THE NIGHT IN JOHN OF THE CROSS AND M ICHEL HENRY.

A
PHENOMENOLOGICAL INT ERPRETATION IN : S TUDIES IN S PIRITUALITY 13/2003
LEUVEN : PEETERS, PP . 214-233.

RUUD WELTEN 2003

Ruud Welten, The night in John of the Cross and Michel Henry. A phenomenological interpretation in:
Studies in Spirituality13/2003 Leuven: Peeters, pp. 214-233.

RUUD W ELTEN

RUUD W ELTEN

THE NIGHT IN JOHN OF THE CROSS AND MICHEL HENRY

A Phenomenological Interpretation1

INTRODUCTION
According to some writers, the night is the realm of revelation. Among these writers
we find the Spanish mystic John of the Cross (1540-1591) and the French
phenomenologist Michel Henry (1922-2002).2 For both John of the Cross and
Michel Henry, the night is a metaphor for a field of experience that is not unlike
our acting and being in the visible world dependent on the light of the world. This
similarity between John and Henry is significant and remarkable. It is significant
because both are writing about human experience. For the mystic, the focus is on the
experience of his way to a union with God. For the phenomenologist, experience, as
original givenness, is the access to philosophical reflection. The similarity is also
remarkable: how is it possible that the night can be the realm of revelation? Is not
light the goal and metaphor for truth for a Christian mystic? Is not phenomenology
concerned with the visibility of things?
At the focus of the question of how the night can be the realm of revelation is
the conception of light and, consequently, what the absence of light at night implies.
We are dealing here with a classical distinction between the use of the word light
in two radically different ways. On one hand, light is the condition of visibility of

1
2

I thank Frans Maas, Peter Jonkers and Michelle Rochard for their valuable comments.
Michel Henry, born in Vietnam in 1922, was professor at the Paul-Valry University at
Montpellier. He taught as a guest professor at the cole Normale Suprieure and the Sorbonne
in Paris, the Catholic University of Louvain, the University of Washington, Seattle and the
University of Tokyo. His main philosophical works are LEssence de la manifestation, Paris
1990 (orig. publ. 1963), translated by Girard Etzkorn as The Essence of Manifestation, The
Hague 1973; Gnalogie de la psychanalyse. Le commencement perdu, Paris 1985, translated
by Douglas Brick as The Genealogy of Psychoanalysis, Stanford (CA) 1998; La barbarie [The
Barbarism], Paris 2001 (orig. publ. 1987); Cest moi la vrit. Pour une philosophie du
christianisme, Paris 1996, translated by Susan Emanuel as I Am the Truth: Toward a
Philosophy of Christianity, Stanford (CA) 2003; and Incarnation. Une philosophie de la chair
[Incarnation: A Philosophy of the Flesh], Paris 2000.
He published several voluminous studies on Marx and wrote five novels. His works are
translated in English, German, Italian, and Japanese. Henry died 3 July 2002. Fo r a
bibliography, see http://www.ruudwelten.nl

Ruud Welten, The night in John of the Cross and Michel Henry. A phenomenological
interpretation in: Studies in Spirituality 13/2003 Leuven: Peeters , pp. 214-233.

THE NIGHT IN JOHN OF THE CROSS AND M ICHEL HENRY

the things in our world. We see this light with our carnal eyes. We are able to see
things due to the fact that light shines upon them. Darkness is absence of light and,
as a result, a disability to our carnal vision. On the other hand, there is a light that
illuminates not the things in the world, but the things of our soul. It shines directly
within our soul. It is obvious that this distinction between two radically different
manifestations of light plays a role in the thoughts of Henry and John, but we must
scrutinize how. The thoughts of Henry and John can be understood as a philosophy
or theology of illumination, but they cannot be reduced to it. I will demonstrate that
the structure of this division between the two uses of light in John and Henry is
neither metaphysical nor theological, but phenomenological. By phenomenology I
mean the philosophical science that describes appearing, and restricts itself to the
original givenness of this appearing without appeal to artificial, theoretical
constructions. As will become clear in this article, for Henry, phenomenology
describes the essence of revelation itself.
This justifies the phenomenological starting-point of a study of the night as the
realm of revelation. We find this elaborated in very different ways in both Henry
and John. The purpose of this article is to examine whether and how Michel Henrys
phenomenological conception of the night and revelation can be fruitful in revealing
phenomenological structures in the thought of John of the Cross.

1 THE NIGHT IN JOHN OF THE CROSS

Born as Juan de Yepis y Alvarez, the man who became the poet and mystic John of
the Cross is one of the greatest mystics in Christianity. The facts of this saint are
well known. With the help of Teresa of Avila, he sought to reform the order of the
Carmelites. For nine months John lived as a captive of his rival Carmelites and is
particularly well known for his account of The Dark Night, written in imprisonment.
The text of The Dark Night consists of a commentary on the poem Dark Night
written by John himself. 3 It is a continuation of the book Ascent of Mount Carmel,
which comments upon the same poem. In modern times, John of the Cross inspires
not only Carmelites and Christian believers, but also painters and artists, writers and
philosophers.4 This shows that Johns work is not only important and inspirational
for those who have chosen to live a monastic life; his spiritual thought is also relevant to a wide field of human existence. This article focuses on the theme of the
night in the work of John of the Cross from a phenomenological point of view. As a
result, I am particularly interested in the meaning of the night which John describes
and its relevance for human existence. Therefore, my focus is neither theological nor
historical. It must be noted that the great phenomenologis t and Carmelite Edith Stein
3

John of the Cross, Dark Night Of The Soul (3 rd rev. ed., Trans., intr. & ed. E. Allison Peers
from the critical edition of P. Silverio De Santa Teresa, C.D.), New York 1959.
Such as Salvador Dali or the present-day American video-artist Bill Viola (Room for St. John
of the Cross , video/sound instellation, 1983).

