense.
These supporters of Adorno presumably accept, just like his critics, that the mere
fact (if it is one) that Adornos philosophy has parallels with negative theology
makes it vulnerable to the four objections outlined above.
There are at least three things wrong with this defense. First, it is based on a
view of negative theology that, if not uninformed, is nevertheless unelaborated.23
Second, it accepts at face value the claim that to the extent that Adornos philosophy
is like negative theology it is a fortiori irrational, mystical, incoherent, and empty.
Third, it deniescontrary to the evidence that I shall present belowthat there is
DVLJQLFDQWDQGVWULNLQJSDUDOOHOEHWZHHQ$GRUQRVWKRXJKWDQGQHJDWLYHWKHRORJ\
0\VWUDWHJ\LVGLIIHUHQW,DFFHSWWKDWWKHUHDGLQJRIQRQLGHQWLW\DVWKHJXUH
RIWKDWZKLFKLVZKROO\RWKHUWRWKRXJKWLVMXVWLHGZLWKRXWKRZHYHUQHHGLQJ
to establish conclusively that it is correctand allow that this invites comparison
between Adorno and negative theology. I welcome this comparison, and take it
as the point of departure for an investigation of Adornos late work. Then, on
the basis of that comparison, once made explicit, I refute the objections that
supposedly attend it.
In my view the comparison between Adornos late work and negative theology
by which I mean apophatic theologyis genuinely illuminating.24 This is not
because Adorno had any deep interest in apophatic theology. On the contrary, he
has virtually no interest in it. True, he does refer in a letter to Walter Benjamin
to the inverse theology in Benjamins Kafka essay, while claiming somewhat
disingenuously that Benjamins position is identical with the view developed
in his own book on Kierkegaard. True, Adorno does refer in that same letter to
our theology;25 however, he is not referring in particular to apophatic theology.
Adorno appears to refer to apophatic theology only in two places: in his essay
on Kafka and in his essay Sacred Fragment: On Schnbergs Moses and Aaron.26
23
Gerrit Steunebrink is somewhat of an exception here. However, he states: Negative Theology
speaks of God in a negative way: God surpasses all nitude (Is Adornos Philosophy a Negative
Theology? in )OiJht oI thH *oGs 3hiOosophicaO 3HUspHctiYHs oQ 1HJatiYH 7hHoOoJ\ [ed. Ilse Nina
Bulhof and Laurens ten Kate; New York: Fordham University Press, 2000] 293). As we will see
below, the rst part of this sentence is not entirely true.
24
I make this specication because in the literature on Adorno the term negative theology is
often used in a wider and less specic sense than that of a discourse about God by way of negation.
For example, it is often used as a loose equivalent for Messianism.
25
Adorno, Letter to Benjamin December 17, 1934, in 7hHoGoU : $GoUQo aQG :aOtHU %HQMaPiQ
7hH &oPpOHtH &oUUHspoQGHQcH (trans. Nicholas Walker; Cambridge: Polity, 1999). Adorno is being
disingenuous since his Kierkegaard book was heavily inuenced by Benjamins 8UspUXQJ GHs
'HXtschHQ 7UaXHUspiHOs. Gershom Scholem goes so far as to remark that Adornos Kierkegaard book
combines an eloquent plagiarism of Benjamins ideas with an unusual degree of chutzpah.
Gershom Scholem and Walter Benjamin, %UiHIZHchsHO  (ed. Gershom Scholem; Frank-
furt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1997) 109.
26
Adorno, 4Xasi XQa )aQtasia (trans. Rodney Livingstone; London: Verso, 2002) 22549
(hereafter as 4)); trans. of MXsiNaOischH 6chUiItHQ ,,,, (ed. Rolf Tiedemann; vol. 16 of 7hHoGoU :
8 HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW

Even in this last essay, the only place where Adorno actually uses the term negative
theology, he uses it to refer the Old Testament prohibitions against making
graven images and on pronouncing or writing the name of God. It is true that these
religious prohibitions, and the scriptures in which they occur became central to the
tradition of apophatic theology, and were used as examples of the via negativa by
later theologians, but Adorno does not go into this. In fact, Adorno shows a rather
FDYDOLHU ODFN RI LQWHUHVW LQ WKH UHOLJLRXV VLJQLFDQFH RI WKHVH SURKLELWLRQV DQG
freely and radically reinterprets them. For example, he takes the ban on images
(Exod 20:4) to apply to speech, concepts, thoughts, and even the idea of hope, and
he pays little attention to the different ways in which the prohibition on naming
God plays out in Judaism and Christianity respectively.27 In other words, Adorno
presses the motifs of the Bilderverbot and the prohibition against naming into the
service of his own theoretical agenda, and this agenda (rather than the religious
doctrines or the Hebrew Scriptures in which they are set out, or their interpretation
by later theologians) remains the sole focus of his interest. I therefore take Adorno
at his word when he claims that philosophy secularizes theology insofar as the
Bilderverbot pervades thought.28
Meanwhile the secondary literature on Adorno talks about negative theology in
relation to his work in a different sense: Negative theology is a byword for a certain
apocalyptic strain of Jewish messianic thought whereby salvation is conceived in
opposition to immanent individual or collective historical agency.29 Though I cannot
argue for this here, I contend that much of the literature puts undue emphasis on
WKHUHOLJLRXVGLPHQVLRQVSHFLFDOO\WKH-XGDLFGLPHQVLRQRI$GRUQRVWKRXJKW
No doubt some messianic ideas were in the air during Adornos time, and Adorno
moved in circles among people who held such ideas. No doubt Adorno borrowed
ideassometimes wholesalefrom close friends such as Siegfried Krakauer,
:DOWHU%HQMDPLQDQG0D[+RUNKHLPHUZKRZHUHPXFKPRUHGHHSO\LQXHQFHG
by Judaism than he was. Yet it should not be forgotten that Adorno was born of a
Catholic mother and a father who had long since converted to Christianity, that he

$GoUQo *HsaPPHOtH 6chUiItHQ; Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1997) 45476 (hereafter as *6 16).
27
Adorno is aware that he has exacerbated the ban on images. 1HJatiYH 'iaOHctics (trans. E.
B. Ashton; London: Routledge, 2000) 4012 (hereafter as 1'); *6 6:394. The prohibition against
naming God refers to the ban on pronouncing the Tetragrammaton, YHWH, that arose among Jews after
exile in reference to Exodus 20:7. Adorno appears to take this as an extension of the ban on images.
28
Adorno, 9oUOHsXQJ EHU 1HJatiYH 'iaOHNtiN (ed. Rolf Tiedemann; Frankfurt am Main:
Suhrkamp, 2003) 46 (hereafter as 91'). With the previously mentioned proviso that in this respect
philosophy secularizes religion, not theology.
29
Rabinbach calls this the Jewish messianic idea. Anson Rabinbach, Between Enlightenment
and Apocalypse: Benjamin, Bloch and Modern German Messianism, 1HZ *HUPaQ &UitiTXH 34
(1985) 123. Authors who use the term negative theology to refer to the %iOGHUYHUEot include Buck-
Morss, 2UiJiQ oI 1HJatiYH 'iaOHctics 195 n. 51; Rudolf Siebert, Adornos Theory of Religion,
7HOos (1983) 113; Adorno, &M, 236; Adorno, *6 16:463; see Elizabeth A. Pritchard, Bilderverbot
Meets Body in Theodor W. Adornos Inverse Theology, +75 95 (2002) 291318.
JAMES GORDON FINLAYSON 9

ZDVERUQEDSWL]HGDQGEURXJKWXSD&DWKROLFWKDWKHFKRVHWREHFRQUPHGLQD
Protestant Church, and that he grew to be a secular humanist and atheist.30
,I,DPULJKWDERXWWKLVLWLVVRPHZKDWVXUSULVLQJWKDWDZRUNZLWKQRVLJQLFDQW
religious or theological dimension should bear such a striking parallel with apophatic
theology.31 We can best explain this striking parallel not by positing the existence
of a secret religious (or theological) dimension in Adornos thought, but rather by
UHFRJQL]LQJWKHH[LVWHQFHRIDVSHFLFDOO\SKLORVRSKLFDOGLPHQVLRQRI apophatic
theology. The reason that commentators on either side of the debate about Adorno
and negative theology have not noticed this is that they have all refused to lay out
in any detail what aspects of negative theology that Adornos negative dialectic is
supposed to resemble, or not to resemble, as the case may be.

QThe Paradox of the Ineffable


0\WKHVLVWKHQLVWKDWWKHUHLVDFRPPRQSKLORVRSKLFDOTXHVWLRQDQLPDWLQJERWK
Adornos later work and apophatic theology. In Negative Dialectics, Adorno claims
that the true interest of philosophy lies in what is non-conceptual. 32 Adorno
does not have God in mind here, but something inaccessible to conceptual thought
WKHRQO\NLQGRIWKRXJKWWKHUHLV $GRUQRGUDZVWKHFRQVHTXHQFHIURPWKLVWKDWWKH
WDVNRISKLORVRSK\VLQHTXDQRQ is to try against Wittgenstein to say what cannot

30
Tars account is particularly misleading since he extrapolates from Horkheimers family
background and upbringing to Adornos work (Tar, )UaQNIXUt 6chooO, 28189). Adornos Jewish
origins were far more remote and dilute than that of most other members of the Frankfurt School,
and were much less present to him than much current intellectual history would have one believe.
His relation to Judaism is a complex one, since many of his closest friends, and his wife, were part of
the Jewish community. That said, far too many people give the impression that Adorno was Jewish.
Siebert for example calls Adorno one of those unbelieving Jews (Siebert, Adornos Theory of
Religion, 110). Terry Eagleton writes of Jews like Adorno, 7hH ,GHoOoJ\ oI thH $HsthHtic (Oxford:
Blackwell, 1990]) 343) and calls him a devout, agnostic Jew (ibid., 10). Even Susan Buck-Morss
argues in her seminal work7hH 2UiJiQ oI 1HJatiYH 'iaOHcticsagainst the claim that Judaism
and negative theology had any positive inuence on Adorno on the following grounds: Unlike
Benjamin he joined no Jewish youth groups as a student; unlike Scholem, he was not attracted to
Zionism; nor did he participate with Siegfried Kracauer, Franz Rosenzweig and Martin Buber in
Rabbi Nehemiah A. Nobels intellectual circle in Frankfurt. Buck-Morss 7hH 2UiJiQ oI 1HJatiYH
'iaOHctics 7hHoGoU : $GoUQo :aOtHU %HQMaPiQ aQG thH )UaQNIXUt ,QstitXtH (Hassocks, U.K.:
Harvester, 1977) 7. This remark seems to ignore the fact that by race Adorno was only ever half-
Jewish, and that by upbringing he was a Catholic, and that by self-understanding he was a secular
humanist or atheist. Evelyn Wilcock, Negative Identity: Mixed German Jewish Descent as a Factor
in the Reception of Theodor Adorno, 1HZ *HUPaQ &UitiTXH 81 (2000) 16987.
31
Buck-Morss claims that Tillich, under whose supervision Adorno wrote his Habilitation on
Kierkegaard, cannot be said to have inuenced him (2UiJiQ oI 1HJatiYH 'iaOHctics, 268). In his
/HctXUHs oQ 1HJatiYH 'iaOHctics, shortly after Tillichs death, Adorno claims that he is not justied
in speaking about the decisive aspect of his friend Paul Tillichs work, namely das Theologische
(Adorno, 91', 10).
32
Philosphie hat, nach dem geschichtlichen Stande, ihr wahres Interesse dort wo Hegel, einig
mit der Tradition, sein Desinteresse bekundete: beim Begriffslosen, Einzelnen und Besonderen
(Adorno, *6 6:20).
10 HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW

be said. The simple contradiction of this demand is the contradiction of philosophy


