The Via Negativa

• kataphatic theology and language/the via positiva are about making positive statements about god, e.g. the christian creeds

  • for example, the statement that 'god is our Heavenly Father' can be used
  • the characteristics of a human father are not mirrored exactly in god but nevertheless can be meaningfully and usefully projected onto him.
• apophatic theology and language/the via negativa is about making statements about god in terms of what he is not

  • god's total 'otherness' means that god cannot be referred to in terms that would be used of anything in the universe, including ourselves.
• who developed the via negativa?

  pseudo-dionysius
• why did pseudo-dionysus develop the via negativa?

  to emphasis god as completely beyond human understanding and to ensure that no language was used that could limit him.
• PD said it cannot be said that god is good because humans do not know what this means.
• PD says god is 'beyond assertion' and 'beyond denial'
• PD claimed that god is nameless yet at the same time 'has the names of everything that is'. this expresses the idea of a god who is both immanent and omnipotent.
• who supported the via negative?

  maimonides
• what did Maimonides say?

  he was a jewish scholar who supported the via negativa

  • humans can known that god exists, but that is all
  • he believed that to use positive aspects such as power in reference to god was to limit and in fact reduce him
  • he therefore accumulated all the negatives that could be used. to illustrate this, he described the nature of a ship using only negative statements.
• via negativa

  the approach to religious language that describes god in terms of what he is not
• apophatic language


  the negative language used by the via negative approach
• kataphatic language


  the use of positive terms about god.
• strengths:

  • it avoids making god a 'thing'
  • it avoids anthropomorphism, instead focusing on god's transcendence
  • it is true to the mystical experience of god as ineffable
• weakness of the via negativa

  most people want to say positive things about god. it is difficult for most people to worship a being referred to entirely in negatives

  also the via negativa is vulnerable to the challenge made by flew in his 'parable of the gardener'
• weakness of the via negativa

  the end result of such language might not be the god of theism. Brian Davies showed maimonides' use of a bank of negatives to describe a ship might equally describe a wardrobe.
• weakness of the via negativa

  this language might be helpful to mystics, but for most people it is just too remote.

  moreover, stating that one's experience cannot be described might suggest that the experience was a product of the mind.