Embracing the Unknowable: Paradigm of Ineffability

Ineffability—the quality of being beyond words—has long been central to philosophy of religion and mysticism. In apophatic theology, it safeguards divine transcendence by placing God beyond human concepts. It also defines mystical experience, either affirming its unique nature or challenging it as incoherent and paradoxical. This article explores whether a single notion of 'Being Ineffable' can unite mystical experience and its transcendent object while acknowledging the coherence problem. The author constructs an argument for absolute ineffability as the convergence of three meanings: as a definition of absolute ineffability, as a mystical experience of it, and as the Ineffable itself (God, the Absolute, the Ultimate). The argument attempts to transform ineffability from a negation into a necessary affirmation.

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Abstract

Ineffability is a long-time partner of the philosophy of religion and mysticism. Through apophatic conceptions of the divine, it can act to guarantee the transcendence of the divine, elevate it to something beyond our conceptions. It has also held the central role in defining if not the nature, then at least the characteristics of mystical experience. Sometimes it is that which affirms the unique nature of mystical experience, and sometimes it is what challenges the concept of mysticism as incoherent and paradoxical. In this article, I will explore if there could be a Being Ineffable that unites both the mystical experience and its (purportedly) transcendent object, while acknowledging the problem of coherence that ineffability entails. I will do so by forming an argument for ineffability that attempts to both validate and define absolute ineffability as the point of convergence between three meanings of Being Ineffable: as a definition of absolute (ineffability), as a mystical experience of it, and finally, as the Ineffable, that is, the God/Absolute/Ultimate; all the meanings are held together by an argument from ineffability—a permeating and silently expressed attempt to turn ineffability from its usual role of a negation into a necessary affirmation.