LWVHOILWTXDOLHVSKLORVRSK\DVGLDOHFWLFEHIRUHLWJHWVHQWDQJOHGRQO\LQLWVRZQ
FRQWUDGLFWLRQV7KHWDVNRISKLORVRSKLFDOVHOIUHHFWLRQFRQVLVWVLQXQUDYHOLQJWKLV
paradox.33 If there is a central idea in Negative DialecticsLWLVWKLV34 And this idea
LVDQH[SOLFLWUHMRLQGHUWR:LWWJHQVWHLQVQDOSURSRVLWLRQLQWKHTractatus: What
ZHFDQQRWVSHDNDERXWZHPXVWSDVVRYHULQVLOHQFH35
:LWWJHQVWHLQVQDOUHPDUNHFKRHVLQWKHIRUPRIDKLGGHQTXRWDWLRQDPXFK
HDUOLHUUHPDUNDERXWWKHVDPHSDUDGR[E\$XJXVWLQHLQOn the Christian Religion:
,I,KDYHVSRNHQ,KDYHQRWVDLGZKDW,ZLVKHGWRVD\:KHQFHGR,NQRZWKLV
H[FHSWEHFDXVH*RGLVLQHIIDEOH",IZKDW,VDLGZHUHLQHIIDEOHLWZRXOGQRW
EHVDLG$QGIRUWKLVUHDVRQ*RGVKRXOGQRWEHVDLGWREHLQHIIDEOH)RUZKHQ
WKLVLVVDLGVRPHWKLQJLVVDLG$QGDFRQWUDGLFWLRQLQWHUPVLVFUHDWHGVLQFHLI
WKDWLVLQHIIDEOHZKLFKFDQQRWEHVSRNHQWKHQWKDWLVQRWLQHIIDEOHZKLFKFDQ
EHFDOOHGLQHIIDEOH7KLVFRQWUDGLFWLRQLVWREHSDVVHGRYHULQVLOHQFHUDWKHU
WKDQUHVROYHGYHUEDOO\36

$FWXDOO\ WKH SDUDGR[ SUHGDWHV$XJXVWLQH37 6WLOO$XJXVWLQHV VWDWHPHQW RI WKH


SDUDGR[DQGKLVVXJJHVWHGZD\RIDYRLGLQJLWLVSHUVSLFXRXVDQGPHPRUDEOH,W
LVWKLVSDUDGR[WKHSDUDGR[RIWKHLQHIIDEOHWRZKLFKERWKDSRSKDWLFWKHRORJ\DQG
$GRUQRVODWHZRUNDGGUHVVWKHPVHOYHV38
33
$GRUQRNDGS >(QJOLVKWUDQVODWLRQDPHQGHG@
34
,KHVLWDWHWRVD\WKDWWKHLGHDRIWKHQRQLGHQWLFDOLVDFHQWUDOLGHDRI$GRUQRVNegative Dialectics
simply because Adorno repudiates the idea that philosophy has a central idea. In a philosophical
WH[WKHZULWHVDOOSURSRVLWLRQVRXJKWWREHHTXDOO\FORVHWRWKHFHQWUH$GRUQRMM GS
7KDWVDLGWRWKHH[WHQWWKDW$GRUQRIDLOVWRDELGHE\KLVRZQSULQFLSOHWKLVLQWHUHVWDQG
the demand it issues are closer to the center of Negative DialecticsWKDQDOPRVWDQ\WKLQJ
35
/XGZLJ:LWWJHQVWHLQTractatus Logico-Philosophicus (trans. D. F. Pears and B. F. McGuinness;
/RQGRQ5RXWOHGJH 
36
$XJXVWLQHOn Christian Doctrine WUDQV':5REHUWVRQ-U1HZ<RUN/LEHUDO$UWV3UHVV
 6HHDOVR6HUPRQ$XJXVWLQHEssential Sermons WUDQV(GPXQG+LOO231HZ
<RUN1HZ&LW\3UHVV 
37
%DVLOLGHVDOUHDG\PDNHVDVLPLODUSRLQW1RZWKDWZKLFKLVFDOOHGLQHIIDEOHLVQRWDEVROXWHO\
LQHIIDEOHIRUZHRXUVHOYHVJLYHLWWKDWQDPHRILQHIIDEOHZKHUHDVWKDWZKLFKLVQRWHYHQLQHIIDEOH
LVQRWLQHIIDEOHEXWLQQLWHO\DERYHHYHU\QDPHWKDWFDQEHQDPHG+LSSRO\WXV5HIXWDWLRQRI
$OO+HUHVLHV 3*&%DVLOLGHVZDVD*QRVWLFZKROLYHGDQGWDXJKWLQ$OH[DQGULD
LQWKHVHFRQGFHQWXU\7KDQNVWR'DYLG6PLWKIRUWKHUHIHUHQFH
38
$XJXVWLQH GRHV QRW SDVV RYHU WKH FRQWUDGLFWLRQ LQ VLOHQFH /LNH DOO RI WKH P\VWLFDO ZULWHUV
DQG WKH DSRSKDWLF WKHRORJLDQV KLV UHVSRQVH WR WKLV SDUDGR[ LV SUROL[ ,QGHHG LW LV TXLWH SRVVLEOH
WKDW$XJXVWLQH VHHV WKLV DUJXPHQW DV D UHGXFWLRQ WR DEVXUGLW\ RI D SRVLWLRQ KH KLPVHOI GRHV QRW
espouse. /LJQRUDQFHTXHOHPHWDSK\VLFLDQSURIHVVHDXVXMHWGH'LHXTXLHVWODFOHIGHYRWHGH
VDVSpFXODWLRQVXUHOrWUHQDULHQGHP\VWLTXHFHQHVWTXXQKXPEOHUHFRQQDLVVDQFHGHVOLPLWHV
GHOHQWHQGHPHQWKXPDLQin via.9ODGLPLU/RVVN\Thologie Ngative et Connaissance de Dieu
chez Matre Eckhart 3DULV/LEUDLULH3KLORVRSKLTXH-9ULQ 6HHDOVR:LOOLDP$OVWRQV
JHQHUDOUHPDUNFLWHGE\&RRSHU*LYHQKRZIXOVRPHO\P\VWLFVGRUHSRUWWKHLUH[SHULHQFHVRQH
can hardly take literally the claim that the experiences are ineffable.:LOOLDP$OVWRQPerceiving
God: The Epistemology of Religious Experience ,WKDFD 1< &RUQHOO 8QLYHUVLW\ 3UHVV  
 FLWHG LQ 'DYLG &RRSHU The Measure of Things: Humanism, Humility, and Mystery 2[IRUG
&ODUHQGRQ3UHVV 
JAMES GORDON FINLAYSON 11

It might be objected here that the paradox outlined by Augustine is not a paradox,
but a sophism. David Cooper, for example, claims that, although the statement
God is ineffable has the same grammatical form as the proposition, S is p, which
makes it look as if the statement is predicating something, namely ineffability, of
God, in fact the statement is not describing God or predicating ineffability of God
at all. The statementCooper takes this to be a general point about the mystics
XWWHUDQFHVLV WKHUHIRUH QRW DERXW *RG UDWKHU LW UHVRQDWHV ZLWK WKH VSHDNHUV
experience of being unable to put God into words.39 There is therefore no paradox,
but rather a sentence that looks like a proposition that is not one.
My view is that there is a paradox and that Augustine and the negative theologians,
when they say that God is ineffable, are saying something about God, just as they
do when they say that God is mysterious. These are not just disguised statements
DERXWXVDQGRXUQLWHDQGLPSHUIHFWFRJQLWLYHDQGOLQJXLVWLFFDSDFLWLHV5DWKHU
they are statements about God: God is ineffable and mysterious, because something
in God, or about God, makes him this way. This is the paradox of the ineffable to
which both apophatic theology and Adornos late work address themselves. The
VLJQLFDQWSDUDOOHOEHWZHHQ$GRUQRDQGQHJDWLYHWKHRORJ\FRQVLVWVLQWKLVWKDW
faced with the paradox of the ineffablerefusing Wittgensteins and Augustines
respective injunctions to silenceAdorno and the apophatic theologians attempt
ORTXDFLRXVO\WRVD\ZKDWFDQQRWEHVDLG40

QThe One Hiding in the Darkness


3VHXGR'LRQ\VLXV RU'HQ\V WKH$UHRSDJLWHDIWKFHQWXU\6\ULDQPRQNZKRVH
ZRUNEHFDPHLQXHQWLDOLQWKH:HVWZKHQWUDQVODWHGLQWR/DWLQE\-RKQ6FRWXV
Eriugena in the ninth century, is sometimes regarded as the Father of apophatic
theology. His thought has origins in Neo-Platonism and in the Hebrew Scriptures.
The Greek heritage can be seen in his fundamental idea, which bears the stamp
of Procluss cosmology: the triad of remaining [monhv], procession [provodo~]
and return [ejpistrofhv]. God is the cause of all things, he remains one with and
immanent material things, which are his effects. At the same time, insofar as these
material things proceed from God he remains distinct from his effects. God, as the
rst cause, both is and is not identical with his effects. Like Proclus, Dionysiuss
thought is structured by an upward and a downward movement. On the one
hand there is an upward yearning of the lower for the higher, as in most platonic
and neoplatonic, and indeed Greek, thought; on the other hand, there is Gods
condescension and solicitude for the created world.41 The ascent is both ontological

