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	Apophatic theology - OrthodoxWiki (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-02)
		Apophatic theology—also known as negative theology—is a theology that attempts to describe God by negation, to speak of God only in absolutely certain terms and to avoid what may not be said.
		In Orthodox Christianity, apophatic theology is based on the assumption that God's essence is unknowable or ineffable and on the recognition of the inadequacy of human language to describe God.
		Adherents of the apophatic tradition hold that God is beyond the limits of what humans can understand, and that one should not seek God by means of intellectual understanding, but through a direct experience of the love (in Western Christianity) or the Energies (in Eastern Christianity) of God.
	orthodoxwiki.org /Apophatic_theology (498 words)

	Negative theology - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		The apophatic tradition is often allied with or expressed in tandem with the approach of mysticism, which focuses on a spontaneous or cultivated individual experience of the divine reality beyond the realm of ordinary perception, an experience often unmediated by the structures of traditional organized religion.
		Apophatic statements are crucial to much theology in Orthodox Christianity (see Vladimir Lossky).
		Many other East Asian traditions present something very similar to the apophatic approach: for example, the Tao Te Ching, the source book of the Chinese Taoist tradition, asserts in its first statement: the Tao ("way" or "truth") that can be described is not the constant/true Tao.
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Apophatic_theology (2519 words)

	Christian Contemplative Tradition
		Contemplation is distinguished by some authors into kataphatic and apophatic, sometimes also known as the via positiva, or "positive way," and the via negativa, or "negative way." This distinction, insofar as it suggests opposition between the two, is misleading.
		Apophatic contemplation is a further stage in that relationship.
		Since the whole essence of contemplative prayer is to move beyond thought, her teaching seems to call into question the legitimacy of apophatic contemplation as an appropriate practice for Christianity, and that is how it has sometimes been interpreted: to put the brakes on the natural transition from discursive meditation to contemplative prayer.
	www.centeringprayer.com /intimacy/intimacy04b.htm (1147 words)

	Heart, Mind, Soul, and Strength: The "Apophatic" Branch of Mysticism
		Apophatic Mysticism is rooted in humility about what we can know and the realization that all of our systems are, after all, completely unable to do justice to an understanding of God.
		The apophatic approach looks at each thing and consciously reminds itself, "Neither is this image fully like God." Ignorance leads to humility and to continual striving for better knowledge.
		But talking about apophatic theology like this gives the wrong idea that it is merely an intellectual honesty about the limits of what we know.
	weekendfisher.blogspot.com /2005/12/apophatic-branch-of-mysticism.html (1016 words)

	Mikhail Epstein. Faith and Image:The Religious Unconscious in 20th Century Russian Culture (in Russian) (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-02)
		Apophatism denies the possibility of knowing and describing God in human terms, even going so far as to strip Him of the attribute of existence, thus leading directly to an atheistic worldview.
		A new version of trans-avantgardism, Russian conceptualism, is extensively analyzed for its apophatic impulse, which far exceeds that of pure avant-garde movements of the 1910's and 20's.
		Thus apophatism, in approaching both faith and image, avoids the opposition of conscious and unconscious by striving for a creative synthesis, which accounts for the affinities between religion and art discussed throughout the book.
	www.emory.edu /INTELNET/book_faith_image.html (1941 words)

	Apophatic Theology in the Classical World
		Speaking of ineffable subjects "apophatically," by means of denial, or "peripatetically," by (used in this context) means of linguistically "walking around" the subject in question without substantially defining it, are universal phenomena in the history of the world's religions.
		Part of the reason that the term `apophatic' is pressed into service, says historian of Christianity Jaroslav Pelikan, is because "speaking about a negative theology sounds--how should one put it?--too negative." (Pelikan 1988, 6) Apophatic theology is not to be understood as a form of skepticism or, far less, atheism.
		Apophatic theology might at first glance seem to be incompatible with the most affirmative form of cataphasis, faith.
	bahai-library.com /personal/jw/my.papers/apophatic.html (8352 words)

