pseudo dionysius discusses 'the princile of negation' in his book 'mystical theology'
- the via negativa (the apophatic way- greek word 'apothasis' meaning 'denial')
- key idea is that human language cannot be used to speak truthfully of god because god is trancendent. therefore beyond human understanding/comprehention- totally inefable.
- the via negativa uses negative terms to discover the truth about god, in order to emphasise the difference between god and humaninty.
- the via negativa begins by negating the least appropriate assertions and then proceeds to negate even the most appropriate asserions. for example instead of stating 'god is good', we should say god is not good but god is not evil. As humans we are unable to fully comprehend the meaning of goodness, gods goodness is greater that human concepts.
- he stated in his book that "god is beyond assertion and beyond denial", therefore using human language will never tell us anything about gods nature.
- dionysuis belives that we should accept that god is a mystery. and we will never fully understand divine mysteries. until humans accept this we will continue to use flawed concepts to speak of god. belliteling and anthropomorphosing god.
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