39
This is David Coopers argument (MHasXUH oI 7hiQJs, 291).
40
For Adornos rejection of Wittgensteins injunction to silence see *6 6:395/1', 403, where
he praises Wittgenstein for rejecting the idea of truth in play in positivism, and yet also condemns
his injunction to silence as a falsely resurrected Metaphysics that is indistinguishable from
Heideggers wordless rapture of belief in Being.
41
The former is a Greek idea of ers, the latter a Christian notion of agape, although, according
12 HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW

and epistemological. There is a hierarchy of being, starting from those with mere
existence, continuing through living beings, beings with sense perception and those
with reason, and culminating in those beyond all reason. There is a corresponding
cognitive ascent, through the objects of the will, of the sense perception, of the
mind, and then of divine contemplation of objects beyond discursive reason, which
Dionysius calls divine unknowing.42
The heritage of Hebrew Bible traditions can be seen in 7hH M\sticaO 7hHoOoJ\
where, reecting on Moses ascent of Mount Sinai, Dionysius is struck by the
fact that at the summit Moses does not meet with God himself [ouj sugginivnetai
tw/ Qew/] and does not behold him [qeorei dev ouvk ajuto;n] but only the place
where he is [ajlla; to;n tovpon ou| ejsti].43 Dionysius interprets this as a sign of the
superessential difference: Namely that the essence of God surpasses and exceeds
all language, all concepts, and all understanding. Objects of the eye and mind are
but secondary and subordinate symbols of the transcendent God, which Gods
being renders as naught. Hence at the summit Moses is shrouded in the Darkness
which is above the intellect, which conduces not merely to brevity of speech,
but even to absolute dumbness both of speech [ajlogivan pantelh`] and thought
[ajnomsivan].44 We (initiates in the Christian sacraments), in our attempt to think
Gods being, must plunge into the darkness [eij~ to;n gnovfon] like Moses on
Mount Sinai, who plunges into the Darkness of Unknowing [eij~ to;n gnovfon th`~
ajgnw`s iva~] where the one beyond everything [ov pavntw`n ejpevkeina] truly is. 45
It would be wrong to think of this oneness with God as an experience of the
divine presence, for in this place God remains concealed, the one who is hidden in
WKHGDUNQHVV*RGVSUHVHQFHLVQRWSHUFHLYHGKLVHVVHQFHLVQRWUHYHDOHG1RULV
there anyone, any cognitive subject or knower to whom the divine presence could
manifest itself.46 In the moment of ecstatic union with God, Moses leaves everything
QLWHDQGFUHDWHGLQFOXGLQJKLPVHOIEHKLQG,QKLVRQHQHVVZLWK*RGKHEHORQJV

to Nygren, Proclus prepared the way for the later Christian conception of agape. Anders Nygren,
$JapH aQG (Uos (London: SPCK, 1954) 569.
42
Dionysius, 'iYiQH 1aPHs. (ed. J.-P. Migne; vol. 3 of PG; Paris: Migne, 18571866) 592C
700B, 708D, 865CD (hereafter as '1)
43
Dionysius, M\sticaO 7hHoOoJ\ (ed. J.-P. Migne; vol. 3 of PG; Paris: Migne, 18571866) 1000D
(hereafter as M7). Exodus, chs.19, 20, and 33:2030, particularly the last. And he said, Thou canst
not see my face: for there shall no man see me and live. And the Lord said. Behold, thHUH is a place
by me, and thou shalt stand upon a rock: and it shall come to pass, while my glory passeth by, that
I will put thee in a clift of the rock, and will cover thee with my hand while I pass by: and I will
take away my hand, and thou shalt see my back parts: but my face shall not be seen. Dionysius,
as an anonymous reader for this journal pointed out, uses the term theology to mean discourse
from God which engenders a discourse to God. This is rather different from the way I have been
using the term, to mean a discourse about God.
44
M7 3:1037C.
45
M7 1:3, 1000C.
46
M7 1:3, 1000D and 1000B.
JAMES GORDON FINLAYSON 13

to Him that is beyond all things and to none else (whether himself or another)
and being through the passive stillness of all his reasoning powers united
by his highest faculty to Him that is wholly Unknowable, of whom thus
by a rejection of all knowledge he possesses a knowledge that exceeds his
understanding.47

The ecstatic unionecstatic in the sense that the knowing self is driven out by the
reception of the unknownis prepared by intellectual discipline of ascent through
negation but its culmination is achieved through surrender [ajnenerghsivav/].48 This
surrender or self-abnegation is strictly speaking neither an act, nor an experience
(even less a personal experience since its precondition is the loss of self as agent
and as patient) but rather an event: It takes place.

QCataphatic Tropes with Apophatic Intent


Dionysius does not pass over the paradox of Gods ineffability in silence, neither
does he attempt to resolve the paradox verbally.49 In fact, he does not attempt to
resolve the paradox at all, but instead uses the paradox to exhibit the superessential
difference, the idea that the essence of God so surpasses the mundane sphere of
being that no language or thought can express it.
An important point to note here is that Dionysius does this by means of both
afrmations and negations.50 His most straightforward device is the use of the
prex h\pHU-, which in Greek means over, beyond or above, to the names
(which he also takes to be properties) of God, as in the prayer with which 7hH
M\sticaO 7hHoOoJ\ begins: Trinity beyond being [uJperouvs ie] beyond divinity
[uJpevrqee], beyond good [uJperavgaqe], which one could also translate as
superessential, superdivine and supergood Trinity.51 In 7hH 'iYiQH 1aPHs he
explains that the prex h\pHU is a negation, which indicates that God exceeds
the meaning of the predicate to which it is attached. For example, agathos or
good in [to; uJperavgaqion]. He does the same with essence [to; uJperouvs ion],
with life [to; uJpevrzwon], and interestingly also with divine [to; uJpevrqeon].
At the same time the claim that God is uJperavgaqe is clearly an afrmation, since
something is predicated of God, namely supergoodness, a goodness that is not
like any goodness we can know.
Second, for Dionysius the superessential difference is revealed in ordinary
DIUPDWLRQVZKHUHYXOJDUDQGLQDSSURSULDWHQDPHVDUHDWWULEXWHGWR*RGVXFK

47
M7 1:3, 100A.
48
Rolt translates this as passive stillness. 'ioQ\siXs thH $UHopaJitH oQ thH 'iYiQH 1aPHs aQG
thH M\sticaO 7hHoOoJ\ (trans. C. E. Rolt; London: Macmillan, 1957) 194.
49
Although, according to Turner, for Dionysius silence is the goal, paradox and contradiction
the means to it (Turner, 'aUNQHss oI *oG 150).
50
This falsies Steunebrinks in my view too simple claim that [n]egative theology speaks of
God in a negative way (Steunebrink, Adornos Philosophy, 293).
51
M7 1:3, 997A.
14 HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW

as stone, angry, asleep, and hungover. By contrast, Dionysius notes, less


impertinent and more appropriate names conceal the superessential difference, and
trick us into believing that we know something determinate about Gods essence,
because we mistakenly assume that he is like other beings, that his goodness can be
captured by familiar senses of the term good.52 In principle, however, Dionysius
LV RI WKH YLHZ WKDW DIUPDWLYH RU FDWDSKDWLF ODQJXDJH LV LQDSSURSLDWH WR *RGV
GLYLQLW\7KHSUREOHPZLWKRUGLQDU\DIUPDWLRQLVWKDWLWLVGHWHUPLQDWLRQDQGWKH
superessential being is not determinable. As he puts it, God does not exist here
DQGQRWWKHUHKHGRHVQRWSRVVHVVWKLVNLQGRIH[LVWHQFHDQGQRWWKDW537RDIUP
something of God is to deny something else of him (or her, or it): For example,
to say that God is light, is to imply that God is not darkness. Any determinate
DIUPDWLRQLVWKXVLPSOLFLWO\DQHJDWLRQRUGHQLDO%XW'LRQ\VLXVDUJXHV*RGLV
not the kind of being of whom anything can be denied. All names apply to him,
everything can be said of him, and he unites all predicates, even contradictory ones,
without any confusion, in the same way that the light from various different
sources commingle into one indivisible light.54
7KLVOHDGVWR'LRQ\VLXVVWKLUGGHYLFHIRUUHYHDOLQJWKHVXSHUHVVHQWLDOGLIIHUHQFH
attributing all names (or predicates) to God, or at least all the names allowed by
VFULSWXUHHVSHFLDOO\FRQWUDGLFWRU\RQHVVLPXOWDQHRXVO\/LNHYXOJDULW\SRO\RQ\P\
can be put to theological advantage. This strategy allows the superessential
difference to be shown through the juxtaposition of contrary predicates: God is
darkness, but God is also light. God is speech or the word, but he is also
silence, which is the absence of words. God is nameless but also the possessor
of all names.55 The Mystical Theology is riddled with oxymorons: The mysteries
of Gods word lie . . . in the brilliant darkness of a hidden silence.56
,QWKHVHWKUHHGLIIHUHQWZD\V'LRQ\VLXVXVHVWKHLQDGHTXDF\RIDIUPDWLYHRU
cataphatic theological language to provoke a crisis of meaning. As Turner puts it, we
reach the point at which the apophatic begins by means of the comprehensiveness
RIRXUDIUPDWLRQVZKRVHFRPELQHGDQGPXWXDOO\FDQFHOOLQJIRUFHVFUDFNRSHQWKH
surface of language.57 Coopers pointthat mystical statements are not genuine
propositions about Godseems to miss the point. Dionysiuss strategy, which

52
M7 3:1033B and 1040B; Dionysius, &HOHstiaO +iHUaUch\ (vol. 3 of PG; ed. J.-P. Migne; Paris:
Migne, 18571866) 3:141AB
53
'1 5:8, 824AB
54
ouvdeniv mevrei sugkecumevnh '1 2:4, 641A. And hence it is not out of place [atopon]
when we mount from obscure images to the cause of all things, with supercosmic eyes behold all
things [theorsai panta] (even those things which are mutually contrary existing as a single unity).
'1 5:7, 821B.
55
'1 I:7, 632B. They praise it as nameless even while they call it by every name. '1
1:6, 596A.
56
M7 1:997B.
57
Turner, 'aUNQHss oI *oG, 32. As he puts it apophatic theology in this sense ought really to
mean that speech about God which is the failure of speech. Turner, 'aUNQHss oI *oG 20.
JAMES GORDON FINLAYSON 15

harnesses paradox in order to exhibit Gods ineffability, only succeeds if he is


PDNLQJJHQXLQHDIUPDWLYHDQGQHJDWLYHMXGJPHQWVDERXW*RG
To the extent, then, that apophatic discourse about God makes use of cataphatic
language, the terms negative theology and apophatic theology are misleading.
It is not that we can somehow capture Gods essence by piling up negations,
ZKHUHDVZHFDQQRWGRVR WKURXJKDIUPDWLRQ7KHVRFDOOHGQHJDWLYHZD\LV
not a route to God that would be a viable alternative to the untraversable positive
way. Apophaticism shows that there is no way to God, and therein consists its
sole advantage over positive theology.

