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VERBUM VITAE • 41/3 (2023)
Received: May 26, 2023 | Accepted: Aug 22, 2023 | Published: Oct 3, 2023
623–645

Negative Theology: Its Use and Christological

Function in Late Antiquity and Subsequent
Developments
JOHANNES AAKJÆR STEENBUCH HTTPS:/ ORCID.ORG/0000-0002-6826-1421
Independent Scholar, johannesas@gmail.com

Abstract: This article discusses the historical development of negative theology from its formulations
in early Christianity to its later forms in Medieval Neo-Platonism. First analyzing how in early Chris-
tian thought negative theology was often used for a Christological purpose, the article goes on to discuss
the implications of the Neo-Platonic notion of God as beyond being. While primarily applying a historical
methodology, the article concludes by encouraging a rediscovery of the Christological orientation for
negative theology found in its early Christian formulations.
Keywords: negative theology, Christology, Clement of Alexandria, Gregory of Nazianzus, Gregory of
Nyssa, Neo-Platonism

In simple terms, negative theology can be defined as any discourse that speaks in-
directly about God by saying something about what God is not. More broadly, neg-
ative theology may be understood as any discourse that seeks to talk about God by
“un-saying” the concept of God itself, as implied in the frequently used synonym
“apophatic” theology.1 To this extent, negative theology may be understood as a lin-
guistic or epistemological phenomenon, since it says something about how theologi-
cal language and thinking work, but it obviously also has ontological underpinnings
that regulate its use. The oneness and infinity of God, for example, has often played
an important role here, just as the more or less clear distinction between God and
creation that runs through much of Jewish and Christian thought.2
While these connections between ontology and negative theology are rather ru-
dimentary, what is just as important, are the purposes or intentions that guide the use
of negative theological language.3 If in general the meaning of words is determined
by context, this is true in particular for a kind of language that by its use of negations
speaks only indirectly about its object, its meaning being dependent on what it de-
nies. Moreover, as we shall see in the following, for many authors in the tradition,

1 Steenbuch, Negative Theology, 1–2.

2 Sokolowski, The God of Faith and Reason, 198.
3 Palmer, “Atheism,” 236.

http:/ creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0 ISSN 1644-8561 | e-ISSN 2451-280X | DOI: https://doi.org/10.31743/vv.16337 Steenbuch 623
Johannes Aakjær Steenbuch

negative theology was not applied for its own sake but was only instrumental in es-
tablishing a larger picture. Seemingly similar instances of negative theology cannot,
for this reason, simply be taken out of context and compared as if they were just
saying the same thing.
This should be kept in mind while contemplating the history of negative theol-
ogy. According to a typical narrative, negative theology in its Christian forms was
a product of the influence of Neo-Platonism upon Christian theology in the early
Middle Ages.4 However, it is probably more accurate to say that there were parallel
developments in late antiquity or even that negative theology developed in more
complex conversations between Jewish, Christian and Neo-Platonic thought.5 Re-
calling the eclectic milieu of 2nd century Alexandria, where much of negative theol-
ogy originated, it should not be a surprise that negative theology does not depend on
the principles of one philosophical school or religious tradition. By its very nature,
negative theology cannot easily be defined or pinned down to a system of thought,
but being always evasive and wary of definition, negative theology escapes any at-
tempt at reducing it to a certain set of principles.
Nevertheless, it should be possible to formulate historical typologies of negative
theology based on its use in different contexts. The following seeks to show how
negative theology had a range of origins in late antiquity, but also that for early Chris-
tians, negative theology was, in many cases, applied for a primarily Christological
purpose. With the development of Neo-Platonic forms of negative theology, a notion
of God as beyond being or even “nothing” was introduced that gradually reshaped
the original concerns of negative theology. While being far from a comprehensive
overview of how negative theology developed, the following seeks to trace some of
the differences between “classical” Patristic negative theology and its later forms.
Along the way, the implications of negative theology for moral philosophy are dis-
cussed as well.

1. The Hidden God Revealed

While there may be a polygenesis of origins for negative theology as a philosophical

discipline, at least one main root can be traced to the Jewish and Christian Scriptures.
There is no systematized negative theology here, but numerous statements do point
to the strangeness and incomprehensibility of God. This is no place to list all biblical
claims that may be taken as expressive of negative theology, but perhaps most im-
portant is the story of Moses who had to enter the “thick darkness” on Mount Sinai

4 Jüngel, God as the Mystery, 223.

5 Steenbuch, Negative Theology, 10–11.

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 Negative Theology: Its Use and Christological Function

(Exod 20:21), a story that was often taken up in the subsequent tradition as contain-
ing profound philosophical insights into the ineffable and incomprehensible nature
of God.
That Moses did not see the face of God, but only God’s back, was taken by the Jew-
ish philosopher Philo of Alexandria (c. 25 BC–50 AD) and early Christian apologists
to express the fact that God is essentially ineffable, and can be known only by rev-
elation through God’s Logos. Philo, whom Andrew Louth called “the father of neg-
ative theology,”6 argued that when God refers to himself as “the one who is” (ὁ ὤν)
in the Septuagint translation (Exod 3:14), the point is that God as “being” (τὸ ὄν)
surpasses human understanding.7 God is not “beyond” being, as he would become in
later negative theology, but, according to Philo, as absolutely the most fundamental
being, God cannot be comprehended or put into words unless God reveals himself.8
Important is also the claim made in Isaiah about God who “hides himself ”
(Isa 45:15). This expression would become the basis for the notion of the “hidden
God,” the Deus absconditus, who is inaccessible to human thought and can as such
only be known as revealed. Examples from the biblical wisdom literature may be
added to this – the generally skeptical attitude of Ecclesiastes, or the Book of Job,
when Elihu remarks poetically that “an awesome splendor surrounds God” and adds
that “the Almighty is not to be found” (Job 37:22–23). The latter claim is paralleled in
the New Testament, when God, in the First Epistle to Timothy, is said to dwell in an
“inaccessible light” which “no human has seen or can see” (1 Tim 6:10).
In most cases, the purpose or intention of such descriptions in biblical texts is
not of a speculative nature.9 On the contrary, these types of statements about the in-
accessibility of God are made so that human beings may stop their speculations and
instead turn their attention to doing what is right. This is perhaps clearest in the First
Epistle of John, where it is said that “No one has ever seen God, but if we love one an-
other, God remains in us, and His love is perfected in us.” (1 John 4:12). One can have
no purely theoretical knowledge of God, but one knows God as one participates in
the love of God in practice. This, of course, should not be confused with a post-Kan-
tian anti-dogmatic pragmatism, recalling that the same epistle also has something
positive to say about the divine nature of Christ (1 John 1:18). As it shall be demon-
strated, the balance between a positive Christology and a healthy negative theology
becomes important in subsequent orthodoxy.
It is not because negative theology does not also have precursors in Greek phi-
losophy, but while Plato talked somewhat moderately about the difficulty of com-
prehending and communicating God to everyone, Philo, as famously argued by

