An Introduction to Apophatic Theology
What can we say about God?
The Problem
“And if,” she said, “the opinion of mortals goeth wrong
Where the key of sense doth not unlock,
Truly the shafts of wonder should no longer pierce thee.
For even when the senses give the lead,
Thou seest reason hath wings too short.”
—Dante Alighieri, Paradiso, Canto II, 52-57
It should cause no Christian any trouble to agree that God is infinite: the trouble comes when they try to understand what they agreed to. Perhaps they will bring to bear other terms they don’t really understand—“omnipotent,” “omnipresent,” “omniscient,”—hoping to bury their ignorance with ignorance. But try as they might, they cannot coherently conceive of a being that is without limits. The problem, of course, lies not in their powers of conception, but in the internally illogical task they’ve set for themselves. Consider the words used to describe such a task: we try to comprehend God (to include, to enclose, to hem in); or we try to define God (to place limits on, to delineate). But, if God is infinite (that is, without end), we are trying to enclose what cannot be closed away, we are trying to place limits on the illimitable.
This is not a new problem. In fact, it’s older than Christianity. Any religion or philosophy (is there really a difference?) that identifies God with the transcendent cause of all things must finally come up against the problem of The Transcendent per se. It is important to understand what we are saying when we say something is transcendent, for the infinite is not transcendent in some merely quantitative way. The material universe, as far as we can tell, is quantitatively infinite; that is, no matter how far we go there will always be more of it.[1] However, for all of its material infinitude, we do not call the material universe transcendent: because isn’t. Material inhabits its own category, “Matter,” and there are a great many categories besides: for example, “Energy,” “Change,” “Motion,” “Goodness,” “Truth,” etc. That which is transcendent (trans – across, over; scend from scandere – to climb) crosses categories. In the case of The Transcendent, we are talking about something that exists outside of every category. That we must imagine such a thing is beyond this little introduction. Suffice it to say, for all other things to exist, we must conceive of a category logically prior to the existence of all things. We can call this category Existence Itself. Existence Itself is logically prior to everything, therefore, it cannot inhabit any category but its own, or, perhaps better said, it must inhabit every category. Matter is conceptually distinct from Existence, but without Existence as a logical category, there can be no Matter; Matter presupposes Existence. This same formula can be applied to everything that exists: Motion presupposes Existence, Truth presupposes Existence. If it exists, it assumes the “existence” of Existence. Existence, then, is transcendent, and by virtue of its transcendence, it is qualitatively infinite. In its very essence (its “what-ness,” its quality) it is not limited to any one, or even any group, of categories. It may be possible for a category to be quantitatively, numerically infinite, but mere innumerability does not qualify a thing as transcendent, only the qualitatively infinite can be said truly to transcend category and find its way up to God.
[1] Of course, this may prove empirically false, but that’s for the generations of astro-physicists to determine. For our purposes here, “the universe is infinite” is a workable, generally agreed-upon proposition. Another example of a quantitative infinite is number; no matter how much one has counted, it is always possible to add one more.
We are now better equipped to understand the utter illogicality of any attempt to define God. The best inclinations of the Christian religion lead us to identify The Transcendent with God.[1] But for a thing truly to be transcendent, it must inhabit a logical space much like Existence as described above.[2] For us to define something we need to identify the category that thing inhabits. For the term “tree” to have any meaning, we need to put it into the category Plant and then specify Tree (that is, identify its species) by the identification of some quality or qualities that differentiate the species Tree from other species that may inhabit the category Plant.[3] Thus, we say a tree is a plant having roots, a trunk, branches, and some means of photosynthesis on those branches. A simple definition. Nevertheless, consider how many categories were employed in our attempt to understand what a tree is. We must assume a definition of “plant,” “roots,” “trunk,” “branches,” etc: each of which is a species in its own genus. The existence of this tree presupposes the existence of plants, branches, and photosynthesis.[4] We have thus placed Tree into a category, we have delineated it (that is, we have put lines around it), we have comprehended it (that is, we have enclosed it in a category). This is not something that needs to be overcome or “fixed,” this is Reason. It is endemic to our understanding. We must categorize to understand how a thing fits into the World as we see it. However, the fundamental function of categorization—that is, of definition—is identifying the limits of a thing, where one category ends and another begins. For us to comprehend something, we must be able to identify the categories that comprehend it. This is one of the fundamental functions of Reason. But what can Reason do with something that defies limitation, transcends categories? How does Reason delimit the illimitable, define the infinite, comprehend the uncircumscribable? How can we understand God?