QStyle and Form in Adornos Work


/HWXVQRZFRPSDUH'LRQ\VLXVVZRUNZLWK$GRUQR$GRUQRVODWHSKLORVRSK\VWULYHV
by way of the concept to transcend the concept.58/LNH'LRQ\VLXV$GRUQRSXVKHV
language to the breaking point in order to make it indicate whatever it is that exceeds
it. He sets out to achieve this by exploiting the genres, the compositional form and
the style of his writing: the aphorism, the philosophical fragment, the essay, the
mode of composition he calls writing in constellations, and the rhetorical use of
H[DJJHUDWLRQ/HWXVORRNEULH\DWHDFKRIWKHVH
&RQVLGHUUVW$GRUQRVDQG+RUNKHLPHUVFKRVHQVW\OHRISUHVHQWDWLRQLQDialectic
of Enlightenment: the philosophical fragment, as opposed to a philosophical treatise
which in its very form aims at soundness and completion.59 For Adorno this is the
virtue of the former. He makes similar claims about certain art works. In Sacred
Fragment, for example, Adorno says of Schnbergs Moses and Aaron that when
VLJQLFDQWZRUNVRIDUWDLPIRUDQH[WUHPHWKH\DUHGHVWUR\HGLQWKHSURFHVVDQG
their broken outlines survive as ciphers of a supreme, unnameable truth.60 The
difference is that Adornos philosophical fragments are intentionally incomplete
creations, whereas Schnbergs opera was either contingently fragmentary, because
XQQLVKHGRUDV$GRUQRFODLPVREMHFWLYHO\LQFRPSOHWDEOHDQGWKHUHIRUHGHVWLQHG
to be incomplete even though the author aimed at completion. In either case,
however, the fragment, just by virtue of being a fragment, presupposes and points
to an absent, unrealized whole.
Second, consider Adornos use of hyperbole. One of Adornos most memorable
lines is: In psychoanalysis, nothing is true except the exaggerations.61 This
SULQFLSOHKDVSURJUDPPDWLFVLJQLFDQFHIRU$GRUQRVRZQZRUNVLQFHLWLQIRUPV
his writing practice in all his major texts. Take the following examples:

58
1', 15, *6 6:27. See also *6 6:21/1', 10 Die Utopie der Erkenntnis wre, das Begriffslose
mit Begriffen aufzutun, ohne es ihnen gleichzumachen.
59
The subtitle 3hiOosophicaO )UaJPHQts is curiously omitted in the English translation by John
Cummings.
60
4), 226/*6 16:455.
61
MM, 49 See also the earlier remark in '(, 118 But only exaggeration is true.
16 HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW

For centuries society has been preparing for Victor Mature and Mickey
5RRQH\62
Every visit to the cinema leaves me, against all my vigilance, stupider and
worse.63
1R XQLYHUVDO KLVWRU\ OHDGV IURP VDYDJHU\ WR KXPDQLW\ RQH GRHVOHDG IURP
the slingshot to the megaton bomb.64

8QOLNHDZHOOIRUPHGMXVWLHGVWDWHPHQWRIIDFWWKHH[DJJHUDWLRQZHDUVLWVRZQ
LQDGHTXDF\RQLWVVOHHYH,WZULQJVIURPODQJXDJHWKHDGPLVVLRQRILWVIDOVLW\DQG
thereby, Adorno claims, appropriates it for truth.65
Third, take Adornos notion of the constellation. Adornos work redounds with
programmatic statements to which he adheres with varying degrees of zeal: In
a philosophical text he writes in Minima Moralia all propositions ought to be
HTXDOO\FORVHWRWKHFHQWUH66 Adornos strategy of thinking in constellations is
faithful to this compositional principle. A constellation is a thought pattern, but one
WKDWLVQRW[HGLQDGYDQFHOLNHDPHWKRGDQGRQHWKDWLVQRWLQWHQGHGWRRXWODVWWKH
TXHVWLRQDWLVVXH,WLVOLNHWKHSDWWHUQWKDWIDOOVRXWRIDURWDWLRQRIWKHNDOHLGRVFRSH
only to be replaced by another. For all that, it is a cognitive and theoretical exercise.
As a constellation, theoretical thought circles the concept it would like to un-
VHDOKRSLQJWKDWLWPD\\RSHQOLNHWKHORFNRIDZHOOJXDUGHGVDIHGHSRVLW
box: in response, not to a single key or a single number, but to a combination
of numbers.67

3ODFLQJDQREMHFWRIFRJQLWLRQLQDIRUFHHOGRIKRUL]RQWDOUHODWLRQVWRRWKHUFRQFHSWV
SURGXFHVDDVKRILOOXPLQDWLRQZKLFKIRUPVDYHUWLFDOUHODWLRQWRRUWKRJRQDOWR
the conceptual plane.68

62
Adorno, 'iaOHctic oI (QOiJhtHQPHQt (trans. John Cumming; London: Verso, 1997) 156
(hereafter as '().
63
MM, 25.
64
1', 320
65
'(, 24. See also MM, 71/*6 4:79: The point of philosophy should not be to have absolutely
correct, irrefutable cognitionsfor these invariably boil down to tautologiesbut cognitions that
turn the question of correctness against themselves. MM, 71/*6 4:79.
66
MM, 71/*6 4:79. This normative principle is itself a principle of composition of Schoenbergs
middle period. Of Schoenbergs Fourth Quartet, and of the mature Berg, Adorno writes that, in spite
of their development: Every bar is equally close to the centre. Adorno, Form in the New Music
(trans. Rodney Livingstone) MXsicaO $QaO\sis 27:23 (2008) 20116, at 213. While earlier he writes
of the inescapable claim of twelve tone music that in all its elements it is equidistant from its
midpoint. 7hH 3hiOosoph\ oI 1HZ MXsic (trans. Robert Hullot-Kentor; Mineapolis: University of
Minnesota Press, 2006) 59/Adorno, 3hiOosophiH GHU 1HXHQ MXsiN (ed. Rolf Tiedemann; vol. 12
of Theodor W. Adorno: *HsaPPHOtH 6chUiItHQ; Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1997) 73 (hereafter
as *6 12).
67
1', 162/*6 6:166.
68
Adorno describes the constellation in another way also, as a kind of unreifying or liquefying
gaze, which brings to light the occluded history of its coming to be, which history is stored up
JAMES GORDON FINLAYSON 17

Finally consider the essay form, which, Adorno remarks, is not structured
DFFRUGLQJWRDQ\VFLHQWLFPHWKRGRUORJLFDORUGHU7KHHVVD\WDNHVWKHIRUPRID
VHULHVRILQFRPSOHWHUHHFWLRQVDUUDQJHGDURXQGLWVREMHFWWKURXJKLWVZHDNQHVVLW
WHVWLHVWRWKHQRQLGHQWLW\LWKDVWRH[SUHVV69 It is composed as if it could break
off at any point, so there is a certain arbitrariness and contingency inherent in its
form.70 That said, by so doing, Adorno claims, the essay wants to heal thought
RILWVDUELWUDU\FKDUDFWHUE\LQFRUSRUDWLQJDUELWUDULQHVVUHHFWLYHO\LQWRLWVRZQ
approach rather than disguise it as immediacy.71 Does Adorno think the essay gets
what it wants, that it manages to overcome its own arbitrariness by admitting to
it? Presumably he does, in much the same way that he claims that exaggeration,
by confessing to its own falsity, can be appropriated for truth. Of course someone
might worry that the mere admission to arbitrariness and incompleteness implicitly
contained in its form cannot make the essay less arbitrary and incomplete and
heal it in that sense. So it is hard to know in what sense the essay succeeds in
transcending the concept. Adornos thought seems to be that the essay, like the
fragment, goes beyond the concept by resisting the illusion of completeness and
foreshadowing an always unrealized and counterfactual completeness that throws
its incompleteness into relief.
Of course there is much more to be said about each of these devices than I can
KHUH%XWZHKDYHVHHQHQRXJKWRGUDZDSDUDOOHO/LNH'LRQ\VLXV$GRUQRXVHVVHOI
VXEYHUWLQJWHFKQLTXHVRIODQJXDJHWHFKQLTXHVWKDWWU\WRZULQJYLFWRULHVRXWRIWKH
defeat of discursive reason. On the one hand this allows him to manifest the limited
DQGQLWHQDWXUHRIFRQFHSWXDOWKRXJKWDQGLWVLQDGHTXDF\WRWKHQRQLGHQWLFDO
RUHYHQDVKHRFFDVLRQDOO\VD\VWKHDEVROXWHRQWKHRWKHULWH[KLELWVVRPHNLQG
of relation to what it fails to graspincluding the ineffable, the unsayable, and
the non-identical.

QThe Negation of the Negation or the Denial of All Beings


Dionysius constantly reminds us that when negative predicates, or negations
are applied to God they imply no defect or privation, but rather excess and
WUDQVFHQGHQFH*RGLVQRWPLQGEHFDXVH*RGLVH[DOWHGDERYHDOOPLQGQRWOLJKW
because God is beyond all visible light. To say that God does not have senses
and a mind like us is not to say that God lacks these, but that God possesses them
in superabundance.72 Thus to negate God is to exalt God, which is not the case
in the object (1', 163/*6 6:167). It is not clear how these two notions of the constellation relate
to each other.
69
1/ 1:11/*6 11:18.
70
1/ 1:16/*6 11:25.
71
1/ 1:19/*6 11:27.
72
'1 7:2, 869 A (to; gar a[noun kai ajnaivsqhton kaq j uJperoch;n ouj kat j e[lleiyin ejpiv qeou`
taktevon). There is an important underlying point of theology here. God is the cause of everything,
and all being is in God. For Dionysius evil, does not exist and has no existence, and causes nothing
to exist ('1 4:1934). Hence to say that God lacked existence would be to say that God was evil.
18 HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW

ZKHQZHDWWULEXWHQHJDWLYHSUHGLFDWHVWRQLWHFUHDWHGEHLQJV7KLVLVHVVHQWLDO
to Dionysiuss conception of the negative way, which is a path of transcendence
through serial negation. 73 God is neither soul, nor mind, nor one, nor deity,
nor being, nor non-being, nor light nor truth.74
$V7XUQHU HPSKDVL]HV WKH ZD\ RI QHJDWLRQ LQ 'LRQ\VLXV FRQWDLQV ERWK UVW
RUGHUDQGVHFRQGRUGHUQHJDWLRQV,QWKHUVWRUGHUDVZHKDYHVHHQQHJDWLRQDQG
DIUPDWLRQWKHDSRSKDWLFDQGWKHFDWDSKDWLFJRKDQGLQKDQGEXWWKHIRUPHULV
superior. Negation comes into its own in the second order precisely because it is
exalting. Second order negation is sometimes termed the negation of the negation,
although this phrase can be misleading. First, as Dionysius constantly reminds us,
WKHZD\RIQHJDWLRQLQYROYHVWKHQHJDWLRQRIERWKRUGLQDU\ UVWRUGHU QHJDWLRQV
DQGDIUPDWLRQV75 Second, negating the negation in this context has nothing to
do with double negation elimination by which (p) becomes p. Third, it has
little to do with what Hegel calls determinate negation. For Hegel, determinate
negation is a negation of a negation leading to a positive residue or content. This
process is related to what Hegel calls sublation, a translation of the German
noun Aufhebung, stemming from the verb aufheben, which means both to cancel
and to preserve. For Dionysius, by contrast, negation of the negation involves a
VHFRQGRUGHUWUDQVFHQGLQJQHJDWLRQZKLFKVXSHUFHGHVDOORUGLQDU\DIUPDWLRQV
and negations by denying that any ordinary predicate applies to God, since they all
fall short of divine transcendence.76 Dionysiuss ascent via negation is (rather like
Augustines) divine in more than one sense: It is initiated by God, accompanied by
God, and also directed toward him. In The Mystical Theology Dionysius describes
the second order transcending negation culminating in divine unknowing as the
denial of all beings or the turning away from all beings.77 For this would really
be to see and to know: to praise him that transcends all beings in a transcending
way, namely through the denial of all beings.78 This phrase is more appropriate
73
Dionysiuss negative theology is distinct from and offers no support for what John D.
Caputo has recently christened a generalized apophatics (John D. Caputo, 7hH 3Ua\HUs aQG 7HaUs
oI -acTXHs 'HUUiGa 5HOiJioQ ZithoXt 5HOiJioQ [Indianapolis: Indiana Press, 1997] 28 and 55). Some
deconstructive commentators, following Derrida, and Derridas own writing on negative theology,
are happy to describe any discourse about the other, about otherness, or about difference, as an
apophatic discourse or a negative theology. They take the lead from Derrida who writes that tout
autre est tout autre; that every other is wholly other. For Dionysius it is only God that is wholly
other. To conate God with other kinds of otherness or difference is to commit the kind of idolatry
and confusion he is warning against. Thus there can be no generalized apophatics.
74
M7, 1040D1048B.
75
M7 1:1000B; M7, 1048B; '1 8:3, 641A.
76
Turner maintains that Dionysiuss negation of the negation is not some intelligible synthesis
of afrmation and negation; it is rather the collapse of our afrmation and denials into disorder,
which we can only express, a IoUtioUi, in bits of collapsed, disordered language, like the babble of
Jeremiah (Turner, 7hH 'aUNQHss oI *oG, 23). I think collapse and babble do not capture the
extent to which Dionysius is rehearsing a deliberate dialectical strategy.
77
M7 2:1025AB, '1 1:5, 593C. '1 7:3, 872B
78
M7 2:1025A. Jones has to praise the Transcendent One which sounds too explicitly Plotinian
JAMES GORDON FINLAYSON 19

