Apophatic theology (also called “negative theology”) and kataphatic theology (also called “positive theology”) are two different ways of talking about the divine. Kataphatic theology attempts to describe what the divine is, whereas apophatic theology attempts to describe what the divine is not.[1]
Kataphatic Theology
We’re all familiar with numerous examples of kataphatic theology (sometimes spelled “cataphatic theology”). When Christianity, Islam, and Judaism say that the divine is a person-like entity called “God” with a particular personality and qualities – love, mercy, justice, wrath, etc. – they’re using kataphatic theology. When the Bible and the Qur’an describe the past and ongoing actions of God, that, too, is kataphatic theology. When Taoism calls the divine “the Tao,” an impersonal entity, or when Buddhism calls it “nirvana,” a state of being, we find very different forms of kataphatic theology, but equally fitting examples of it nonetheless.
Even the seemingly neutral phrase “the divine” is kataphatic or positive theology. That’s because there’s no truly neutral, literal, or objective way of describing something that human language can’t even come close to encompassing in the first place. As the Qur’an has God say to the Prophet Muhammad, “Say [Prophet], ‘If the whole ocean were ink for writing the words of my Lord, it would run dry before those words were exhausted’ – even if We were to add another ocean to it.”[2]
Kataphatic theology is indispensable. Without it, no religion or spirituality would be possible. We all need specific symbols – whether verbal or otherwise – that resonate with us if we’re to begin our journey toward the divine. Otherwise, we’d have effectively no sense of where we’re going on that journey. If Mount Everest had no name and wasn’t shown on any maps, hardly anyone would even know that it existed in the first place, let alone how to get there. But by giving the mountain a name and identifying it on maps, it’s relatively easy to get directions to the mountain (certainly far easier than actually climbing it, at least). Similarly, by using familiar, everyday things as symbols for a higher and deeper reality, kataphatic theology helps us to draw closer to that reality. As Saint Dionysius, one of the most influential Christian mystics, writes:
We now grasp these things in the best way we can, and as they come to us, wrapped in the sacred veils of that love toward humanity with which scripture and hierarchical traditions cover the truths of the [spirit] with things derived from the realm of the senses. And so it is that the Transcendent is clothed in the terms of being, with shape and form on things which have neither, and numerous symbols are employed to convey the varied attributes of what is an imageless and supra-natural simplicity.[3]
But there’s an all-important difference between a symbol and what it symbolizes. It’s the difference between saying the words “Mount Everest” and actually climbing Mount Everest, or, in this case, the difference between saying the word “God” or “Aphrodite” and actually experiencing the divine. And that point where kataphatic theology falls flat is the point where negative or apophatic theology comes in.
Apophatic Theology
Apophatic theology uses human language and concepts to make us aware of how far beyond human language and concepts the divine is. It does this by systematically negating those words and concepts – hence why apophatic theology is sometimes called “negative theology.”
As another famous Christian mystic, Saint John of the Cross, writes, “to reach union with the wisdom of God a person must advance by unknowing rather than by knowing.”[4] The knowledge of, and devotion to, particular symbols of the divine is necessary to get us up to a certain point, but past that point, those symbols become more of a hindrance than a help. If one stops at them rather than moving beyond them to experience the divine itself – if one mistakes those symbolic, relative truths for literal, absolute truths – then one is worshiping an idol rather than the divine. Apophatic theology exists to prevent us from falling into that trap.
Let’s consult Saint Dionysius again for a passage that’s one of the most classic examples of apophatic theology not just in Christian literature, but in spiritual literature from around the world:
The Cause of all is above all and is not inexistent, lifeless, speechless, mindless. It is not a material body, and hence has neither shape nor form, quality, quantity, or weight. It is not in any place and can neither be seen nor be touched. It is neither perceived nor is it perceptible. It suffers neither disorder nor disturbance and is overwhelmed by no earthly passion. It is not powerless and subject to the disturbances caused by sense perception. It endures no deprivation of light. It passes through no change, decay, division, loss, no ebb and flow, nothing of which the senses may be aware. None of all this can either be identified with it nor attributed to it.
