Critical Theory and the Cloud of Unknowing

The Divided Table

We live in a time when tables meant for communion have become battlegrounds. Conversations that should nourish have turned into debates that devour. Topics like race, equity, gender, and justice, which were once the heart of prophetic witness and pastoral care, now spark fear, anger, and division. Words that once inspired have been weaponized. Language is currency and combat. And many have stopped speaking altogether, not because they don’t care, but because they’re weary, cautious, or afraid of being misunderstood.

But what if the invitation isn’t to argue better but to listen deeper? What if what we need right now isn’t more data or debate but a descent into the cloud?

Weaponized words create weary, fearful, angry, silenced souls. Our hearts need something deeper than conflicted or ideological discourse. Speaking the truth in love isn’t the same as performing certainty; the former invites relationship and transformation, and the latter demands posturing and applause. Jesus showed us that tables aren’t places to win arguments but to wash feet.

The 14th-century anonymous mystic who wrote The Cloud of Unknowing offered an apophatic path: a way of knowing that begins in unknowing, of moving closer to God not through mastery but through surrender.^[1] What if that wisdom could guide our theology and engagement with justice, identity, and difference?

The Humble Descent of Unknowing

To speak of the cloud of unknowing is to imagine a spiritual path where the soul no longer seeks to grasp God through thought but to rest in God through love. It’s the sacred unlearning of all we think we know, the gentle surrender of images, words, and certainties until we’re left with nothing but a profound longing. This longing becomes prayer. In this cloud, God isn’t absent but hidden, not unknowable but beyond knowing. The heart, stripped of all but desire, beats gently against the mystery, trusting that love alone can carry it across the threshold. Here, in the soft darkness of holy unknowing, we don’t find answers; we find God’s presence and love. And in that sacred presence, God sees us and calls us beloved.

“You cannot think your way to God. You can only love your way to God.”

Here’s the key idea: You cannot think your way to God. You can only love your way to God.^[2]

The mystics speak of a humility that isn’t weakness but wonder.^[3] In the apophatic tradition, you don’t approach the Holy with clenched fists or sharpened arguments. You come open-handed, acknowledging that you don’t know. You can’t control. You can’t conquer mystery. You can only be drawn.

To enter the holy cloud of unknowing isn’t to abandon truth or divine revelation but to bow before the holiness and wonder of mystery that refuses to be domesticated, defined, and mastered. The descent isn’t a fall from clarity but a pilgrimage into presence, which frees us from needing to reason, define, master, and know and, instead, opens us to love. The cloud isn’t the absence of God but the refusal of idolatry: letting go of thoughts and images that shrink God into our control.

The descent into unknowing isn’t the abandonment of Scripture but the deepening of its mystery—where truth isn’t flattened into slogans but lived in love.

“This is the posture we need in polarized times—not a disengaged relativism but a holy unknowing—not giving up but giving over.”

This is the posture we need in polarized times—not a disengaged relativism but a holy unknowing—not giving up but giving over. It’s the kind of humility that dares to enter complexity without demanding clarity too soon and holds space for grief, rage, joy, and ambiguity without rushing to resolution.

If we approached conversations about race, privilege, history, and harm with that kind of soul, how different might they sound? How might we speak if we saw the person across the table not as a threat or project but as a mystery animated by divine breath? How might we listen?

The False Security of Certainty

The temptation is to retreat into echo chambers where our perspectives are mirrored and confirmed or to rush into the fray with all the right terms and trending theories, convinced that if we can name the system, we’ve solved the problem.

But systems aren’t solved by ideology alone. They’re transformed by hearts softened by grace. Certainty can become a kind of idolatry—an armor we wear to avoid vulnerability. Certainty has its place, but it must be held with humility and shaped by love, not fear. Transformation never comes to the armored. It comes to those willing to be wounded by love. Our systems of thought don’t save us; only God’s grace can.

“Certainty can become a kind of idolatry—an armor we wear to avoid vulnerability. Certainty has its place, but it must be held with humility and shaped by love, not fear.”

The cloud reminds us that God is best approached not by the intellect alone but by a “dart of longing love.”^[4] Love that’s ungrasping and unclenching must shape our justice work. Critical theory has tools, but the mystic carries presence. Some frameworks help us name injustice and systems of harm, but without love, even the sharpest analysis can miss the heart. A presence that’s kind, open, inclusive, quiet, grounded, and attentive is what most hearts long for in the middle of this noise.

Sacred Listening as Resistance

In the contemplative path, silence isn’t absence. It’s attention.^[5] It’s resistance against the culture of reaction. It’s the choice to wait in love before speaking.

