This article attempts an exploration of the limits of our capacity to weave suffering into patterns of meaning. I try to show that something like an apophatic moment in our response to some kinds of suffering is both necessary and difficult to sustain. From this emerges a question about the relationship between this ‘something like apophasis’ before suffering, on the one hand, and unknowing in face of the mystery of God, on the other. I argue against a tendency in some modern theology to elide one into the other – against a tendency to absorb the ‘mystery of suffering’ into the ‘mystery of God.’ The article concludes with the suggestion that in order to avoid such an elision, and other forms of false reconciliation with suffering, Christian theology needs to maintain a commitment to a future‐oriented eschatology, a real – if unimaginable – eschatological hope.

中文翻译：

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消极神学与无意义的苦难

本文试图探索我们将痛苦编织成意义模式的能力的极限。我试图表明，在我们对某些类型的痛苦做出反应时，类似的消沉时刻是必要的，也是难以维持的。由此产生了一个问题，即一方面在受苦之前的这种“类似失语症”与另一方面在上帝的奥秘面前一无所知之间的关系。我反对某些现代神学中的一种倾向，即从一个事物中剔除另一个事物——反对将“苦难的奥秘”吸收到“上帝的奥秘”中的趋势。文章的结尾建议，为了避免这种省略，以及其他形式的与苦难的错误和解，基督教神学需要保持对面向未来的末世论的承诺，