What do Christians mean when they talk about revelation? TLU Associate Professor of Theology Dr. Carl Hughes explores that question from two very different theological perspectives in his latest book, Clouds of the Cross in Luther and Kierkegaard: Revelation as Unknowing.
The title presents an intriguing metaphor. “Usually, Christians like to think of Jesus and the Bible as providing a light of knowledge about God,” says Hughes. “In dialogue with Luther and Kierkegaard, my book asks whether the opposite might be the case.”
What if true revelation comes about not in an unmistakable clear beam of light, but in the shadowy mist of clouds? “Clouds literally darken the light of the sun,” says Hughes. “The metaphor of the cloud goes back more than fifteen hundred years in the Christian mystical tradition, as theologians have meditated on why God appears to Moses on Mount Sinai in a ‘dense cloud’ of ‘thick darkness,’ rather than in glorious light, as we might expect.”
The reference to clouds in the realm of the spiritual hearkens back to the classic mystical text, The Cloud of Unknowing, which leads the reader to recognize that discovering God’s true nature requires surrender to the fact that there’s a lot we don’t understand, and the release of the very human need to make sense of the mystery.
“What if the mystery of the incarnation and the many contrasting voices of the Bible actually undermine our efforts to relate to God in a purely intellectual way?” asks Hughes. “What if they push us to relate to God, not in thought, but in love for God and for those in need?”
To explore these questions, Hughes turns to an unlikely pair—two Lutheran theologians who were sometimes opposed in their beliefs—Martin Luther and one of his fiercest critics, Søren Kierkegaard. Hughes says that Kierkegaard is particularly concerned with reclaiming the importance of good works rather than just relying on the concept of grace. “Kierkegaard is especially critical of Luther for at times lacking the humility to acknowledge that he doesn’t have all the answers for everyone in every time and place.”
Hughes finds that Kierkegaard carries some of Luther’s themes further than Luther himself did, and that the resultant lessons are as applicable to Christians today as they were in the past. “For me, the dialogue between the two figures is of more than merely historical interest,” he says. “I think they both have much to teach Christians in our present moment about how to read the Bible, the importance of diversity in the Christian tradition, and the absolute inseparability of faith from action on behalf of the suffering.”
Hughes is already kicking around ideas for his next book, and in the meantime, is at work on an entirely different kind of writing project: a children’s book, entitled Where God Lives, which will be illustrated by TLU art major alum Dalton Smith.