Again, as we climb higher we say this. It is not soul or mind, nor does it possess imagination, conviction, speech, or understanding. Nor is it speech per se, understanding per se. 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 has no power, it is not power, nor is it light. It does not live nor is it life. It is not a substance, nor is it eternity or time. It cannot be grasped by the understanding since it is neither knowledge nor truth. It is not kingship. It is not wisdom. It is neither one nor oneness, divinity nor goodness. Nor is it a spirit, in the sense in which we understand that term. It is not sonship or fatherhood and it is nothing known to us or to any other being. It falls neither within the predicate of nonbeing nor of being. Existing beings do not know it as it actually is and it does not know them as they are. There is no speaking of it, nor name nor knowledge of it. Darkness and light, error and truth – it is none of these. It is beyond assertion and denial. We make assertions and denials of what is next to it, but never of it, for it is both beyond every assertion, being the perfect and unique cause of all things, and, by virtue of its preeminently simple and absolute nature, free of every limitation, beyond every limitation; it is also beyond every denial.[5]
In the first paragraph of that quote, Dionysius starts out with apophatic negations that fit comfortably within the framework of Christian kataphatic theology: God has no material body, doesn’t change, etc. Then, in the second paragraph – “as we climb higher” – Dionysius’s apophatic theology becomes more challenging and rigorous, even negating central tenets of Christian kataphatic theology: “It is not sonship or fatherhood,” etc. Of course, Dionysius, as an exceptionally devout Christian – even a saint – would never dream of denying the validity of Christian kataphatic theology for what it is. But he shows how even divinely-revealed verbal characterizations of the divine, such as those of Christianity, ultimately fall far short of conveying the sheer otherworldly majesty of the divine itself.
Apophatic Theology in Buddhism
So far, our examples of apophatic theology have come from Christianity, largely due to how perfectly Saint Dionysius’s writings illustrate this approach to theology. But apophatic theology, like kataphatic theology, is more or less universal. Any and all religions contain at least bits and pieces of it, and some even make it a central focus. So let’s now consider some examples from other religions in order to better understand what apophatic theology is and the necessary role it plays in any spiritual path.
The prime example of a religion that makes apophatic theology a central focus is surely Buddhism. Most descriptions of nirvana in the Pali canon, the earliest collection of Buddhist scriptures, take an apophatic form, such as in these passages:
Where neither water nor yet earth
Nor fire nor air gain a foothold,
There gleam no stars, no sun sheds light,
There shines no moon, yet there no darkness reigns.
When a sage, a brahmin, has come to know this
For himself through his own wisdom,
Then he is freed from form and formless.
Freed from pleasure and from pain.[6]
There is, o disciples, an unborn, an unoriginated, uncreated, unformed. Were there not, o disciples, this unborn, unoriginated, uncreated, unformed, there would be no possible exit from the world of the born, originated, created, formed.
The great ocean is deep, immeasurable, unfathomable. So also… if the existence of the Perfect One be measured by the predicates of corporeal form: he is deep, immeasurable, unfathomable as the great ocean.[7]
He who has gone to rest, no measure can fathom him.
There is no word to speak of him.
What thought could grasp has blown away.
And every path to speech is barred.[8]
Many of the basic concepts of Buddhism are framed in apophatic terms. For example, the Buddhist view of the self is called anatman or anatta, “no self.” Buddhism originally grew out of Hinduism, which describes the divine in kataphatic terms as the Atman, the soul or “Self” of all things. Buddhism, by saying that there is “no self,” appears to directly and deliberately contradict this Hindu teaching. But beneath the stark difference in mode of expression, Buddhism expresses much the same underlying understanding, except in apophatic terms: our everyday, seemingly separate “selves” are illusions, and the real, divine “Self” can’t be adequately described in human speech, so at both of these levels we can rightly say that there is “no self.” Thus, it’s wrong to be emotionally or intellectually attached to any particular notion of what the “self” is.[9] In the words of scholar of Buddhism Stephen Collins, “the self is not so much denied as declared inconceivable.”[10]
Later generations of Buddhists extended the idea of “no self” and said that everything that seems to exist is really “emptiness,” sunyata. Sunyata became a definitive concept of Mahayana Buddhism, one of the three main branches of Buddhism. Another of scholar of Buddhism, Geoffrey Samuel, describes sunyata thusly:
All Buddhist traditions assert that the self is illusory and impermanent. The Mahayana goes further, in claiming that the same is true of all phenomena. Mahayana Buddhism holds that there cannot be an ultimately valid and accurate language in which the universe can be fully and definitively described…. Phenomenal reality is ‘empty’ or ‘void’ in the sense that our understandings of it are empty and illusory; the ultimate reality that lies beyond it is also ‘empty’ in that emptiness is all that can be positively asserted about it.[11]
Apophatic Theology in Other Religions
Let’s consider just two more examples of apophatic theology to gain a clearer understanding of what it is and the role it plays in religion.
