On Negation
I slept fitfully last night, and it left me feeling tense. I woke up and tried to relax my tight shoulder muscles, breathed deeply for a few minutes, and drifted back to sleep. When I woke up again around 5AM, it was with a sense of calm. I had been dreaming.
My dream was not the usual muddled story vignettes embodying my fears and worries, but a simple, peaceful feeling in the contemplation of an abstract concept. I was resting with the idea of negation or The Negative. I was confused as I thought about it. Why would I feel a calm sense of wholeness and negation at once? Shouldn’t I feel negativity?
Then I remembered climbing the seemingly unending stairs of my home in Sandy Lake, Ontario as a toddler just learning to count. “One, two, three.” Am I at the top yet? No. “Four, five, six.” This went on until I arrived triumphantly at the top. But I wasn’t done counting. I’d counted all the steps, why not count all the numbers?
Soon, I exhausted my counting ability—probably before reaching 100. I found my mother nearby and asked for her help to count all the numbers. When she finished laughing, she explained that I would never reach the end of the numbers.
I felt shock at that revelation, and a little shame at my oversight, but instantly my mind caught fire. The boundaries of my worldview exploded. Infinity. I was awe-struck, and felt so small amid the immensity of this idea. Was I traveling into the mind of God himself?
Infinity revealed itself to me through a negative answer to the question, “Can I count all the numbers?” And negation in the sense of subtraction is one consequence of comprehending infinity. If we are so small by comparison, we are not here for ourselves, but for something greater—someone greater. As the wild-eyed, camel-hair-clothed, honey-and-locust-eating prophet John the Baptist said of Jesus of Nazareth, “He must increase, and I must decrease.” The arrival of someone infinitely greater than him meant that John needed to point toward the greater one and acknowledge that when he had done that his ministry would be obsolete. His decrease was the fulfillment of his life purpose.
In a small way, my season of life is similar. I still think I’m young, but I’m the old guy in terms of a technical career. It is time for me to step back and allow the next generation to step up. I hope I still have many productive years ahead, but the youngsters must increase and I must decrease. After all, that’s the point of having experience. We are entrusted with wisdom to pass it on, and I hope what I have to share will be of some use, allowing others to thrive where I struggled. My diminishment will provide room for them to grow, fulfilling my role and allowing me to transition to the next calling God has waiting for me.
Passing on what I have learned will hopefully help others avoid my mistakes. After all, many of my struggles were self-inflicted, and avoidable. I sometimes gave in to melancholy, and still do. When I am discouraged, I can be endlessly creative, turning positive to negative by amplifying its downside. I’m gratified that my children have become young adults I’m delighted to know. But this success means they are on their own—without me. I miss snuggling on the couch. And I have a challenging job with supportive colleagues and interesting projects to tackle. But employment requires me to spend all day working according to the needs and wants of others. I’m not always free to follow my own curiosity. As you can see, unhealthy negation turns us into gloomy buzzkills.
Gloominess is not the path forward, so instead let’s turn to the double negative. This humble logical operation is a reminder that negatives can be redeemed. Maybe your most painful experience was given just to demonstrate that God can negate it—turning pain into purpose, weeping into a weapon. God has promised us this. He says everything will work together for good to those who love him and are called according to his purpose. God says, “No!” to our deepest hurts and turns our wounds into wisdom. He makes the wounded trustworthy guides and protectors, equipping them with empathy and insight they could not gain any other way.
I would not wish evil on anyone, but when we open ourselves to trust in God through faith in Jesus Christ, he can bring breathtaking beauty from the ugliness of pain, resentment, and despair. Human beings can’t do this, only God can negate evil with absolute finality.
There is a rich stream of Christian thought known as apophatic theology that acknowledges the profound mystery of God. Since he is beyond all human comprehension, we do well to describe him in terms we can understand. Rather than saying what he is, we say what he is not. God is not finite. He has no limits. Our best response may be to reduce ourselves to silent awe when we see this truthfully. But cataphatic theology asserts the validity of using our limited understanding to point to God as infinitely greater. This overflows in words of praise and worship. God is the negation of finitude, and that reality grounds an overflowing of abundance without limit.
Negation is a powerful spiritual weapon. Infinity itself is an operation that answers the question, “Is this all there is?” with a resounding “No!” And the greatest hill in history is an evil cross. What was an instrument of political domination and torture now stands as a cosmic plus sign. Defiant in the face of corruption of every kind, it says, “Even this can be turned to good.” This unspeakable travesty and miscarriage of justice is the portal to eternal life. Jesus died there on our behalf, but the Kingdom of Heaven invaded earth through his dead body in a tomb. His resurrection inaugurated a new age in which we share in his life through faith but still await the full realization of his power. When it is fully realized, God’s kingdom will turn every negative humanity has experienced into an ultimate positive so powerful it will inspire worship where once there was only weeping and wretchedness. Our no will be negated. It will become yes with absolute finality.
For all the promises of God find their Yes in him. That is why it is through him that we utter our Amen unto God for his glory.
— 2 Corinthians 1:20 ESV
