bullet summary: apophatic and cataphatic

• our language is limited when talking about god
• we try to capture in the infinite with the finite
• god is infinite and location-less, so how can we, finite and space-bound, understand or describe him?
• do we limit him when we try?
• if you do define him, you are anthropomorphising him and blaspheming
• ‘king’ or ‘shepherd’ are human ideas

• there are two types of language:
• cognitive: has a true of false response
• non-cognitive: commands, greetings, emotion, music, theatre, poetry
• richard dakwins says religious language is used cognitively, but it is used wrong because it cannot be tested like facts
• religious people may argued they mean it like saying that ‘purpose’ exists, it cannot be tested but it is, in a sense, true.

• pseudo-dionysius put the idea of the apophatic way forward in ‘mystical theology’
• the via negativa is the belief that words limit our understanding of a transcendent God
• therefore instead of saying what god is, we should state what he isn’t, like saying immortal or timeless, to gain understanding
• positive terms can be misleading or wrong
• dionysius said that god was ‘beyond assertion’ and ‘every limitation’
• no matter how rational we are, we cannot rationalise god
• john scotus eurigena adds that ‘god is beyond all meaning and intelligence’
• moses maimonides agrees, arguing that religious language is meaningful when used negatively
• he used the example of a ship – by describing what a ship isn’t, we get closer to understanding what a ship is
• he warns against anthropomorphising god, and reminds us scripture is not literal
• this approach avoids humanising god and focuses on his transcendency
• it also applies at all times unlike analogy or symbol
• it doesn’t limit god and allowed for what William James calls the ‘mystical approach‘

• Brian Davies says that eliminating negatives means we don’t know if what remains is God or something else
• how can we describe what God isn’t if we have no idea of what he is?
• how can we make judgements of something we haven’t experienced?
• maimonides’s ship example has been criticised because it compares God to an inanimate object rooted in human understanding
• negative statements aren’t helpful or useful in describing things
• we would not tell someone what a chair is by describing it as ‘not a table’, this is too vague
• Antony Flew argues that the negatives amount to nothing – so we are told nothing of God
• how do you know the God you are worshipping if you can only reliably say what he isn’t?
• for religious believers, via negativa contradicts certain statements in holy scripture that describe God positively
• W.R. Inge says we cannot get rid of descriptions of god because we then lose the link between humans and the world, making worship too difficult and almost pointless
• Pierre Chardon said that we try to describe love even though we don’t really know what it is
• it still has meaning, however little it may be

• the cataphatic way, positively speaking on god, is supported by scholars like aquinas, augustine and anselm
• but they do not claim that we have any precision
• it may be limiting, but our language is positively indicative
• the mode of worship that humans naturally use is speech, where the alternative is just silence or mindless humming