RUUD W ELTEN

(1891-1942; who was, according to Edmund Husserl (1859-1938), his most brilliant
assistant and who is today a Saint herself), wrote a magnificent book on John of the
Cross. Although the method of her book is not phenomenological, many
phenomenological influences are clear. 5 And though I sometimes refer to this work,
it is nevertheless my aim in this article to read the work of John from the point of
view of new French phenomenology, which is characterized by a critical
relationship to Husserl and his followers.
We start with the chief source of our investigation: Johns own comments on The
Dark Night. With the scope of this article in mind, we limit ourselves to one
question: what is the underlying phenomenological structure of the dark night?
Some preliminary remarks are necessary. First, I will not follow Husserls
classical conception of phenomenology, but the contemporary so-called radical
phenomenology of Michel Henry. I will discuss this new phenomenology in section
III. Second, we are not dealing here with psychological structures of a mystical
experience; instead, we are searching to describe the phenomenological structure of
revelation itself. Our point of view has nothing in common with a science that
elucidates particular mystical experiences such as ecstasy, for example. What is at
issue here is not an examination of a single phenomenon (night or ecstasy)
among other phenomena, but a description of a kind of phenomenology that
underlies the works of John of the Cross. Third, the word night (noche) in Johns
text does not correspond with just one, clear-cut meaning. It is used metaphorically
and stands for the spiritual reality of those who approximate a union with God. As
Edith Stein explains, the night is not, strictly speaking, a symbol, such as a signal,
characterized by its arbitrary significance. The night is also a field of real, immediate
experience. Therefore, it is more than just a metaphor. It is always already there,
before we speak of metaphors or symbols. Indeed, the state of consciousness of the
night has some psychological dimensions, but it has theological dimensions as well.
The night in The Dark Night and in Ascent of Mount Carmel stands for experiences
of fear, disorientation, loneliness, and even despair. This characterisation of the
night plays an important role in these texts. John describes the struggle that a human
being endures on his way to God. In this sense, night means affliction, grief, and
torment.6
Let me begin with an examination of the night according to John. Later, I will
discuss the underlying phenomenological structure of the night. The light of God
blinds human existence and this experience is also called night or dark night.
Against the background and within the scope of the light of worldly affairs, the light
of God brings darkness. This is not due to a lack of light, but to an abundance of
light. John of the Cross illustrates this with an example of the sun that blinds our
5

Edith Stein, The Science of the Cross (trans. Josephine Koeppel), Washington, DC 2002 (orig.
publ. 1950). The same holds for the dissertation of the present pope: Karol Wojtyla, Faith
According to St. John of the Cross (trans. Jordan Aumann), San Francisco 1981.
Dark Night, Book II, V, 2.

Ruud Welten, The night in John of the Cross and Michel Henry. A phenomenological
interpretation in: Studies in Spirituality 13/2003 Leuven: Peeters , pp. 214-233.

THE NIGHT IN JOHN OF THE CROSS AND M ICHEL HENRY

vision, often found in mystical literature: The more directly we look at the sun, the
greater is the darkness which it causes in our visual faculty, overcoming and
overwhelming it through its own weakness.7 The word darkness here not only has a
theological meaning but also, and more importantly, a phenomenological meaning
since it tells something about the manifestation of God within our human existence.
This seems to be characteristic of Johns approach to God: he starts from human
existence itself. In our immature human experience, God is not light but darkness. In
God there is no darkness (1 John 1:5); darkness is on the human side.
John makes a distinction between two kinds of night. The first is a sensual
night, which is preparatory; the second kind of night is properly spiritual. Both mu st
be understood as purifications.8 In the sensual night, we withdraw from sensual
stimuli in order to clear our minds for the reception of something that cannot be
understood as a stimulus. Not only do we close our eyes, but all active mental states
are extinguished. Because this night demands activity from our side, this night is
also called the active night. In contrast, the spiritual night is passive. However, the
terms activity and passivity cannot simply be used to replace the terms sensual and
spiritual. Activity and passivity play a role in both kinds of nights. Nevertheless, for
the sake of clearness, in what follows, I treat the spiritual night from the point of
view of passivity.

2 THE PASSIVE NIGHT

The night is a purifying stage in our ladder9 to a union with God. Moreover, those
who suppose they already receive the light of God deceive themselves since when
they believe that the sun of Divine favour is shining most brightly upon them, God
turns all this light of theirs into darkness, and shuts against them the door and the
source of the sweet spiritual water which they were tasting in God whensoever and
for as long as they desired. 10 This means that the light of God is not provided on our
own initiative but only by God himself, on condition that we are in a state of
absolute purgation. However, as the quote makes clear, we cannot command this
state since purgation is not realized through our worldly light but through the light of
God. This is why purgation is called night: the light of the world is extinguished.
Night means especially: absence of this light. And, of course, in our daily life, the
night is a space of time in which the worldly light is extinguished naturally. This
happens without our will; it just happens. The absence of our light and our will must
be achieved by the release of our grip on the visible world, the world of visible
phenomena. The night is the condition for union with God: without this dark and
nocturnal, frightful experience, we are not able to receive the true light. In short, the
7
8
9
10

Dark Night, Book II, V, 3.

Cf. Dark Night, Prologue.
Dark Night, Book II, XVIII.
Dark Night, Book I, VIII, 3.

RUUD W ELTEN

theme of the night focuses on the extinction of light. The endurance of this
extinction opens up the road to the light of God. Thus, night has something to do
with passivity.
Chapter nine of the second book of The Dark Night is entitled How, although
this night brings darkness to the spirit, it does so in order to illumine it and give it
light. Already from the title we learn that the darkness of the night must be
understood as purgation. Night brings darkness in order to make illumination
possible. At night we are not overwhelmed by all kinds of impressions of the things
we chase during the day. The concept of night brings, very obviously, a radical
inversion of values: For that which is most clear and true is to us most dark and
doubtful; where fore, though it is the thing that is most needful for us, we flee from
it. And that which gives the greatest light and satisfaction to our eyes we embrace
and pursue, though it be the worst thing for us, and make us fall at every step.11 For
us, it seems as though the day is the realm of light and truth, while, for John, it is the
night that lodges the real Truth. The point is that we see wrongly, we follow the
wrong light. As Augustine states in his famous metaphor: we chase the lights of the
city built by ourselves; it is the city lightened by artificial lights. Moreover, in our
contemporary metropolis, there is no dark of the night at all. We do not know
anymore what darkness is or what silence is. We are afraid of the dark and silence
and repress our fears with the never-ending light and sound of our televisions both
night and day. The night-time street lights blare constantly; CNN and MTV drone on
endlessly. We live in a city of light. We are obsessed by worldly phenomena. For
Augustine, just as for John of the Cross, illumination becomes possible only in a
state of mind in which the light of the world does not shine anymore. This implies
not only that another kind of light is of concern, but also that the vision of the light
of the world actually interferes with illumination.
The night is purgation; however, it is not the same as illumination itself.
Illumination (iluminacin) supposes purgation. As said above, to speak of the night
is to start with the human side of revelation. It concerns not a theology of
illumination, in its own right, supported by metaphysical suppositions, but a
phenomenology of the human experience of illumination.12 From the side of human
experience, illumination takes place in the darkness of the night. Of course,
illumination itself is not dark; but the field of human experience that it requires is
dark. Within this field, illumination remains invisible. Phenomenologically
speaking, the light of the world must cease before that other light is able to appear.
It is needful to expel and annihilate the other, as with two contrary things, which
cannot exist together in one person, says John.13 It must be one or the other, without

11
12

13

Dark Night, Book II, XVI, 12.

