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

  • From: Austin Meredith <Kouroo@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Fri, 06 Aug 2004 11:14:27 -0400

>What about Simone Weil?  She surely embraced an aspect of  negative 
>theology as part of her paradox.

In Negative Theology the meaning of a locution such as "the worship of God" 
is negative in that it contains nothing whatever that is positive. It 
contains no assertion whatever as to the existence or reality or 
characteristics of God. It consisting totally and exclusively in a 
thorough-going refusal to participate in any idolatry -- that is, in any 
worship of anything that is not God. For instance, when a "religious" 
person praises the power of God, as in the hymn "A Mighty Fortress Is Our 
God," a practitioner of Negative Theology responds: "You are worshiping, 
not God, but power. You are an idolator, and not superior to any other 
idolator."

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