Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jn8rn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T05:24:46.035Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Dark Knight of the Soul: weaning and the problem of divine withdrawal

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 December 2016

JOSHUA COCKAYNE
JOSHUA COCKAYNE*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, University of York, York, YO10 5DD, UK
*
e-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

If God loves us and so desires union with us, why is it that so many, who once felt close to God and who have subsequently done nothing to precipitate separation from him, now experience only his absence? A metaphor which has been used repeatedly to answer this question is that separation from God is a kind of spiritual weaning process in which God uses the experience of his absence in order to bring about maturation and greater union with him. After discussing the use of this metaphor in Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling and John of Cross's poem The Dark Night of the Soul, I discuss the question of how someone's absence could be good for their maturation. I argue that separation has an important role to play in deepening relationships of love – drawing on research in de-adaptation in the psychological and sociological literature, I argue that in order for there to be a union of love, there must be an experience of both dependence and independence. This position can explain why God allows people who engage in the spiritual life to suffer the pain of separation from him.

Type
Articles
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 54 , Issue 1 , March 2018 , pp. 73 - 90
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bloom, Anthony (1970) Beginning to Pray (New York: Paulist Press).Google Scholar
Coakley, Sarah (2016) ‘Divine hiddenness or dark intimacy? How John of the Cross dissolves a contemporary philosophical dilemma’, in Green & Stump (2016), 229–246.Google Scholar
Conway, Daniel (ed.) (2015) Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling: A Critical Guide (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Draper, Paul (2011) ‘Review of wandering in darkness: narrative and the problem of suffering’, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, 27 July 2011, <https://ndpr.nd.edu/news/24772-wandering-in-darkness-narrative-and-the-problem-of-suffering/> [accessed 8 February 2016].+[accessed+8+February+2016].>Google Scholar
Efird, David & Worsley, David (2015) ‘Critical review of Eleonore Stump's Wandering in Darkness: narrative and the problem of suffering’, Philosophical Quarterly, 65, 547–558.Google Scholar
Evans, C. Stephen (2004) Kierkegaard's Ethic of Love (Oxford: Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
John of the Cross (2002) The Dark Night of the Soul, Starr, Mirabai (tr.) (New York: Riverhead Books).Google Scholar
Green, Adam & Stump, Eleonore (eds) (2016) Hidden Divinity and Religious Belief (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Havergal, Frances (2010) The Hymns of Frances Ridley Havergal, compiled by Doe, Charles J. (Minneapolis: Curiosmith).Google Scholar
Honneth, Axel (1995) Struggle For Recognition (Cambridge MA: MIT Press).Google Scholar
Howland, Jacob (2015) ‘Fear and trembling's “attunement” as midrash’, in Conway (2015), 26–43.Google Scholar
Kierkegaard, Søren (1849/1980) The Sickness Unto Death , Hong, Edna H. & Hong, Howard V. (trs), Kierkegaard's Writings, VI (Princeton: Princeton University Press).Google Scholar
Kierkegaard, Søren (1843/1983) Fear and Trembling , Hong, Edna H. & Hong, Howard V. (trs), Kierkegaard's Writings, VI (Princeton: Princeton University Press).Google Scholar
Kierkegaard, Søren (1843/1987) Either/Or, Part 1 , Hong, Edna H. & Hong, Howard V. (trs), Kierkegaard's Writings, VII (Princeton: Princeton University Press).Google Scholar
Mooney, Edward (1991) Knights of Faith and Resignation: Reading Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling (New York: State University of New York Press).Google Scholar
Oden, Thomas (1989) Parables of Kierkegaard (Princeton: Princeton University Press).Google Scholar
Podmore, Simon (2013) Struggling with God: Kierkegaard and Temptation of Spiritual Trial (Cambridge: James Clarke & Co. Ltd.).Google Scholar
Quinn, Philip L. (2006) ‘Moral obligation, religious demand, and practical conflict’, in Miller, Christian B. (eds) Essays in the Philosophy of Religion (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 83–91.Google Scholar
Rumble, Vanessa (2015) ‘Why Moriah? Weaning and trauma of transcendence in Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling’, in Conway (2015), 247–262.Google Scholar
Scrutton, A. P. (2015) ‘Is depression a sin or a disease? A critique of moralizing and medicalizing models of mental illness’, Journal of Disability & Religion, 19, 285–311.Google Scholar
Stump, Eleonore (2010) Wandering in Darkness (Oxford: Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Stump, Eleonore (2012) ‘Atonement and the cry of dereliction from the cross’, European Journal For the Philosophy of Religion, 4, 1–17.Google Scholar
Teresa, Mother (2007) Come Be My Light: The Private Writings of the Saint of Calcutta, ed. with commentary by Kolodiejchuk, Brian (New York: Doubleday).Google Scholar
Tolstoy, Leo (2007) War and Peace, Pevear, Richard & Volokhonsky, Larissa (trs) (New York: Vintage Classics, Penguin Random House).Google Scholar
Wesley, Charles & Wesley, John (1981) Selected Prayers, Hymns, Journal Notes, Sermons, Letters and Treatises, Whaling, Frank (ed.) (New York: Paulist Press).Google Scholar
Winnicott, Donald W. (1965) The Maturational Processes and the Facilitating Environment: Studies in the Theory of Emotional Development (London: Karnac Books).Google Scholar