Compare the title of the famous study by Jean Baruzi, Saint Jean de la Croix et le problme de
lexprience mystique, Paris 1999 (rev. ed. of the 1931 edition). In John of the Cross,
mysticism is not presented as a fact, but as a continuous struggle from the point of view of the
experience. See e.g. pp. 279 -285.
Dark Night, Book II, IX, 2.

Ruud Welten, The night in John of the Cross and Michel Henry. A phenomenological
interpretation in: Studies in Spirituality 13/2003 Leuven: Peeters , pp. 214-233.

THE NIGHT IN JOHN OF THE CROSS AND M ICHEL HENRY

compro mise. The distinction between purgation and illumination is not just a
distinction between two states of mind. Illumination requires purgation. Illumination
is unconditional. Purgation is the preparatory, necessary stage for the reception of
that other light.
But what exactly is this other light? Do we have any permission from our
experience to call it illumination? It is called illumination when God Himself shines
His light upon our souls. The other light is called the way of illumination or of
infused contemplation, wherein God Himself feeds and refreshes the soul, without
meditation, or the souls active help. 14 And: the illumination of the round earth by
the lightnings of God is the enlightenment which is produced by this Divine
contemplation in the faculties of the soul. 15 Human consciousness cannot take the
initia tive to approximate this Divine light. It shines upon us. The only thing we can
do is to free ourselves from the light of the world. The night enables this purgation.
In The Dark Night, the other light is not supposed as a fact. The only way to see
this light is by means of purgation. It is purgation that is passive.
This brings in a new, fundamental phenomenological structure that cannot merely be
understood by means of a phenomenology of light, namely, the difference between
two modes of the activity of consciousness. These two modes, activity and passivity,
are the backbone of the four books of John of the Cross. In the Ascent of Mount
Carmel John says:
The first night or purgation is of the sensual part of the soul, which is
treated in the present stanza, and will be treated in the first part of this
book. And the second is of the spiritual part; of this speaks the second
stanza, which follows; and of this we shall treat likewise, in the
second and the third part, with respect to the activity of the soul; and
in the fourth part, with respect to its passivity.16
In this quote we find Johns opinion of the structure of his own work, which is
governed by two main distinctions. First, there is the distinction between two kinds
of night, as mentioned above. The second distinction is of great interest from the
point of view of phenomenology. The first night is active, whereas the second is
passive. Without doubt, these are modalities of consciousness. John describes the
dispositions of consciousness in what he calls the night of the senses and the night of
the soul. The book The Dark Night can be considered as the fourth stage of
elaboration, especially the part in which John speaks of passivity. The Dark Night is
not concerned with systematic theology. Even the divine sphere is not understood
theologically, but as it manifests itself after purgation. John thinks from the point of
14
15
16

Dark Night, Book II, XIV, 1.

Dark Night, Book II, XVII, 8 (With a quote from the Psalms).
John of the Cross, Ascent of Mount Carmel (3 rd rev. ed., Trans. intr. & ed. E. Allison Peers
from the Critical Edition of P. Silverio De Santa Teresa, C.D.), Garden City (NY) 1962, Bk. I,
chap. I, 2.

RUUD W ELTEN

view of man. Nevertheless, passivity implies activity from the side of God. It is the
light of God that acts upon us. This Divine Action requires total passivity from the
side of man. However greatly the soul itself labours, it cannot actively purify itself
so as to be in the least degree prepared for the Divine union of perfection of love, if
God takes not its hand and purges it not in that dark fire, in the way and manner that
we have to describe.17
For John of the Cross, the distinction between activity and passivity implies a
hierarchical step. Activity is associated with the level of the beginner. In Book I of
The Dark Night, the situation of the consciousness of the beginner is described: it is
the state in which the beginner is actively longing for God and wants to unite with
Him. John writes: But neither from these imperfections nor from those others can
the soul be perfectly purified until God brings it into the passive purgation of that
dark night [...]. 18 Passivity is the central theme of the second book.

3 A PHENOMENOLOGICAL POSSIBILITY OF RADICAL PASSIVITY

As said above, I will make use of the radical phenomenology of Michel Henry.
However, to understand his conception of phenomenology, I have to start with its
antithesis. Especially when it comes to passivity, it becomes clear that we cannot
rely on classical phenomenology. What does Husserl say about passivity? Activity
and passivity are the central themes in Husserls thought during his mid-period
(1918-1926). 19 From the time of Husserls Logical Investigations onward,
consciousness is governed by a structural intentionality. From a phenomenological
point of view, Johns meaning of activity can be understood as intentionality.
Activity for John is wanting something, seeing something. Every consciousness
is consciousness of something, are the famous words of Husserl in his Ideas I. 20 It is
this of in the definition of intentionality that makes consciousness always more
or less active. This implies that the phenomenological understanding of love, for
instance, is always to love something. It is this active intentionality that remains
deficient in trying to understand what John of the Cross is saying about the central
theme of Love: Inasmuch as [] love is infused, it is passive rather than active, and
thus it begets in the soul a strong passion of love.21 Because love is infused, it
cannot be understood as a result of our will. Every kind of intentionality must cease.

17
18
19

20

21

Dark Night, Book I, III, 3.

Dark Night, Book I, III, 3.
Edmund Husserl, Analyses Concerning Passive and Active Synthesis. Lectures on
Transcendental Logic (trans. A.J. Steinbock), Dordrecht-Boston-London 2001 (orig. publ.
1966).
Edmund Husserl, Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological
Philosophy I: General Introduction to a Pure Phenomenology (trans. Fred Kersten), DordrechtBoston-London 1982, 84 (orig. publ. 1913).
Dark Night, Book II, XI, 2.

Ruud Welten, The night in John of the Cross and Michel Henry. A phenomenological
interpretation in: Studies in Spirituality 13/2003 Leuven: Peeters , pp. 214-233.

