Presence and Absence: God as ’Nothing’ in Christian Tradition

A dazzling intellectual and theological journey through 5000 years of history, in pursuit of the radical Jewish and Christian idea of God as an ineffable mystery that underlies all existence.

Presence and Absence challenges the underlying assumption of both believers and atheists that their arguments depend on proof that God either exists or that God doesn’t exist. Instead, Gilbert Márkus demonstrates a long and rich tradition in Jewish and Christian writings of viewing ’God’ not as a particular entity, but as the mystery which underlies all that exists. As Aquinas noted, ＂We are joined to God as to the unknown.＂ Markus identifies it in the Bible, in the thought of Augustine, Aquinas and Eckhart, and in the poetry of R.S. Thomas and Paul Celan. He explores its significance in relation to Hegel, Feuerbach and Marx.

In the final part of the book, he shines the ’single white light’ of the idea through various prisms, inviting the reader to meditate and pray on the idea of ＂God as Nothing,＂ of eternity, outside the continuum of time.

＂Márkus has an engaging way with words and a playful approach to how language works towards God as Nothing...This is analytical theology at its most accessible.＂--Rt. Rev’d. Dr. John Saxbee, Church Times