[1] I am here assuming Saint Anselm’s famous formulation to be self-evidently true: God is “that than which nothing greater can be conceived.” There may be those who wish to contest this conceptualization of God, but they and I are in pursuit of very different things, and probably have very little to say to one another.
[2] Indeed, many Church Fathers have identified God with Existence Itself, or, delightfully, with “supra-being,” positing that God is somehow beyond Existence. But we’re getting there.
[3] The technical term here for the category Plant is “genus,” and that of the differentiating qualities “differentia.” Thus, the definition of a species must identify its genus and its differentia. This terminology is not specific to botany; rather they are general terms in categorical logic: any category that includes smaller sub-categories is called a genus, those sub-categories are referred to as species, and the qualities that differentiate species within a genus are called differentia.
[4] Incidentally, this is an example of a thing’s contingency: trees require the existence of other things outside of themselves to exist. This term applies to everything that has such requirements, that is, everything but The Transcendent: God.
To understand God we must be able to say what He is. However, we have already established that God transcends all that is. Not only is God beyond everything that we know, He is beyond everything that we can know. Saint Gregory Nazianzus writes, “Whatever we imagined to ourselves or reason delineated is not the reality of God.”[1] Saint Augustine expresses it yet more concisely: “If you comprehend it, it is not God.”[2] Eastern Orthodox thinker Vladimir Lossky puts it this way:
All knowledge has as its object that which is. Now God is beyond all that exists. In order to approach Him it is necessary to deny all that is inferior to Him, that is to say, all that which is. If in seeing God one can know what one sees, then one has not seen God in Himself but something intelligible, something which is inferior to Him.[3]
It may be worthwhile briefly to draw attention to the fact that Lossky affirms that we can approach God in some way. That He is not rationally knowable does not mean He is inaccessible. However, this is the assumption to which most people jump: if I can’t know God rationally, then I can’t have a relationship with Him. Such post-enlightenment thinking is not present in the mystical tradition of the Church, nor in its spiritual tradition prior to the Enlightenment. Yet when it comes to our conceiving of God, that is, the forming of opinions concerning that which is beyond every category of comprehension, we do indeed find that “reason hath wings too short.”
[1] Saint Gregory Nazianzus, Oration 28
[2] From Saint Augustine’s sermon on Matthew 3:13
[3] Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, 25
The Solution
Our little systems have their day;
They have their day and cease to be:
They are but broken lights of Thee,
And Thou, o Lord, art more than they.
—Alfred Lord Tennyson, In Memoriam A.H.H., 17-20
What is to be done? How are we to comprehend the incomprehensible? Though others may feel differently (and they do), for me it is impossible to say, “God can’t be known; let’s move on with life and concern ourselves rather with what can be known.” This won’t do. Lossky points out that there are two possible theological “ways:”
One—that of cataphatic or positive theology—proceeds by affirmations; the other—apophatic or negative theology—by negations. The first leads us to some knowledge of God, but in an imperfect way. The perfect way, the only way which is fitting in regard to God, who is of His very nature unknowable, is the second—which leads us finally to total ignorance.[1]
To negate, to say what God is not is the more perfect way. Let us consider another quotation, this one from St. Dionysius the Areopagite:[2]
What has actually to be said about the Cause of everything is this. Since it is the Cause of all beings, we should posit and ascribe to it all the affirmations we make in regard to beings, and, more appropriately, we should negate all these affirmations, since it surpasses all being. Now we should not conclude that the negations are simply the opposites of the affirmations, but rather that the cause of all is considerably prior to this, beyond privations, beyond every denial, beyond every assertion.[3]
We have here a workable presentation of apophatic theology: because God transcends every category, or better, because God is the Cause of every category, there is a way in which what is true of every category is true of God (or rather, that category is “true” because it partakes in its own limited way of the Cause, ie. God); but it is more true rather to deny every category—to say what God is not—for He is “considerably prior” to every category. Our assertions concerning the nature of God can only be true in an imperfect way; there is a way in which the inclusion of God into a given category may be true, but, because God is infinitely beyond that category, the ways in which He is not included in that category are also infinite. It is, therefore, always more true to deny the inclusion of God in any category.
