Apophatic & Cataphatic Way
Religious Studies: OCR A Level, topic 1.9.1
The Via Negativa and Via Positiva
The via negativa (also called the apophatic way) focuses on explaining the nature of God by focusing on what God is not. The via positiva (cataphatic way) argues that positive statements can be made about God.
Via negativa/apophetic way
- ‘Apophatic’ comes from the Greek term ‘to deny’.
- The via negativa is based on the fundamental belief that ‘God’ is beyond human understanding and description.
- ‘He’ is completely ineffable, which means he cannot put into words the nature of God.
Analogical, not literal language
- Aquinas argues that the language applied to God is not literal but analogical.
- He understands this as happening in two ways – through the analogy of attribution and through the analogy of proportion.
Analogy of attribution
- The words we apply to human beings are related to the words we apply to God because there is a causal relationship between the two sets of qualities.
- Our qualities (like love and wisdom) are reflections of those qualities of God; albeit to a much lesser extent.
Analogy of attribution - bull
- Aquinas used the example of a bull to illustrate this.
- In medieval times, it was believed that if a creature's urine was healthy, then the creature that produced the urine must also be healthy. So 'if the urine is good, then the bull is good'.
- Likewise, by examining human love, wisdom or power, we may see a pale reflection of those divine attributes that God has.
Analogy of proportion
- The extent to which a being can be said to have certain properties is in proportion to the type of being we are describing.
- For example, to say a toddler baked a delicious cake at nursery is very different to saying the winner of the Great British Bake off baked a delicious cake in the final.
- When we say that a human is 'good', we are speaking of a finite being.
- When describing God, we are speaking of an infinite being. So the ‘goodness' is in proportion to that.