Deus absconditus et incomprehensibilis

Martin Luther referred to the numinous as the deus absconditus et incomprehensibilis, the hidden and incomprehensible God. And I think, it is not refusal, but paradoxical approach to understanding. A wide variety of religious, mystical or historical figures have tried to put into words their experience of the numinous. But the general in them is impossibility to state it. In the 1st century St. Paul spoke of it as "the peace which passes all understanding." In the 14th century Meister Eckhart described it as the "primal bottom" grounding the soul.

"We make assertions and denials of what is next to it, but never of it, for it is both beyond every assertion, being the perfect and unique cause of all things, and, by virtue of its preeminently simple and absolute nature, free of every limitation, beyond every limitation ; it is also beyond every denial." --- Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite

"Beyond this enjoys 'stations' and 'states' with The God Most High which are difficult to describe. Indeed some speak of them as 'isolation' and 'identity', and some speak of a divine indwelling in the soul. Anyone who is not firmly grounded in this science and is visited by such an ecstasy, cannot give a full description of what he experiences. Whatever he says sounds like plain infidelity." --- Al-Ghazâlî

Jesus said : "If those who lead You say to You : 'See, the Kingdom is in heaven !', then the birds of the sky will be there before You. If they say to You, 'It is in the sea !', then the fish will be there before You. But the Kingdom is inside You and outside You. --- Gospel of Thomas

"There the eye goes not ; Speech goes not, nor the mind. We know not, we understand not how one would teach It. Other, indeed, is It than the known, and moreover above the unknown. Thus have we heard of the ancients who to us have explained It." --- Kena Upanishad (first khanda, 3)