Humbrecht on St.Thomas' Negative Theology

In 2005 J. Vrin of Paris published a book destined to be a classic in the increasingly rich literature on negative theology. Thierry-Dominique Humbrecht O.P. is the author of Theologie Negative et Noms Divins Chez Saint Thomas D'Aquin (negative theology and the divine names in st. thomas aquinas). Below I have imperfectly translated the blurb he wrote on the back of the book.

"Negative Theology attempts to designate all we are unable to say about God. Do the perfections attributed to God (like being, goodness, wisdom etc.) truly reach God or should they be left aside? Are they the locus for a work of speculation or rather for a mystical union in the ineffable? Why is the vocabulary of “negative theology” absent from so many authors?

Negative theology has become the object of renewed research. The [study of] Platonism and its reception, of the medieval authors, and above all the Heideggarian reading of the history of metaphysics have run together [in this direction.]

Is there a negative theology in St. Thomas’ work and, if so, of what kind? “Concerning God, we do not know what God is but only what God is not”. This Thomistic formula which has become emblematic comes from Plotinus. So is Thomas original? To know, we must situate him among his contemporaries.

Furthermore ,the danger is to consider only some famous texts instead of considering how they fit in the [various] works and how each work fits in his whole corpus.

A study of the whole remains to be done.

God, says Thomas is “completely unknown” to us. However his negative theology seems rather to be a negative way, an ensemble of negative modalities which function to correct and confirm the primacy of positive predication of the divine perfections."

Rahner "favoured an apophatic way of speaking about God".

The Cambridge Companion to Karl Rahner, edited by Declan Marmion and Mary E. Hines (Cambridge University Press, 2005) contains 18 excellent chapters on his work and a 19th which is Rahner's last talk before he died (1984). In it he describes four "experiences" he considered crucial to theological work. The first, which he clearly signals as the most important, he titles "Analogical Affirmations". It goes without saying, he argues, that for a Catholic theologian theological statements are analogical. This means that any thing affirmative we say about God must always be negated in some sense.
He says theologians too often make a formal bow to the incomprehensibility of God and then go forward with a confident affirmative discourse that effectively "forgets" that all our affirmations are under a cloud of radical inadequacy.
Rahner sees theology as a collegial work within the Christian community in response to God's self-communication in Jesus Christ: an intellectual work that engages the whole self (heart and mind) in moving towards a union that is totally beyond words. The negation that covers all our affirmative words (given to us by God in the first place) marks the place on the way where we stand before the Mystery and surrender all our human language and understanding to a judgement of inadequacy. The image here is not of a theology that is a closed system but of a theology that is a journey or way through the best that the human mind and heart can manage into the incomprehensible Mystery.

*the quote in the title is from the translators' introduction: C.C. p.297

*besides the negation that marks the point of passage away from language altogether,we need to write about the way negation appropriately enters constantly into the fabric of the theological discourse. More later

Theology as a Way

A few years ago in a, perhaps feverish, reflection on a hospital bed, I thought of the first example we have of a theological discussion. In Genesis 3 the serpent asked the woman,

"'Did God really say you were not to eat from any of the trees in the garden?' The woman answered the serpent, 'We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden. But of the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden God said,"You must not eat it, nor touch it, under pain of death"'. Then the serpent said to the woman, 'No! You will not die! God knows in fact that on the day you eat it your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods, knowing good and evil.' The woman saw that the tree was good to eat and pleasing to the eye, and that it was desirable for the knowledge that it could give." (Gen.3:1-6, Jerusalem Bible)

The J.B. titles the chapter "The Fall" and it occurred to me that the Fall already happened in their theological discussion, for they were talking about God as if God was not present. Adam, by the way, is not off the hook, as he was "with her" (v.6) and his silence was a distinct and complicit participation, as was clear from what followed.

One thing our first theologians do get right (for all their bad faith and rationalisation of desire) is that they understand their discussion to be leading to decisive and momentous action. Their discussion is guiding their way forward and is an integal and decisive part of their human process forward in time (their moral or spiritual journey).

The early Christians called their sect "the Way" ( Acts 24:14) and considered themselves "followers of the Way" (Acts 9:2). Not surprising, as Jesus did a lot of purposive travelling and called his disciples to "follow", to take up their cross and follow. The great advantage of this metaphor is that it leads us to consider our whole self, in all its activity, over a whole lifetime, as moving towards a full union with our loving God. We are not asked (and graced) to do just this or that, we are asked (and graced) to do everything in and towards God. Already in Acts the metaphor is supple enough to embrace this deepest of spiritual meanings and also to evoke the destiny of the whole community. Jesus had brought his "good news" to a people who understood themselves as saved by an Exodus and a Return from Exile, two Ways. This all culminates in Jesus' offer to be the Way (for us) (John 14:6).
There is a great advantage in seeing theology as a "via", as a part or one form of the Christian Way. It reminds us that theology, to be part of the Christian Way, must have all the character of total engagement, must be done in the presence of God, must be a discourse about the way forward and about the God who draws us to union. On this Way and in the Way (Jesus), we are spoken to, addressed. Our hearing, the work of understanding, and the discourse of our response happen in faith, confession, liturgy, contemplative prayer and theology. (Our full hearing issues in "doing" the works of necessity, creative works, and the works of love and justice). In my first fervour about this, I concluded that theology to be true to its nature should always be in the second person, an address to God in the manner of St. Augustine's Confessions. I'll write later about why I don't think so now.

Negative Theology

All my adult life I have been interested in the Christian tradition of the Via Negativa (the negative way) or negative theology as it is also commonly called. In 1968 I did a philosophy thesis at the University of Toronto entitled " The Logic of Religious Language-- a second order study of Christian language and of the key role within it of the via negativa ." From 1970 to the present I have been practicing psychodynamic psychotherapy and since 1985 teaching at the Centre for Training in Psychotherapy< www.ctp.net > In 2001, I decided to spend one day a week in the library,reviving my theological study of the via negativa. I hope to use this site to share reflections and short essays, and to offer some annotated bibliography.