THE NIGHT IN JOHN OF THE CROSS AND M ICHEL HENRY

Yet, for Husserl, passivity has nothing to do with the withdrawal of

intentionality. Rather, passivity for him is characterized in a twofold way. First, it
concerns the pre-given sphere of the objects of consciousness.22 The objects of
consciousness are already there, before I turn my attention to them. Second, it is the
name for the consciousness that is not governed by the Ego. However, withdrawal
from the I or the Ego does not mean that intentionality is abandoned. Husserl says
that all passive consciousness is already constitutive of objects.23 It is in the years
after 1920 that Husserl discovers that consciousness is not dependent on the
intentions of an Ego, but that consciousness is already there where the Ego is not yet
involved. This is what he calls passivity or passive synthesis. Indeed, this means that
I, as the actor in consciousness, am not, or am not yet, involved. As far as
phenomenological structures in John of the Cross are concerned, with this passive
synthesis we can only explain the passivity of the mystic by this non-egocentric
structure. I went forth from myself [...], says John.24 Husserlian passivity is
distinguished from activity by its absence of judgement. In passivity, objects are
pre-given. Objects are already there but without explicit appellation. In this way,
although we reach a sphere of consciousness that is characterized by a total
withdrawal of the I, it is not a divine sphere; its transcendence is the world itself, not
God. In The Dark Night we read that the affections, feelings and apprehensions of
the perfect spirit, being Divine, are of another kind and of a very different order
from those that are natural. They are pre-eminent [].25 Pre-eminence does not
only mean perfection, but it also implies that the sphere of intentional affections,
feelings, and apprehensions remains tributary to the Divine sphere. It is the
purgative state of mind that becomes Divine. This is a state of affairs that is reserved
for those who are united with God.26
However, there is a good reason not to rely upon Husserls concept of passivity
when we are trying to unfold its phenomenological structure in John of the Cross:
Husserl does not know anything of a radical passivity. In contrast, the passivity
about which John speaks is not directed to objects at all. This stage is already
abandoned in the sensual night in which we must withdraw from any kind of
intentionality. Hence, total receptive consciousness in a passive way remains
impossible for Husserl since such a conception would undermine and destroy the
possibility of consciousness itself. In Experience and Judgement, Husserl
unambiguously writes, that even the purely perceptive contemplation of a pregiven
substrate proves to be our achievement, an act, and not a mere suffering of
impressions. 27 This seems to undermine the conception of passivity according to

22
23

24
25
26
27

Husserl, Experience and Judgement, Evanston 1973, 4 (orig. publ. 1948).

Husserl, Experience and Judgement, 62. (Introduction, written by Husserls assistant Ludwig
Landgrebe).
Dark Night, Book II, IV, 1.
Dark Night, Book II, IX, 2.
Dark Night, Book II, 4 -6.
Husserl, Experience and Judgement, 59 (my italics).

10

RUUD W ELTEN

John of the Cross. For John, passivity is understood in a radical way, which means:
without any egocentric intentionality. It is precisely this mere suffering of
impressions that seems to be the kernel of passivity according to the mystic. One
might argue that this complies with Husserl because in both Husserl and John
radical passivity implies the extinction of consciousness. Moreover, John says that
the state of union with God does not belong to this life. 28 And wouldnt John admit
that it is not our consciousness that strives after a union with God? As a
consequence, doesnt a union with God indeed escape phenomenological analysis?
These questions are misleading. The point is that for Husserl, phenomenology is
only possible through an analysis of intentionality. If we abandon intentionality, we
abandon phenomenological method. The question now becomes: what is implied by
passivity according to John of the Cross? It has been shown that John starts his
description of the path to the union with God from human existence and thus from
human consciousness itself. How can this methodological problem be resolved?
Does this mean that we cannot understand John of the Cross in a phenomenological
way? I would suggest that we cannot understand his work in a Husserlian way.
Michel Henrys critique of Husserl opens up another way to view this problem that
does not expel the union with God from phenomenology, but understands this union
phenomenologically.
It is Husserls primacy of intentionality, which still governs his thought on
passive synthesis, that is the target of Henrys critique. It is clear that, for Husserl, it
is nonsense to speak about consciousness without intentionality. This position has
been sharply attacked, especially in French phenomenology after World War II. In
the philosophies of Emmanuel Levinas, Jean-Luc Marion, and Michel Henry, for
instance, this criticism is directed against the inability of intentional phenomenology
to understand a relationship with God. God is not an object of thought for mystics or
for the phenomenologists who speak of a so-called turn to religion. 29 This means
that passivity must be understood in a non-intentional, radical way. Moreover,
intentionality is understood in an inversed direction: from the other to me. A
description of consciousness that is able to understand the relationship with
otherness and infinity requires an inversion of the direction of intentionality.30
Indeed, this is how John of the Cross understands intentionality: For spiritual
blessings go not from man to God, but come from God to man.31 Again, this
reversed direction supposes radical passivity. And radical passivity is nonintentional.

28
29

30

31

Dark Night, Book II, XX, 4.

As called by Dominique Janicaud in Le tournant thologique de la phnomnologie franaise,
Paris 1991.
Cf. Emmanuel Levinas, La conscience non-intentionalle, in: Entre nous. Essais sur le penser-lautre (Figures), Paris 1991, 141-152; Jean-Luc Marion, tant donn. Essai dune phnomnologie de la donation (2 nd rev. ed.), Paris 1997, 367.
Dark Night, Book II, XVII, 5.

Ruud Welten, The night in John of the Cross and Michel Henry. A phenomenological
interpretation in: Studies in Spirituality 13/2003 Leuven: Peeters , pp. 214-233.

