Cataphatic theology
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Cataphatic (sometimes spelled kataphatic) theology is the expressing of God or the divine by what is or expressing God through positive terminology. This is in contrast to defining God or the divine in what God is not which is referred to as negative or apophatic theology.
Contents |
[edit] Terminology
To speak of God or the divine kataphatically is by its nature a form of limiting to God or divine. This was one of the core tenets of the works of St Dionysus the Aeropagite. By defining what God or the divine is we limit the unlimited as Saint Dionysus outlined in his works. A kataphatic way to express God would be that God is love. The apophatic way would be to express that God is not hate. Or to say that God is not love, as he transcends even our notion of love. Ultimately, one would come to remove even the notion of the Trinity, or of saying that God is one, because The Divine is above numberhood. That God is beyond all duality because God contains within Godself all things and that God is beyond all things. The apophatic way as taught by Saint Dionysus was to remove any conceptual understanding of God that became all encompassing since in its limitedness it began to force the fallen understanding of mankind onto the absolute and divine.
[edit] Eastern Orthodoxy
In the Eastern Orthodox Church kataphatic theology is critical in the developmental stages of contemplation (see theoria). Once a firm grasp of the positive attributes of God or the divine has been achieved one moves onto the transcendent qualities of apophatic theology.
[edit] Roman Catholicism
- The Life of Moses - Gregory the Great
- St. Augustine
- Anselm of Canterbury
- The Cloud of Unknowing - Unknown Author
[edit] See also
[edit] Bibliography
- Vladimir Lossky The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, SVS Press, 1997. (ISBN 0-913836-31-1) James Clarke & Co Ltd, 1991. (ISBN 0-227-67919-9)
- St Dionysus the Aeropagite The Divine Names
