[lit-ideas] Re: Kataphatic, Negative and Apophatic Theology

From: JulieReneB@xxxxxxx
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Fri, 6 Aug 2004 00:50:07 EDT
When someone says "negative theology" I think of two things.  One is  "ayin" 
in Judaic Kabbalism.  Kabbalists refer to God as "Lo" which  means "not".  God 
is not anything that can be described or which ex -  ists.  Stands outside.   
God is that which cannot be  predicated.  That about which nothing can wholly 
or accurately be  said.  God is that about which nothing True can be said.  
So in some  way he is Not.  The other is a piece from the Tripartite Tractate 
from the  Nag Hammadi codices -- "If he is incomprehensible, then it follows 
that he is  unknowable, that he is the one who is inconceivable by any thought, 
invisible in  any thing, ineffable by any word, untouchable by any hand.  He 
alone is the  one who knows himself as he is, along with his form and his 
greatness and his  magnitude, and who has the ability to conceive of himself, 
to 
see himself, to  name himself, to comprehend himself, since he alopne is the 
one 
who is his own  mind, his own eye, his own mouth, his own form, and the one 
who conceives of  himself, who sees himself, who speaks of himself, who 
comprehends himself,  namely, the inconceivable, ienffable, the 
incomprehensilbe, 
unchanging one.  <snip> it is in silence that he keeps himself, he who is the 
great one,  who is the cause of bringing the Totalities into their eternal 
being."   Which of your three catagories would either of these fit, Phil?  Do 
you  
consider Catholic medieval mystics (any) to have embraced either "negative  
theology"?  What about Simone Weil?  She surely embraced an aspect of  negative 
theology as part of her paradox.  And what is a parallel  philosophy?  I have 
always considered Derrida to be doing the linguistic  and philosophical 
equivalent, parallel, of negative theology in his work.   You see why I once 
asked 
what your background was.  I even think that if  Christianity applied Derridean 
deconstructionism to their sacred texts it would  look very much like negative 
theology.  Derrida studied Jewish  mysticism.  Christians are terrified of 
anything other than formulaic  literary criticism.  
 
Julie Krueger
 
========Original Message========
    Subj: [lit-ideas] Kataphatic, Negative and Apophatic Theology  Date: 
8/5/2004 11:14:43 PM Central Daylight Time  From: _phil.enns@xxxxxxxxxxxx 
(mailto:phil.enns@xxxxxxxxxxx)   To: _lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
(mailto:lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx)   Sent on:    

Chris Bruce wrote:

"there is 'negative theology' (about which I  would appreciate someone
posting a few words).

Below is something  about negative theology, though unfortunately not a
few words.

In  theology, three ways of 'knowing' God are distinguished.  The first
is  kataphatic, which affirms the ability to make positive statements
about  God.  The second is via negativa, which affirms that only  negative
statements can be made about God.  This is often confused with  apophatic
theology.  Apophatic theology asserts that not even negative  statements
can be said of God.  At first glance there may not seem to be  much of a
difference between via negativa and apophatic theology, which  would
explain why they are often used confused with each other, but there  is.
One might say that via negativa belongs to the Aristotelian  tradition
that comes to dominate Christian theology after Duns Scotus  while
apophatic theology belongs to the Platonic tradition, which finds  its
fullest expression in Aquinas.

Plato, in the Timaeus, makes it  clear that any talk of the divine must
be analogical.  First of all, the  divine cannot be an object of
understanding: "But the father and maker of all  this universe is past
finding out; and even if we found him, to tell of him  to all men would
be impossible."  Second, language is inadequate for the  job of talking
directly about the divine: "And in speaking of the copy and  the original
we may assume that words are akin to the matter which they  describe;
when they relate to the lasting and permanent and intelligible,  they
ought to be lasting and unalterable, and, as far as their nature  allows,
irrefutable and immovable-nothing less. But when they express only  the
copy or likeness and not the eternal things themselves, they need  only
be likely and analogous to the real words."  Finally, we as mortals  are
limited and therefore must be satisfied with what is probable: "for  we
must remember that I who am the speaker, and you who are the judges,  are
only mortal men, and we ought to accept the tale which is probable  and
enquire no further".  Surely this is a warning against thinking that  our
talk of God somehow gets us to God's essence without resorting to  the
figurative.

Plotinus makes it clear in the Fifth Ennead that the  divine is not a
thing, has no being, but is, rather, the generator of being:  "The One is
all things and no one of them; the source of all things is not  all
things; all things are its possession- running back, so to speak, to  it-
or, more correctly, not yet so, they will be".  And every kind  of
understanding of the divine is a representation of the divine  and
therefore a downward movement, or a movement away from the divine.   In
other words, all understanding, even the purest kind, is only a  mirror
or reflection, and therefore must be taken analogically.