THE NIGHT IN JOHN OF THE CROSS AND M ICHEL HENRY

11

In his recent book Incarnation, Henry states that Husserl has failed to appreciate the original essence of passivity.32 Passivity is understood in a radical way,
which means: not as passivity in relation to something. There is a passivity that
precedes both the visible and relational passivity. As a result of this primacy, it
cannot be reduced to a passivity that remains intentional, or that is understood as a
retired activity. In Henrys thought, this passivity is called suffering or passion
(souffrance). Of course, this does not solve the problem of intentionality so as long
as suffering is understood intentionally.33 However, suffering discloses for Henry the
most original modus of manifestation. It concerns not a passion of. What
passion manifests is not something outside itself, but its own manifestation. Passion,
suffering, in its non-intentional endurance, manifests itself. Since it does not
manifest something other than itself, it is invisible. It does not appear in the world of
visible things. This might provide a phenomenological understanding of sorrow, for
instance. If I am filled with sorrow, my sorrow becomes visible through the tears in
my eyes. However, the tears themselves are not my sorrow. My experience, my
sorrow, remains invisible. My sorrow is not the manifestation of the cause of the
sorrow or the visible phenomenon of it; rather, it is the manifestation of nothing
other than itself. This is what Henry calls original passivity, called pathos in his
earlier work LEssence de la manifestation [The Essence of Manifestation].34
If we turn back to John of the Cross, the mystic is also writing about this
fundamental passion, which is passive in a radical way. In the words of Edith Stein,
radical passivity coincides with suffering. This suffering is to take up our cross and
to abandon oneself to crucifixion. To bear ones cross is to suffer from the
abundance of our worldly truths. The knowledge of this other truth, which is not the
truth of the world, is called a science of the cross (Kreuzwissenschaft). Against this
horizon, she argues that John of the Cross is indeed a disciple of Christ. In Luke we
read: And whoever does not bear his cross and come after Me, he cannot be My
disciple (Luke 14:27). Stein quotes Luke 14:33: So then, everyone of you who
does not forsake all his possessions, he cannot be My disciple. We cannot forsake
all our possessions and needs without suffering. However, as Stein remarks, one is
able to offer oneself to the cross, but one is not able to crucify oneself. Passivity and
suffering belong to each other in a phenomenological way: passivity consists not in
doing nothing, but in endurance. Endurance cannot be understood as activity at all.
For Henry, this endurance or passion does not make something other than itself
manifest; passion manifests itself in a self-manifestation. We have to explain this
further.

32
33

34

Michel Henry, Incarnation, 87.

E.g., I suffer from pain in my stomach, or I suffer under these circumstances. Within
Husserls thought, suffering remains always suffering from something.
Michel Henry, LEssence de la manifestation, 53.

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RUUD W ELTEN

4 THE NIGHT IN THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF M ICHEL HENRY

The phenomenological structure of revelation remains unclear at this point, since it
seems that self-manifestation and the Revelation of God are two different kinds of
manifestation. First, we have to scrutinize how Michel Henrys disclosure of selfmanifestation brings us to Gods revelation. According to Henry, phenomenology,
as described by the great phenomenologists of the 20th century, is characterized by a
major mistake. This mistake consists in the fact that phenomenology fails to
describe its fundamental supposition, namely, the appearance of [] appearance
itself. 35 The phenomenological question is not what appears, not even that there is
appearance, but how appearance appears to itself. Husserlian phenomenology is
built on a presupposition instead of the description of the things themselves. What
exactly is presupposed in Husserlian phenomenology?
Henry reproaches the majority of the history of Western thought because,
according to him, it acknowledges just one kind of manifestation: manifestation of
the things brought to light, called phenomena. This monism is nothing other than
the reduction of manifestation to object-manifestation, which fails to explain the
essence of manifestation itself. 36 Object-manifestation is always characterized by a
necessary fission between subjective and objective sides of manifestation. As we
have seen, for Husserl, phenomenology consists in the analyses of the structures of
intentionality. Intentionality implies a transcendental relationship with the world.
Husserl states that the analysis of intentionality can only be developed starting from
this intentionality, and not from a pre-existing consciousness or ego. However,
according to Henry, in spite of Husserls conviction, by reducing it to objectmanifestation, the concept of intentionality fails to describe what manifestation itself
is. In other words: Husserl reduces manifestation to phenomenality, which is always
phenomenality of something. Henrys critique embarrasses Husserls
phenomenology since the most important theme in phenomenology, namely, the
theme of appearance, remains hidden behind a huge supposition. Intentionality is not
the last ground for consciousness, as Husserl thinks, because it only reveals some
thing, but it cannot reveal itself. What Husserl forgot, according to Henry, is the
ability (pouvoir) to reveal. 37
Henry does not defend an old solipsistic schema of subjectivity, but a
manifestation that is totally immanent: the manifestation of subjectivity to itself.
This means that every transcendental relationship (sic., being directed to the world)
supposes immanence. Immanence is nothing other than the ability to reveal itself to
itself. It is not a consciousness of something, but of itself. Immanence is totally
independent of transcendental conditions. Although Henry uses the term
immanence to free this manifestation from every kind of exteriority, distance, or
alienation, immanence is not just a logical counterpart of transcendence. Every
35
36
37

Henry, Incarnation, 1.
Henry, LEssence de la manifestation, section I, 59-164.
Henry, LEssence de la manifestation, 479.

Ruud Welten, The night in John of the Cross and Michel Henry. A phenomenological
interpretation in: Studies in Spirituality 13/2003 Leuven: Peeters , pp. 214-233.

THE NIGHT IN JOHN OF THE CROSS AND M ICHEL HENRY

13

transcendental relation supposes immanence. This is the reason why Henry calls it
essence. In fact, the term immanence performs similar duties to Descartes notion
of substance: a substance is a thing capable of existing of itself. 38 It does not need
any external reason for existing. Husserls transcendental consciousness always and
fundamentally presupposes the appearance of things that are other than itself. But as
we have seen in paragraph III, it is the field of passion or pathos that is the nature of
this immanence.
Before we turn to the religious implications of Henrys view, it is important to
see that this essence is not a phenomenon itself. It does not appear like phenomena
do. It is invisible. But this does not mean that it does not manifest itself.
Manifestation and phenomenality are not the same. Manifestation manifests itself,
but not in the way of the things in the world. Let us recapitulate this by means of a
simple daily life experience. If I burn my hand because the pan is too hot to touch
without oven gloves, I say that I feel the heat of the pan. My pain is pain of
something: namely, pain caused by the hot pan. I say: the pan hurts me. But is this
right? How can I feel the pan? Does the pan manifest itself? In fact, what I
experience is not the experience of the pan, but of myself. In pain, (c f., suffering), I
feel myself. The pan does not affect me. What I primarily feel is my own affection.
Moreover: I feel that I live. Why is it not the pan that affects or hurts me and why is
my pain not an effect of the hot pan? Let us ask a counter question: how is it
possible that the pan affects me? Can a pan affect the spoon or the cooker? Can a
pillow affect the bed?39 This leads to a remarkable answer: the self-affection is
constitutive of the so-called hetero-affection. Hetero-affection is affection that is a
result of something other than itself. Its phenomenological structure is that of
intentionality. But as Henry argues, this hetero-affection is only possible because
there is an ability to be affected. This self-affection or self-manifestation is always
previous to any kind of hetero-affection. For Henry, the evidence of selfmanifestation that follows from self-affection is not logical, but phenomenological
evidence: my sensibility reveals itself to itself. This primacy of immanence as selfmanifestation is the experience of life itself. In other words: if I feel pain, this
feeling does not manifest the hot pan, and not even the burning of my hand (which is
intentional), but Life itself. 40 This Life cannot be reduced to intentional and
transcendental structures. Life is invisible. Unlike the pan, the cooker, the pillow, or
the bed, I live and this life manifests itself only through the manifestation of the
power of sensibility. Contrary to the phenomenology of Husserl, Sartre, or MerleauPonty, Henry does not reduce this sensibility to external affection. This brings in a