6 Louth, The Origins, 19.

7 Philo, Mut. 7–14.
8 Philo, Somn. I,184.
9 Steenbuch, Negative Theology, 13.

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Harry Wolfson, may very well have been the first to describe God in absolute terms
as ineffable or arrêtos.10 This notion of God’s ineffability recurs in later Neo-Pla-
tonism, perhaps influenced by Philo, but it was already a basic theme in early Chris-
tian thought in the 2nd century.11 Here, the essential ineffability and incomprehensi-
bility of God served in the polemics against Pagan idolatry as a means of establishing
the need for revelation if human beings are to know God. Fundamental to this con-
cern was what Robert Sokolowski has called “the Christian distinction” between
God and everything else, a distinction that runs through all concepts of God in early
Christian thought.12 Radicalizing themes from Philo, early Christians emphasized
that God, being the creator of everything, is radically different from created being
and as such incomprehensible to the human mind.
Of note is Justin Martyr (c. 100–165), who argued that God the Father, who is
“ungenerate” (a term with somewhat philosophical connotations), does not have
a name, since whoever names something is in some way the “elder” of what is named.13
This “Philonic principle,” as it has been called, clarifies that one only knows God as
revealed.14 Names like Father, God, Creator, Lord, and Master, are not really names
for God, but words that are derived from the good works and functions of God (ἐκ
τῶν εὐποιϊῶν καὶ τῶν ἔργων προσρήσεις), argued Justin.15 This is also the case for
the name Christ, that while being a name for God’s eternally begotten Son, still con-
tains what Justin called an “unknown significance” (ἄγνωστον σημασίαν).16 One
only knows God as revealed through the Son.17 In other words, there are clear limits
to what one can know about God, but, in a dialectical manner, becoming aware of
these limits is also what makes it possible to have some knowledge of God after all.
It is, as argued by Tertullian (c. 155–220), our very inability to grasp God that gives
human beings an idea of God, which is why God is known paradoxically as “at once
known and unknown.”18
Such notions of God’s incomprehensibility were often applied for a polemical
purpose. For example, in the Epistle to Diognetus it is made clear against the “philos-
ophers” that no human being has seen God or made God known.19 God is “invisible”
which is for the author, as in the New Testament epistles quoted above, arguably a way
of talking about God’s general inaccessibility to the human mind. God has, however,
been revealed through his Son. Faith in God through the Son is the medium, so to

10 Plato, Tim. 28c. Wolfson, Philo, 111.

11 Carabine, The Unknown God, 75.
12 Sokolowski, The God of Faith and Reason, 198.
13 Justin Martyr, Ap. Sec. 6,1.
14 Mortley, From Word to Silence, 133.
15 Justin Martyr, Ap. Sec. 6,2.
16 Justin Martyr, Ap. Sec. 6,3.
17 Justin Martyr, Ap. 63.
18 Tertullianus, Apol. 17.
19 Ad Diog. 8,5–6.

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 Negative Theology: Its Use and Christological Function

speak, by which human beings can know God after all. A similar argument was made
by Aristides of Athens (d. c. 134), who connected such claims to the notion described
above, that God, as creator, is unrelated to anything created and, as such, can have
no name.20 As in the Epistle to Diognetus and earlier examples of a Christian use of
negative theology, this again concludes in ethical claims about the purity and love
that characterizes Christian relations based on faith rather than Pagan superstition.

2. Not Without the Wood of the Tree

The notion of God as essentially hidden and ineffable but revealed through his Logos
in Christ, reappears in Clement of Alexandria (c. 150–215) at the verge of the 3rd
century. It has sometimes been argued that Clement was the first Christian to apply
negative theology systematically, in part because he derived his analytic methodol-
ogy from Platonist philosophers such as Alcinous and Numenius.21 Clement may
also be an early example of how Plato’s arguments about the infinity and incompre-
hensibility of the One, in the dialogue Parmenides, were translated into a theological
context.22 It should be clear, however, that while Clement may be said to anticipate
developments in later Neo-Platonism, he usually does so to establish an argument
similar to that made by other Christian apologists of his time.23 The ineffability of
God the Father is what makes necessary the revelation of God through the Logos.
As Karl Barth argued in his Church Dogmatics, when God was considered incompre-
hensible by theologians such as Justin and Clement in the second century, the point
was that human beings cannot exercise towards God the activity which character-
izes human relations to other living creatures (Gen 2:19).24 What can be learned
from early Christian theology about the incomprehensibility and ineffability of God
should be seen as expressive of the fact that God is neither the goal nor the origin of
human speech, but that God by his revealed word has given human beings the capac-
ity to speak about God.25
In fact, as Clement argued in the fifth book of the Stromateis, God the Father
can only be known through the Son. The “grace of knowledge” is from God the Fa-
ther through the Son.26 This was the point when Moses begged God to show his
glory (Exod 33:18) but learned that he could not see God face to face. God cannot

20 Aristides, Ap. Pr.

21 Hägg, Clement of Alexandria, 75. Mortley, Connaissance religieuse, 90.
22 Steenbuch, Negative Theology, 19.
23 Carabine, The Unknown God, 227–229.
24 Barth, Church Dogmatics, 187.
25 Barth, Church Dogmatics, 190.
26 Clemens Alexandrinus, Strom. V,71,5.

