The great Thomas Aquinas, toward the end of his life, wouldn't write and wouldn't talk; he had seen.
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It's as if you had never tasted a green mango and you ask me, "What does it taste like?" I'd say to you, "Sour," but in giving you a word, I've put you off the track. Try to understand that. Most people aren't very wise; they seize upon the word - upon the words of scripture, for example - and they get it all wrong. "Sour," I say, and you ask, "Sour like vinegar, sour like a lemon?" No, not sour like a lemon, but sour like a mango. "But I never tasted one," you say. Too bad! But you go ahead and write a doctoral thesis on it. You wouldn't have if you had tasted it.
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A great German philosopher and theologian wrote a whole book specificaly on the silence of St. Thomas. He simply went silent. Wouldn't talk. In the prologue of his Summa Theologica, which was the summary of all his theology, he says, "About God, we cannot say what He is but rather what He is not."
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We think we know, that is our tragedy; so we never discover.
- Awareness, by Anthony De Mello
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