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Mar 25th, 2025
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Joined: Jan 2012
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Would someone please explain to me the [i]manifest[/i] differences between these two theological methods?
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Joined: Feb 2013
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They are simple terms, which, can mean different things and relate to each other differently in individual texts.
kataphasis--or cataphatic theology--basically means affirmative discourse about God.
God is this or that--for example, God is life.
apophasis--or apophatic theology--means negative discourse about God.
God is not this or that--for example, God is immaterial.
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Joined: Jul 2006
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St. Gregory of Nyssa expressed it so pithily: Ideas lead to idolatry; only wonder leads to knowing.
Ideas = cataphatic theology
Wonder = apophatic theology
Your choice!
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A false dilemma, in my opinion.
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Tell that to St. Gregory of Nyssa!
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Joined: Nov 2001
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Kataphasis is justified, even required, in those limited cases where divine revelation has provided us with positive statements regarding God, principally through Scripture or by the action of the Holy Spirit working through the mind of the Church in the Seven Ecumenical Councils (which, for what it's worth, tend to negative in their objective; i.e., condemning error more than making positivist statements). Beyond that, we should favor apophasis, since no creature may know its Creator.
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Tell that to St. Gregory of Nyssa! St. Gregory of Nyssa doesn't say that you can't say anything positively about God, nor does he equate ideas exactly with kataphasis. Ideas about God--whether philosophical or biblical--certainly can become idols if we imagine that they somehow comprehend God. What is perhaps less obvious is that so can apophatic 'concepts.' For example, you can (and must) say that God is a Rock, but you must also go on to deny that God is material. However, what I'm trying to stress is that saying that doesn't get you there (to God)--to say that God is 'immaterial' doesn't comprehend Him either. If we imagine that we have truly named God 'immaterial,' then we have categorized Him within a single field of possibility--'materiality or not.' God is not to be categorized, nor placed within a common field with creatures. Denys is especially insistent on this point. God is beyond every affirmation but also beyond every denial. Surely wonder cannot rule out praying the Psalms!
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The eastern tradition has never made a sharp distinction between mysticism and theology; between personal experience of the divine mysteries and the dogma affirmed by the Church. The following words spoken a century ago by a great Orthodox theologian, the Metropolitan Philaret of Moscow, express this attitude perfectly: 'none of the mysteries of the most secret wisdom of God ought to appear alien or altogether transcendent to us, but in all humility we must apply our spirit to the contemplation of divine things'. Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, (Crestwood: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1976), 8.
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Lossky exaggerates just a bit for rhetorical effect.
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Lossky exaggerates just a bit for rhetorical effect. Not at all, but I think your issue is with Philaret of Moscow not Lossky. Read it again.
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