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be taught by human beings or expressed in speech, says Clement, but God can be
known “only by His own power” (ἢ μόνῃ τῇ παρ’ αὐτοῦ δυνάμει), another way of say-
ing that one only knows God through the revealed Logos. God is remote “in essence”
(κατ’ οὐσίαν), but near in virtue of his power, says Clement elsewhere.27 The Tree of
Life allegorically depicts the Logos. As Clement poetically puts it, “It was not without
the wood of the tree that He came to our knowledge. For our life was hung on it, in
order that we might believe.” (ἐκρεμάσθη γὰρ ἡ ζωὴ ἡμῶν εἰς πίστιν ἡμῶν).28 Even if
one resists the temptation to see this as an obscure reference to the cross, it is clear
that for Clement one only knows God through revelation.
When Clement at one point argues that human beings have “no natural relation”29
(φυσικὴν σχέσιν) to God, this is obviously not to exclude the possibility of relating
to God altogether, but neither is the point that one can only know God by dissolving
all differences in a radically negative theology. The point, rather, is that it is through
the Logos that one knows the otherwise unknown God. One knows the Father
through the Son and vice versa, apprehending “the truth by the truth,” since the two
go together.30 Clement, again in the fifth book of the Stromateis, presents some im-
portant observations about how the process of abstraction (akin to Alcinous’) leads
to a negatively defined knowledge of “the almighty,” knowing “not what He is, but
what He is not” (οὐχ ὅ ἐστιν, ὃ δὲ μή ἐστι).31 Although these claims may be read as
standing on their own, they are arguably not unrelated to his subsequent claims,
quoted above, about how Moses learned that “the grace of knowledge” about God is
only through the Son.32
Although Clement, with his eclectic attitude, often makes dispersed and some-
times unrelated claims, his observations could plausibly be read as an argument
about how negative theology culminates not in complete ignorance or silence, but
in the revelation of God through the Logos. This is only made more plausible when
Clement a little later on in the fifth book of the Stromateis argues how “the One”
(τὸ ἕν) due to its indivisibility and infinity cannot be named, but then adds: “It re-
mains that we understand, then, the Unknown, by divine grace, and by the Word
alone that proceeds from Him.”33 This is how Paul’s preaching on Areopagus about
the unknown God is to be understood, Clement adds, i.e. as infinite, God is unknow-
able, but God can be known through grace and the Logos revealed in Christ.
Keeping in mind Clement’s polemical context, it should also be remembered
how these claims run parallel to his arguments against various forms of Gnosticism.

27 Clemens Alexandrinus, Strom. II,5,4.

28 Clemens Alexandrinus, Strom. V,72,4.
29 Clemens Alexandrinus, Strom. II,74,1.
30 Clemens Alexandrinus, Strom. V,1,3–4.
31 Clemens Alexandrinus, Strom. V,71,4.
32 Clemens Alexandrinus, Strom. V,71,5–72,1.
33 Clemens Alexandrinus, Strom. V,81,6–82,4.

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Clement’s theory of the divine Logos, although clearly inspired by Philo, should be
understood in relation to his beliefs in the incarnation of the Logos in Christ. As Eric
Osborn puts it, Clement’s claims in his Excerpts ad Theodotus remove any abstract-
ness from the notion of the logos.34 To the extent that negative theology is wielded
in order to draw attention to the need for the revealed Logos in Christ, negative
theology may be said to be wielded for the sake of Christology, even if of a highly
philosophical nature. While taking over some Gnostic vocabulary, Clement clearly
rejects the form of gnosis that only the elect few have of God. God has to some degree
revealed himself to all people through his Logos that became flesh, in some sense
even from the beginning, albeit indirectly and in parabolic form, in Pagan culture
and philosophy. This does not, then, mean that there is a knowledge of God that pre-
cedes the revelation of the Logos, but only that the Logos was already at work before
its incarnation in Jesus Christ.
Even if Philo and Clement may have been influential on Christian thought, nega-
tive theology did not play so prominent a role in subsequent Alexandrian theologies,
like those of Origen and Athanasius. The reason was perhaps that it was at this point
associated with strains of Gnosticism and Neo-Platonism, but also the argument
made by the Arians that God the Father is essentially “other” (ἀλλότριος) to every-
thing else and, as such, unknown even to the Son.35 That the Son is, however, unique
in knowing God, was an important part of the argument made by Nicene orthodoxy
against Arianism. While probably agreeing with the Arians about the ineffability of
God, Athanasius argued that God’s ineffability is exactly what makes human beings
know the Father only through the Son.36 As emphasized by Thomas F. Torrance, Hil-
ary of Poitiers (c. 310–367) made a similar claim when he argued that since “no one
knows the Father but the Son,” we should let our “thoughts of the Father be at one
with the thoughts of the Son,” who is the only revelation of God to us.37 The perfect
knowledge of God is to know that even if we must not be ignorant of God, we can-
not describe God, says Hilary.38 We “must believe, must apprehend, must worship,”
since “such acts of devotion must stand in lieu of definition.” While negative theology
was as such applied in a polemical context against Arianism, its conclusions were
doxological.
That negative theology also had a homiletic use with an ecclesiological impact
is clear from such orations as Cyril of Jerusalem’s sixth catechetical oration: “Of God
we speak not all we ought,” says Cyril, but “in what concerns God to confess our
ignorance is the best knowledge.” As with Hilary, this Socratic acknowledgment of
ignorance leads to a call for devotion: “Therefore magnify the Lord with me, and let

34 Osborn, Clement of Alexandria, 210. Clemens Alexandrinus, Exc. 19–20.

35 Stępień – Kochańczyk-Bonińska, Unknown God, 62–66.
36 Stępień – Kochańczyk-Bonińska, Unknown God, 76. Athanasius, Con. Ar. 1,33.
37 Hilarius, De trin. II,6. Torrance, The Trinitarian Faith, 52.
38 Hilarius, De trin. II,7.

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us exalt His Name together – all of us in common, for one alone is powerless.”39 To
this extent, negative theology at this point not only highlighted the need for a re-
lational Christology, but it also had a communal perspective. These were the fun-
damental concerns that were taken over by later apologists for Nicene orthodoxy.