	Case Western Reserve University
		Religion’s apophatic face surfaces at an emotional, private level during meditation or in isolation.
		“Apophatic theology is one of the most fascinating topics because of its eccentricity,” said Berindeanu.
		In their exploration of the roots of apophatic theology, they have looked at a number of religions.
	www.case.edu /news/2005/4-05/apophatic.htm (941 words)

	Definition of Apophatic theology
		Apophatic statements are crucial to Orthodox Christian theology.
		Apophatic theology is critical of this approach, presupposing that it is doomed to result in false, idolatrous conclusions, when applied to the discovery of the being of God.
		Many East Asian traditions present something very similar to the apophatic approach: for example, the Tao Te Ching, the source book of the Chinese Taoist tradition, asserts in its first statement: the Tao ("way" or "truth") that can be described is not the Tao.
	www.wordiq.com /definition/Apophatic_theology (697 words)

	Negative theology - Theopedia
		Negative theology, also known as Apophatic theology, is a theological approach that describes God by negation, speaking of God only in terms of what He is not (apophasis) rather than presuming to describe what God is.
		In contrast, making positive statements about the nature of God, which occurs in most other forms of Christian theology, is sometimes called "cataphatic theology".
		It was employed by John of Damascus when he wrote that positive statements about God reveal "not the nature, but the things around the nature." It continues to be prominent in Eastern Orthodoxy (see Gregory Palamas) where apophatic statements are crucial to much their theology, and is used to balance cataphatic theology.
	www.theopedia.com /Apophatic_theology (711 words)

	Negative Theology and Theological Hermeneutics (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-02)
		In this movement, there is a strong apophatic drive that can be distinguished, which reduces religion and the truth claims ventured in it to departicularised basic structures of religious desire.
		Perhaps one could say that the strong apophatic tendencies apparent in both the religious revival in contemporary European society and the cultural apophasis constitute the socio-cultural basis for this renewed philosophical interest in religious apophatic thinking patterns.
		At least this is the challenge put forward by these apophatical trends to theology itself, as it were, for internal use, but perhaps such a reflection may also give some broader hints for a cultural and philosophical coping with the particularity of religious truth claims.
	www.philosophyandscripture.org /Issue3-2/Boeve/Boeve2.html (7204 words)

	Apophasis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		In logic, proslepsis, as described briefly by Aristotle and in detail by Theophrastus, is a type of proposition in which the middle term of a syllogism is implied.
		An apophatic theology sees God as ineffable and attempts to describe God in terms of what God is not.
		Apophatic statements refer to transcendence in this context, as opposed to cataphasis referring to imminence.
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Apophasis (717 words)

	The Cloud of Unknowing: Introduction (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-02)
		The Cloud of Unknowing, by contrast, is essentially apophatic in its emphasis and focuses almost entirely on the "silencing" described by Augustine: it collapses the meditation on nature to brief allusion, and discusses the soul's activities only in the most practical manner.
		Since his technique is mainly apophatic, he sets forth what is essential to the contemplative act by negating, at this point, the value of spatial directions, which are taken up again later when he introduces the triad of without, within, and above (lines 2259-68).
		Although this is a crucial apophatic moment, the author, by ruling out an imaginative meditation on the whole of creation, has already briefly engaged in it.
	www.lib.rochester.edu /camelot/teams/clunintr.htm (7196 words)

	Drew Transdisciplinary Theological Colloquium VI - Apophatic Bodies
		The overflow of creativity may itself involve the withdrawal or disappearance of its author, who is both hidden by and discernible in the traces of creation--in the flow of creativity itself.
		The paintings that Wolfson has generously agreed to exhibit publicly for the first time in conjunction with the Transdisciplinary Theological Colloquium on “Apophatic Bodies” may be seen to intersect with the colloquium’s theme in a number of ways.
		The organizers chose “Luminal Darkness” for its publicity materials in part because the painting’s palette seems to hint at the darkly shining depths of mysticism’s apophatic vision, even as those depths give rise to forms that are almost, but not quite, recognizable figures.
	www.depts.drew.edu /tsfac/colloquium/2006/paintings.htm (425 words)

