Sculpting God: The Logic of Dionysian Negative Theology

1996 ◽  
Vol 89 (4) ◽  
pp. 355-371 ◽  
Author(s):  
John N. Jones
Keyword(s):  
Logical Structure ◽  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
Primary Task ◽  
Negative Theology ◽  
Close Attention ◽  
Dionysius The Areopagite ◽  
Postmodern Theology ◽  
History Of ◽  
Mystical Theology ◽  
Pseudo Dionysius

In recent decades, the theology of Dionysius the Areopagite (pseudo-Dionysius) has recaptured the attention of a number of scholars. These scholars address Dionysius's importance for the history of philosophy, for Christian aesthetics and liturgical and biblical symbols, and for postmodern theology. Much of this attention focuses on the brief and historically influentialThe Mystical Theology, written ca. 500 CE. For scholars, however, this text, like the God of which it speaks, seems to embody contradictions. I s there a consistent logic in the text, or is it deliberately inconsistent? In this essay, I shall analyze passages throughout the Dionysian corpus in order to interpret the sometimes dense expressions ofMystical Theologyand uncover the logical structure of Dionysius's negative theology. I shall suggest that Dionysius's primary task is to deny that God is a particular being. By identifying the patterns of language used to speak of beings, Dionysius can identify both affirmative and negative language that avoids such patterns and hence is appropriate for speech about God. This interpretation demands close attention to the distinction between particular assertions or denials and the assertion or denial of all beings. By focusing on this distinction and on the higher status of negative over affirmative theology, I shall show, against the dominant trend in Dionysian scholarship, that this negative theology logically coheres; it is neither self-negating nor logically contradictory.

Postmodern theology

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Merold Westphal
Keyword(s):  
Literary Theory ◽  
Negative Theology ◽  
Death Of God ◽  
Meister Eckhart ◽  
Postmodern Theology ◽  
Theological Discourse ◽  
Postmodern Philosophy ◽  
Absolute Knowledge ◽  
Knowledge Claims ◽  
Pseudo Dionysius

The term ‘postmodernism’ is loosely used to designate a wide variety of cultural phenomena from architecture through literature and literary theory to philosophy. The immediate background of philosophical postmodernism is the French structuralism of Saussure, Lévi-Strauss, Lacan and Barthes. But like existentialism, it has roots that go back to the critique by Kierkegaard and Nietzsche of certain strong knowledge claims in the work of Plato, Descartes and Hegel. If the quest for absolute knowledge is the quest for meanings that are completely clear and for truths that are completely certain, and philosophy takes this quest as its essential goal, then postmodernism replaces Nietzsche’s announcement of the death of God with an announcement of the end of philosophy. This need not be construed as the death of God in a different vocabulary. The question of postmodern theology is the question of the nature of a discourse about deity that would not be tied to the metaphysical assumptions postmodern philosophy finds untenable. One candidate is the negative theology tradition of Pseudo-Dionysius and Meister Eckhart. It combines a vigorous denial of absolute knowledge with a theological import that goes beyond the critical negations of postmodern philosophy. A second possibility, the a/theology of Mark C. Taylor, seeks to find religious meaning beyond the simple opposition of theism and atheism, but without taking the mystical turn. Finally, Jean-Luc Marion seeks to free theological discourse from the horizon of all philosophical theories of being, including Heidegger’s own postmodern analysis of being.

Lekta in the Stoic Ontological Framework

2019 ◽  
pp. 81-126
Author(s):  
Ada Bronowski
Keyword(s):  
Logical Structure ◽  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
Propositional Content ◽  
Previous Experience ◽  
Propositional Structure ◽  
History Of ◽  
Ontological Framework ◽  
First Time

This chapter examines the schematic map drawn up for the logical structure of the Stoic systēma. In it, rhetoric is distinguished from dialectic and, for the first time in the history of philosophy, signifiers are distinguished from things signified. As for lekta, they are distinguished from impressions, though both belong under the heading of things signified. The position of lekta is analysed both in the light of their being a kind of thing signified and as distinct from impressions. The latter are corporeal states of the soul, whereas lekta are incorporeal and stand in a relation to impressions which both guarantees the independence of lekta from them, and determines the nature of the impressions as rational. The literature on what makes impressions rational is discussed, including the case of the reasoning dog. The verdict is that there is no such animal on the specific Stoic understanding of reasoning. The distinction between a propositional content and a proposition is broached in the analysis of impressions, laying down the foundations for an analysis of rationality as the capacity to grasp a propositional structure, in which something is attributed to something on the basis of conceptions acquired through previous experience. This propositional structure is not invented by us but is what constitutes reality.

scholarly journals The Influence of the Renaissance on Richard Hooker

Perichoresis ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 93-116
Author(s):  
Egil Grislis
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
History Of Ideas ◽  
Early Church ◽  
European Context ◽  
Dionysius The Areopagite ◽  
History Of ◽  
Hermes Trismegistus ◽  
Pseudo Dionysius ◽  
The Middle Ages

ABSTRACT Like many writers after the Renaissance, Hooker was influenced by a number of classical and Neo-Platonic texts, especially by Cicero, Seneca, Hermes Trimegistus, and Pseudo-Dionysius. Hooker’s regular allusions to these thinkers help illuminate his own work but also his place within the broader European context and the history of ideas. This paper addresses in turn the reception of Cicero and Seneca in the early Church through the Middle Ages and Renaissance, Hooker’s use of Ciceronian and Senecan ideas, and finally Hooker’s use of Neo-Platonic texts attributed to Hermes Trismegistus and Dionysius the Areopagite. Hooker will be shown to distinguish himself as a sophisticated and learned interpreter who balances distinctive motifs such as Scripture and tradition, faith, reason, experience, and ecclesiology with a complex appeal to pagan and Christian sources and ideas.