3. Silence and Luminous Darkness

For the Cappadocian theologians, as is well known, negative theology became an es-
sential element in the defense of Nicene orthodoxy against Neo-Arianism. A simple
explanation for this shift may be the fact that Neo-Arians, such as Eunomius of Cyzi-
cus, did not now appeal so much to the “otherness” of God the Father, as to what may
be called a theological rationalism that took theological language to be descriptive of
God’s essence or nature. Much has been said about the entire Cappadocian debate
with Neo-Arianism, but, for now, it suffices to say that Cappadocian theology, to
a large extent, was formulated as an alternative to such rationalism. While Euno-
mius insisted that God can essentially be defined as “ungenerate,” the Cappadocians
insisted that the divine essence is incomprehensible and beyond definitions. What
should also become clear from the following is how Cappadocian negative theology
simultaneously reaffirmed the need for a Christological foundation.
Gregory of Nazianzus (329–390), in his first theological oration, made it clear
that the prerequisite for doing theology is silence. In order to talk about God, one
must first stop and listen to God (cf. Ps 46:11). We need to be silent (σχολάσαι) to
know God and judge rightly, says Gregory.40 In his second theological oration, it be-
comes clear that the limitations of theology are related to the nature of God.41 God
is essentially hidden from human beings, like the mercy seat that was hidden behind
the curtain according to Exodus (Exod 26:31–33). Even the most exalted, heavenly
things are far more distant from God than they are from human beings. Like many
others, Gregory took the story of Moses’ encounter with God on Mount Sinai as
an expression of this fact. Moses did not get to see the face of God but had to stand in
a cleft in the rock so that he could only see God from behind when God was passing
by. This, in Gregory’s interpretation, signifies the fact that in order to know anything
at all about God, one needs to stand firmly planted in the Logos of God who became
incarnate for us (τῷ σαρκωθέντι δι’ ἡμᾶς θεῷ Λόγῳ). Again, one knows only God
through the Logos revealed in Christ, allegorically depicted as a “rock.” This knowl-
edge, moreover, does not offer an abstract insight into God’s hidden nature. One

39 Cyrillus Hierosolymitanus, Cat. ad Ill. 6,2.

40 Gregorius Nazianzenus, Or. 27,3.
41 Gregorius Nazianzenus, Or. 28,3.

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may have an instinctive knowledge of God from what can be seen and deduced from
creation, but this does not mean that some form of natural theology makes it possible
to bypass revelation.42 Language may point indirectly to God, but it does not make
it possible to grasp the nature or essence of God. The trinitarian doctrine of God is
not an abstract theory of God’s being, but, says Gregory, the divine unity of distinc-
tions is rather the paradox (ὃ παράδοξον) that illuminates reasoning about God.43
It is arguably this sensibility to the paradoxical that comes to expression when
Gregory famously claims that we are “saved by the sufferings of the impassible.”44
The God who cannot suffer nevertheless suffers in Christ. This should, of course,
not be too hastily taken for a paradox in the sense of a Kantian antinomy or a Ki-
erkegaardian absurdity. Nevertheless, for Gregory, the driving force in theological
reasoning must be the consubstantiality of the Father and the Son, and the union
of divine and human natures in Christ. Negative theology is, so to speak, a pre-
liminary reminder that theological reasoning should form organically around this
mystery rather than being deduced from an abstract philosophical concept of God.
The “starting point,” says Gregory, must be the fact that God cannot be named, which
is why God can only be talked about in relational terms.45 Since no mind or language
can embrace “God’s substance in its fullness,” says Gregory, “our noblest theologian is
not one who has discovered the whole.” Theological reasoning, in other words, never
reaches a comprehensive system of thought.
To use a perhaps somewhat anachronistic term, one might be tempted to say that
Christian theology is fundamentally dialectical theology.46 Theology is, as Gregory
of Nazianzus puts it, characterized by contradictory arguments more than any other
philosophy. Theology is a philosophical discipline, then, but one that is particularly
prone to bumping up against its own limits: “The slightest objection puts an end to
the discussion and prevents it from continuing,” says Gregory, adding that it is “like
suddenly pulling on the reins of galloping horses, which then turn around, startled
by the shock.”47 This is what the Ecclesiast realized when the more he immersed
himself in theology, the more he realized how derailed his thoughts had become.
When one nevertheless attempts to achieve a final comprehension of God, this is
when idolatry occurs. Idolatry, as Gregory describes it, results from a kind of fa-
tigue that occurs when one’s mind gives up its attempts at grasping God. Instead
of accepting their own inability to grasp God, people create their own gods from
comprehensible things.48 In other words, idolatry occurs when dialectical thinking

42 Gregorius Nazianzenus, Or. 28,6.

43 Gregorius Nazianzenus, Or. 28,1.
44 Gregorius Nazianzenus, Or. 30,5.
45 Gregorius Nazianzenus, Or. 30,17–18.
46 Steenbuch, “Frelse og forsoning,” 4.
47 Gregorius Nazianzenus, Or. 28,21.
48 Gregorius Nazianzenus, Or. 28,13.

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is given up in theology and, instead, an attempt is made to put theology into a com-
plete system of thought.
It seems to be this view of the limits of theology that appears in the saying that
“concepts create idols – only wonder comprehends anything,” a citation sometimes
attributed to Gregory of Nyssa in popular theology.49 While this saying does not ex-
actly appear in Gregory’s works, it may be based on a claim made in his On the Life
of Moses. Here Gregory explained that “any concept that comes from a comprehen-
sible image by an approximate understanding and by guessing at the divine nature
constitutes an idol of God and does not proclaim God.”50 The point from Gregory
of Nazianzus is affirmed, then, that idolatry occurs when one thinks to have finally
grasped the nature or essence of God. What Moses learned from God’s manifestation
in the burning bush was that none of the things that can be apprehended by sense or
contemplated by understanding have any intrinsic being.51 God possesses existence
in his own nature, but even the person who “in quietude” (ἡσυχίας) studies philo-
sophical matters will barely apprehend the true being (τὸ ὄν). Non-being (τὸ μὴ ὄν),
on the other hand, is that which has no self-subsisting nature (ἑαυτοῦ τὴν φύσιν).52
The technical details of Gregory’s negative theology are elaborated upon in his
polemical works against Eunomius. The primary theme of these is, however, Chris-
tological, as is clear already from Gregory’s introduction. “The rock must be Christ,”
says Gregory, which should arguably also be kept in mind when Gregory at one point
against Eunomius concludes that the aptest response to having learned how widely
the divine nature differs from human nature is that people “quietly” (ἡσυχίας) abide
within their “proper limits” (τοῖς ἰδίοις ὅροις).53 This attitude should not be con-
fused with quietism. On the contrary, since one cannot finally comprehend God,
one needs to keep on talking about God. This is why, Gregory, like Basil, defended
the human ability to make up new names for God through the process of conceptu-
alization or epinoia. Theological language, whether based on tradition or Scripture,
is fundamentally hermeneutic (ἑρμηνευτικὸν) as it does not grasp (περιέχειν) the di-
vine nature (τὴν θείαν φύσιν).54
Again, theological language is relational, but it must also be Christological. Peo-
ple do not have an abstract concept of God as Father, but “those who hear the name
of the Father, receive the Son along with Him in their thoughts,” as Gregory puts
it against Eunomius.55 Neo-Arians, on the other hand, only got a “bare” or abstract
notion of God’s name if God is defined simply as ungenerate. Silence, then, is the only

49 The author has not been able to trace the origins of this attribution, which is, however, quite widespread.
50 Gregorius Nyssenus, Vit. Mo. II,165.
51 Gregorius Nyssenus, Vit. Mo. II,24.
52 Gregorius Nyssenus, Vit. Mo. II,23.
53 Gregorius Nyssenus, Con. Eun. II,1,96.
54 Gregorius Nyssenus, Ad Abl. 3,1,42–43.
55 Gregorius Nyssenus, Ref. conf. Eun. 100.