	Apophatic
		In most cases the kataphatic way will predominate, for as we shall see, there are elements of the apophatic approach that are deeply threatening from both psychological and spiritual standpoints.
		It should also be noted that most people who wind up with an apophatic orientation have passed through a number of kataphatic experiences or "phases" on their way.
		Negative theology (sometimes called the apophatic tradition) means opening to the mystery of the divine presence within us which transcends the capacity of every human faculty.
	www.orednet.org /~jflory/apophatic.htm (757 words)

	PARADISE LOST: SATAN
		By describing God in such an apophatic way Milton’s message isn’t that he is to be seen as less attractive than Satan but as unknowable purely through poetry or words.
		Satan’s qualities can be summed up in verse (and indeed are to be seen as limited in doing so) but the almighty transcends this, he truly is other-worldly and can only be known through religious devotion.
		The notion that God can only be approached apophatically comes largely from the thinking of fourteenth and thirteenth century mystics and culminates in the fourteenth century religious text “the cloud of unknowing”.
	www.mtsn.org.uk /cer/english_bookmarks/satan.htm (1389 words)

	Developing an apophatic christocentrism: Lessons from maximus the confessor Theology Today - Find Articles (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-02)
		Luther's insistence on a "theology of the cross" was based in an insight at once profoundly apophatic and deeply christological.
		God's transcendence of our conceptual categories is fundamental to his thought, yet he is no less emphatic than Luther that we encounter this transcendence only as we encounter (or, more properly, are encountered by) the particularity of God's work in the life of Jesus Christ.
		At first blush, it would appear that the effect of apophatic theology is invariably to draw one away from the concrete and particular.
	www.findarticles.com /p/articles/mi_qa3664/is_200307/ai_n9251893/pg_8 (594 words)

	Negative theology Summary
		The apophatic, negative way is transformed into a cataphatic, positive one.
		Cataphatic theology, without an apophatic dimension, may build a system of concepts without an underlying experience of God.
		Apophatic statements are crucial to much theology in Orthodox Christianity.
	www.bookrags.com /Negative_theology (3944 words)

	Untitled Document
		The task of apophatic mysticism is the cultivation of self-contentment.
		The practice of apophatic mysticism works effectively whether it is practiced within or outside of a doctrinal religious system.
		This web site will treat apophatic mysticism as it is practiced outside of any doctrinal system of "truth." For purposes of brevity I will refer to this non-doctrinal apophatic mysticism as simply "apophatic mysticism," but here remind you the reader that an apophatic tradition exists both inside and outside of various theological systems of belief.
	www.apophaticmysticism.com /TableofContents.html (657 words)

	Thomistic Institute 1999: Sacchi (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-02)
		As a consequence of that, St. Thomas' apophatic thought would be free from the ontotheological vice which reduces God to the concept of being.
		This apophatic way is closer to a mystical experience which presupposes the supernatural revelation of God's truth, but if not founded in such a revelation, it dissolves in an esoteric gnosticism or in an outlandish theosophy.
		In short, this apophatic way is a renewed restauration of the old agnostic trend grafted widely on to the modern thought once the nominalist tendencies had undermined the foundations of first philosophy.
	www.nd.edu /Departments/Maritain/ti99/sacchi.htm (3687 words)

	Untitled Document
		The employment of apophatic methodology within the Eastern theological tradition addresses once again the age old issue of the “knowability of God” as well as the ramifications for one’s approach to this issue.
		Despite the undeniable fact that the negative elements of a progressive divesting of the mind along Christian theologians are in general linked, in the their elaboration, with the speculative technique of Middle and Neo-Platonism, it would be unfair necessarily to see in Christian apophasis a sign of the Hellenization of Christian thought.
		The existence of an apophatic attitude – is implied in the paradox of the Christian revelation: the transcendent God becomes immanent in the world, but in the very immanence of his economy, which leads to the incarnation and to death on the cross, he reveals himself as transcendent, as ontologically independent of all created being
	www.christiantruth.com /orthodoxyapophaticism.html (4790 words)