38
39

40

Oeuvres de Descartes (Ed. C. Adam & P. Tannery) VII, Paris 1996, 44.
Cf. example borrowed from Dan Zahavi, Self-Awareness and Alterity. A Phenomenological
Investigation, Evanston (Il) 1999, 113.
Henry says in a footnote of Cst moi la vrit, p. 40: Let us simply say here that, written with
a capital, the term refers to the Life of God; written with a small letter, it refers to our own life.
Since life is one and the same, however, thes terminological nuances are intended to refer to
one condition or the other (divine or human).

14

RUUD W ELTEN

highly tautological discourse: We have access to life itself. Where? In life. How?
By means of Life.41 It is the manifestation that is, at its core, invisible precisely
because of the absence of exteriority. To say this in other terms: my feelings are
invisible. It is a crucial mistake to reduce the manifestations of my feelings to
behaviouristic, empirical notions. The things in themselves, says Henry, are blind
material.42 The tree does not appear in a manner like the dog that barks. The tree
itself does nothing. Nevertheless, it appears. It appears because appearance itself
becomes manifest.
The invisible manifests itself without the conditions of light, which means:
there is a manifestation, but not an (external) appearance. Thus, manifestation is not
the same as appearance. According to the concept of appearance, invisibility is
nothing other than an absence of light. On the other hand, according to the concept
of manifestation, invisibility is the absolute beginning, the phenomenological archstructure of manifestation.
It is true that in daily life we continually forget this self-manifestation.43
Oblivion belongs to manifestation. Usually, when I look at a painting, I am
intended at the painting and forget this intention itself. This intention is marked by
oblivion. Husserl, indeed, made a revolutionary step forward by describing
intentionalities. But he wrongly declared intentionality to be the first principle and
thereby forgot the question of the manifestation of appearance. If I look at a painting
in a museum, I forget the conditions of the ability of looking: consciousness, the
manifestation of looking, and the presence of light. It is the sensibility of
subjectivity itself that remains in the darkness of the night.44
Within the manifestation of appearance we find ourselves in the dark. The
essence, and thus the condition of appearance, is darkness itself, says Henry. The
essence does not appear in the realm of daylight where everything appears as this
or that. The radical immanence remains with itself and does not exteriorise itself
because it belongs to the night. The essence of night is invisibility, without any horizon of light (aucun horizon de lumire45). Because manifestation reveals itself
without the condition of light, the night is the realm of revelation. The night is not
the opposite of the day, but the point zero of every kind of phenomenality. Night
itself is the essence of manifestation, it constitutes the reality of the specific
phenomenological content and defines it.46 The night, as Henry understands it, is
absolute and without deficiency. Because it is absolute, it is the condition of every
kind of phenomenality. From the point of view of invisibility, which is always
invisibility of something, the night remains hidden. It does not becomes manifest
in the light of the world. It is this unveiling of manifestation that is constantly

41
42
43
44
45
46

Henry, Cest moi la vrit, 73.

Henry, Incarnation, 39.
Henry, LEssence de la manifestation, 45.
Cf. Michel Henry, Voir linvisible. Sur Kandinsky, Paris 1988, 74.
Henry, LEssence, 549.
Henry, LEssence, 550.

Ruud Welten, The night in John of the Cross and Michel Henry. A phenomenological
interpretation in: Studies in Spirituality 13/2003 Leuven: Peeters , pp. 214-233.

THE NIGHT IN JOHN OF THE CROSS AND M ICHEL HENRY

15

misunderstood in the phenomenologies of Husserl and his followers. The night is

not the realm of the visibility of exteriority, but of the invisibility of interiority.
When I am directed inwards, I close my eyes in search for darkness. Therefore, the
night is the domain of inner revelation. However, the inner does not stand for a
psychological state of mind, but refers to the point zero of phenomenality. The
invisible is the starting point of every kind of appearance; therefore it is called
revelation itself. Following Novalis Hymns to the Night, Henry calls the night the
light that does not appear. 47

5 THE PHENOMENOLOGICAL STRUCTURE OF CHRISTIAN REVELATION

In I am the Truth (1996), self-manifestation is entirely understood in terms of
Christianity. We have seen that manifestation and phenomenality are not the same.
On the other hand, according to Henry, manifestation is the same as Christian
revelation. For Henry, revelation is not the revelation of something; rather,
revelation is seen as eternal self-revelation. This, says Henry, is exactly what
Christianity teaches. According to I am the Truth and Incarnation, manifestation
does not so much reveal the Christian revelation of God, but the structure of
revelation according to Christianity is at its core phenomenologically in the way
Henry understands phenome nology.48 As he says in Incarnation,
phenomenalisation, revelation, disclosure, appearance, and manifestation
are the key words of phenomenology and of theology as well. 49 With this critique of
the uncritical primacy of light in mind, it becomes understandable why Henrys
phenomenology shows a tendency towards Christian sources (such as Eckhart and
the New Testament).
Invisibility, this not appearing in the world, is, from a phenomenological
point of view, the essence of the revelation of God. God is not a phenomenon among
other phenomena of the world. God does not appear; no one has ever seen Him; He
remains hidden.50 However, the phenomenological problem of the appearance of the
appearance is not theologically solved. It would be to easy to state that the mistake
of Husserl and his followers consists in the fact that they did not see the light of
God. But this would solve nothing of the phenomenological nature of the problem of
manifestation and revelation since, in making such a statement, we would step out of
phenomenology. Henrys attention focuses on the fundamental, radical
phenomenological structure of Christianity. The attention becomes theological while

47
48

49
50

Henry, LEssence, 555.

It is important to notice that Henry, notwithstanding his criticism of Husserl, still uses the word
phenomenology because he claims that the Husserlian foundation of phenomenology is
wrong. Henry speaks of radical phenomenology because the new phenomenology discloses
the roots (radical, radix) of phenomenality.
Henry, Incarnation, 37.
Henry, LEssence, 481; Cest moi la vrit, 104-106; Incarnation, 327.