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proper response to such an abstract notion of God, but one can and should talk about
God as revealed through Christ. This Christological orientation is arguably just as
important as the much-celebrated distinction between God’s incomprehensible sub-
stance and God’s comprehensible activities in Cappadocian thought.

4. Theology of the Gap

The Cappadocians did not limit themselves to negative theology, but often they also
expressed a sweeping anti-essentialism about created nature as well. As Basil argued
in a polemic against Neo-Arianism, since people do not know anything about even
the physiology of the minutest ant, they should not, as Eunomius had done, brag
about their knowledge about “the things that are” (τῶν ὄντων).56 To this extent,
negative theology had something to say about creation as well. What Scot Douglas
has called the “theology of the gap” in Gregory of Nyssa’s thinking is largely due
to the need for establishing a negative theology that wards off any attempt at com-
prehending the nature of God, while at the same time bringing into view the ines-
capable changeability of created nature.57 It is this fundamental ontological condi-
tion that results in a theological epistemology, where human language and thinking
about God cannot be enclosed in a final system.
This clear ontological and linguistic distinction between God and creation was
expressed frequently in Gregory of Nyssa’s polemics against Eunomius, for example
when he argued that the created and the uncreated are as opposed to each other
as their names (σημαινόμενον) are.58 As Gregory puts it elsewhere, there is a “wide
and insurmountable interval” (πολὺ γὰρ τὸ μέσον καὶ ἀδιεξίτητον) that separates
(διατετείχισται) uncreated from created nature.59 Thus, what Sokolowski called
“the Christian distinction” between God and everything else, is confirmed.60 For
Gregory, as he explained in a sermon on Ecclesiastes, this is because creation itself is
the gap or diastema that divides the created from the uncreated, but this also means
that creation is “contained within itself ” and as such subject to change as a basic
condition.61
Obviously, there is also a more positive side to Gregory’s often celebrated spiritu-
al or, if one prefers, “mystical,” theology, that, as Martin Laird has argued, can just as

56 Basilius Magnus, Ep. 16,1.

57 Douglass, Theology of the Gap, 4–6.
58 Gregorius Nyssenus, Con. Eun. I,1,504.
59 Gregorius Nyssenus, Con. Eun. II,1,69–70.
60 Sokolowski, The God of Faith and Reason, 198.
61 Gregorius Nyssenus, In Eccl. 412,6–14.

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well be described as a mysticism of light as one of darkness.62 This should not, how-
ever, make us overlook the clear negative conditions for theology as such. The limits
imposed on created nature by negative theology have implications for theological
ethics as well as anthropology. Gregory of Nyssa’s first sermon on the Beatitudes is
a good example. Having first acknowledged that beatitude consists in assimilation
to God, Gregory goes on to lament the utter impossibility of imitating the impas-
sible nature.63 It is this basic aporia that is solved by the gospel. God, by humbling
himself in becoming human, has now made it possible to have fellowship with God
after all. It is not by fleeing from creatureliness but, on the contrary, in humility that
human beings can relate to God. To this extent, negative theology puts a limit on
human aspirations, but this limit also becomes the starting point for a new possibility
of participation in God as proclaimed by the gospel.
This should also be kept in mind when Gregory of Nazianzus could so frequently
talk about deification. “Let us become gods for his sake,” exhorted Gregory in a pas-
chal homily, adding that we should do so, “since he became human for our sake.”64
Since Christ gave himself for us, we should “become everything that Christ became
for us.” Obviously, Gregory is not here making a point about negative theology, but
his line of thought is similar to that of Gregory of Nyssa above. Human beings are not
to become like God in his impassible and incomprehensible essence but should be-
come what God became for human beings. Deification or theosis, then, is not about
escaping the conditions of created nature, but about becoming truly human as God
was truly human in Christ.
Of course, such an argument could be made without using negative theology,
but one may at least say that negative theology can serve as a hermeneutical tool that
helps avoid misunderstandings about what it means to imitate the incomprehensi-
ble God who is only known as revealed in the incarnated Logos. Although Gregory
of Nyssa in his work on Moses anticipates later developments in negative theology
when talking about the “luminous darkness of God” (λαμπρῷ γνόφῳ), his point was
arguably not that spiritual progress culminates in a diffuse ignorance, but that hav-
ing experienced the infinite goodness of God, one is to realize that God can only be
known by following the Logos.65 This is what Moses learned when he was placed in
a cleft of a rock, and only could see God from behind, namely that seeing God con-
sists in following God wherever he leads.66
As should be clear by now, from the inceptions of Christian theology, negative
theology was rarely a distinct or separate venture, but it played a relative role that

62 Laird, “Gregory of Nyssa,” 592–616.

63 Gregorius Nyssenus, Or. Beat. 1,4.
64 Gregorius Nazianzenus, Or. 1,4–5.
65 Gregorius Nyssenus, Vit. Mo. II,163. God’s goodness is infinite and as such cannot be defined, but this
certainly does not mean that God is beyond good.
66 Gregorius Nyssenus, Vit. Mo. II,243–252.

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 Negative Theology: Its Use and Christological Function

guided the development of Christian dogma. It did so in a diversity of apologetical

and polemical contexts. As these contexts changed, negative theology also took on
new expressions. A rather constant core emerges, however, namely that the inef-
fability of “he, who is” (Exod 3:14) is what necessitates the revelation of God by
the divine Logos if human beings are to know God at all. In other words, negative
theology in classical Christian orthodoxy was subordinate to Christology, if not in
all cases, then at least in many of the most important and influential applications of
negative theology.

