Impatience 8. For Aquinas, the Cataphatic way is not the best way to understand Religious Language because it depends on the flawed claim to know or understanding the nature of God and because it conflates the two distinct meanings of attributes affirmed of God into one misleading claim. He has 64 transcendental qualities as Supreme Personality of Godhead, although these qualities are explained as non-material and beyond duality. Exponents of the Via Negativa say this is to move from the more literal and concrete descriptions of God used in the Via Positiva to a deeper and better understanding of God, freed from the abstractions of our own language and thought. Positive imagery of God promotes a stronger sense of faith within the religious community. I took seminary courses in church history from a very reserved (and highly respected) scholar who was quite slow to attribute bad sounding labels to any figure without thorough justification. EXAMPLE: Why did you wait until the last minute? Enter your email address to subscribe. Jesus was the God/Man, fully God yet fully man when He became incarnate. Insofar as people understand what is said generally, people can understand what is said about God through theCataphatic Way. In the Monologion St Anselm argued that we are able to understand the world through concepts that exist in our mind because our mind comprehends God as their ultimate form. It took just two days here in Cornwall to finish the book! Cataphatic theology or kataphatic theology is theology that uses "positive" terminology to describe or refer to the divine specifically, God i.e. The problem with your view is that cataphatic theology without an apophatic foundation is straightforwardly idolatrous, substituting our mental representations of God for God himself. Anselm safeguards against the possibility that people affirm just anything of God by arguing that signs are in a sense controlled by what it is that they point towards, so it is not possible to say something about God which is not consistent with His nature. Registered in Scotland as a charity SC010756. Thanks for taking the time to read and respond to my old article on this topic. If you describe what a ship isn't, you get closer to what the ship is, Brain Davies- By eliminating negatives we have no idea what is God or not, Can contradict religious believers statements in holy scripture that describes God positively, St Thomas Aquinas It is difficult to confirm religious experiences as genuine, so there is no quality control when it comes to things affirmed of God on the basis of them. Fonthill Road, Aberdeen, AB11 6UD. Thank you for reading my article and taking the time to respond with this question. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. If you would like a Lesson Pack with activities and worksheets, that complements the power point, please click on the image below: Check out the Revision Podcast where I go through the topic (using the ppt found on YouTube) whilst a student makes notes on a coverall sheet: Check out this Mark with Me Preview for a Religious Language essay that achieved the overall A* in the 2018 exam: To continue watching this Mark with Me and have access all 30 revision podcasts then join I Think Therefore I Teachs exclusive membership on the Home page. , List of possible questions for OCR RS A level with the Christianity option. Personal strengths often come with weaknesses too. God is a mystical experience only. It shows itself in many of the medieval mystics. Recently I was asked about my thoughts on the difference between cataphatic and apophatic theology, and answered as follows: Cataphatic theology (theology through positive assertion about who God is sometimes spelled kataphatic) is the easiest of the two to address, being theology that says things about who God is. 2000-2022 Ferryhill ParishChurch of Scotland. He has a wonderful excellence of beauty which cannot be rivaled anywhere in the creation. It can be argued that only the via negativa adequately conveys the transcendence of God. (e in b.c))if(0>=c.offsetWidth&&0>=c.offsetHeight)a=!1;else{d=c.getBoundingClientRect();var f=document.body;a=d.top+("pageYOffset"in window?window.pageYOffset:(document.documentElement||f.parentNode||f).scrollTop);d=d.left+("pageXOffset"in window?window.pageXOffset:(document.documentElement||f.parentNode||f).scrollLeft);f=a.toString()+","+d;b.b.hasOwnProperty(f)?a=!1:(b.b[f]=!0,a=a<=b.g.height&&d<=b.g.width)}a&&(b.a.push(e),b.c[e]=!0)}y.prototype.checkImageForCriticality=function(b){b.getBoundingClientRect&&z(this,b)};u("pagespeed.CriticalImages.checkImageForCriticality",function(b){x.checkImageForCriticality(b)});u("pagespeed.CriticalImages.checkCriticalImages",function(){A(x)});function A(b){b.b={};for(var c=["IMG","INPUT"],a=[],d=0;d