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RUUD W ELTEN

the method remains fully phenomenological. In fact, Christianity reveals a radical

phenomenology in which God is Life. It is this self-manifestation as life that Chris tianity calls God.
The main frame of reference in I am the Truth is the Gospel of John.51 Now it
becomes clear why God is not a phenomenon. God is Life itself. He is not the life of
this or that living thing, but the self-manifestation of Life, called sensation, called
pathos (see III). But Life never shows itself in the world.52 For phenomenology,
the sentence God is Life is meaningless unless it is understood in terms of
experience or sensation. For this reason, this sentence is fully phenomenological and
not metaphysical. 53 To say this in terms of the painting example illustrated above:
when I am looking at the painting, I forget my looking at. I am not aware of the
necessary moves I make with my eyes, my head, and my body. Instead, I am carried
away in the beauty of the painting even if I might, in a moment of lucidity, become
aware of my looking. This is similar to a religious experience of gratitude for the gift
of Life. I thank God and, in fact, I am thankful that I am a being that is able to
experience the beauty of art. In this example, gratitude reveals the fact that I am
tributary to God, who is my Life. 54 However, Henrys philosophy is not a
phenomenology of this kind of experience. It is not a psychology of revelation, but
a phenomenology of the most original revelation. This revelation is not dependent
on special occasions such as so-called religious experiences. Revelation means
nothing more or less than the experience of Life itself. In this regard, Christianity
calls this incessant generation of Life God. God does not reveal something
different than Himself. The self-revelation of Life is identical with the Revelation of
God.55 God conceals Himself like Life conceals itself: He/it is invisible through the
eyes of the world. Revelation is disclosure of this concealment. As we have seen, in
terms of LEssence de la manifestation, God remains hidden in the dark of the night.
His light is of a kind different from the light in and of the world.
The light of Christianity is dark for the world and vice versa. Christians are the
blind who believe in Jesus; whereas the seers are searchers of visible proof, like the
scientists obsessed by the worlds phenomena but always forgetful of the
manifestations of these phenomena. This is the difference between science and faith.
Faith has nothing in common with something that can be seen in the light of the
world but has not yet become visible. 56 Faiths phenomenological nature is radically
different from knowledge on the basis of the visible world. True light, says
51

52
53

54
55
56

Cf. John 1:3 -5: All things came into existence through him, and without him nothing was.
What came into existence in him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light goes
on shining in the dark; it is not overcome by the dark.
Henry, Cest moi la vrit, 73.
It has nothing to with pantheism because pantheism is grounded on the metaphysical identification of God with Nature or Life; whereas the phenomenological understanding is only
grounded on experience, self-givenness, understood in a non-intentional way.
This is called sonship. Man is the son of God. Cest moi la vrit, ch. 6.
Cest moi la vrit, 73.
Cest moi la vrit, 108.

Ruud Welten, The night in John of the Cross and Michel Henry. A phenomenological
interpretation in: Studies in Spirituality 13/2003 Leuven: Peeters , pp. 214-233.

THE NIGHT IN JOHN OF THE CROSS AND M ICHEL HENRY

17

Christianity, is different from the light of the world.57 Henry recalls the blind man in
John 9: 35-38: It came to the ears of Jesus that they had put him out, and meeting
him he said, Have you faith in the Son of man? He said in answer, and who is he,
Lord? Say, so that I may have faith in him. Jesus said to him, You have seen him; it
is he who is talking to you. And he said, Lord, I have faith. And he gave him
worship. 58 In this quote, we meet all the elements mentioned above: the blind man
lives in the dark, and thanks to this darkness, he is able to believe, whereas the seer
is always searching for empirical evidence.
For John of the Cross, it is necessary to pass through the dark night in order to
attain the Divine union with God. This necessity implies the radical difference,
understood phenomenologically in Henry, between the light of the world, which is
darkness in the eyes of God, and the light of God, which is darkness in the light of
the world. John is very clear about this in the Ascent of the Mount Carmel:
The reason is that two contraries (even as philosophy teaches us)
cannot coexist in one person; and that darkness, which is affection set
upon the creatures, and light, which is God, are contrary to each other,
and have no likeness or accord between one another, even as Saint
Paul taught the Corinthians, saying [] What communion can there
be between light and darkness [II Cor 6:14]? Hence it is that the light
of Divine union cannot dwell in the soul if these affections first flee
not away from it.59

6 A RADICAL -PHENOMENOLOGICAL INTERPRETATION OF JOHN OF THE CROSS

If Henrys philosophy discloses the phenomenological arch-structure of Christianity,
is it not possible that we can find these structures elsewhere in the history of
Christianity? Although Henry claims that he does not establish the truth of
Christianity, but only describes the structure of truth in Christianity, which is
radically different from the phenomenology of the world, the revelation of this truth
is compelling due to phenomenological reasons.60 It is compelling because
Christianity is not understood as a matter of arbitrary belief, but as the disclosure of
the phenomenological structure of our ultimate reality. Does not the same hold for
John of the Cross when he describes the states of consciousness enroute to its union
with God? As said above, John is not writing a psychology for a very special
mystical stage of consciousness. For John, mysticism is not an arbitrary attitude
in life; it reveals the truth of our reality. It is not an escape from reality, but a
justification of our relation with the ultimate reality. As John of the Cross scholar
57
58
59
60

Cest moi la vrit, 111.

Cest moi la vrit, 107.
Ascent, Book I, 4, 2.
Henry, Cest moi la vrit, ch. 1, 2.