5. God Beyond Being

So far, it has been observed that negative theology from Philo and early Chris-
tian thought was to a large degree centered on the Mosaic notion of God as “he who
is.” As the creator, God is ineffable, but God can be known as revealed by the di-
vine Logos. It would seem, then, that nothing in the above suggests the more radical
idea that God is in some way “beyond being” or perhaps even “nothing” as would
become the case in adaptations of Neo-Platonic ideas. There are precursors for this
notion in Plato’s Republic, where Socrates described “the good” as “beyond being”
(έκεινα τῆς οὐσίας), and the thought experiments of the Parmenides about “the One”
that is uncomposed and, as such, without being.67 These came to play a significant
role in Middle and Neo-Platonism from the 2nd century and on, but their role in
Christian theology was rather marginal until much later.
This is true even if Clement of Alexandria grappled with the idea that theology is
dealing with an aporia, such that even “being” is little more than an imprecise term
that is gropingly used in attempts at describing God. If God is “the One” (τὸ ἕν), as
mentioned above, then God must be infinite (ἄπειρον) and as such without names,
including “being.”68 This did not, however, lead Clement to systematically describe
God as, for example, “beyond being” or “nothing” in his works. Athanasius of Alex-
andria (c. 296–373), for example, may also have described God as the good “beyond
all beings” (ὁ ὑπερέκεινα πάσης οὐσίας), but this hardly amounted to an understand-
ing of God as beyond being altogether, let alone “nothing.”69
The roots of a more radical understanding of God as somehow “nothing” may
be traced back to so-called gnostic theologies such as that of the Alexandrian theo-
logian Basilides (d. c. 140 AD). As Hippolytus relates, Basilides (may have) held that
the seed of the world was created by the will of the “not-being God” (οὐκ ὢν θεός).

67 Plato, Resp. 509b8–10. Plato, Parm. 137c–142a.

68 Clemens Alexandrinus, Strom. V,81,3–6.
69 Athanasius, Con. Gen. 2,5–13. Stępień – Kochańczyk-Bonińska, Unknown God, 75–76.

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This “not-being God” is “not even ineffable.”70 As has been suggested by some schol-
ars, this latter claim may have been a polemic against Philo’s Jewish philosophy, where
God was said to be ineffable.71 To Basilides, Philo may have been right in describing
the Jewish creator God as “ineffable” but, above this God, resides a superior God
who is not-being and not even ineffable. At any rate, the notion of God as not-being
seems clearly opposed to the description of God as “he who is” (ὁ ὤν) in Exodus. If it
is true that the notion of God as not-being was really developed in opposition to Jew-
ish philosophy, then it may seem that this notion carried with it a certain anti-Jew-
ish tendency. To this extent, such a radical version of negative theology would have
been rejected by Christian apologists, like Clement of Alexandria and Origen, who
emphasized the continuity between the Hebrew scriptures and the New Testament.
Like the Christians, Plotinus (204–270) rejected Gnosticism but stressed that
the source of being is itself beyond being. While Plato’s point in the Parmenides
seemed to be that the One cannot really be anything if it really is one, for Plotinus
the One was a principle “beyond being” like the good in the Republic, from which
everything else derives its being. While Plotinus does not elaborate on the idea that
the One is nothing, he comes close, for example when talking about “the marvel of
the One,” which is “non-being” (μὴ ὄν).72 Plotinus’ disciple Porphyry went further as
he described the One as “non-being beyond being” (τό ὑπέρ τό ὄν μὴ ὄν).73 In this
way, as described by Conor Cunningham, Plotinus, and the subsequent tradition de-
velops a “meontology” in which non-being is the highest principle.74 Plotinus, even
if opposed to the Gnostics, ends up utilizing their logic, Cunningham argues, so that
“that which is” becomes subordinate to “that which is not.”
While most Christians resisted such “meontological” notions, there are exam-
ples that negative theology in its Neo-Platonic form could be wielded in defense of
Christian orthodoxy. This was the case when Marius Victorinus (290–364) argued
against Arianism that God is before being (προόν) and as such non-being (μὴ ὂν) in
the sense of being (ὄν) beyond being.75 Arianism, which held the Son of God to be
a created being, may be right in saying, then, that the Son came from “out of noth-
ing,” but this nothing is the divine nothing and not the nothing out of which creation
was created.76 This shows how a Neo-Platonic notion of God as beyond being could
also be used for a Christological purpose, making it clear that it is not necessarily op-
posed to such a notion. In general, however, Christian orthodoxy landed on a more
moderate note, still insisting that God is being, rather than beyond being. Seeing

70 Hippolytus, Haer. 7,20,3.

71 Carabine, The Unknown God, 85–87.
72 Plotinus, Enn. VI,9,5. Plotinus more frequently describes matter as nothing.
73 Porphyrius, Sent. 26. Turner, Sethian Gnosticism, 690.
74 Cunningham, Genealogy of Nihilism, 5.
75 Marius Victorinus, Adv. Ar. 1,49. Marius Victorinus, Ad Cand. 12,7–10.
76 Stępień – Kochańczyk-Bonińska, Unknown God, 82–83.

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 Negative Theology: Its Use and Christological Function

that this was the case should make us wary of claiming too strong an influence of
Neo-Platonic thought on Christian theology at this point.
As once argued by Harry Wolfson, the use of negative terms for God by Philo
expressed “the unlikeness between God and all other beings.”77 It appears that some-
thing similar was the case in Christian forms of negative theology that were even
more keen on upholding the Christian distinction between God and everything else.78
Neo-Platonic thought, however, was, as argued by Cunningham, “unable to posit an
ontological difference,” since the One cannot create anything different from itself,
but can only reproduce itself in every emanation.79 This is why in Neo-Platonism,
negative theology, as argued by Raoul Mortley, became an instrument for abstracting
differences so that the continuity between levels of being could stand out.80
Even if there are obvious similarities between Judeo-Christian negative theol-
ogies and Neo-Platonic forms, then, these are hardly due to Christians taking over
a Neo-Platonic “system” of thought in its entirety. In fact, as has so often been argued,
Neo-Platonism was not so much an ontological system to be adopted as an attempt
to describe how the soul can be united with the One, i.e. attain so-called henosis.
In what Plotinus poetically described as “the flight of the alone to the alone,” negative
theology became a tool for abstracting all distinctions and discursive thoughts that
keep the soul from becoming united to the One.81 With Plotinus’s programmatic ex-
hortation to “remove everything” (ἄφελε πάντα), negation became a central tool in
subsequent Neo-Platonism, where the aim was to overcome all distinctions made by
discursive reasoning.82 Proclus (412–485), for example, emphasized that ultimately
negations must also be negated if a move is to be made beyond the discursive ap-
proach to the One.83
It was as such that the Neo-Platonic tradition would most famously be merged
with Christian theology in the works of Dionysius, as best exemplified by the small
book On Mystical Theology. Here, the story of Moses who encounters God in
the cloud on the mountain (Exod 20:21) became a narrative of what Dionysius fa-
mously described as the “darkness of ignorance” (τὸν γνόφον τῆς ἀγνωσίας).84 God
exists beyond all positive and negative descriptions, including being and non-be-
ing. God may, of course, be described as “the one, who is,” as in Exodus, but God
is also not “he who is.” God is beyond being as well as non-being and, as such, God
is hyper-being. This does not mean that God is also beyond good and evil, but God

