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nature”.^87 In doing so Feuerbach denies in advance the apophatic
possibility of a God beyond or otherwise than human conception.
This is further reflected in his insistence on referring to God in terms
of a being, “the Highest Being” in reference to the human being.^88
For mystical theology, by contrast, God is hyperousious: beyond,
before, or otherwise than the category of ‘being’ itself. As the classic
illustration of Pseudo-Dionysius leads us: the affirmation that ‘God
is light’ is negated by the denial that ‘God is darkness’. The nega-
tion between these two is, however, transcended by the notion that
‘God is dazzling darkness’: a statement which carries one beyond
the limited dialectical thinking of affirmation and denial.
Although Proudhon would surely suspect such moves of mys-
tification, I suggest that his notion of anti-theism is actually more
consistent with apophatic technique (if not its motivation or goal)
than that of Feuerbach’s atheism. As Proudhon recognises, athe-
ism (as the denial of the existence of the God of theism) remains
unconsciously dependent upon the idea of God it seeks to negate.
Anti-theism, however, aspires beyond atheism by negating the
idea of God in order to perpetuate the eternal struggle between
theism and itself: a struggle which perpetuates the endless antin-
omy between God and humanity. While theism may affirm that
‘God is good’, anti-theism denies this goodness by stating that
‘God is evil’. However, anti-theism would not rest content with an
apophatic sublation of these statements. Anti-theism refuses the
synthesis offered by such a mystical statement as ‘God is beyond
good and evil’. Anti-theism would rise up again against this state-
ment, denying the idea of a God who is beyond accountability to
morality in the name of visceral human justice.
This, I suggest, is precisely where the voice of Proudhon’s
anti-theism speaks most deeply to theology (even at its mystical
edge), from the outside, as “ab hoste consilium” [advice from
the enemy] who may be a “malitieus dæmon” [evil daimon].
More than this, anti-theism, especially in its critique of the God
of Providence in the name of human suffering, offers a power-
fully prophetic voice against the power-plays which linger with-
in many strands of theology. Anti-theism itself reminds us that
the struggle between theism and anti-theism remains unresolved,
even by the consolations of mystical theology: consolations which