Incomprehensible Praise: Wonder, Adoration and the Ground of Language in Nicholas of Cusa

ABSTRACT This article seeks to address an overemphasis on limiting and humbling of language that is seen to correspond with ‘apophatic’ theology. Drawing on the mystical theology of Nicholas of Cusa, I seek to show that, for Nicholas, apophatic spirituality can only be understood in a context in which the sway of language is grounded in wonder and actualized in praise. By means of an attentive reading of De Venatione Sapientiae 18–20, I show that Cusa explores the indissoluble relationship between adoratory speech and wisdom, grounded in a participatory metaphysics that is itself founded in love for an ineffable God. For Cusa, the language of praise is in fact the ground of all language, and precedes all other forms of speech in its character as affirming, adoring gift. It is only when language is given in the way of an ecstatic I-Thou utterance, notes Cusa, that the character of language as such shines as a mode of participatory knowledge. Thus, for Nicholas, there is a doxological dimension to all speech. Cusa’s mystical notion of adoratory language offers a way to overcome the anxieties of attitudes to mysticism haunted by postmodern inflections and overly concerned by the arbitrariness and limitations of language.