Apophatic

Quick meaning: Apophatic is an adjective meaning (theology) Pertaining to knowledge of God obtained through negation rather than positive assertions.

Meaning

(theology) Pertaining to knowledge of God obtained through negation rather than positive assertions.

More Meanings

1. (by extension) That passively defines a thing by describing what is not characteristic of it.

Example Sentences

For him, the assertions of Palamas ran counter to the apophatic insistence in Pseudo-Dionysius that God was unknowable in his essence.

Here is a sudden interruption of remorseless, detailed exposition with a triple-punch of one-sentence paragraphs of self-indentification (2.1–2.4), and of an apophatic, negative kind, statements of what communists are not, have not, do not—[…]

Augustine had absorbed the underlying spirit of Greek apophatic theology, but the West did not develop a fully fledged spirituality of silence until the ninth century, when the writings of an unknown Greek author were translated into Latin and achieved near-canonical status in Europe.

Antonyms for apophatic

Common opposites include cataphatic.

Related Words

Related dictionary entries include denegative, negatival, anhypostatic, apodictic, negatory, apostatic.

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