Abstract
The interest in Dionysius the Areopagite works is because of the enormous influence on the medieval West’s mystical tradition. According to Dionysius, we address God by using the names He has revealed, and for us to understand the nature of God is to understand these names. Although these are revealed names, they are names in which human meaning has been conveyed, and for that matter, they fall short of declaring God himself is nature. Therefore, there is an element of namelessness when we entirely want to declare the nature of God. For that matter, we have to move beyond the positive (kataphatic) names given to God into a negation (apophatic) of the names. What can human beings know about God? How can human beings have such knowledge? In answering these questions, Dionysius makes a distinction between two theological or philosophical ways. One of the ways is the kataphatic or positive theology which proceeds by affirmations. The other is apophatic or negative theology which proceeds by negations. The kataphatic theology can lead us into some knowledge of God but remains an imperfect way to knowing God. The only perfect way fitting to one who, by his nature, is unknowable is the apophatic way that leads us into silence when we attempt to know God. Thus, the thesis investigates the interplay between the apophatic and the kataphatic as discussed in the Mystical Theology. This Dionysian methodology (the two theologies of apophatic and kataphatic) are not represented as clear cut mutually exclusive alternatives. On the contrary, they are complementary. Thus, we predicate God all that is positive in creatures and deny all these predications because God transcends them. However, this kataphatic-apophatic procedure should not be considered opposition but as a cooperative effort that indicates that God is beyond affirmation and negation and affirmation and negation are both ways of knowing, and God lies beyond both. Thus, Dionysius writes: For the most divine way of knowing God is by unknowing, in a union that is beyond intelligence, when the intelligence departs from all things and finally from itself, unified now with the superluminary rays and enlightened in the unfathomable depth of wisdom (DN 872AB).