This kind of listening doesn’t tune out. It tunes in. It’s the listening that hears the cry beneath the critique, the wound beneath the rage, and the yearning beneath the cynicism. This kind of listening becomes a sacrament: a way of being present to Christ hidden in the other, especially the one who challenges or confronts us.^[6]

Silence can make us attentive and soften our hearts. It can help us be soft enough to see and carry others’ pain without turning to accusations or defense. In sacred listening, we don’t lose conviction; we locate it in grace and love.

Contemplation doesn’t replace activism—it roots it. The strength of prayer becomes the courage to stand with the oppressed, not just speak about them.

Imagine what it would be like if the church became known not just for statements and stances but for sacred listening. Imagine what it’d be like if we were known for communities where people don’t have to edit their pain, sanitize their stories, or silence their questions. Imagine a church where truth and love walk hand in hand and where justice is born from compassion, not conquest.

The Cloud Between Us

The Cloud of Unknowing tells us to let go of every image, concept, and assumption and to pierce the cloud not with thought but with love. That same discipline is needed in our human relationships, especially in fraught conversations.

To enter the cloud between us means letting go of our pre-formed conclusions about the other. It means releasing the need to be right, liked, or in control. It means being willing to dwell in the discomfort of not knowing long enough to let something holy emerge.

“Some conversations require more than courage. They require contemplation.”

Some conversations require more than courage. They require contemplation. A heart trained in the silence of God’s presence can hear more than words. It can feel the weight of another’s story. It can hold complexity without collapsing into chaos.

This doesn’t mean abandoning conviction. It means anchoring conviction in love and grace. It means recognizing that true clarity often only comes after the cloud—not before it. It means refusing to weaponize the Bible, theology, or justice as ways to dominate but reclaiming them as ways to serve.

The Slow Work of Union

“Justice is slow work, too. So is reconciliation. So is healing.”

The mystics never rushed. They knew that love takes time and communion is formed slowly, like bread rising in the dark.^[7]

Justice is slow work, too.^[8] So is reconciliation. So is healing. And in that slowness, we need spaces where the Spirit can whisper and breathe. Where confession is welcomed, not weaponized. Where forgiveness flows but is never forced. Where truth isn’t rushed, and grace isn’t cheap.

The mystics remind us that the deepest change comes not through coercion but through union—not just knowing about the other but becoming bound to them in the heart of Christ. That kind of unity requires more than shared opinions. It requires shared surrender.

Love in the Fog

We’re living through a thick fog of misinformation, trauma, history, and broken trust. But even here, love moves. Even here, the Spirit hovers.

Even when we can’t see the road, we’re still invited to walk it by faith, not sight, and by love, not fear. The fog doesn’t hinder love; it deepens its reach, forcing us to trust what can’t be proven but is deeply known. Our healing won’t be found in a perfect argument but in a faithful presence that refuses to let go.

So, let’s enter the cloud—not to escape the world but to love it more truly. Let’s unlearn some things so we can receive new wisdom. Let’s listen not to win but to be changed. Let’s practice justice that isn’t reactive but radiant—justice shaped by prayer, presence, and love's patient, slow courage.

Because, in the end, the cloud doesn’t last forever. It leads to light. Not the harsh light of scrutiny but the soft light of communion. The light that shows us—not just what’s wrong—but who we are: beloved, wounded, and called to walk with each other toward healing.

There’s hope in the cloud. Not because we see clearly but because we trust the One who does. And in that trust, we walk: not with certainty, but with love.

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Bibliography

Anonymous. The Cloud of Unknowing. Translated by Carmen Acevedo Butcher. Boston: Shambhala, 2009.

Main, John. Word into Silence. New York: Paulist, 1980.

Starr, Mirabai, trans. The Interior Castle by Teresa of Ávila. New York: Riverhead, 2003.

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Notes

^[1] Anonymous. The Cloud of Unknowing. Translated by Carmen Acevedo Butcher. Boston: Shambhala, 2009.

^[2] Ibid., 46–49. One of the foundational principles from The Cloud of Unknowing is that only a “dart of longing love” can pierce the cloud between the soul and God. The central teaching of The Cloud of Unknowing is that God is known not through intellect but through the movement of love beyond knowing.

^[3] Starr, Mirabai, trans. The Interior Castle by Teresa of Ávila. New York: Riverhead, 2003.

^[4] This phrase is drawn directly from The Cloud of Unknowing, describing the soul’s movement toward God as not rational but driven by love.

^[5] John Main, Word into Silence (New York: Paulist, 1980), 16–18.

^[6] Influenced by John Main’s work in contemplative silence, especially his notion of listening as participation in the divine Word. Main, John. Word into Silence. New York: Paulist, 1980.

^[7] Teresa of Ávila, The Interior Castle. Translated by Mirabai Starr. New York: Riverhead, 2003.

^[8] This resonates with the mystic tradition’s emphasis on slow, transformative communion, and with practices of justice grounded in presence rather than urgency.