77 Wolfson, “Negative Attributes,” 145.

78 See also Wissink, “Two Forms of Negative Theology,” 118.
79 Cunningham, Genealogy of Nihilism, 6.
80 Mortley, From Word to Silence, 53.
81 Plotinus, Enn. VI,9,11.
82 Plotinus, Enn. V,3,17.
83 Proclus, In Pl. Par. VII,53k–76k.
84 Dionysius Areopagita, De myst. theol. 1,3.

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is identified by Dionysius with the Platonic good “beyond all being” (ὑπὲρ πάντα
τὰ ὄντα).85 These hyper-phatic developments in negative theology meant, howev-
er, that God would eventually be conceived of as beyond difference itself, making
it urgent to avoid the pantheism that is allegedly implied. For example, John Scottus
Eriugena (815–877), the Irish monk who translated Dionysius into Latin, explained
how God created everything out of nothing (ex nihilo), but since God, who is beyond
being, is in a sense “nothing” himself, creation out of nothing can be understood as
God creating the world out of himself.86 This does not mean that creation and God
are identical, but because God is beyond being, creation can be in God without being
identical with God.

6. Pure Nothingness

The Dionysian tradition pioneered by John in the Latin West had a profound influ-
ence in subsequent centuries. This was not least the case in the preaching of Meister
Eckhart (1260–1328), whose famous call to ask God to “deliver us from God” is a good
example of how a reinforced theological meontology would have repercussions in
moral thought.87 God as revealed seems to be the author of both good and evil, since
these are necessary conditions for creation, but in himself, God is beyond both good
and evil.88 This was apparently also why Eckhart could provocatively say that “God is
not good” and that God is “unlovable” since God is “above all love and lovableness.”
The exhortation to quietude that follows from this line of thought reflects the need
to remove all distinctions between God and the human person. God must cease to be
an object of thought so that God can act spontaneously through the human person.89
While this portrays traditional Neo-Platonic concerns, Eckhart’s outlook may also
have been the result of having adopted a univocal ontology while simultaneously
wanting to avoid making God into an object that can be distinguished from other
objects.90 To put it shortly, if God is something, then human beings must be nothing,
but if human beings are something, then God must be nothing. In order to relate to
God, then, human beings must become nothing, like God.
Before Eckhart, Marguerite Porete (1250–1310) had described how the soul must
be annihilated in order to be in a “pure nothingness without thought.”91 A similar

85 Dionysius Areopagita, De div. nom. 4,3–7.

86 John Scottus Eriugena, Per. 3,675c.
87 Eckhart, Pr. 52.
88 Eckhart, Pr. 83. Moss, “The Problem of Evil,” 38–43.
89 Eckhart, Pr. 52.
90 Moss, “The Problem of Evil,” 35–37.
91 Porete, The Mirror of Simple Souls, 95.

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 Negative Theology: Its Use and Christological Function

concern is apparent in Eckhart’s preaching, and like in the case of Porete it is clear
that there are moral philosophical implications, albeit rather negative, in Eckhart’s
thought. One can only be united with God in what John Caputo has called “the sus-
pension of all teleological attitudes.” God can only be loved as not-God, says Eckhart,
in a kind of exalted ignorance. This is not a “way” or a method to be followed but
a matter of allowing oneself to sink into oneness with God, as Eckhart dramatically
puts it, “as out of something and into nothingness.”92 This perhaps also explains why
for Eckhart love was not the highest virtue. In his treatise on “detachment” (abeges-
cheidenheit), Eckhart explains how like most other virtues, love has some regard for
created things. God, however, can only be known in a radical detachment, since only
such detachment comes close to nothing.93
It may be argued that this exemplifies how Neo-Platonic meontology threatens to
tip over into an almost “nihilistic” denial of all positive values.94 The fear of moral lib-
ertinism at least seems to have been among the reasons for the papal condemnations
of such mystics as Porete and Eckhart.95 At any rate, in comparison to earlier forms
of negative theology, the alleged suspension of teleology seems to run counter to, for
example, Clement’s proleptic understanding of faith or Gregory of Nyssa’s epektatic
notion of what it means to follow the Logos. In both cases, negative theology served
to underscore the need to relate to God, not in God’s infinite essence, but in the re-
vealed Christ. It is true that Clement, not completely unlike Eckhart, could often
emphasize how imitation of God consisted in needing as little as possible, seeing,
in Stoic terms, how self-sufficiency (αὐταρκείας) was to be “the first principle of
salvation.”96 It is equally true, however, that while the complete likeness to God’s in-
effable nature was not possible, for Clement, imitation of God consisted just as much
in entering communities of love in imitation of the reciprocal relations established
by the divine Logos.97 While there can be no participation in the divine nature, God
can be imitated by following the commands of the revealed Logos.98
In the case of Gregory of Nyssa, it is true that he could, for example in his
homilies on the Song of Songs, also emphasize the need to distinguish between one’s
true self and its surroundings by using a sort of abstractive method.99 This hardly
pertained, however, to an Eckhartian attitude of detachment. Gregory argued in
these homilies, much like in his book on Moses, that God is seen by always fol-
lowing (ἀκολουθεῖν) after God, and that the contemplation of God’s face consists

92 Eckhart, Pr. 83.

93 Eckhart, Von Abe.
94 Steenbuch, “På sporet af ‘intet’,” 129–130.
95 Clement XIII, In Agro Dominico, nos. 4–5.
96 Clemens Alexandrinus, Paed. II,3,39,1.
97 Avilla, Ownership, 45.
98 E.g., Clemens Alexandrinus, Paed. I,6,26,3; Clemens Alexandrinus, Strom. VII,14,88,6.
99 Gregorius Nyssenus, In Cant. 63.