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RUUD W ELTEN

Hein Blommestijn writes: The night of John of the Cross does not entail the
tragedy of a psychological or spiritual crisis, but is ontological and eschatological in
nature. After all, it describes the ultimate reality. 61 My reading of John via Henry
underlines the importance of this thesis. The works of John of the Cross do not only
have consequences for Carmelites, but for a philosophical approach to our existence.
Combining John with Henry makes this clear. Moreover, Henrys radical
phenomenology may be very important for a theological approach to John of the
Cross as well due mainly to his new conception of immanence.
The theme of the night in John of the Cross and Michel Henry has
consequences for human existence, even if we leave aside theological motivations.
When Henry speaks of Life and Christianity, he does not mean a consciousness that
is peculiar to the life of a class of people we call Christians. It is not the cultural
definition of Christianity that counts, but the inner structure of its particular understanding of revelation. For Henry, the way to understand the words of the New
Testament is not to reduce them to historical facts or theological dogmas. As a
phemenologist, Henry recognizes in the gospel of John a phenomenological
structure that exposes the ultimate reality of Life. This is not the life of living
beings, but Life as the most inner experience of our existence: we feel, suffer, enjoy,
look, etc. without reducing these experiences to what we feel, what we suffer, etc. In
I am the Truth, Henry wants to make plausible that this Life of living beings is
described in the gospel of John as God. The elaboration of this analysis is,
nevertheless, phenomenological.
The French John of the Cross scholar Alain Cugno has, for the first time,
demonstrated the fundamental links between Michel Henry and the John of the
Cross.62 As Cugno observes, the most important and renovating concept in Henry
that helps us to understand the phenomenological structures in John of the Cross is
that of immanence. This is remarkable because mysticism is usually characterized in
terms of the counter concept of immanence, namely, transcendence. Many
theologies start from the basic assumption that God is transcendent. Henrys
philosophy offers a new view: God is not understood in terms of transcendence, but
of imma nence. This new thesis solves a problem that is peculiar to every science of
spirituality: if God is othernes s, transcendence, how can we understand the inner
revelation of God? How can we think about the inner in terms of exteriority?
Henrys conception of immanence opens new viewpoints for readers of John of the
Cross. The problem with the theological concept of transcendence is precisely that it
does not explain how we are able to find God inwardly. From a phenomenological

61

62

Hein Blommestijn, The Dark Night in John of the Cross. The Transformational Process, in:
Studies in Spirituality 10 (2000), 227-241, esp. 236; See also his Een spoor van liefde. Jan van
het Kruis als gids in de woestijn, Gent-Kampen 2000, 94.
Alain Cugno, Jean de la Croix avec Michel Henry, in: Alain David & Jean Greisch (Eds.),
Michel Henry, lepreuve de la vie. Actes de Colloque de Cerisy 1996, Paris 2001, 439 -452.
Among the John of the Cross studies of this scholar: Saint John of the Cross. Reflections on
Mystical Experience, New York 1982.

Ruud Welten, The night in John of the Cross and Michel Henry. A phenomenological
interpretation in: Studies in Spirituality 13/2003 Leuven: Peeters , pp. 214-233.

THE NIGHT IN JOHN OF THE CROSS AND M ICHEL HENRY

19

point of view, this creates an undesirable notion of God since transcendence always
implies object-manifestation, as explained above ( IV) . But a God who is an
intentional object is not theologys God described in terms of transcendence.
Moreover, how can we explain, phenomenologically, that we have to search for God
inwards when theology says he is outwards? This phenomenological viewpoint
discloses the limitations of the discourse on God as transcendence. How do we find
God per interiorem aspectum (the question is very Augustinian indeed)?63 What is
the phenomenological structure of Augustines famous quote? It is clear that the
inner path of John of the Cross is dark. Revelation, for him, is nocturnal revelation.
Henry provides a phenomenology that discloses the immanent structure of the
nocturnal revelation in John. Passivity cannot be understood on the basis of nonactivity, but on a phenomenological basis: revealing itself to itself. Henrys reading
of the night discloses the continuous attention on human experience in Johns
writings. John of the Cross never escapes into a conception of God outside of the
pathos of human existence. Man might be related to a God that is transcendent, but
his everlasting attention to the grief and torment enroute to the union with God
makes the conception of immanence plausible. The manifestation of this immanence
is radically nocturnal, invisible, and inwards. The inner, spiritual light about which
John speaks cannot be split up into interiority and exteriority. It is immanent. As
John says: this spiritual light is so simple, pure and general, not appropriated or
restricted to any particular thing. 64 It only can shine when every kind of exteriority
is abandoned. Therefore, it is very intimate. 65
Both in Henry and John, the phenomenological structure of revelation is
nocturnal. How do we know that there is another light other than the light of the
world? The point is that we cannot know this since it remains fundamentally
unknownable within the bounds of our knowledge and invisible against the horizon
of the light of the world. The only access we have to this other light is through
immediate experience; an experience that cannot be reduced to an experience of
something. This experience remains always hidden behind the veils of light. Its
veritable manifestation is that of the night.
Methodologically speaking, the problem of the traditional distinction between
the light of the world and illumination is that it seems to entail a clear distinction
between phenomenology and theology, which becomes questionable in the thoughts
of both John of the Cross and Michel Henry. If we take a closer look at the
relationship
between
the
light
of
the
world/illumination
and
phenomenology/theology, it becomes clear that it is premature and even inadequate
to attribute light to phenomenology and illumination to theology. Why? Because
illumination implies a fundamentally deeper level of phenomenality called
revelation. The distinction is not concerned with two arbitrary concepts of light;
however, the concept of illumination is necessarily the light of Truth because it
63
64
65

Augustine, Confessiones, caput VII, 8.

Dark Night, II, 8, 5.
Dark Night, II, 9, 3.

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RUUD W ELTEN

precedes every other kind of light. This means that it is premature and even wrong to
attribute the light of God to Christian believers, and the light of the world to nonbelievers. If we try to understand the concept of the light of God in Augustines
thought, for instance, this divine light is the light that precedes every other kind of
light but remains invisible within the light of the world.66 Hence, the light of God
does not take the place of the light of the world; it presupposes it.
The new French phenomenology makes it possible to re-read the central texts
of Christianity from a philosophical point of view. This link between the Spanish
mystic and the French philosopher unveils a necessary union between philosophy
and theology, realized through phenomenology yet demanding of a radical new
beginning for phenomenology itself.

SUMMARY
In the texts of John of the Cross and the French phenomenologist Michel Henry, the
night is the realm of revelation. How can we understand this seemingly
paradoxical thesis from a phenomenological point of view? This article offers a
phenomenological interpretation of the night in John of the Cross. The analysis
focuses on passivity and its role in the experience of the night. Starting from
Husserls analysis on passivity, it becomes clear that classical phenomenology
cannot understand the radical passivity as described by John of the Cross. An appeal
to contemporary radical phenomenology, offered by Michel Henry, is therefore
inevitable. It is argued that the phenomenological interpretation of the night is not
only of consequence for the science of spirituality or for the mystical attitude, but
for human existence in general.
Ruud Welten, born in 1962 (The Netherlands), is lecturer at the Catholic
Theological University at Utrecht.

66

Cf. Philip Cary, Augustines Invention of the Inner Self. The Legacy of a Christian Platonist,
Oxford-New York 2000, 73-76.

Ruud Welten, The night in John of the Cross and Michel Henry. A phenomenological
interpretation in: Studies in Spirituality 13/2003 Leuven: Peeters , pp. 214-233.