Apophatic theology
Apophatic theology, also known as negative theology,[1] 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 the perfect goodness that is God.[web 1] It forms a pair together with cataphatic theology, which approaches God or the Divine by affirmations or positive statements about what God is.[web 2]
"Via negativa" redirects here. For The X-Files episode, see Via Negativa (The X-Files).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.[2]
Origins and development[edit]
According to Fagenblat, "negative theology is as old as philosophy itself:" elements of it can be found in Plato's unwritten doctrines, while it is also present in Neo-Platonic, Gnostic and early Christian writers. A tendency to apophatic thought can also be found in Philo of Alexandria.[3]
According to Carabine, "apophasis proper" in Greek thought starts with Neo-Platonism, with its speculations about the nature of the One, culminating in the works of Proclus.[4] Carabine writes that there are two major points in the development of apophatic theology, namely the fusion of the Jewish tradition with Platonic philosophy in the writings of Philo, and the works of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, who infused Christian thought with Neo-Platonic ideas.[4]
The Early Church Fathers were influenced by Philo,[4] and Meredith even states that Philo "is the real founder of the apophatic tradition."[5] Yet, it was with Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite and Maximus the Confessor,[6] whose writings shaped both Hesychasm (the contemplative monastic tradition of the Eastern Orthodox Churches) and the mystical traditions of western Europe, that apophatic theology became a central element of Christian theology and contemplative practice.[4]
Elijah's hearing of a "still, small voice" at 1 Kings 19:11-13 has been proposed as a Biblical example of apophatic prayer.
Islam[edit]
Various traditions and schools in Islam (see Islamic schools and branches) draw on sundry theologies in approaching God in Islam (Allah, Arabic الله) or the ultimate reality. "Negative theology" involves the use of تَعْطِيل, ta'tīl, defined as 'setting aside', 'canceling out', 'negation', or 'nullification'.[108] The followers of the Mu'tazili school of Kalam, the spread of which is often attributed to Wasil ibn Ata, are often called the Mu'aṭṭilah ('cancelers' or 'negators'), a description, sometimes employed derogatorily, deriving from the school's descriptions of the Islamic God.[109]
Rajab ʿAlī Tabrīzī, an Iranian and Shi'ite philosopher and mystic of the 17th century, is credited with instilling an apophatic theology in a generation of philosophers and theologians whose influence extended into the Qajar period.[110] Mulla Rajab affirmed the completely unknowable,
unqualifiable, and attributeless nature of God and upheld a general view concerning God's attributes which can only be negatively 'affirmed' (that is, by affirmingly negating all that is not God about God).[110]
Shia Islam largely adopts "negative theology".[note 10][111] In the words of the Persian Ismaili missionary, Abu Yaqub al-Sijistani: "There does not exist a tanzíh ["transcendence"] more brilliant and more splendid than that by which we establish the absolute transcendence of our Originator through the use of these phrases in which a negative and a negative of a negative apply to the thing denied."[112]
Literalists completely reject and condemn any negation that would clash with the wording of the Islamic Scriptures or with the narratives ascribed to the Islamic Prophet. They therefore hold that descriptors and qualifiers that occur in the Qur'ān and in the canonized religious traditions, even if seeming or sounding humanlike such as "hand", "finger, or "foot", are to be wholly affirmed as attributes of God (not limbs).[113]
Many Sunnites, like the Ash'aris and Maturidis, adhere to some middle path or synthesis between negation and anthropomorphism, though the kind of each combination of negation and affirmation varies greatly.[113]
Bahá'í Faith[edit]
Bahá'í's believe that God is an ultimately unknowable being (see God in the Baháʼí Faith) and Bahá'í writings state that "there can be no tie of direct intercourse to bind the one true God with His creation, and no resemblance whatever can exist between the transient and the Eternal, the contingent and the Absolute."
According to the Bahá'í Faith, the only way to grow nearer to God is to gain knowledge of the Manifestation of God, who is a reflection of God's reality in a similar way to how a mirror reflects an image of the sun. Stephen Lambden has written a paper entitled, The Background and Centrality of Apophatic Theology in Bábí and Bahá'í Scripture[128] and Ian Kluge has also looked into the Apophatic Theology and the Baha'i faith in the second part of his paper, Neoplatonism and the Bahá'í Writings.[129]
Apophatic theology and atheism[edit]
Even though the via negativa essentially rejects theological understanding in and of itself as a path to God, some have sought to make it into an intellectual exercise, by describing God only in terms of what God is not. One problem noted with this approach is that there seems to be no fixed basis on deciding what God is not, unless the Divine is understood as an abstract experience of full aliveness unique to each individual consciousness, and universally, the perfect goodness applicable to the whole field of reality.[130] Apophatic theology is often accused of being a version of atheism or agnosticism, since it cannot say truly that God exists.[131] "The comparison is crude, however, for conventional atheism treats the existence of God as a predicate that can be denied ("God is nonexistent"), whereas negative theology denies that God has predicates".[132] "God or the Divine is" without being able to attribute qualities about "what He is" would be the prerequisite of positive theology in negative theology that distinguishes theism from atheism. "Negative theology is a complement to, not the enemy of, positive theology".[133] Since religious experience—or consciousness of the holy or sacred, is not reducible to other kinds of human experience, an abstract understanding of religious experience cannot be used as evidence or proof that religious discourse or praxis can have no meaning or value.[134] In apophatic theology, the negation of theisms in the via negativa also requires the negation of their correlative atheisms if the dialectical method it employs is to maintain integrity.[135]