	Frederick G. McLeod: Apophatic or Kataphatic Prayer?
		While this kind of contemplative prayer may lead one to a mystical or apophatic sense of union with Christ beyond the sensible, Ignatius seems intent on keeping a retreatant on the kataphatic level where he or she is able to share with Christ in a sensible way.
		In the apophatic, one is totally forgetful of oneself with one's attention rivetted solely on the Lord's existence.
		In regard to how kataphatic and apophatic are related to each other, they are in a sense complementary or perhaps better described as being at opposite ends of the same prayer spectrum.
	www.spiritualitytoday.org /spir2day/863815mcleod.html (4496 words)

	[No title]
		these apophatic believers are the only ones who withstand his criticisms of the Christian religion.
		apophatic tradition has existed for centuries and has received this kind of critique before.
		And the cataphatic tradition is identified by philosophers as the
	www.uwec.edu /Philrel/Prism/PRISM2002/page0133.htm (561 words)

	Abdul's Lebanese-American Homepage
		Orthodox theologians distinguish between the "apophatic," (or negative way of knowing God by asserting what He is not) and the positive or "cataphatic" means of knowing Him.
		More comfortable with the mystical than most in the West, the paradox of the infinite revealing Himself to the finite and the tension between apophatic and cataphatic knowledge is, for Orthodox theologians, a cause for worship, not scholastic contemplation and examination.
		The paradox of the infinite revealing Himself to the finite and the tension between apophatic and cataphatic knowledge is that any understanding gained cataphatically serves only to point to the immensity of the gulf remaining between the man with newfound understanding and the actual reality of God.
	www.geocities.com /Athens/Acropolis/5347/orthodox.html (2883 words)

	daily episcopalian: spiritiuality site Archives
		Saint John of the Cross, whose feast is tomorrow, is sometimes described as a practitioner of apophatic theology and an exemplar of apophatic spirituality.
		Apophatic: Of or relating to the belief that God can be known to humans only in terms of what He is not (such as 'God is unknowable.')
		While apophatic thought dates as least to Pseudo-Dionysius in the sixth century, it is, as Clifton Healy has argued, quoting various academic heavyweights, suited to the postmodern temperament:
	blog.edow.org /weblog/spiritiuality_site (5012 words)

	Upper Room \| Ask Julian
		The via negativa (Latin) or apophatic (Greek "negating") path refers to the hidden aspect of God's nature and corresponds to the believer's experiences such as desert, fasting, and silence.
		It stands in contrast to the positive way (via positiva or kataphatic path), in which God is experienced through the creation, light and sound, colors and senses, words and images.
		Apophatic practices include silence, retreat, and contemplative prayer.
	www.upperroom.org /askjulian/?act=answer&itemid=117978 (531 words)

	Touchstone Archives: Father, Glorify Thy Name! (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-02)
		An attempt is sometimes made at this point to justify this apophatic vigilance against doctrinal formulation by some vague and very caliginous reference to those Fathers of the Church especially known for their emphasis on the via negativa (that is, saying what God is not rather than saying what he is).
		In Christian apophatic theology we are not simply asserting that the human mind is insufficiently capacious to contain him.
		While apophatic theology is an attitude governing all the Christian life, it has chiefly to do with worship and contemplative love.
	www.touchstonemag.com /archives/article.php?id=13-06-022-f (5935 words)

	[No title] (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-02)
		The difference lies only in that some theologians prefer the cataphatic to the apophatic as a mode of expression, but it does not change the fact that they are expressing the same Christian truths.
		Description in the apophatic text involves the paradoxical conjunction of affirmation and denial, so that no phrase is accorded any value; thus Eckhart disrupts the flow of sense with oxymorons such as 'the highest point of the elevation lies in the deep ground of humility'.
		The apophatic theologian must be so detached that '[he] knows nothing of knowing, [he] loves nothing of loving'.
	www.op.org /eckhart/Essay.html (4957 words)

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