On Apophatic Theology
To do justice to this quasi-refutation, I will attempt to explain briefly what Apophatic Theology is, as a theological tradition within Christian and particularly Catholic circles. I will do so generally because at present my thoughts are quite general on the matter, and I do not wish to begin too ambitious a goal for myself as I write this.
Apophatic Theology, known as the “Negative Way” or Negative Theology, is a theological foundation for pursuing a better understanding of the nature of God. This basis for apprehending “knowledge” of his nature consists of no positive attribution to his essence that we would think in so far as positively describing it. To make a positive assertion to his essence can be demonstrated as uttering, “God is all-powerful”. In this example, the speaker is claiming a positive attribute is within the definition of God. Another example would be to claim, “God is good”.
Negative Theology approaches God in a quite different manner. In fact, the two traditions are diametrically opposed to one another. This reason stems from the psychological implication of believing one bears confidence as opposed to one bearing modesty in so far as perceiving one’s self juxtaposed to that of God’s imagined being. The imagination of mind attempts, as best as possible when making a positive assertion, to give God material presence. Positive Theology, as it were, finds itself smeared across populations and the masses, for it is far easier to comprehend as a social norm. Every day we engage the world through positive qualification of things only in so far to give them a place in our minds for understanding. Now a thing may be positively asserted as being good or bad, but nonetheless the description of that thing maintains a positive existence in our minds.
The opposing theological school, as said, approaches God in a contrary manner. Psychological and social implications aside, I believe it will be sufficient to sooth my interest on this discussion for now to focus on the theological weight of this tradition. As I have explained, Positive Theology asserts positive claims which fall under the essence or are within the definition of God. On the face of it, you may find yourself easily perceiving that Negative Theologians do the opposite of this. However, I do not feel that essentially this is so, but I get ahead of myself; I have not given you a proper example of how these thinkers work.
“God is not ignorant”; “God is not weak”. These and similar phrases lay the groundwork for how, in principle, this theological system endeavors to understand the true nature of God. Now we must understand that at the root of any theological system there exists the tenet for understanding. If this is not so, then we may dismiss any theology as advocating only blind obedience and myopic tradition. This is not in the best interest of human nature, and further it simply is not how human nature operates.
Now, what is the trick up the sleeve of this theology? It generally feels awkward and counterintuitive to suggest that one must approach God by a negative. What do positives and negatives mean to God, anyway? The question may be rubbed out with an answer that explains the infinite nature of God. The negative theologian must meditate on all those positive attributes we normally ascribe to God and erase them from the list of his or her mind. At this point, when no further attribute can be wiped away, we are left with what God, in essence, truly must be. Now this list may be long or brief, for human ingenuity can tackle the crucial attributes of God in possibly one single jump. “God is not evil”; well, certainly we have left ourselves to put God only within the domain of all things which are not evil. However, in order to make this non-assertion intelligible, we must make a false assumption somewhere along this line of argument. God has to be something positive at some point. All things not evil does not say much of anything about anything. Further, and more importantly, one must define what evil is before it can be said that something is not evil. So essentially, a positive assertion is being made, regardless of how superficially one attempts to twist the layout of the situation.
What this tradition of theology leads to is nothing more than a test of human wit and memory, grasping wildly for positive descriptors only to toss them out the window of our mind. Yet it must make the fundamental assumption that these descriptors even bear meaning and that this cannot be ascribed to God’s essence. This does not lead to understanding, but only imaginative gymnastics. Further, we find ourselves uttering unintelligible nonsense if we are to ascribe attributes to God through a negative method because at the base of it, God’s infinite essence cannot be described with our feeble language in principle. Therefore, the negative theologian has done only a disservice to the whole of theological tradition by making God a concept which requires feats of human wit to even discuss casually. In principle, this form of theology must assume that words bear concrete meaning. Since this is the case, they positively assert something of God only except through a confounded and absurd manner.