than the negation of the negation which suggests that only negations are negated,
and to modern ears at least, has associations of Hegelian sublation.
7KHTXHVWLRQDULVHVZKHWKHUWKHQHJDWLRQRIQHJDWLRQRUGHQLDORIDOOEHLQJV
WKDW'LRQ\VLXVGHVFULEHV\LHOGVDQ\SRVLWLYHNQRZOHGJHRI*RG-DFTXHV'HUULGD
numbers among those who suspect that it does. He contends that Dionysiuss
apophatic theology is after all a metaphysics aimed at the immediacy of a
presence, whose success is assured.79 However, talk of the immediacy of a
presence and of the metaphysics of presence is misplaced. In the penultimate place
(the summit) where Dionysius says that God truly is, God is present only as the
one who is hidden, that is, never fully present. And in the ultimate non-place, the
abyss of the darkness of unknowing into which we plunge, we turn away from all
thought and knowledge and surrender any self or subject that could experience or
perceive or receive the presence of God. Thus Gods being is and remains utterly
transcendent, and is to that extent never immediately present. Better put, because
of the superessential differencethat is, because of Gods not having this kind
of existence and not that even where we are immediately present to GodGod
is never immediately present to us.

QNegativity in Adorno
Adorno in some moods conceives his negative dialectic and the various literary
forms and tropes in which it is presented as determinate negations. He claims at
various places that negative dialectic is in fact nothing other than determinate
negation.80 For Hegel determinate negation yields a positive residue. Adorno, the

for the noun phrase . Rolt has Him that transcends all things, which is better.
Rolt, 'ioQ\siXs thH $UHopaJitH oQ thH 'iYiQH 1aPHs aQG thH M\sticaO 7hHoOoJ\, 19495
79
Derrida casts suspicion on this negativity in Dionysiuss sense of hyperessentiality. La promesse
dune telle presence accompagne . . . la traverse apophatique. Vision dune lumire tnbreuse,
sans doute . . . mais encore limmdiatet dune prsence. Jacques Derrida, 3s\chp ,QYHQtioQs GH
OaXtUH (Paris: Galile, 1987) 54243. On the same point, John N. Jones argues that while Dionysius
holds that God transcends what can be expressed by any individual denial, he also claims that
through the denial of all beings some human minds achieve transcendent knowing. John Jones,
Sculpting God: The Logic of Dionysian Negative Theology +75 (1996) 35962. The metaphor
Dionysius uses in the following sentence seems to add credence to this suspicion. We would be
like sculptors carving a statue. They remove every obstacle to the pure view of the hidden image,
and by removal alone [th/` ajfairevsei movnh/] bring to light the hidden beauty. This passage which
alludes to Plotinuss metaphor of the statue (Plotinus, (QQHaGs 1.6.9.9) appears to support the view
that some minds can achieve positive knowledge of God. C. E. Rolt holds that this simile shows
the Yia QHJatiYa is, in the truest sense, positive (Rolt, 'ioQ\siXs thH $UHopaJitH oQ thH 'iYiQH
1aPHs aQG thH M\sticaO 7hHoOoJ\, 195). However, the Plotinian metaphor is misleading in this
context: i) negation in the sense the metaphor puts in play is ordinary privation (or removal),
so by Denys own lights it is not the sense of negation operative here; ii) the block of Marble
is finite and not infinite like God; iii) for every piece of marble removed something remains;
so iv) the remainder forms a determinate and positive image.
80
Habermass objection to the emptiness of Adornos late work is targeted at his procedure of
determinate negation. See n. 10 above.
20 HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW

exponent of negative dialectics is understandably worried about this. Sometimes this


worry prompts him to contrast constellations with the negation of the negation:
The unifying moment survives without the negation of the negationwithout
delivering itself to abstraction . . . because there is no . . . progression from the
concepts to a more general concept.81 At other times the same worry prompts
him rather to cleave to the idea of the negation of the negation, while rejecting
the Hegelian thesis that the negation of the negation yields a positive.82 But how
can Adorno welcome the determinacy of negation, whilst denying that it yields
any positive residue?83
This is a version of the problem that Dionysius faces. Adorno tries to answer
it. He claims that determinate negation yields no knowledge of the true (which he
calls absolute or simple positivity) but rather yields knowledge of the false that
announces itself as false (which he calls bad positivity).84 Adorno contrasts the
approach of determinate negation with that of identifying thought. The latter, he
claims, makes opposed terms the samehe uses the example of Hegels logic which
unies Being and Nothing in Becomingby dint of a certain conceptual violence
[Gewalt]: the negation of the negation is actually nothing but the ajnavmnhsi~ of
that violence . . . which must be corrected.85
$GRUQRPDNHVDQHTXDOO\XQFRQYLQFLQJPRYHLQProblems of Moral Philosophy.
We can reliably know what the bad is he says, for after Auschwitz, we cannot help
NQRZLQJWKDW7KHFULWLTXHRIWKHDGPLQLVWHUHGZRUOGPXVWWDNHWKHIRUPRIWKH
concrete denunciation of the inhuman, which we can reliably recognize even
though we have no positive normative conception of humanity and no positive
conception of absolute goods and absolute norms.86
Adornos response is unconvincing because it restates the problem rather than
answering it. Determinate negation cannot so much as reveal the falsity of the
false life absent any implicit or explicit reference to a conception of the good or
right life. Austere negativism implies that we are not able to descry an inverted
vision of the good in extant evil, and that understanding of evil as evil cannot be
basedeven implicitlyon such a vision. Even Adorno realizes this, since he
peels back the blanket of his austere negativism and helps himself to a notion of
the positive, which he claims to be a) ineliminable from all thought, but b) also
above and beyond all thought, and therefore c) ineffable.87

1', 162: *6 6:164.


81

Adono, MHtaph\sics &oQcHpts aQG 3UoEOHPs (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2000) 144 (hereafter
82

as M&3).
83
Woher also soll die %HstiPPthHit der Negation stammen, ohne da die positive Setzung,
nmlich die des Geistes, in dem alles aufgehe, von vornherein si geleitet? Adorno, 91', 48.
84
91', 49.
85
91', 51.
86
Adorno, 3UoEOHPH GHU MoUaOphiOosophiH (ed. T. Schroder; Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp,
1997) 260 (hereafter as 3'M).
87
Ich meine . . . da es so etwas wie ein . . . positives Movens des Gedankens gibt: wenn man
JAMES GORDON FINLAYSON 21

Even if Adorno does not convincingly solve his own problem and cannot develop
a notion of determinate negation that is consistent with austere negativism and
does not presuppose any positive knowledge, he does run into the problem that
Dionysius faces. Adornos notion of determinate negationthe notion he welcomes,
not the Hegelian notion he repudiatespoints in two directions at once: upwards
toward a transcendence that remains conceptually out of reach and hence ineffable,
and downwards toward the self-manifesting and hence effable falsity of all
language and thought. There is an important difference here, however, for although
Dionysiuss thought combines the human ascent toward the divine and the divine
condescension toward the human, the endpoint is the ecstatic union of the human
and the divine. Adornos thought shifts between two perspectives: from the false life,
the context of immanence (Immanenzzusammenhang), we look upward toward a
good that escapes us.88 We are thus drawn upward out of the context of delusion
or blindness (Verblendungszusammenhang), toward a standpoint of transcendence
from which we gaze back downward on the social world. Knowledge has no light
but that shed upon the world from redemption.89 The direction the light falls is
important von der Erlsung her auf die Welt. Having cantilevered a standpoint
of transcendence in order to break out of the context of illusion from within, the
aim is to look back upon the social world, for the social world is our sole concern.
Perspectives must be fashioned that displace and estrange the world, reveal
it to be, with its rifts an crevices, as indigent and distorted as it will appear
one day in the messianic light. To gain such perspectives without velleity or
violence, entirely from felt contact with its objectsthis alone is the task of
thought.90

QMeister Eckharts Wesensmystik


Adornos work also bears interesting comparisons with Meister Eckhart, a
WKLUWHHQWKFHQWXU\'RPLQLFDQ0RQNZKRZDVLQXHQFHGE\'LRQ\VLXVDVZHOO
as scholasticism and who reignited the spark of apophatic mysticism in the Middle
$JHV)RU'LRQ\VLXVWKHLQHIIDELOLW\RI*RGLVDUHHFWLRQRIWKHVXSHUHVVHQWLDO

es Qicht will, und ich sage mit Absicht >es<, weil man >es< nicht sagen kann, nicht ausdrcken
kann, - ja, dann gibt es keine bestimmte Negation (Adorno VND 46). Brian OConnor has a nice
way of putting this, when he speaks of a vertical relation to something, as distinct from the horizontal
relations between concepts. This vertical relation is to a non-identity that is out of the range of
what any concept can grasp (Brian OConnor. $GoUQos 1HJatiYH 'iaOHctics 3hiOosoph\ aQG thH
3ossiEiOit\ oI &UiticaO 5atioQaOit\. [Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2004])..
88
Interestingly Adorno uses the originally platonic and neoplatonic image of the blinding light
for this notion of the good. See the motto (from Goethes Pandora) to Essay as Form. Bestimmt
Erleuchtetes zu sehen, nicht das Licht. [Destined to see what is illuminated, not the light.] *6 11
9/1/ 1:3.
89
Erkenntnis has kein Licht als das YoQ GHU (UO|sXQJ hHU aXI GiH :HOt scheint. *6 4:287/MM,
247 [Emphasis mine].
90
*6 4:287/MM, 247.
22 HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW

difference: God is beyond being, and out of reach of all human language and thought,
QRPDWWHUKRZUHQHG)RU(FNKDUWE\FRQWUDVWWKHLQHIIDELOLW\RI*RGUHHFWVWKH
IDFWWKDW*RGVHVVHQFHLVWREHKLGGHQDQGLQVFUXWDEOH$V/RVVN\SXWVLW,QGHHG
WRWKHTXHVWLRQIRUZK\*RGLVLQHIIDEOH'LRQ\VLXVZRXOGKDYHUHSOLHG*RGLV
ineffable, because in his superessential nature he is transcendent not only to all
that is, but also indeed to being itself. Eckhart replies: God is ineffable, because
KLVQDWXUHLVWREHKLGGHQ$QGZKDWLVPRUHLWLVSUHFLVHO\TXD%HLQJsub
ratione essethat God is unknowable.91 For Dionysius, divine ineffability is a
IHDWXUHRIWKHKXPDQTXHVWIRU*RGVHVVHQFHRIWKHKXPDQUHODWLRQWRWKHGLYLQH
ZKLOHIRU(FNKDUWLWLVDFKDUDFWHULVWLFRIWKHTXHVWHG*RGVHVVHQFHLWVHOI(FNKDUW
does not teach that Gods essence is ineffable because wholly transcendent and
RXWRIUHDFK*RGVHVVHQFHLVLPPDQHQWEXWQHYHUWKHOHVVZKROO\P\VWHULRXVDQG
dark. His mysticism is what in German is called Wesensmystikmysticism about
Gods essence.92:KDWLVWKHQDOHQG"DVNV(FNKDUW,WLVWKHKLGGHQGDUNQHVV
of the eternal Godhead, which is unknown and never has been known and never
shall be known. God abides there in himself.93 I shall discuss just two of Eckharts
doctrines: his doctrines of the image, and his doctrine of detachment [Gelassen-
heit or Abgeschiedenheit].

