Concept
Apophatic theology
Overview
Apophatic theology, also known as negative theology and the Via Negativa, is a form of theological thinking and religious practice which attempts to approach God, the Divine, by negation, to speak only in terms of what may not be said about God. It is the opposite equivalent of cataphatic theology (also known as affirmative theology), which approaches God or the Divine by affirmations or positive statements about what God is.
The apophatic tradition is often, though not always, allied with the approach of mysticism, which aims at the vision of God, the perception of the divine reality beyond the realm of ordinary perception.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
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Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men."[425] This is despised as a weak and foolish thing by those who are wise and strong in themselves; yet this is the grace which heals the weak, who do not proudly boast a blessedness of their own, but rather humbly acknowledge their real misery. 29. _Of the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, which the Platonists in…
of Hippo Augustine, The City of God, Volume I
States what Apophatic theology is; the author is tied to Apophatic theology in the knowledge graph.
This applies most conspicuously to the intellect, the action of which remains in the intelligent agent. For whenever we understand, by the very fact of understanding there proceeds something within us, which is a conception of the object understood, a conception issuing from our intellectual power and proceeding from our knowledge of that object. This conception is signified by the spoken word; and it is called the…
Aquinas Thomas, Summa Theologica, Part I
States what Apophatic theology is; the author is tied to Apophatic theology in the knowledge graph.
His profound instinct of self-preservation stands against truth ever coming into honour in any way, or even getting stated. Wherever the influence of theologians is felt there is a transvaluation of values, and the concepts "true" and "false" are forced to change places: whatever is most damaging to life is there called "true," and whatever exalts it, intensifies it, approves it, justifies it and makes it triumphant…
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, The Antichrist
States what Apophatic theology is.
Philosophers who discussed Apophatic theology
- Al-Farabi
- Simone Weil
- Adi Shankara
- Maimonides
- Meister Eckhart
- Philo
- Thomas Aquinas
- Nagarjuna
- Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite
- Harold Bloom
- Al-Kindi
- Nicholas of Cusa
- Rudolf Otto
- Islam
- Aleksandr Dugin
- Eugene Thacker
- Vladimir Lossky
- Maarten Boudry
Related ideas
- Ātman (Hinduism)
- Eastern Orthodox Church
- Patrologia Latina
- Analogy
- The Guide for the Perplexed
- The Independent
- Bernard Lonergan
- John Scotus Eriugena
- Yale University Press
- Jesus
- Brahma Sutras
- Bhartṛhari
- First Epistle to the Corinthians
- Miracles (book)
- Sudden awakening
- Gnosticism
- Stanford University Press
- Gregory Palamas
- Herodotus
- Homer
- Hesiod
- Heraclitus
- Bahya ibn Paquda
- Prajnaparamita
Opposing perspectives
Place in the tradition
Part of Agnosticism.