Apophaticism

JUSTIN M. LASSER

The Greek term apophasis denotes a manner of doing theology by “not speaking.” As the alpha-privative prefix suggests, the term is concerned with a negating function. In some forms apophaticism exists as a check on kataphatic or assertive theology or philosophy. The style of apophatic theology was first developed by the Platonic school philosophers, and creatively used by Plotinus, as well as appearing in some of the Gnostic literature (Apocryphon of John, Trimorphic Protennoia). Apophaticism, stressing that God exceeds the boundaries of all terms that can be applied to the divinity by human mind or language, is above all else a means of preserving mystery amid a world of theological assertions. Apophaticism preserves the religious apprehension of the mystical in a more sophisticated way than the simple assevera­tion of dogmatic utterances.

The Nag Hammadi writings (recovered in 1945) exhibit the earliest forms of Christian apophaticism. Clement and Origen of Alexandria both developed early Orthodox forms of apophaticism which were inherited and developed especially by St. Gregory of Nazianzus (Orations 27–8) and St. Gregory of Nyssa (Contra Eunomium) in their con­troversy with the Arian logicians Eunomius and Aetius. The theology of these radical Arians (Heterousiasts) against which the Cappadocians asserted apophaticism as a way of refuting their deductions about God’s nature (which Aetius had affirmed was simple and directly knowable through logical method and literal exegesis) was itself a form of apophaticism, since they posited the negation “un-originate” (agenetos) as the first principle of their doctrine of God.

Evagrius of Ponticus, disciple of the Cappadocians, transformed Christian apophaticism into a theology of prayer, encouraging his disciples to pray without using any mental images. The first Orthodox Christian writer to employ apophaticism systematically was the great 5th-century Syrian theologian Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite. His treatises on the Divine Names and the Mystical Theology stand at the very pinnacle of Orthodox apophatic theology. Dionysius believed that the descriptive (affirmative or positive-utterance) elements in revelation were intended to provide a ladder by which the initiate would climb by negating each descriptive assertion about God. Dionysius’ writings, considering the theological controversies that preceded them, were astoundingly thought provok­ing. Concerning the divinity, Dionysius wrote: “It is not a substance [ousia], nor is it eternity or time. ... It is not Sonship or Fatherhood ... it falls neither within the predicate of non-being nor of being” (Mystical Theology, in Rorem 1987: 141). Even so, Dionysius could still begin his treatise praying to the divine Trinity and would develop all his thought in the matrix of the divine liturgy. Such are the paradoxes of the apophatic approach.

In the modern era, Orthodox theologians such as Vladimir Lossky have used apophaticism as a means of distinguishing a “proper” form of Orthodox theology from what they often described as “Western theology” that they found to be too asser­tive or kataphatic (scholastic) in character. This school has often described Orthodox theology’s “Great Captivity” by scholastic forms after the 18th century, and believed a renewal of apophaticism would release it. This sweeping generalization of western thought neglected the truth that Orthodox theological tradition itself was and is highly kataphatic in terms of its dogmatic tradition, and uses philosophical categories of discourse just as readily as have Catholi­cism and Protestantism in times past. The enduringly valuable aspect of the Orthodox apophatic tradition is the manner in which it guards the mystery of the divine revela­tion in its theological traditions.

SEE ALSO: Gnosticism; Lossky, Vladimir (1903–1958); St. Dionysius the Areopagite

REFERENCES AND SUGGESTED READINGS

Dionysius the Areopagite (1987) Pseudo-Dionysius: The Complete Works, trans. P. Rorem. New York: Paulist Press.

Lossky, V. (2002) The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press.

Pelikan, J. (1993) Christianity and Classical Culture: The Metamorphosis of Natural Theology in the Christian Encounter with Hellenism. New Haven: Yale University Press.