Julian's Apophatic and Eschatological Theology
Julian's Theology
I have done all this [creating all things], by the same power wisdom and goodness I shall make all things well which are not well, and you will see it."
Julian's Apophatic and Eschatological Theology Finally, on another level, the final chapter 86 of Julian's Long Text also suggests that her teachings are necessarily open‐ended. "This book is begun by God's gift and his grace, but it is not yet performed, as I see it."
Julian's theological journey is necessarily incomplete because authentic theology takes us to the boundaries of the knowable: "a marvellous great mystery hidden in God," as Julian suggests in chapter 27. This is both a reference to Julian's incomplete understanding and also to the necessarily on‐going process of God's relationship with humanity which will find completion only in "heavenly joy."
For all its emphasis on her God‐given visions and her rich use of imagery, Julian's theology is at the same time a theology of "seeing" (that is, of knowing) in a new way but also a theology of "unknowing" at the deepest level. In short, Julian's writings are a balance of positive (kataphatic) theology and negative (apophatic) theology. Julian's writings are famously fully of imagery and she is also clear in making certain affirmations about the nature of God. However, Julian is also clear that in her revelations she has not been given any complete or definitive knowledge about God. As we have seen, Julian's overall theological process is not a form of analytical reasoning and her affirmations about God are not a matter of reaching certain conclusions through logical deduction. Rather, in her revelations Julian senses what might be called a "surplus of meaning" that she cannot conclusively understand but which she feels the need to return to again and again over many years. In Julian's own words, after she received her revelations "I desired many times to know in what was our Lord's meaning." As her final chapter 86 makes clear, more than
15 years later she received further spiritual insight. "Know it well, love was his meaning…. Remain in this and you will know more of the same.
But you will never know different, without end."
As a revelation of love, Julian's text is not a consecutive and highly structured narrative. On the contrary, it is a meditative circling around the key themes of her teaching that are aimed at all her fellow Christians.
For Julian, any one theme she presents immediately calls up other important issues. In addition, there is an on‐going connection between the themes of time and eternity in her text. What does it mean to learn that "all manner of thing will be well"? God continually reminds her that God does not see things in sequential terms or in terms of sharp distinctions between past, present and future. Consequently, there is necessarily an