QBilderlosigkeit in Eckhart and Adorno


Eckhart uses the term image [bild/beelde] in two senses, which one can distinguish
according to whether they are images that God makes of himself and reveals to
humanity, or that people make in order to represent God to others.94
An example of the rstlet us call it the ontological senseis the second
person of the trinity, Jesus Christ, son of God, whom Paul calls the image eijkw;n of
the invisible God (Col 1:15). The ontotheological image is fully in the original, or
91
Lossky, 7hpoOoJiH 1pJatiYH, 22.
92
Reiner Schrmann in his book on Eckhart claims that that the word mysticand hence I
suppose the Greek words musthvia (mysteries) and mustikov~ (initiate)stem from the Greek verb
muvw, to close or be shut of the mouth and eyes. I dont know whether this is right. However, if true,
the etymology points us in the wrong direction in interpreting Eckharts mysticism. For Eckhart,
the darkness and inscrutability is rst in God, and second, consequently, in our incomprehension.
Schrmann, MHistHU (cNhaUt M\stic aQG 3hiOosophHU (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University
Press, 1978) xiv.
93
Meister Eckhart, 'iH 'HXtschH :HUNH (ed. and trans. Josef Quint; Stuttgart: Kohlhammer,
19361963) Sermon 22 (hereafter as Q)/Meister Eckhart, *HUPaQ 6HUPoQs aQG 7UHatisHs (trans.
O.C. Walshe; 2 vols.; London: Watkins, 1970/1980) 2:67 (hereafter as : 1 and : 2). See also
the following excerpt for which I have lost the reference: The nal end of God is the darkness or
nescience of the hidden Godhead whose light illumines it, but this darkness comprehends it not.
Therefore Moses said: He who is has sent me. He who is nameless, [QaPHO{s] who is a denial of
names [aiQ OoJHQXQJ aOOHU QaPHQ] and never had a name, wherefore the prophet said: Truly thou
art a hidden God (Isa 45:15).
94
Jean-Luc Marion distinguishes between idole the representations of God which render God
visible to man, from licne the sign given by grace of the invisible God to man (Marion, 'iHX
saQs OrtUH [Paris: Quadrige, 1991] 1539).
JAMES GORDON FINLAYSON 23

8UEiOG, of which it is an image, or $EEiOG. Eckhart explains this to his congregation


using the simile of the mirror. The mirror image is more truly in the face that looks
than in the glass that reects, for when the mirror is taken away, I am no longer
imaged in the mirror, for I am myself the image.95 Eckhart holds that all human
beings are images in this ontological sense: Their created being wholly depends on
God, and is nothing without God.96 According to Eckharts ontology, the created
world has a fragile existence, wholly borrowed from God, which is why he also
claims that all creatures are a pure nothing, one of the articles later condemned
for being, though not actually heretical, nevertheless tainted with heresy.97 Gods
image is not as fully in us as it is in Jesus, but it is in us nonetheless. Eckhart
teaches that the ontological image of God resides in the soul, which is the ground
of the human being. This image is uncreated. It is identical with God, in the sense
that it is fully in God, and that it is God (though God is not identical with it, nor
is Gods being fully in it). Eckhart also often speaks of the intellect as a spark
[vunkeln] or the light in the soul.98 This was one of the 108 sentences condemned
at his Cologne trial in 1326.
The eighth sentence concerns the image in the soul (and says), that the im-
age of the trinity in the soul is a kind of expression of itself without will and
reason. And this image is nothing for itself, but is pre-eminently for that, from
whom it receives its essence and its nature. . . . This image is the son of the
father and I am this image.

Eckhart defended himself from this charge, saying that it is mistaken and false to
say that I am this image, since I am also a creature, and to this extent not identical
with the intellect or spark of the soul: For something created is not an image, and
angels and men were created in the image of God. Image and likeness in the true
sense are neither made nor the work of nature. 99
The second sense of image in Eckhart is that of a representation of God by
KXPDQ EHLQJV 5HSUHVHQWDWLYH LPDJHV DUH VRPHWKLQJ PDGH DQG WKH\ DUH DOVR
LGRODWURXVVLQFHWKH\HQFORVH*RGLQFUHDWXUHO\GHWHUPLQDWLRQVDQGGLVJXUHKLV
being. Citing Dionysius as a source, Eckhart teaches that we must empty ourselves
of all such representative images.
Anything you see, or anything that comes within your ken, that is not God,
just because God is neither this nor that. . . . The light that shines in the
darkness. God is the true light: to see it one must be blind and must strip
95
Q, 16a/: 1:121. This recalls Aquinass doctrine of the image e.g., in 67, 1, q. 35, a. 1. For
Aquinas Christ is the image of God in a very similar sense.
96
Gen 1:2627.
97
See article 26 of the Bull of John XXII ,Q $JUo 'oPiQico, March 1329. : l:1.
98
He also uses the metaphors of the crown, the castle, the citadel, and the ground of the soul.
Q, 2/: 1:72; Q, 86/: 1:76; Q, 48/: 2:103.
99
In spite of this defense, a similar doctrine was condemned in the Bull ,Q $JUo 'oPHQico,
Article 27: There is something in the soul that is uncreated and uncreatable. If the whole soul
were of such a nature she would be uncreated and uncreatable. This is the intellect (: 1:li).
24 HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW

from God all that is something. A master says whoever speaks of God in
any likeness, speaks impurely of Him. But to speak of God with nothing is
WRVSHDNRIKLPFRUUHFWO\:KHQWKHVRXOLVXQLHGDQGWKHUHHQWHUVLQWRWRWDO
VHOIDEQHJDWLRQWKHQVKHQGV*RGDVLQQRWKLQJ100

As long as one seeks God in images, or any likeness, through perception, or


thought one will miss God. Eckhart talks about three kinds of images: images of
all creatures, imageless images, and images above images.101 This triad forms an
ascending hierarchy of ways of knowing beings. The second grade is peculiarly
striking.
If the soul is to know anything outside of herself, such as an angel, or any-
thing, however pure, she must do so with a little imagelet without image [mit
einem kleinen bildeln ne bild.] So too an angel, should he recognise another
angel, or anything that is under God, he must do it with a little image without
image not like the images here.102

It is hard to know exactly what Eckhart has in mind here. It may have to do the
Scholastic notion of the intelligible species, the likeness by which angels know
objects.103 Viewed against this background, Eckhart is probably saying that, like
an angel, the human soul knows via intellectual forms [einem kleinen bildeln]
independently of sensory givens [ne bild].104 He also claims that knowledge of
higher beings, like self-knowledge, is of a higher order than knowledge of objects,
since it is not mediated by any images, and knowledge of God must occur without
images and immediately.105 Be this as it may, Eckharts epistemology and his
theology are about clearing away any perceptions, memories, imaginings that cloud
the intellect in order to achieve cognitive union with God. By dint of purging my

100
Q, 71/: 1:153.
101
Q, 22 : 2:63.
102
Q, 41/: 1:289.
103
According to the Scholastics, when a human perceives something, a sense faculty receives
a sensible species (or form) in the form of a phantasm, which is that by which an external
object is perceived. Qua sHQsiEOH, it allows cognition only of determinate particulars. In order for
humans to know any object as a kind of thing, they must abstract an intelligible species from the
phantasm, through the exercise of the agent intellect. But angels do not have senses. Hence the do
not and need not abstract intelligible natures from sensory givens. Their cognition is intellectual.
Nevertheless, according to Aquinas, for example, their knowledge involves intelligible species/
forms, which are not abstracted from sensory images, but are connatural to the angel. I owe A.
D. Smith for this suggested interpretation.
104
Quint suggests that Eckhart might be referring here to Aristotles theory of perception in 'H
$QiPa 419a1215, according to which there has to be a medium, air or water that connects the eye
to the object it sees. However, since Eckhart is talking about knowledge, and angels knowledge in
particular, and since angels dont have any senses, this seems like a complete red herring. : 2:254.
105
Alternatively he is recalling Aquinass notion of the gure which is an image without a
likeness to a specic nature (as a son is the image of his father), but rather which is a sign of the
species, i.e., a pictorial representation of a man or animal, but not a particular one (See Gilles
Emery, 7hH 7UiQitaUiaQ 7hHoOoJ\ oI 6t 7hoPas $TXiQas [trans. Francesca A. Murph; Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2007] 211).
JAMES GORDON FINLAYSON 25

soul of representational images of God, I become one with the image of God in the
soul. For Eckhart, who preached this doctrine from the pulpit, this is clearly not
just an epistemological but also a practical matter. If I am to know God without
means and without image, God must become practically I and I practically God,
so wholly one that when I work with Him it is not that I work and He incites me,
but that I work wholly with what is mine106 Avoiding the sin of idolatry is not the
only practical issue here. Eckhart is putting a whole way of looking at the world
WKURXJK UHSUHVHQWDWLRQV LQWR TXHVWLRQ (FNKDUWV DSRSKDWLFLVP LV OHVV D ZD\ RI
knowing God, than it is a way of being. It is a corrective to our current material,
QLWHFUHDWXUHO\H[LVWHQFH7RDFKLHYHWKLVDLPKHWULHVWRVKLIWRXUSHUVSHFWLYHRQ
WKHPDWHULDOZRUOGWRJHWXVLQVWHDGWRORRNDW*RGSHRSOHDQGWKLQJVIURPWKH
standpoint of the creator, rather than to represent them from our point of view.107

QImageless Images in Adorno


7KHFULWLTXHRIUHSUHVHQWDWLRQDQGWKHLGHDORILPDJHOHVVQHVV>Bilderlosigkeit] are
also central to Adornos philosophy. The very notion of thinking in constellations
is directed against thinking in images. Adorno rejects what he sees as the
positivist view whereby atomically conceived concepts, or units built of concepts,
correspond to discrete objects.
The thought is not an image of the thing . . . the thought aims at the thing
itself. . . . What clings to the image remains idolatry, mythic enthrallment.
The totality of images blends into a wall for reality.108

