Unknowability Of God Research Articles

The Platonic-Biblical Origins of Apophatic Theology: Philo of Alexandria’s Philosophical Interpretation of the Pentateuchal Theophanies

This article examines Philo’s philosophical interpretation of the three theophanies in Exodus, which would, centuries later, continue to be considered by the great thinkers responsible for developing negative theology, such as Gregory of Nyssa and Dionysius the Areopagite. Although Exod 33:11 clearly states that the Lord spoke to Moses face to face, as if someone were to speak to his own friend, according to Philo, the lawgiver neither saw the face of God, nor learned the proper name of God, nor was he able to comprehend the essence of God. These very statements became the inspiration for later apophaticism. The present article seeks to establish to what extent Philo’s theses were influenced by Plato’s philosophy or by later Middle Platonism, and to what extent Philo, by commenting allegorically on the Pentateuch, becomes the initiator of new ideas hitherto unknown in philosophical discourse. In the course of the analyses, three great questions of apophatic theology are discussed: 1. the unnameability of God; 2. the unknowability of God’s essence; and 3. the knowability of God’s nature by grace.

Aklın İmkânı ve Sınırı: Fahreddin Râzî’ye Göre Genel ve Özel Metafizik Bilginin İmkânı

This article examines al-Rāzī’s views on the possibility of metaphysical knowledge. Firstly, after outlining his classification of the metaphysical knowable into essence and existence as well as undetailed (ijmālī) and detailed (tafṣīlī), the article analyzes al-Rāzī’s acceptance of the possibility of general knowledge of metaphysics under a few headings by delving into some major themes. These include the claims that the category of existence is broader than the world of the sensible, that theoretical reasoning leads to metaphysical knowledge, and lastly that the theoretical evidence provides necessary knowledge about the existence of a creator. Al-Rāzī has also been demonstrated in al-Matālib to have inherited the arguments rejecting metaphysical knowledge, which he had attributed in his earlier works to a group with the name muhandisiyyūn, by restricting them to the issue of God’s essence being knowable. For al-Rāzī, theoretical reasoning could provide knowledge about the existence of a particular metaphysical being but not about its quiddity. The article further underlines the metaphysical and epistemic theses for the position on the unknowability of God’s essence and discusses its semantic interpretation. The debate on the potential of theoretical reason to provide uncertain knowledge of detailed metaphysics in the form of the best possible explanations (the metaphysics of the best explanation, or al-awlawiyya), however, is left to another article.

Agnostos Theos: Relacja między nieskończonością a niepoznawalnością Boga w doktrynach medioplatoników

W czasach poprzedzających powstanie neoplatonizmu (I-III wiek przed Chr.) filozofowie zwani dziś medioplatonikami snuli rozbudowaną refleksję na temat możliwości poznania Boga oraz dróg prowadzących do zdobycia wiedzy o tym, co transcendentne. Zgodnie ze słowami Platona: „Znaleźć Twórcę i Ojca tego wszechświata jest rzeczą trudną, lecz znalazłszy Go, jest niemożliwe opowiadać o Nim wszystkim” (Plato, Timaeus 28c) medioplatonicy uważali, że Bóg, którego utożsamiali niekiedy z platońskim Jednem i Dobrem, jest poznawalny, lecz niewyrażalny. Choć poznaniu Boga towarzyszy trud związany z procesem intelektualnego i etycznego doskonalenia się, a to, co poznane w tym procesie, jest niemożliwe do wypowiedzenia w ludzkim języku, to jednak wiedza o Bogu i upodobnienie się do Niego jest celem wszelkiej filozofii platońskiej. Do podobnych wniosków dochodzili myśliciele żydowscy i chrześcijańscy tworzący w tym samym czasie, tacy jak Filon z Aleksandrii, Klemens z Aleksandrii czy Orygenes, zaliczani niekiedy również do grona filozofów medioplatońskich. W odróżnieniu od swych pogańskich kolegów, uważali oni jednak, że proces poznawania Boga przez człowieka będzie trwał w nieskończoność, a skończony ludzki umysł nigdy nie będzie w stanie objąć w zupełności tego, co nieskończone. Za nieskończoną bowiem uznawali istotę i moc Boga. Celem niniejszego artykułu jest ukazanie związku między nieskończonością a niepoznawalnością Boga, a zarazem wskazanie na różnice w tezach stawianych w tej kwestii przez medioplatoników pogańskich i tych, którzy przyjmowali Objawienie judeo-chrześcijańskie.