[1] ibid
[2] Believed to have lived in the sixth century AD, the identity of Dionysius has long been assumed spurious. Consequently, most scholarship refers to him as “Pseudo-Dionysius.” In the Eastern Church, though, he is still treated as a historical person. His dubious identity notwithstanding, he has, in the words of Lossky, “enjoyed undisputed authority in the theological tradition of the East, as well as the West” (Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, 24).
[3] Pseudo-Dionysius, Mystical Theology from Pseudo-Dionysius: The Complete Works, 136
Any positive assertion of God can only be true by analogy. Since all being comes from God,[1] every being partakes of Him in its own particular way. Every rock and tree, every river and mountain, every creature of land, air, or sea shares in a way proper to its nature the pure actuality of Being, Truth, and Goodness; In God “all things live and move and have their being.”[2] However, the very nature of any one category, any one being, is limitation, contingency, imperfection. Every being and every category of being requires what is outside of itself simply to exist. Even if all existence were divided into two categories (rather than the myriad that we in fact have) Category A would require Category B simply to exist as Category A. Category A could only exist as what is not Category B and vice versa. Thus for Category A to exist it must be limited. This is not some incidental property accidental to the nature of Category A; it is a logical necessity. Yet, for all its finitude and imperfection, it shares in the infinite perfection of the transcendent Cause; it actualizes imperfectly perfect Actuality. Thus, the inclusion of God in any category can provide an analogous image of the divine nature, though the divine nature in itself defies any such inclusion. Our systems of assertion and definition are but “broken lights” of God, and He is always “more than they.”
[1] I feel it necessary to point out here that the present argument is logically true whether one wishes to refer to this ultimate cause as God or not. An atheist may perfectly well deny the application of such a title, and all of the present metaphysical arguments remain standing. But it is a truly universal religion that identifies this transcendent cause with God. Anything less is merely a god, contingent, limited, perhaps exceedingly powerful, but admitting of definition and verification like everything else. Such a god is not transcendent and ultimately irrelevant for any religion that wants to bring peace, truth, reconciliation, and love to the whole world.
[2] Acts 17:28
On the other hand, the divine nature logically requires exclusion from every category, for the nature of God is transcendent perfection. Therefore, whereas assertion achieves only analogous, imperfect truth, negation is true of the divine nature in itself. However, these negations are not to be construed as merely the opposite of the affirmations. Let us take an example. To say God is good is an easy affirmation, and it is possible to derive some analogical meaning from this statement, based as it is on our anthropomorphic understanding of the attribute “good” that we find in ourselves. Thus, we have said nothing necessarily false concerning God. It is, however, an image of God that we can comprehend, and, if Saint Augustine is right (and he is), this image of God is not an image of what God is in Himself. Thus, by the reasoning laid out above, it should be more true to say God is not good. At first glance, this is a proposition much more difficult to get behind. However, this negation is not to be understood merely as the opposite of the assertion: we are not asserting a privation of goodness on the part of God. Instead, we are saying that God includes in His perfection every kind of goodness so utterly, that merely to limit Him to the anthropomorphic goodness that we think we comprehend is improper to the nature of God. He is beyond the attribute of goodness and instead comprises the Cause of goodness: He is not good, He is the Good. This apophatic statement, then, is anagogical—that is, it leads us upwards, guides our intellect to a higher, more divine realm of understanding. The finite, corporeal, analogical understanding provided by the assertion “God is good” is left behind as we, like Moses, follow the way of negation up the mountain of God. The statement “God is not good” leads us to the lofty heights where is found the clear and heavenly understanding “God is the Good,” where we can stay and purify ourselves until we are ready to notice that this statement itself is cataphatic, affirmative, imperfect. We are then invited into the cloud of holy unknowing, as we contemplate that God is somehow beyond the Good. And there, free of every image we think we understand, empty of all categories, imperfect and adumbrative as they are, we may come face to face with God Himself, the transcendent perfection of all things, in the stillness and silence of unknowing.[1]
[1] It is perhaps easy to see why this theology is called “mystical.”
