Grace & Peace!
**rossum
As Mark Siderits (1989) has put it, “the ultimate truth is that there is no ultimate truth.”**
This does not conform to my view that the ultimate truth is God. So I can only conclude that this brand of Buddhism is atheistic, since the speaker makes himself, not God, the source of a sole ultimate truth.
I don’t think that either Siderits or Nagarjuna are making the claim you seem to believe they’re making. What they’re doing is inviting us deeper into a linguistic game so that we can test the limits of our “knowledge” of the Real by recognizing that how we conceive of the Real cannot be completely (or “ultimately”) true, subject as it is to the limitations of our thinking and the limitations of language. “The ultimate truth is that there is no ultimate truth” is (happily and paradoxically) not an actual truth claim. It can’t be. That’s the fun of it. And it’s in the experience of the actual fun of it that we can get closer to what Siderits and Nagarjuna are getting at.
In our own tradition, we can find a related school of thought that takes Paul as it’s touchstone: “For now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face; Now I know in part, but then shall I know, even as also I am known.” This school is, of course, the Via Negativa of the mystics. And there are few better than the great (Pseudo) Dionysius the Areopagite to articulate what this way of thinking is about. Here are some pertinent sections from the brief tract “The Mystical Theology” (emphasis mine):
…]dear Timothy, in the diligent exercise of mystical contemplation, leave behind the senses and the operations of the intellect, and all things sensible and intellectual, and all things in the world of being and nonbeing, that you may arise by unknowing towards the union, as far as is attainable, with it that transcends all being and all knowledge. For by the unceasing and absolute renunciation of yourself and of all things you may be borne on high, through pure and entire self-abnegation, into the superessential Radiance of the Divine Darkness.
…] the higher we soar in contemplation the more limited become our expressions of that which is purely intelligible; even as now, when plunging into the Darkness that is above the intellect, we pass not merely into brevity of speech, but even into absolute silence of thoughts and of words.
…]ascending yet higher, we maintain that it is neither soul nor intellect; nor has it imagination, opinion, reason or understanding; nor can it be expressed or conceived, since it is neither number nor order; nor greatness nor smallness; nor equality nor inequality; nor similarity nor dissimilarity; neither is it standing, nor moving, nor at rest; neither has it power nor is power, nor is light; neither does it live nor is it life; neither is it essence, nor eternity nor time; nor is it subject to intelligible contact; nor is it science nor truth, nor kingship nor wisdom; neither one nor oneness, nor godhead nor goodness; nor is it spirit according to our understanding, nor filiation, nor paternity; nor anything else known to us or to any other beings of the things that are or the things that are not;
neither does anything that is know it as it is; nor does it know existing things according to existing knowledge; neither can the reason attain to it, nor name it, nor know it; neither is it darkness nor light, nor the false nor the true;
nor can any affirmation or negation be applied to it, for although we may affirm or deny the things below it, we can neither affirm nor deny it, inasmuch as the all-perfect and unique Cause of all things transcends all affirmation, and the simple pre-eminence of Its absolute nature is outside of every negation-
free from every limitation and beyond them all.
Under the Mercy,
Mark
All is Grace and Mercy! Deo Gratias!