7KLVUHSUHVHQWDWLRQDOYLHZRIFRQFHSWVLVUHLHGKHFODLPVVLQFHLWRFFOXGHVWKH
historical process by which reality has been shaped and concepts have been formed.
Moreover, it has an ideological function, since it perpetuates the idea that concepts
DQGWKHWKLQJVWKDWWKH\SLFNRXWDUHDQWHFHQGHQWO\LQGLYLGXDWHGDQG[HG$PRQJ
other things, representational thinking blocks the thought that the social world
might be completely otherwise, that it is shaped and can be re-shaped by human
HQGHDYRUKHQFHLWEORFNVWKHSRVVLELOLW\RIVRFLDOFKDQJH
5HSUHVHQWDWLRQDOWKLQNLQJZRXOGEHDQXQGLDOHFWLFDOFRQWUDGLFWLRQ$
consciousness interpolating images between itself and what it thinks would
unwittingly reproduce idealism. A body of ideas would substitute for the

106
Q, 70 : 1:289.
107
Theologians generally speak of the relationship between God and his creation from the point
of view of the created; Eckhart, however, chooses to view the matter from the point of view of
the Creator. On this see Oliver Davies, *oG :ithiQ 7hH M\sticaO 7UaGitioQ oI 1oUthHUQ (XUopH
(London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1988) 6566.
108
Der Gedanke ist kein Abbild der Sache . . . sondern geht auf die Sache selbst . . . Was ans
Bild sich klammert, bliebt mythisch befangen, Gtzendienst. Der Inbegriff der Bilder fgt sich zum
Wall vor der Realitt. 1', 205/*6 6:205.
26 HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW

object of cognition, and the subjective arbitrariness of such ideas is that of


the authorities.109

Thinking in constellations is a way of counteracting that reifying tendency by


deciphering the stored up, encrypted and forgotten history in things. And the ideal
at which thinking in constellations aims is one of imageless thought.
The materialist longing to grasp the thing conceptually, wills the opposite: the
full object can only be thought without images.110

True reality can, Adorno claims, be grasped, if at all, without any representational
images. This is because concepts, and, since there is no thought without concepts,
discursive thought itself, are instruments of thinking, and thus incipient forms of
domination and mastery of what is thought. Thus for Adorno as for Eckhart, the
FULWLTXHRIUHSUHVHQWDWLRQDOWKLQNLQJLVQRWRQO\DQGQRWSULPDULO\DQHSLVWHPRORJLFDO
GRFWULQHEXWDSUDFWLFDORQH$GRUQRSUDLVHVWKHLQQLW\DQGVXEOLPLW\RI.DQWV
categorical imperative, precisely where it does not repeat what occurs in social
reality, but has the tendency to hold level criticism at existing society and to hold
out to it another image of the possible, or an imageless image of the possible.111
The idea of the imageless image is indirectly linked to critical theorys utopian aim
RIEULQJLQJDERXWUDGLFDOZKROHVDOHTXDOLWDWLYHVRFLDOFKDQJH
Such imagelessness converges with the theological ban on images. Material-
ism secularises it, by not permitting utopia to be positively pictured: that is
the content of its negativity. 112

7KHFULWLTXHRIUHSUHVHQWDWLRQDOWKLQNLQJJRHVKDQGLQJORYHZLWK$GRUQRVFODLP
that philosophy has its true interest (namely the aim of individual emancipation,
social transformation, and of individual and social happiness) in the non-identical,
beim Begriffslosen.

Q(FNKDUWV&ULWLTXHRI$WWDFKPHQW
You often ask how you ought to live. Now pay close attention. Just as I have
told you about the imagethat is how you ought to live.113 Though based on
109
1', 207/*6 6:207. Abbildendes Denken wre reexionslos, ein Undialektischen Widerspruch . . .
Bewutsein, das zwischen sich und das, was es denkt, ein Drittes, Bilder schbe, reproduzierte
unvermerkt den Idealismus; ein Corpus von Vorstellungen substituierte den Gegenstand der
Erkenntnis, und die subjektive Willkr solcher Vorstellungen ist die der Verordnenden.
110
1', 207/*6 6:207. Die materialistische Sehnsucht, die Sache zu begreifen, will das Gegenteil:
nur bilderlos wre das volle Objekt zu denken.
111
3'M, 224.
112
Solche Bilderlosigkeit konvergiert mit dem theologischen Bilderverbot. Der Materialismus
skulisierte es, in dem er nicht gestattete, die Utopie positiv auszumalen; das ist der Gehalt seiner
Negativitt (1', 207/*6 6:207). Of course for Adorno philosophy cannot achieve this aim, it can
at best help, in various ways, to hold open the space for it. (For more on this, see Finlayson, 2007.)
This is exactly parallel with Eckhart.
113
Q, 16b : 1:127.
JAMES GORDON FINLAYSON 27

theological doctrine, Eckharts teaching as expressed in his sermons has an ethical


point. That point is the critique of attachment and of property [HiJHQschaIt], of
mans ensconcement in his material and creaturely existence. To cling to images
is to be attached to material things and to creaturely existence, rather than to be
receptive to God. In his eyes, these are two sides of the same coin.
Eckhart, following Augustine, denes the idea of something as the what of a
thing and the why of all its properties.114 This denition goes back to Aristotle
who understands the essence of something as its function and nal end. To know
what something is, is to know the what, the why, or the cause of that thing. To try
to know God as one knows a thing, however, is to drag him into the purposive
context of daily living. [S]ome people want to see God . . . as they see a cow,
and to love God as they love a cow. You love a cow for her milk and her cheese
and your prot.115 To love God in that way, for the sake of outward wealth or
inward consolation is, Eckhart argues, to act for ones own prot, and as long
as you do works for the sake of heaven or God or eternal bliss, from without, you
are at fault. . . . Indeed, if a man thinks he will get more of God by meditation,
by devotion, by ecstasies or by a special infusion of grace than by the reside or
in the stablethat is nothing but taking God, wrapping a cloak around his head
and shoving him under a bench.116 Even acts performed for the sake of God are
misdirected. One simply cannot transact with God. And to do good works in order
to get closer to God is to transact with God in the expectation of a return. When
we act we should instead empty ourselves of all thoughts of God. 117
Eckharts animus against monastic orders, and the self-righteousness of the
FOHUJ\ DQG WKH SULHVWKRRG WDNHV WKH IRUP RI FULWLTXH RI ZKDW KH FDOOV ZD\V
Whoever seeks God in a special way gets the way and misses God who lies hidden
in it.118 Even the dispossession and asceticism characteristic of Franciscan and
Dominican orders, insofar as these are entered into as ways of pleasing God,
are just as empty as materialism and hedonism: Those who see God in external
things, whether in places of devotional practices, people or works, in withdrawal
from the world or poverty or self-abasement . . . seek wrongly.119 Holiness is a
way of being, not a way of acting. People should not worry about what they do,
but about what they are.120 A way of life that is attached to an image of God, or

114
Eckhart, 'iH OatHiQischH :HUNH (ed. and trans. Josef Quint; Stuttgart; Kohlhammer,
19361963) 1:187 (hereafter as /:).
115
Q, 5b/: 1:117.
116
Q, 5b/: 1:117. See also Eckhart, Reden der Unterweisung, 'iH 'HXtschH :HUNH (ed. and
trans. Josef Quint; Stuttgart; Kohlhammer, 19361963) 5:507 (hereafter as ':).
117
We should not content ourselves with the thought of God, because when the thought passes,
so does God. One must have an essential God (HiQHQ ZHsHQhaItHU *ott), who far surpasses the
thoughts of man and all creatures (Reden der Unterweisung, ': 5:510).
118
Q, 5b : 1:116. This also applies to the so-called QHJatiYH Za\.
119
': 5:507
120
': 5:508 [Emphasis in original].
28 HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW

a thought of God is every bit as ungodly as a way of life that cleaves to material
things and sensuous pleasure.
Against this, Eckhart preaches a doctrine of letting go (gelzenheit])or detachment
(Abgeschiedenheit). It is not just the idea that holiness can be transactedthe
instrumentalization of divine worshipthat is under attack here. Nor is it just the
idea that God commands good works, and external acts, and that these sanctify
the soul, ideas Eckhart was condemned for attacking.121 In letting go of all
attachments one is tuning out everything that obscures the divine wordevery
purpose, every intention, every reason and every image. For this reason it is wrong
WRVHHWKHGRFWULQHDVDGHRQWRORJ\5DWKHULWLVDQLPSOLFLWUHMHFWLRQRIGHRQWRORJ\
which in Eckharts view is still too agent-centered, too action-centered, and too
focused on good intentions to be truly holy. Before one can become one with God,
one has to sever all attachments to creaturely life. Once one has done that, one lives
as Eckhart says without why.
He is perfectly free in his acts, which he does out of true love. So does that
man who is at one with God: he is perfectly free in all his deeds, he does
them for love, without why.122

In practice this amount to a doctrine of dispossession and asceticism. God seeks


to be our only possession, and the more we are in possession of other things,
the less we possess, and the less love we have for all things, the more we receive
him.123 +RZHYHU LW LV QRW WKH DFKLHYHPHQW RI DQ LQQHU VWUXJJOH D FRQTXHVW RI
UHDVRQZKLFKZDOOVXVRIIIURPWKHZRUOG5DWKHULQRSHQLQJRQHVHOIXSWR*RG
by freeing oneself from images and attachments, one gains a deeper appreciation,
understanding and love of the world, and of all beings, as Gods creations.

Q$GRUQRV&ULWLTXHRI)DOVH/LYLQJ
What I have elsewhere called Adornos ethics of resistance is the practical
FRQVHTXHQFHRIKLVQHJDWLYHGLDOHFWLFV, and its central idea, that the task of philosophy
is to think the non-identical. 124 Prima facie it seems surprising that Adorno has an
ethics at all. The moral of Adornos Problems of Moral Philosophy is that under
present historical conditions, namely in a false life, dominated by the pressures of
production and consumption, no theory of morality, no conception of morality, and

121
See the following ve articles of the Bull, ,Q $JUo 'oPHQico Article 7. Whoever prays for
this or that, prays for something evil and in evil wise. Article 8. Those who seek nothing, neither
honour nor prot nor inwardness nor holiness nor reward nor heaven, but who have renounced all
this including what is their ownin such men God is gloried. Article 16. God does not expressly
command good works. Article 17. An external work is not really good and divine, and God does
not really perform and beget it. Article 19. God loves souls, not external works. : 1:xlviixlix.
122
: 1:5657.
123
': 5:296.
124
Finlayson, Adorno on the Ethical and the Ineffable. (XUopHaQ -oXUQaO oI 3hiOosoph\ 10
(2002) 11. See section 2 above.
JAMES GORDON FINLAYSON 29

no extant ethical life is available to support or guide the right life. For a variety
of complex reasons, which I cannot go into here, Adorno rejects deontological,
WHOHRORJLFDOSUXGHQWLDODQGFRQVHTXHQWLDOLVWHWKLFVVSDULQJQRWKLQJRQZKLFKWR
fasten his philosophy. Perhaps for this reason, some commentators maintain that
Adorno, like Heidegger and Nietzsche, attempts to situate his own thought outside
ethics. To my mind this cannot be right, however, since Adornos philosophy has
DQXQPLVWDNHDEO\PRUDODYRXUZKLFKFRPHVWRH[SUHVVLRQIRUH[DPSOHLQWKH
unconditional demands it places upon us:
Hitler has imposed a new categorical imperative on human beings, namely:
to order their thought and actions such that Auschwitz never reoccur, nothing
similar ever happen. 125
One ought not to torture: there ought to be no concentration camps.126
There is tenderness only in the coarsest demand that no-one should go hungry
anymore.127