Philo’s Dialectics of Apophatic Theology, His Strategy of Differentiation and His Impact on Patristic Exegesis and Theology

This paper deals with several aspects of the impact of Philo’s ideas on Patristic thought. First, the author shows how Philo’s “dialectics of apophatic theology” influenced later theological systems, in the first place in respect to what we call “a strategy of differentiation” between unknowable divine substance and knowable divine activities. These activities for Philo were connected to the notion of Logos/Wisdom (which Philo used most probably in a non-hypostatic sense), understood in a middle-Platonic sense as “intelligible cosmos”. However, Philo’s apophatic theology is always supported by his allegorical interpretation of Scripture. After considering both the Platonic and the Jewish background of the Philonic Logos, the author traces the transformation of this concept in Clement, Origen, and Gregory of Nyssa. These authors, in line with Philo's apophaticism, also stress the unknowability of God’s essence. Philo’s gnoseological theocentrism determines what has been labeled as his “religious psychology”: since human reason is itself a gift from God, one’s life needs to be dedicated to worshipping God in a continuous effort to know Him. This creates a sort of tension between the knowledge of God as the ultimate goal of human life and the fact that the nature of God is, after all, incomprehensible for humans. That is why Philo, according to his “strategy of differentiation,” describes the process of cognition in “mystical” terms. Although the Christian Platonists follow him in this respect, in their writings mysticism acquires a clear eschatological dimension which, in the case of Philo, is either lacking or very elusive.

Apophatic Community: Yannaras on Relational Being

For Martin Heidegger the story of Western philosophy ended basically in egocentrism or the metaphysics of “subjectivity”; however, he acknowledged the possibility of another path in Greece: that of pre-Socratic thinking. Yet, there is a further path he did not acknowledge: the tradition of Orthodox philosophy and theology. The paper focuses on some key works of the prominent contemporary Greek philosopher Christos Yannaras, for a long time professor in Athens. Taking over the notions of “Being” and ontology, Yannaras construes them (with Heidegger) not as ontic “substances” amenable to epistemic knowledge, but as guideposts to “relational” or participatory experience. His early text On the Absence and Unknowability of God: Heidegger and the Aeropagite explores the (at least partial) affinity between the German thinker and the Orthodox stress on “apophaticism.” For Yannaras, apophaticism profoundly reorients philosophical inquiry; it also has important implications for human “personhood” and “freedom.” Far from denoting individuation, personhood for him means a face (prosopon) standing out toward others, just as freedom transcends self-will in the direction of a relational event. By way of conclusion, I probe the status of relational “community.” For Yannaras, I ask, is community a concretely achieved way of life (exemplified by the Orthodox Church); or does it point more apophatically (and prophetically) to a future advent?

Mystical Perspectives in Interreligious Dialogue

This article discusses the distinction that is being made between the unknowability of God, the source of all that is, and Jesus of Nazareth, the body language of God, from the view­ point of spirituality with Paul’s address at the Areopagus in Athens (Acts 17:16­32) as point of departure. This speech virtually represents the oldest Christian interfaith meeting in which there is a dialogue between religious Athenians and Paul. The article reflects, first of all, on Paul’s reaction to the questions and challenges of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers in his audience that relates to this distinction. A second part will investigate the mystical unity of the unknowable God and his body language in Christ. In a third part some mystical perspectives on this distinction in Islam will be analysed.

Mystical Perspectives in Interreligious Dialogue

This article discusses the distinction that is being made between the unknowability of God, the source of all that is, and Jesus of Nazareth, the body language of God, from the viewpoint of spirituality with Paul’s address at the Areopagus in Athens (Acts 17:16-32) as point of departure. This speech virtually represents the oldest Christian interfaith meeting in which there is a dialogue between religious Athenians and Paul. The article reflects, first of all, on Paul’s reaction to the questions and challenges of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers in his audience that relates to this distinction. A second part will investigate the mystical unity of the unknowable God and his body language in Christ. In a third part some mystical perspectives on this distinction in Islam will be analysed.