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in unceasingly following the Logos.100 The differences between this approach and
later Neo-Platonic attitudes to faith in Christian theology, like that of Eckhart’s,
should probably not be exaggerated, but it should be clear that for someone like
Gregory, imitation of God did not consist in becoming “nothing” in a state of de-
tachment, but in imitating the incarnated Logos in Christ. Like God, human beings
are not essentially “nothing” but infinitely more than what can be described in
finite terms.101
When Eckhartian themes popped up again in the reformation period with Ana-
baptists such as Hans Denck, the emphasis on the need to “become nothing” so that
God can “become something,” was paralleled by an emphasis on the experience of
the inner word.102 As the magisterial reformers, such as Martin Luther, increasingly
saw it, this pertained to a denial of the external, preached word focused on the cru-
cified Christ. As argued by Luther, one should not seek to deal with God in His
hidden majesty, since the Deus absconditus only brings terror and uncertainty, but
God should be sought in his revealed Word.103 When Moses could only see God from
behind, the point was, Luther argued in his lectures on Exodus, that God’s mercy is
only seen as revealed in the divine Word.104 Considering how Luther’s theology to
some extent rested on a nominalistic ontology, it can hardly be seen as a return to
some form of “classical” version of negative theology, with its Platonic underpin-
nings, even if similar themes of divine incomprehensibility, as shown above, were
applied in order to draw attention to the need for revelation. While having retrieved
these concerns, Lutheran theology at the same time radicalized the Christological
function of negative theology to the point of barring all possibilities of a “mystical”
union with God in a silent “nothing” beyond the preached Word.105

Final Remarks

While it would be a step too far to say that the influx of Neo-Platonic thought in later
Christian theology resulted in a subversion of an original Christological concern,
the “mystical” predilection for the “darkness of ignorance” may at least seem to be
partly at odds with the Christological orientation that placed negative theology in

100 Gregorius Nyssenus, In Cant. 356.

101 Steenbuch, Negative Theology, 33.
102 Denck, Schriften, 33,15–24.
103 As Jürgen Moltmann (The Crucified God, 299–309) has described it, with his “theology of the cross,” Lu-
ther made a reversal of negative theology, which was now no longer man’s negative way to God, but God’s
negative way to man.
104 Luther, Werke, 157.
105 See, however, Mjaaland, The Hidden God; Alfsvåg, “Luther,” 101–114.

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 Negative Theology: Its Use and Christological Function

a subordinate and preliminary position to revelation. Today it may perhaps even be

argued that the roots of so-called “nihilism” can be traced to the notion of God or
the good as somehow beyond being associated particularly with Neo-Platonic meon-
tology.106 It would be going too far to trace all developments of negative theology be-
yond the reformation period in, for example, Jacob Böhme and F.W.J. Schelling and
its culmination in forms of “nihilism” in modern philosophy and theology. It may be
noticed, nevertheless, how the notion of God or the good as somehow beyond being
is today expressed in philosophies preoccupied with difference and negation.
Such post-modern parallels to earlier negative theology are often hostile to clas-
sical notions of participation that are, as in Levinas and Derrida, seen as almost vio-
lent attempts at reducing “the other” to “the same” in a grand ontological scheme of
“being.”107 Instead, the good should be sought in “the other,” and as such outside or
beyond being as in Plato’s Republic, or even in non-being. As Cunningham argues,
the Derridean notion of différance is “the trace of the Plotinian One, which is non-be-
ing.”108 If, nevertheless, différance is not exactly negative theology, as Derrida himself
assured, it only holds the more true that negative theology in such ontologies has
been transformed into a secular negativity that easily spills over into a denial of all
positivity to the point of ridding itself of its theological origins.109 If in post-modern
negative theologies, “GxD” (sometimes spelled this way) is reduced to sheer nega-
tion, such a notion is hardly distinguishable from what Walter Benjamin described
as a “methodical nihilism” and its perpetual negation of the status quo.110
Contemporary negative theology has often been formulated on a nominalist or
Post-Kantian basis that absolutizes the distinction between the transcendent God
and the knowing subject.111 The result is not rarely a fideistic skepticism about clas-
sical participatory ontologies that runs through much of the contemporary attitude
to faith and reason. If, however, as argued recently by Timothy Troutner, theology
is to move beyond what Martin Laird has described as its “apophatic rage,” among
the requirements for reclaiming negative theology is that it be given “a distinctively
Christological shape.”112 Seeing how Christology was central to early Christian for-
mulations of negative theology, this should be kept in mind to balance negative the-
ology with classical orthodoxy. Such a Christological orientation does not cancel out
negative theology by making it only a step towards positive theology. God always
remains a mystery, as observed by Maximus the Confessor in the 6th century, but

106 Steenbuch, “På sporet af ‘intet’,” 138–139. In the case of Eckhart, see Godínez, “The Deity’s Nothingness,”
73–86.
107 Levinas, Totality and Infinity, 42.
108 Cunningham, Genealogy of Nihilism, 160.
109 Derrida, Differance, 88.
110 Benjamin, “Theologico-Political Fragment.” Steenbuch, Negative Theology, 85–94.
111 Troutner, “The Eclipse of the Word.”
112 Laird, “Whereof We Speak,” 1–12.

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God’s natural hiddenness is expressed exactly to the extent that it is made more hid-
den through revelation.113
The danger of collapsing the distinction between God and creation in a common
nothingness (as hinted at by Cunningham) may be avoided by a renewed apprecia-
tion for the Christian distinction between God and everything else in classical theol-
ogy. The classical notion of participation, on the other hand, is necessary for avoid-
ing confusing this distinction with a radically secular evacuation of God into sheer
transcendence. God is essentially hidden, not because God is absent, but because
God is radically present as the reality in which created beings participate in a manner
known only to God, as Denys Turner once remarked.114 There is a need for a Chris-
tological concern for God’s “immanent transcendence” which, more than simply
being a destabilizing figure, is realized as a positive mystery in the incarnate Christ.115
The beatific vision of God is not, pace Turner, “the end of [the] story”116 culminating
in the darkness of union, but the ever-new beginning that takes place as one encoun-
ters the trinitarian God in preaching, acts of worship and love toward others. As
argued by Karl Barth, the incomprehensibility and infinity of God are not abstract
ideas, then, but qualities that draw their true meaning from the goodness of God who
has made himself our Father in Jesus Christ.117

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