As an aside, the motif of Moses’ ascent up Mount Sinai to meet God is a common one in discussions of apophatic theology. Saint Gregory Nazianzus employs it, as well as Saint Gregory of Nyssa. It is also used by Dionysius himself in his Mystical Theology.
Because our theological negations are not merely the opposites of our theological affirmations, it must be understood that cataphatic and apophatic theologies are not used as counterbalances. The way of negation is not used merely to inject some modesty into our positive dogmatics, neither is the way of affirmation used to “ground” flighty and overly-mystical spiritualism. Rather, the way of affirmation and the way of negation are the same way travelling in different directions. We travel down the theological way when we assert positive attributes to God, getting farther from what God is in Himself, but closer to ourselves and what we understand; and we travel up the way when we negate them, leaving behind what we understand, but approaching God in Himself. Let us consider the following argument from Dionysius:
When we assert what is beyond every assertion, we must proceed from what is most akin to it, and as we do so we make the affirmation on which everything else depends. But when we deny that which is beyond every denial, we have to start by denying those qualities which differ most from the goal we hope to attain. Is it not closer to reality to say that God is life and goodness rather than he is air or stone? Is it not more accurate to deny that drunkenness and rage can be attributed to him than to deny that we can apply to him the terms of speech and thought?[1]
This principle has already been illustrated in the example of the terms “good” and “goodness.” We began with the lower category, that of “good,” as though God is good in the same way any other person is good. Of course He is not, but we are saying something useful to our understanding of God, however analogical it may be. To move down the way from here we add affirmations to what we have already affirmed; in this case, “God is good” is “the affirmation on which everything else depends.” We may from here proceed to an affirmation such as “God is a good shepherd,” or “God is a good king,” or “God is a good father.” Even taking so specific an affirmation as our starting point, “God is a good shepherd” assumes the more generic affirmation “God is good” as a logically prior category. To begin with “God is a good shepherd” and ascend to the logically prior “God is good,” we must deny the initial affirmation: “God is not a good shepherd,” or, if you wish, “God is not merely a good shepherd:” He inhabits a category that includes the category “good shepherd,” but also comprehends a great deal more. We can thus continue our negations, as many as we deem rhetorically or logically necessary, until we achieve the level of abstraction we have as our goal.
[1] Pseudo-Diosysius, The Mystical Theology from Pseudo-Diosnysius: the Complete Works, 139-140
To reiterate, I am not saying that this ascending and descending is some kind of procedural necessity if one wishes to perform “correct” Dionysian apophaticism. Rather, the relative motions achieved by affirmation and negation are logical requirements aboriginal to the function of language and categorical logic as such. If one were to deny something of God in an attempt to move down the ladder of being, one would be using denial as a direct opposite of affirmation. For example, to begin with the denial “God is not good” and then move downwards, the implication would be that God is less than good. However, as I have already argued, the only thing worthy of the term “God” is that than which nothing greater can be conceived—that is, that which is not less than anything. Therefore, to move down the scale of being by denial is not apophatic; it is merely to change the subject
The implications of such a system of thought will, I hope, be developed in later entries, but for now I wish to point out that apophatic theology has less to do with what God is in se and more to do with the limits of reason. Any honest person will admit that their perception of reality comes to them through a great deal more than just reason. Indeed, it seems better to say that reason’s main function is as a capacity that arranges and interprets perception in a way expedient to our various purposes. As such, what we call reason seems more concerned with the useful than the objectively true. I think that apophatic theology allows for this in that it acknowledges the limits of reason as a means of approaching God, and leaves a great deal of room for an experience of the divine that defies our ability to comprehend in any objective or exhaustive way.
