negative theology
God through denial
Negative theology is an approach to understanding God or the divine by describing what God is not rather than what God is.
The method assumes that human language and concepts are inadequate to capture infinite or transcendent reality, so statements like "God is not limited" or "God is not material" get closer to truth than positive claims.
Also called apophatic theology, from a Greek word meaning "to deny." The approach appears across traditions—Christian mystics, Jewish Kabbalah, Islamic Sufism, and aspects of Hindu and Buddhist thought.
- via negativaTheology through negation
- spiritual ascentSoul's journey upward
- ineffabilityBeing beyond articulation
- Pseudo-DionysiusPseudonymous late-antique theologian
- metaphysicsPhilosophy of existence's nature
transcendence · paradox · ecstatic experience · dialectics · unknowing · dark night · Christian mysticism · Neoplatonism · ontology · Zen Buddhism · sacred poetry · epistemology · negation · asceticism · nothingness · emptiness · beyond · formless
- apophatic theologyvia negativa, unsaying, unknowing, negation, ineffability
- Byzantine theologydeification, Pseudo-Dionysius, hypostasis
- Maimonidesincorporeality
- Medieval MysticismHildegard of Bingen, divine union, mystical union, Gelassenheit, Godhead
- theologyecclesiology, eschatology, Christology, God, dogmatics
- Frankfurt SchoolWalter Benjamin, critical theory, nonidentity, constellation
negative theologyanthropomorphism
Attributing personality to things