The foremost sacred text of Taoism, the Tao Te Ching, opens with the following verses:
The tao that can be told
is not the eternal Tao.
The name that can be named
is not the eternal Name.The unnamable is the eternally real.
Naming is the origin
of all particular things.Free from desire, you realize the mystery.
Caught in desire, you see only the manifestations.Yet mystery and manifestations
arise from the same source.
This source is called darkness.Darkness within darkness.
The gateway to all understanding.[12]
By making this largely apophatic description of the Tao the very first thing that anyone reads in the religion’s foundational text, Taoism expresses the spiritual and intellectual indispensability of apophatic theology in a particularly striking and powerful way.
Our final example comes from an ancient Egyptian hymn to the sun god Re, which reminds us that apophatic theology isn’t just part of today’s “major world religions,” but is instead a more or less universal feature of religion as such:
None of the gods knows his true form;
His image is not unfolded in books;
Nothing certain is testified about him.He is too secretive for his majesty to be revealed;
He is too great to be inquired after,
Too powerful to be known.People fall down immediately for fear
That his name will be uttered knowingly or unknowingly.
There is no god able to call him by it.[13]
This passage occurs after a series of descriptions of how the other gods and goddesses are different forms of Re, whom this hymn thereby treats as the supreme, ultimate god. Just as Buddhism holds that there’s “no self” apart from something that can’t be articulated, the other deities in this hymn have no “selves” apart from Re. They don’t know his true form or his true name because, when we “climb” (to borrow Saint Dionysius’s term) from kataphatic theology to apophatic theology, he has neither form nor name. The relationship between the other deities and Re thus reflects the relationship between our own “selves” and that which has no name or form.
Conclusion
There’s a proper time and place for both kataphatic and apophatic theology. Kataphatic theology is by far the dominant way of approaching the divine for the vast majority of people for the vast majority of the time. And that’s surely as it should be. When we leave behind the stress and small-mindedness of our everyday lives to turn to the divine in our various spiritual practices, vivid depictions of the divine in words and/or images are typically necessary to help us make the transition to a state of mind marked by openness, reverence, and love toward the divine.
But there comes a point in spiritual practice, such as when particularly deep in meditation, contemplative prayer, or worship, where continuing to allow our minds to be populated by words and images – even the most sacred ones – would only hold us back, and all we can and should do is simply be in awestruck silence. Apophatic theology is both an expression of that state and an aid to reaching that state. The purpose of apophatic theology is thus more “specialized” than that of kataphatic theology, but it’s no less essential in the overall scope of religion. Without apophatic theology, it would be much harder for us to reach the summit of the proverbial mountain of spirituality.
References:
[1] Lossky, Vladimir. 1976. The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church. St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press. p. 25.
[2] Haleem, Abdel (transl.). 2005. The Qur’an. Oxford University Press. p. 190.
[3] Dionysius. 1987. Pseudo-Dionysius: The Complete Works. Transl. Colm Luibheid. Paulist Press. p. 52.
[4] John of the Cross. 1991. The Collected Works of Saint John of the Cross. Transl. Kieran Kavanaugh & Otilio Rodriguez. Institute of Carmelite Studies. p. 126.
[5] Dionysius. 1987. Pseudo-Dionysius: The Complete Works. Transl. Colm Luibheid. Paulist Press. p. 140-141.
[6] Ireland, John (transl.). 2017. The Udana and the Itivuttaka. Buddhist Publication Society. p. 21.
[7] Quoted in Dumoulin, Henrich. 2005. Zen Buddhism: A History, Volume One: India and China. World Wisdom. p. 20.
[8] Ibid.
[9] Jones, C.V. 2021. The Buddhist Self: On Tathagatagarbha and Atman. University of Hawai’i Press. p. 1-7.
[10] Ibid. p. 6.
[11] Samuel, Geoffrey. 2012. Introducing Tibetan Buddhism. Routledge. p. 55.
[12] Lao Tzu. 1988. Tao Te Ching. Transl. Stephen Mitchell. HarperCollins. p. 1.
[13] Assmann, Jan. 1997. Moses the Egyptian: The Memory of Egypt in Western Monotheism. Harvard University Press. p. 196-197.