On the Absence and Unknowability of God – By Christos Yannaras

On the Absence and Unknowability of God – By Christos Yannaras

Act & Being: Towards a Theology of the Divine Attributes by Colin E. Gunton

BOOK REVIEWS 639 less objectionable.) Thierry-Dominique Humbrecht's essay, "God and Being, or the New Covenant," will very likely prove the most useful in Anglophone countries to professional teachers of Catholic philosophy and theology. Since phenomenology's "theocentric tum," the issue of the relation of God and being now has a widelyrecognised pertinence that onlyThomists generally appreciated before. That in itself is a testimony to the perennial value of the tradition of Thomist thought which these (mostly) still young men, or men in young middleage , are continuing with courage, learning, andthat peculiar French combination of spirituality with intellectual flair. I noticed with pleasure the name of Hans Urs von Balthasar, invoked positively and at a crucial point in Humbrecht's argument-though a Balthasarian connection is subterraneously present likewise in the discussion of the beautiful in Narcisse's article on the realism of St Thomas. This is a book with very few footnotes or perhaps he would have mentioned his own doctoral thesis which compared Balthasar's mind-set as disclosed in Herrlichkeit with Thomas's appeal to convenientia, or revelatory "fittingness"-itself, he argues, a category of theological aesthetics. Among the "new masters," Balthasar's writing is surely one direction in which Thomists could look in order to amplify the theological resources oftheirtradition-not, ofcourse, uncritically, or withoutthe necessary adjustments that foundational Thomist principles may suggest. This would only be, after all, to repay the compliment Balthasar himself paid Thomas in treating his Christian metaphysic as the high-point, ontologically speaking, of the West. AIDAN NICHOLS, 0. P. Blackfriars Cambridge, England Act & Being: Towards a Theology ofthe Divine Attributes. By Colin E. Gunton. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2003. Pp. ix+ 162. $29.00 (paper). ISBN 0-8028-2658-X. A reworking of a set of public lectures, this book proved to be the author's last, as Gunton died unexpectedly in 2003 after a prolific thirty years as a Reformed theologian in England. As the preposition in the title indicates, the work is not a systematic exposition of the divine attributes themselves but a critical discussion of the way they have been and ought to be treated. The first four chapters raise the various theological issues at stake in how and what we predicate of God's nature and character, but for the most part they offer a sustained criticism of the classical manner of attribution. The last four chapters are more constructive, although Gunton's own proposals for theological predication and brief discussions of certain attributes are neither fully developed 640 BOOK REVIEWS nor neatly presented. Although one can appreciate a few of his criticisms and even the general trajectory he wishes treatment of the attributes now to take, those of more Catholic theological sensibilities will have difficulty identifying with his general discounting of the tradition's development, based as it is on a Barthian tendency to oppose philosophical reasoning about what God must be against revelation's account of God's historical actions on our behalf. In the preface Gunton says his original intention to offer a more comprehensive treatment ofthe attributes gave way to a growing dissatisfaction with how the tradition came to define proper theological predication. In his assessment, the doctrine of the divine attributes was often done by using the wrong method, developing the wrong content, and treating things in the wrong order (8). Early Christian theologians emulated the Neoplatonic approach to characterize God as essentially that which the world is not. In favoring a cosmological method of philosophical abstraction from the imperfections found in the world, the tradition displaced the Old Testament as the proper theological foundation of the doctrine of God and neglected to draw God's character more positively from his saving actions in the economy. While explicitly critical of Origen, Pseudo-Dionysius, John of Damascus, and Aquinas, Gunton especially indictsThe DivineNames for the tradition's excessively negative approachto and characterization of God, one that conceived the relation of God and the world as opposed to one another, in marked contrast to what the incarnation implies. Gunton criticizes the method for its emphasis upon the unknowability of God because it discounts what divine revelation is meant to...

Feminine Forms of the Divine in Bahá’í Scripture

The article responds to current feminist research in religious studies from a Bahá’í perspective. It answers the resurgence of a feminine divine in several religions by offering examples of the interaction between male and female principles in Bahá’í sacred writings. The complementarity of masculine and feminine images of divinity is understood as enriching our understanding of the divine–human encounter, but not as supplanting the unity and unknowability of God. The dynamic nature of masculine and feminine images of divinity sharply contrasts static concepts of divinity hardened by dogma and is offered as a pattern for the discussion of theological concepts in Bahá’í communities.

Augustine, the Trinity and the Theological Crisis of the West

We live in a culture marked, as few others have been, by persistent and deep-seated scepticism about the existence and knowability of God. Not only is the intellectual leadership of our times for the most part atheist or agnostic, but theology itself, certainly since the time of Kant, has been in fundamental disarray about the question, as witness, for example, the recent preoccupation with the question of revelation. In this paper I want to suggest, first, that the problem does not begin with Kant, because at least one of the causes of Western atheism is a theological tradition which encourages thought in the essential unknowability of God. Here, a distinction must be drawn. In one sense, of course, the doctrine of the unknowability of God is essential to theology. But to hold it in such a way as to suggest or teach that the unknowable God can in noway make himself known — so that there can be no theological ontology at all — is to offer the kind of hostages to fortune which so much Western theology has done. Can it really be a historical accident that it is here rather than anywhere else that atheism has found so fertile a soil?

The Unknowability of God in Al-Ghazali

The main lines of this exploration are quite simply drawn. That the God whom Jews, Christians, and Muslims worship outstrips our capacities for characterization, and hence must be unknowable, will be presumed as uncontested. The reason that God is unknowable stems from our shared confession that ‘the Holy One, blessed be He’, and ‘the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth’, and certainly ‘Allah, the merciful One’ is one; and just why God's oneness entails God's being unknowable deserves discussion, though that will occur as we move along. The issue facing us is the one which preoccupied al-Ghazali: how does a seeker respond to that unknowability?The root meaning of the Arabic word for ‘student’ (tawlib) means ‘seeker’, and that attitude of ‘seeking the face of God’, along with the indescribability of the face, will be presumed throughout our discussion. That's why we are struck with the clumsy term ‘unknowable’ rather than its more euphonious Greek form ‘agnostic’. For Western agnostics are such largely because they cannot find God sufficiently compelling, while they ‘would not have the impudence to claim to be atheists’ – as one contemporary seeker puts it. So theologians feel it necessary to enclose the term in quotation marks when discussing, say, Aquinas' ‘agnosticism’ regarding divinity. Yet a genuine unknowing does lie at the heart of the inquiry of the Jew, Christian or Muslim seeking after God; indeed, it is the unknowing which distinguishes a search for God from lusting after idols. So let us follow al-Ghazali in an effort to discover the lineaments of both search and seeker after an unknowable God.