We describe most things based on their appearance, composition, or by comparison to other perceived objects. For example, try describing an ocean without the words “blue”, “salt water”, or “large”. The task seems absurd, because intuitively it is much harder to narrow down the definition of an object without referring to its features directly. One possible way is to construct the ocean in reverse: one may describe it as “a not-small body of not-solid-or-gas which appears not red nor yellow nor green nor …”, but the image seems much more convoluted and unnecessary.

Though the task of negatively describing an object that is perceivable seems superfluous, this form of description has been used since the pre-Socratics and is often referred to as being “as old as philosophy itself”. Apophasis, which derives from the ancient Greek word ἀπόφημι meaning “to deny”, aims to approach God through negation. This consists of only speaking in terms of what may not be said of the perfect goodness that is God. The difference between God and an ocean seems clear: God (in many religions) is beyond what is observable by the human senses, which translate perceived features into language and positive attributes. Therefore, the incapacity of humans to grasp the nature of God sets the foundation for the practice of apophatic theology. But why does it matter?

A Brief History

In the Christian tradition, apophatic theology began to take shape in the early centuries of the Church. One of the key figures was Origen of Alexandria (3rd century), who believed that God’s essence is beyond human language. But it was Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite (late 5th to early 6th century) who really developed this way of thinking. In his writings, he explained that God is so far beyond anything we know that all human words and concepts fall short. The best way to approach God, he said, was through silence, awe, and unknowing.

During the Middle Ages, apophatic theology continued to grow. Gregory of Nyssa and John Scotus Erigena expanded on the idea that God is unknowable in His essence. Even Thomas Aquinas, known for his logical approach to theology, admitted that when we speak about God, we mostly use analogies and can’t fully grasp His nature.

An example of apophasis by Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite in describing God is as follows:

“It cannot be spoken of and it cannot be grasped by understanding. It is not number or order, greatness or smallness, equality or inequality, similarity or dissimilarity. It is not immovable, moving, or at rest. … It falls neither within the predicate of nonbeing nor of being.”

Justification

The rejection of a positive description of God, or cataphatic theology, stems from the argument that human languages are limited in scope and cannot encompass the nature of God accurately. Any positive statement, such as “God is wise”, risks comparing God’s wisdom to that of humans, which misrepresents and undermines the divine. However, the application of negative descriptions does not necessarily evade this, as will be discussed later.

A second justification of apophatic theology centres itself on human limitations and the need to avoid misplaced idolatry and hubris towards deities. By describing God too confidently, humans begin to worship their own idea of God instead of God himself. Apophatic theology warns against this by keeping God unnamable and beyond grasp, emphasising that we should never confuse our mental image of God with God’s true nature. The problem that seems to lie in all linguistic descriptions of God is that there is a category error when deities that are above understanding are assigned human adjectives. However, we understand some aspects or features of God in some way through scripture and other sources, which means that there cannot be a “vacuum” of description of God. Apophatic theology fills this unachievable vacuum of description passively as it avoids defining God too clearly.

The apophatic thought is not a rejection of the idea that God has certain qualities, which can be characterised by the common attributes: omnibenevolence, omnificence, omnipotence, and omniscience. It is instead an attempt to avoid describing God clearly, which matches the inability of humans to observe or place the divine in ordinary linguistic terms. Erigena writes the following in his description of the limits in human knowledge.

“We do not know what God is. God Himself does not know what He is because He is not anything [i.e., “not any created thing”]. Literally God is not, because He transcends being.”

Criticism

The issue with describing what God isn’t is twofold. Firstly, the lack of positive description can be contradictory to scripture, which often includes positive references such as “God is love” or “God is light”, which leads to a difficulty in preaching as well as finding moral anchors. Since communities require concrete and accessible cognitions of God to feel connected, comforted, or guided, apophatic theology leads to a difficulty in communication due to the lack of positive attributes. Albeit a practical concern, the criticism shows how apophasis can lead to a weak foundation for ethics and action in a religious community lacking exact moral anchors. In Eastern Orthodoxy, however, apophatic themes are central to teachings that show the possibility for apophasis to still grant religious insight.

Secondly, the lack of affirmation in apophatic theology is often tied by critics to a theological agnosticism, because the central premise for the argument for negative description is that we cannot encapsulate or affirm God’s qualities in human terms. This leads to the claim that apophasis undermines the point of religious belief and doctrine since it pushes for an almost nihilistic form of worship. For example, how can someone pray or communicate to a deity they believe is completely beyond comprehension? A response would be that apophatic theology does not reject value or deny what is intrinsic about God; hence, belief and prayer are preserved in character. It is, however, also true that an enumeration of the things which God isn’t would be much longer than the positive description of God. This leads to the risk of encouraging pleonastic worship, which may in turn reduce the more important focus of religions.
 

Why does apophasis matter?

Most religious traditions use both apophatic and cataphatic descriptions in balance. “God is merciful” coexists with the apophatic claim that “God’s mercy is not like that of humans and is beyond measure”. Recognition of the limits of reason bounded by words and language restores reason to its proper place at the centre of intellectual illumination while remaining surrounded by what it ignores and cannot penetrate. Apophatic theology, specifically, seeks God in mystery rather than mastery and shapes faith through humility, while the cataphatic provides direction and greater clarity. To some extent, saying less is more.

For Further Reading:

Franke, W. (2006). Apophasis and the Turn of Philosophy to Religion: From Neoplatonic Negative Theology to Postmodern Negation of Theology. International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, 60(1/3), 61–76. http://www.jstor.org/stable/27646179

Kenney, J. P. (1993). The Critical Value of Negative Theology. The Harvard Theological Review, 86(4), 439–453. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1509912

Ferguson, E., & Malherbe, A. J. (1978). Gregory of Nyssa: The Life of Moses. Paulist Press.