7KDWVDLGLQ$GRUQRVH\HVVXFKGHPDQGVRZIURPDNLQGRISUHWKHRUHWLFDO
involuntary protest at the actuality of human suffering. These pre-theoretical moral
demands, he calls them impulsesemerge, as it were, spontaneously from our
affective somatic reactions to situations. They are not in need of reasons. Indeed,
they are more powerful and persuasive than any reason that could be given for
WKHPVRWKDWWKHDWWHPSWWRRIIHUUDWLRQDOMXVWLFDWLRQVIRUWKHPLVVHOIGHIHDWLQJ
since it weakens and undermines them. 128 However, Adornos ethics of resistance
is still an ethics in the sense that, while it will not help moral agents answer the
TXHVWLRQRIZKDWWKH\RXJKWWRGRDQGZK\LWQRQHWKHOHVVUHSUHVHQWVDFHUWDLQZD\
of being and way of living.
The correct life [das richtige Leben] would consist in the shape of resistance
against the forms of a false life [eines falschen Lebens], which has been seen
through and critically dissected by the most progressive minds.129

Furthermore, Adornos ethics of resistance, like Eckharts, is a way of living without


ZK\7RGRWKLVUHTXLUHVQRWDGMXVWLQJRQHVHOIWRRULQDQ\ZD\FRPSURPLVLQJZLWK
125
*6 6:358/1', 365. See also Adorno &UiticaO MoGHOs (trans. H. Pickford; New York: Columbia
University Press, 1998) 9091, 2023 (hereafter as &M)/Adorno, Kulturkritik und Gesellschaft
(vol. 10.2 of Theodor W. Adorno, *HsaPPHOtH 6chUiItHQ; ed. Rolf Tiedemann; Frankfurt am Main:
Suhrkamp, 1997) 10.2:55573, 67491.
126
*6 6:281/1', 285. See also: In the condition of their unfreedom Hitler has imposed a
new categorical imperative on human beings, namely: to order their thought and actions such that
Auschwitz never reoccur, nothing similar ever happen. 1', 365/*6 6:358. See also Adorno &M,
9091, 2023*6 10.2:555573, 67491; and Adorno M&3, 116.
127
Adorno, MM, 156.
128
These sentences are only true as impulses, when it is reported that somewhere torture is
taking place. They should not be rationalized. As abstract principles they lapse into the bad innity
of their derivation and validity. *6 6:281/1', 285.
129
Adorno, 3'M, 249.
30 HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW

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$QGMXVWDV(FNKDUWVFULWLTXHRIDWWDFKPHQWDVDZD\RIEHLQJDQGDZD\RIOLYLQJ
RZV IURP KLV FULWLTXH RI UHSUHVHQWDWLRQDO WKLQNLQJ DV D ZD\ RI WKLQNLQJ VR
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FULWLTXHRILGHQWLW\WKLQNLQJ

QSome Salient Differences Acknowledged


It might be objected that by abstracting from the intellectual and historical context
RIWKHLUUHVSHFWLYHZRUN,KDYHPDQDJHGRQO\WRVNHWFKVRPHVXSHUFLDOVLPLODULWLHV
between Adorno and the negative theology of Dionysius and Eckhart.
I do not deny that there are important differences between them. Indeed, I
EHJDQE\DUJXLQJWKDWWKHUHLVQRVSHFLFDOO\UHOLJLRXVGLPHQVLRQWR$GRUQRV
philosophy, by which I mean that his project makes perfect sense without involving
God, which cannot be said for Eckharts and Dionysiuss. There are other major
differences. For example, though Adorno advocates an ascetic aesthetic, based on
the deferral of satisfaction or pleasure, he nevertheless defends a kind of ethical
KHGRQLVP7REHVXUHLWLVDKHGJHGDQGTXDOLHGKHGRQLVP+HFODLPVWKDWWKHUH
is value in pleasure, albeit counterfactual pleasure, pleasure not warped by the
culture industry, by the tendency of late capitalism to fabricate false needs, and
not distorted by the depredations of productivism and consumerism.130 Similarly,
Adornos no right living dictum counsels against a loveless disregard for things
as much as an overattachment to them.1317KHUHLVQRHTXLYDOHQWLQ'LRQ\VLXVRULQ
Eckhart for Adornos hedonism and worldly materialism.
Again, Adornos preoccupation with transcendence is motivated by a concern
to break out of a nexus of immanence that has, he thinks, regressed to a nexus
of delusion that blinds us to the depredations of a totally administered and
universally fungible society. It is for the sake of the social world and the lives of
its inhabitants that Adorno seeks to transcend the social world. This is in contrast to
the apophatic theologians, Dionysius and Eckhart, who share with Neo-Platonism
the erotic yearning of the lower for the higher for the sake of the higher, and seek
transcendence for the sake of the divine.
6LJQLFDQWDVWKH\DUHWKHVHGLIIHUHQFHVGRQRWUHQGHUWKHSDUDOOHOVEHWZHHQ
$GRUQRDQGDSRSKDWLFLVPVXSHUFLDO$VZHKDYHVHHQWKHVHYHUDOSDUDOOHOVDUH
ERWKVWULNLQJDQGGHHSDQGWKH\RZIURPWKHLUUHVSHFWLYHDQVZHUVWRDFRPPRQ
problem. Adornos philosophy, like apophatic theology, answers to the paradox of
WKHLQHIIDEOH7KHLUUHVSHFWLYHUHVSRQVHVDUHSUROL[WKH\GRQRWSDVVRYHUWKHSDUDGR[
in silence. They both refuse the easy way out, namely of positing channel of non-
discursive communication or access to whatever it is that lies beyond the bounds of
thought. To this extent they share, we might say, a rejection of all positivism, where

130
MM, 156/*6 4:178.
131
MM, 39/*6 4:43.
JAMES GORDON FINLAYSON 31

positivism is the idea that whatever it is that is outside thoughtGod, the good,
utopia or whatevercan somehow be made immediately present, by visionary
experience, or faith, or aesthetic intuition.132 And yet they also emphatically reject,
albeit for different reasons, the Hegelian idea that there is nothing beyond thought.
)LQDOO\ ERWK LQ DSRSKDWLFLVP DQGLQ$GRUQRVODWHZRUNZHQGDQXQVWLQWLQJ
criticism of representational thinking with an obverse, practical side, namely the
FULWLTXHRIDWWDFKPHQWLQ(FNKDUWDQGWKHHWKLFVRIUHVLVWDQFHLQ$GRUQR

Q7KH)RXU2ULJLQDO2EMHFWLRQV5HFRQVLGHUHG
/HW XV QDOO\ UHWXUQ WR WKH TXHVWLRQ RI ZKHWKHU WKH H[LVWHQFH RI WKHVH SDUDOOHOV
with negative theology opens Adornos late work to the four objections contained
in the deprecative comparison: irrationalism, mysticism, incoherence and
HPSWLQHVV7KHTXHVWLRQRIZKHWKHU$GRUQRLVLUUDWLRQDOLVWLVFRPSOH[$GRUQR
is, it is true, suspicious of rationality, which he conceives anthropologically as a
tool for mastering external and internal nature. He construes moral demands as
LPSXOVHVQRWIXUWKHUMXVWLDEOHE\UHDVRQ<HWWKHUHLVDFOHDUVHQVHLQZKLFK
Adorno is not an irrationalist, namely that his philosophy refuses to appeal to any
non-rational or extra-rational mode of apprehending the non-identical. The aim of
negative dialectics is to go beyond rationality, to go beyond conceptual thought,
by means of it.
The charge of mysticism can be answered similarly. Any attempt to say what
cannot be said is in one sense, though a fairly trivial one, a form of mysticism.
However, Adorno is no mystic: He holds that discursive thought can be abandoned
in favor of non-discursive modes of thinking: faith, feeling, visionary experience,
poetry, aesthetic intuition, or mimesis. The metaphysical experience that Adorno
claims to be encrypted in certain avant-garde works of art, even in works of
music, stands in need of interpretation and elucidation by philosophy. Just as the
apophatic theologians we have looked at do not hold out the prospect of an extra-
conceptual experience of the immediacy of the divine presence, through synteresis,
so in Adorno there is no direct encounter with otherness or non-identity. No vision
or direct apprehension of a transformed social reality is to be won through the
dialectical self-subversion of discursive reason or the experience of avant-garde art.
As for the charge of incoherence, we must concede, of course, that to attempt
to say what cannot be said is pragmatically incoherent. However, Adorno is not
guilty of a simple error: He exploits this incoherence as a way of manifesting the
limitations of discursive thought. It is not incoherent to attempt to show what

132
No evidence is needed to show that Adornos philosophy contains a critique of positivism, of
which he has a very permissive understanding, and of which he takes a very dim view. Almost any
text of his would show that. More surprising, given the alleged propinquity between apophaticism
and mysticism, is that the former, according to Turner, is better seen as a rejection of the very idea
of individual religious experience and a critique of the experientialism that is, in short, the
positivism of Christian spirituality. Turner, 'aUNQHss oI *oG 259 and 268.
32 HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW

cannot be said by whatever means possible, even by means of self-subverting


rhetorical utterances. Nor is it incoherent to attempt to articulate, from sideways
on, the experience of being shown something that cannot be known or put into
words.133
Finally, there are the objections to emptiness. Adornos philosophy does not aim
at giving us correct knowledge of the social world. That this is what philosophy
aspires to is, in his eyes, part of the problem. Nor does Adornos philosophy aim
at giving us any knowledge whatsoever of what is non-identical to thought, the
good life, utopia or whatever. If these really are ineffable, as he claims, then to
say that we cannot think them is a platitude, for this involves no renunciation of
any knowledge we could otherwise have. Thus the charge of emptiness is either
trivially true, or misplaced.
'RHV WKLV PHDQ QDOO\ WKDW QHJDWLYH GLDOHFWLFV LV DOVR SUDFWLFDOO\ HPSW\"
Scholars have often criticized Adorno for having nothing to say of any concrete
SROLWLFDOVLJQLFDQFHDERXWZKDWDWUDQVIRUPHGVRFLDOZRUOGVKRXOGEHOLNH7KHUH
is a something to this objection, although it is by no means only Adornos problem.
However, our analysis has shown that the ethics of resistance is the counterpart
WRKLVFULWLTXHRIUHSUHVHQWDWLRQDOWKLQNLQJLQNegative Dialectics, and the ethics
of resistance is nothing less than a way of being and a way of living and no less
practical for being minimal and negative.

133
Hence there is something awry with Alstons complaint about how fulsomely mystics report
their experiences. See n. 38 above. The experience of being shown something might not be ineffable,
even when what one is shown is.

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