Tag Archives: negative theology

Dionysian Ponderings: Divine Knowledge, Creation, and Modal Collapse

Posted on 26 August 2018 by Fr Aidan Kimel

How does the infinite Creator know the contingent realities he has brought into existence without compromising his metaphysical simpleness? Or as St Dionysius the Areopagite asks: How is God to comprehend something among the intelligibles since he does not have … Continue reading →

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Dionysian Ponderings: Beyond the Beyond … and then Beyond

Posted on 3 June 2018 by Fr Aidan Kimel

“Dionysius adopts the doctrine of God as ‘nameless,’ ‘unknowable,’ and ‘beyond being’ from the Neoplatonic tradition established by Plotinus,” writes Eric Perl, “and his thought can be understood only in that context” (Theophany, p. 13). We will need to revisit … Continue reading →

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Dionysian Ponderings: Transcendence and the Plotinian One

Posted on 30 May 2018 by Fr Aidan Kimel

I come to my reading of the Corpus Areopagaticum with a specific understanding of divine transcendence, an understanding which I will be testing along the way. We might put it this way: God infinitely surpasses all creaturely distinctions and dualities—transcendence … Continue reading →

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Trinity, Logic, and the Transcendence of Transcendence

Posted on 24 August 2017 by Fr Aidan Kimel

Philosopher Dale Tuggy believes he has a decisive proof against the coherency of the catholic doctrine of the Trinity. It goes like this: God is a personal being, i.e., a self. By “self” is understood a being who is conscious, … Continue reading →

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But is God really, really, really related to the world?

Posted on 20 December 2016 by Fr Aidan Kimel

Chris Mullen (aka malcolmsnotes) has recently targeted four alleged problems with the scholastic notion of actus purus, as articulated in the theology of St Thomas Aquinas. I’d like to respond to the first problem, i.e., the Thomist assertion that God does not exist … Continue reading →

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The Knowledge of God According to Dumitru Staniloae

Posted on 12 September 2016 by Fr Aidan Kimel

by Fr Jonathan Tobias “It is not the same to say something about God as it is to gain and see God”—so St Gregory Palamas said to Barlaam (quoted in The Experience of God, p. 115). Here is Fr Dumitru Staniloae’s … Continue reading →

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St Thomas Aquinas, Divine Simplicity, and Knowing the Unknowable God

Posted on 23 May 2016 by Fr Aidan Kimel

What is God? What is his nature? The answer given by St Thomas Aquinas may surprise us: we do not know. By contemplation of the structures of the world, we may know that God exists as the ultimate cause and doer … Continue reading →

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Divine Simplicity as Negative Theology

Posted on 16 May 2016 by Fr Aidan Kimel

“From first to last,” writes philosopher Brian Davies, “the doctrine of divine simplicity is a piece of negative or apophatic theology and not a purported description of God” (“Classical Theism and the Doctrine of Divine Simplicity,” in Language, Meaning and … Continue reading →

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