Because every single nation talks about national security, it is necessary to point out that the national security this article is concerned with is that particular kind of philosophy which at present is the basis of the justification of most Latin American military dictatorships.

In so far as these Generals and ‘Colonels’ are concerned, national security is simply the national expression of what they see as the permanent and irreconcilable conflict between capitalism (act. ually : neo-classical capitalism) and Marxism (actually: the Russian interpretation of it). So here we have our ‘black and white’. No grey can be allowed in. The military governments in South America which have, each in their own way, adopted the doctrine of ‘national security’ are Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay. There are other regimes which are more crudely dictatorial in the sense that they are simply based on family ambition. The most glaring example is Nicaragua where until recently President Somoza tried to maintain his position in the face of world-wide protest.

In the past few articles we have been tracing some of the ways in which philosophers and theologians have used the idea of the ineffability and incomprehensibility of God. They warn us insistently not to suppose that we know more about God than we actually do. Whether our understanding of God derives from philosophy or from revelation or from our own experience, they remind us that he is still largely unknown to us, mysterious and transcendent.

Those who are drawn by the idea of that “infinite ignorance” which was proclaimed by Evagrius may find all this quite delightful. But may not some people rather feel that they are left with almost no God at all? We may recall the tragic conclusion of Cassian’s account of the anthropomorphite controversy in Egypt. When at last old Paphnutius is convinced of the truth of the anti-anthropomorphite theology, he throws himself on the ground, howling. “Poor, poor me!” he cries out. “They have taken away my God and now I have no God to hold on to. I do not know whom I am to worship now or whom I am to pray to” (Coni. 10,3).

As Bowker says, “No matter how ‘God’ is constituted, if there is no feedback at all into the actual situations and experiences of life, plausibility is under maximum strain; if no effect of God can ever be discerned or specified, then in effect God is nowhere” (The Sense of God p. 84). Now maybe there is good reason for saying that that is precisely where God is. But does our negative theology not tend to make God so remote from our actual situations and experiences, does it not make it so difficult to accept anything at all as an “effect of God”, that it eventually ceases to be plausible to talk of God at all?