It  seems to me that the significance of the Christological controversies
of the  first few centuries of the Christian Church lies in their ruling
out ways of  talking about God that give positive content to God's
nature.  Which  leads to the apophaticism of the Cappadocians such as
Gregory of Nazianzus  who writes:

"God always was, and always is, and always will be. Or  rather, God
always Is. For Was and Will be are fragments of our time, and  of
changeable nature, but He is Eternal Being. And this is the Name that  He
gives to Himself when giving the Oracle to Moses in the Mount. For  in
Himself He sums up and contains all Being, having neither beginning  in
the past nor end in the future; like some great Sea of Being,  limitless
and unbounded, transcending all conception of time and nature,  only
adumbrated by the mind, and that very dimly and scantily ... not by  His
Essentials, but by His Environment; one image being got from one  source
and another from another, and combined into some sort of presentation  of
the truth, which escapes us before we have caught it, and takes  to
flight before we have conceived it, blazing forth upon our  Master-part,
even when that is cleansed, as the lightning flash which will  not stay
its course, does upon our sight ..." (Oration 38)

In other  words, our talk of God is always analogical, distanced from God
like a flash  of light in a mirror.

In "On Christian Doctrine" Augustine  writes:

"Have I spoken of God, or uttered His praise, in any worthy  way?  Nay, I
feel that I have done nothing more than desire to speak;  and if I have
said anything, it is not what I desired to say. How do I know  this,
except from the fact that God is unspeakable? But what I have said,  if
it had been unspeakable, could not have been spoken.  And so God is  not
even to be called "unspeakable," because to say even this is to speak  of
Him. Thus there arises a curious contradiction of words, because if  the
unspeakable is what cannot be spoken of, it is not unspeakable if it  can
be called unspeakable.  And this opposition of words is rather to  be
avoided by silence than to be explained away by speech. And yet  God,
although nothing worthy of His greatness can be said of Him,  has
condescended to accept the worship of men's mouths, and has desired  us
through the medium of our own words to rejoice in His praise. For  on
this principle it is that He is called Dues (God). For the sound  of
those two syllables in itself conveys no true knowledge of His  nature;
but yet all who know the Latin tongue are led, when that sound  reaches
their ears, to think of a nature supreme in excellence and eternal  in
existence."

Which brings us to probably the best example of an  apophatic theologian,
Pseudo-Dionysius.

"There is neither logos, name,  or knowledge of it.  It is not dark nor
light, not error, and not  truth.  There is universally neither position
nor denial of it.   While there are produced positions and denials of
those after it, we neither  position nor deny it." (_Divine Names_)

No words can express God's nature  including the words "No words can
express God's nature".  This  contradiction must be left aside in favour
of the further understanding that  God encourages us to talk about God.
So, we are encouraged to talk about God  but always with the mental
reservation that this talk of God is analogical,  agnostic when it comes
to the manner in which our words map onto  God.

It is with Aquinas that, in my opinion, we have the best balance  of
kataphatic, negative and apophatic theology.

"Thus all names  applied metaphorically to God, are applied to creatures
primarily rather than  to God, because when said of God they mean only
similitudes to such  creatures. For as 'smiling' applied to a field means
only that the field in  the beauty of its flowering is like the beauty of
the human smile by  proportionate likeness, so the name of 'lion' applied
to God means only that  God manifests strength in His works, as a lion in
his. Thus it is clear that  applied to God the signification of names can
be defined only from what is  said of creatures. But to other names not
applied to God in a metaphorical  sense, the same rule would apply if
they were spoken of God as the cause  only, as some have supposed. For
when it is said, 'God is good,' it would  then only mean 'God is the
cause of the creature's goodness'; thus the term  good applied to God
would included in its meaning the creature's goodness.  Hence 'good'
would apply primarily to creatures rather than to God. But as  was shown
above (2), these names are applied to God not as the cause only,  but
also essentially. For the words, 'God is good,' or 'wise,' signify  not
only that He is the cause of wisdom or goodness, but that these exist  in
Him in a more excellent way. Hence as regards what the name  signifies,
these names are applied primarily to God rather than to  creatures,
because these perfections flow from God to creatures; but as  regards the
imposition of the names, they are primarily applied by us to  creatures
which we know first. Hence they have a mode of signification  which
belongs to creatures, as said above..(ST I,13, a.6)

God can be  referred to only figuratively, and that is through either
metaphor or  analogy.  In both cases, signification is possible through
the  participation of the divine in all of creation.  This is the
Platonic  element in Aquinas.  When theology uses metaphor, it draws on
the  similarity between cause and effect where the world is the effect of
God's  creative activity.  So, God can be likened to a lion or any other
part  of creation.  When theology uses analogy, it draws on the intuition
that  some parts of creation require a perfection.  So, God can be called
Good  or Wise because we recognize gradations of goodness and wisdom.  In
both  its metaphorical and analogical form, theology signifies God but
the  signification always remains firmly fixed in the created  order.

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