scholarly journals The Divine Processions and the Divine Energies

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 59-70
Author(s):  
David Bradshaw ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Century ◽  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
The Real ◽  
Dionysius The Areopagite ◽  
History Of ◽  
Real Importance ◽  
Cappadocian Fathers ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Maximus The Confessor

The concept of the divine energies (energeiai) is commonly associated with the late Byzantine theologian Gregory Palamas. In fact, however, it has biblical origins and figures prominently in Greek patristic theology from at least the fourth century. Here I briefly trace its history beginning with the Pauline usage of energeia and continuing through the Cappadocian Fathers, Dionysius the Areopagite, Maximus the Confessor, and Gregory Palamas. I argue that the divine processions in Dionysius function much as do the divine energies in the Cappadocians, although Dionysius enriches the concept by setting it within the context of a Neoplatonic pattern of procession and return. Dionysius’s own work was in need of a further synthesis in that he does not explain the relationship between the divine processions and the divine logoi, the “divine and good acts of will” by which God creates. Maximus the Confessor then introduced a further element into this complex tradition through his argument that certain “natural energies” must necessarily accompany any nature. I argue that the real importance of Palamas from the standpoint of the history of philosophy lies not in originating the concept of the divine energies, but in using it to synthesize these disparate elements from the Cappadocians, Dionysius, and Maximus.

scholarly journals On the Origins of the Very First Principle as Infinite: The Hierarchy of the Infinite in Damascius and Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite

2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 133-152
Author(s):  
Tiziano F. Ottobrini
Keyword(s):  
First Principle ◽  
Negative Theology ◽  
Theoretical Relationship ◽  
Gregory Of Nyssa ◽  
Dionysius The Areopagite ◽  
Greek Thought ◽  
The One ◽  
Pseudo Dionysius

This paper discusses the theoretical relationship between the views of Damascius and those of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite. While Damascius’ De principiis is a bold treatise devoted to investigating the hypermetaphysics of apophatism, it anticipates various theoretical positions put forward by Dionysius the Areopagite. The present paper focuses on the following. First, Damascius is the only ancient philoso­pher who systematically demonstrates the first principle to be infinite (traditional Greek thought tended to regard the arkhē as finite). Second, Damascius modifies the concept and in several important passages shows the infinite to be superior and prior to the finite (previously this assumption was held only by Melissus and, sporadically, by Gregory of Nyssa and Plotinus). Third, Damascius’ theory of being (infinite, endless and ultrarational) is the strongest ancient articulation of the nature of the One which is a clear prefiguration of the negative theology developed by Dionysius the Areopagite.

Theological Epistemology and Apophasis

2020 ◽  
pp. 368-387
Author(s):  
Cyril O'Regan
Keyword(s):  
Peak Experiences ◽  
Close Attention ◽  
Meister Eckhart ◽  
Mystical Theology ◽  
Pseudo Dionysius

This chapter examines the epistemology of mystical theology. It begins with the ‘intellectualist’ line of thinking from Pseudo-Dionysius to Meister Eckhart, paying close attention both to the ‘protocols’ which are required to speak of God both as the ground of our language, beyond naming, and as one who can really be experienced. These epistemological protocols can also be identified in Augustine, and later in the more ‘affective’ line of mystical theology from Bernard of Clairvaux to Bonaventure, though in a rather different form. This renders mystical theology quite different from a quest for Jamesian ‘peak’ experiences and knowledge of them; rather, it entails disciplines of formation, involving regimes of discourse and practice, to learn a language and a subjectivity enabling a more intense relation with God.

scholarly journals The transformation of Plato’s theory of soul in the philosophy of Florentine Neoplatonism

2021 ◽  
pp. 22-32
Author(s):  
Olga Aleksandrovna Boiko
Keyword(s):  
Primary Sources ◽  
Active Principle ◽  
Augustine Of Hippo ◽  
Dionysius The Areopagite ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Christian Understanding ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Pseudo Dionysius

The object of this research is the Platonic tradition of understanding of soul. The subject of this research is the interpretation of Plato's concept of soul in the philosophy of Florentine academicians. The goal is trace the historical-philosophical evolution of Plato's theory of soul from the Antiquity to the Renaissance philosophy. The article represents the authorial historical-philosophical and comparative analysis of the primary sources. Analysis is conducted on the works of Plato, Plotinus, Augustine of Hippo, Aristotle, Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, M. Ficino, and D. Pico della Mirandola. The article outlines the key provisions of Plato's concept of the soul, reveals the tendencies of gradual historical transformation of this tradition within the history of philosophical thought. The topic at hand has not been previously covered in the scientific research, which defines the novelty of this paper. Soul is viewed as the mirror of the divine world that is in need of catharsis. Special attention is given to Neoplatonic comprehension of the luminous nature of soul. The concept of “universal soul”, which eclectically connects with the Christian understanding of soul as the individual and free principle is revealed. Analysis is conducted on components of the soul described by Plato, namely rational, appetitive, and the spirited. Special attention is turned to the rational soul as an immortal active principle. Position of the soul in the world hierarchy is considered. The article examines the soul as “bond of peace”, which encompasses the dialectical opposites of rational and sensuous, sole and numerous, separable and inseparable, time and eternity.

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