The Unknowability and Imagination in Mystical Doctrines of the Late Medieval English Mysticism

Abstract

There are three English authors of the fourteenth century we may call “imaginative mystics” because of their use of imagination in spiritual praxis, i.e., Richard Rolle, Walter Hilton, and the unknown author of the Cloud of Unknowing. However, recently, there has been some criticism expressed regarding these doctrines; in particular, there is a question of whether a spiritual praxis, which includes imaginative images, can keep the principle of the unknowability of God. There is also a question of sensual perception. Imaginative images keep some attributes of sensual perception, such as shape, and they always have some spatiality and temporality. There is a question: how can these images depict the spiritual nature of God and spiritual objects themselves? There is even a possibility that imagination darkens contemplative vision and turns the soul’s attention back to the world. In this paper, I will try to show how these three English authors kept the principle of God’s unknowability and what the role of the imagination in their spiritual praxis is.