When mystics try to describe their experiences, they often say the same thing: words fail. Philosophers have taken this seriously, spending decades debating whether mystical experience is truly “ineffable” — beyond what language can capture. But what if the real question isn’t whether mystics can speak, but what they’re doing when they do? Dr. Olli-Pekka Vainio, Professor of Systematic Theology at the University of Helsinki, argues that the ineffability debate has reached a dead end. “If ineffability were absolute, we would not even understand the claim,” he notes. “All claims of ineffability would be just noise, which they obviously are not.” His project shifts the focus from what mystical language cannot do to what it actually accomplishes.
Words That Do More Than Describe
Vainio and his team treat mystical assertions as a special kind of speech act. When a mystic uses startling or paradoxical language, the goal is not simply to describe an inner state. It is to provoke a response in the reader or listener — to teach in a way that ordinary instruction cannot. The project asks: What kind of speech acts are implied in mystical theology? What are their social aims? This approach opens a second line of inquiry. If mystical language works differently than ordinary description, it may also shed light on perennialism — the idea that different religions are culturally specific expressions of a common spiritual reality. Recent defenses of perennialism have recognized that mystical language needs closer study. If divine reality can only be approached through an “apophatic” attitude (one that affirms by negating), how can anyone be sure different traditions are encountering the same thing?
Beyond the Impasse
Vainio and his team’s research works at the intersection of analytic philosophy, theology, and comparative religion. By treating mystical claims as actions rather than failed descriptions, the project offers a way past the long-standing impasse in how scholars talk about mysticism. The results could reshape debates about whether the world’s spiritual traditions share something at their core — and whether the language of mystics, far from being mere noise, is one of our most powerful tools for reaching across difference.