Apaphatic and Cataphatic way

The negative way- talking about what God is not, not what God is. (Opposite of the cataphatic way).

 

Pseudo-Dionysius was a 5th century Christian Theologian

 

Insists on speaking negatively about God

 

He considered God as ‘beyond assertion’ because he is the ‘most perfect and unique of all things’, this is because of God’s ‘pre-eminently simple and absolute nature, free of any limitation, beyond every limitation’.

 

We run into problems when trying to talk about God ‘positively’- that is to make statements about what we know about God.

 

This is a problem because God is transcendent: can we really know anything about the nature of God?

 

This approach denies the possibility of describing God in concrete terms

 

Such terms seem to reduce God to the human level of understanding

 

1 John 4.16- ‘And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.’ - CATAPHATIC

 

God’s love is incomparable with any love humans can feel so the only way we can talk about Him is negatively.

Cataphatic

 

Cognitive language- language that attempts to describe something true or false about reality

Language which has a single interpretation

Objective

Facts

 

Non cognitive language- language that does not try to describe something objective in reality

Language is subjective, and open to interpretation

Non factual

 

Truth aptness- a statement which has the potential to be true or false

 

Univocal language- words which mean the same thing when used in different contexts- a singe cognitive meaning in all contexts

 

Equivocal language- Words have multiple cognitive meanings- it depends on the context

 

Analogy: the principle of analogy follows from the observation that to use language univocally or equivocally of God creates particular difficulties for the believer. Thus, Aquinas rejected both univocal and equivocal language as ways of speaking about God

 

Univocal- language has one objective meaning

Aquinas rejects it because God is perfect, and is therefore not the same as humans. Therefore the language we use for both is not the same, words have different meanings, and so language cannot be used in this way

Aquinas- 'but no blame belongs to God in the same sense that it belongs to creature; for instance, wisdom in creatures is a quality, but in God

 

If the way we speak about both God and humans is the same, we run into the problem of anthropomorphism

There is an inherent problem in speaking about God and humans in the same terms

Hume warns against anthropomorphism in his criticism of the design argument (link)

Aquinas argues that religious language cannot be univocal, so he moves on to the other possibility; equivocal language

 

Equivocal

Aquinas rejects it equivocal language because it leaves us unable to understand what our words mean when they are applied to God

If we are to assert that equivocal language lets us talk meaningfully about God, we are saying that the words we use to refer to God have a different meaning to when we use them to refer to humans

Speaking equivocally means that we cannot profess to know anything about God as we are saying that the language we use does not apply to God

 

Strengths

Weaknesses

.The Bible speaks of God in a cataphatic way- 1 John 4.16- 'God is love'.                        

.Some things do not need to be known to us- the Bible provides us with all the knowledge we need

. The process of negation is too long to be of any use. - Maimonide's analogy of the ship- the 10th person thinks about whether the ship is solid. Yes it is solid, but it doesn’t provide a sufficient definition of a ship.

. The process of negation leaves gaps which need to be filled by the imagination- e.g. fence analogy- you have to imagine what is on the other side of the fence

. Ultimately, arguing what God is not gets us no closer to true knowledge of what God is

. Revealed theology- Christians believe that God chooses to reveal His nature to humans, and in doing so giving us positive knowledge of God. This suggests that through revelation, we can know about God in positive terms

. Christians believe that God wants humans to come to know Him so that He can have a relationship with us. That is, after all, the purpose of the incarnation.

. Natural theology: believes that we can draw positive conclusions about God's nature by combining observation of the world with our reason

.Which ever side of the debate between natural and revealed theology you fall upon, both claim knowledge of God is formed in a positive way

. Christians believe that we can know God. Knowledge of His nature is a basis for faith i.e. He is worthy of our worship because He is omnipotent and benevolent

.Arguing that we can speak more accurately about God in negative terms is problematic for Christians, as the phrase 'God does not exist' is more accurate than 'God exists'

. Anthony Flew argued that if we try to explain God as invisible, soundless, incorporeal and so on, there's little difference between our definition of God and our definition of nothingness