Cataphatic (Affirmative) Theology
Naming God by every good thing he has made and revealed
Cataphatic, or affirmative, theology approaches God by affirming the perfections revealed of him, calling him good, wise, and just, naming him from his effects in creation and revelation. Associated with Pseudo-Dionysius and his treatise on the Divine Names, it is the 'positive way.' It is often paired with its counterpart, the negative way, which guards against supposing such names capture God fully.
How it traveled
- Select Orations of Saint Gregory NazianzenNazianzus · c. 390 CEexplains
- Answer to Eunomius' Second BookNyssa · c. 395 CEexplains
- On the Holy TrinityHippo Regius · c. 430 CEexplains
- Treatise on The One God (QQ[2-26])Paris · c. 1274 CEexplains
Key passages(20)
Each passage is tagged by what it does with the idea: explains it, applies it in practice, redefines it with a new meaning, or challenges it. Relevance shows how directly the passage is about this idea.
John of Damascus: Exposition of the Orthodox Faith · John of Damascus
When, then, we have perceived these things and are conducted from these to the divine essence, we do not apprehend the essence itself but only the attributes of the essence: just as we have not appreh
Tap to expand
Select Orations of Saint Gregory Nazianzen · Gregory of Nazianzus
Epicurus taught that Matter is eternal, and consists of an indefinite number of Atoms or indivisible units, floating about in space, and mutually attracting and repelling each other; and that all that
Tap to expand
Treatise on The One God (QQ[2-26]) · Thomas Aquinas
Reply to Objection 3: We cannot know the essence of God in this life, as He really is in Himself; but we know Him accordingly as He is represented in the perfections of creatures; and thus the names i
Tap to expand
Answer to Eunomius' Second Book · Gregory of Nyssa
While, however, we strenuously avoid all concurrence with absurd notions in our thoughts of God, we allow ourselves in the use of many diverse appellations in regard to Him, adapting them to our point
Tap to expand
The Letters · Basil of Caesarea
Letter CCXXXIV. Placed in 376. To the same, in answer to another question. Do you worship what you know or what you do not know? If I answer, I worship what I know, they immediately reply, What is
Tap to expand
A Treatise of Novatian Concerning the Trinity. · Novatian
Chapter VII. Argument.—Moreover, that When God is Called a Spirit, Brightness, and Light, God is Not Sufficiently Expressed by Those Appellations. But when the Lord says that God is a Spirit, I think
Tap to expand
Answer to Eunomius' Second Book · Gregory of Nyssa
I have said, then (for I make my master’s words my own), that reason supplies us with but a dim and imperfect comprehension of the Divine nature; nevertheless, the knowledge that we gather from the te
Tap to expand
Letters of St. Augustin · Augustine of Hippo
4. But if this brother is able to propound anything better on this subject, I am ready to learn either from himself or from his instructor. If I were saying this ironically, I would also say that I am
Tap to expand
Select Orations of Saint Gregory Nazianzen · Gregory of Nazianzus
XIII. This will be made clear to you as follows:—Are not Spirit, and Fire, and Light, Love, and Wisdom, and Righteousness, and Mind and Reason, and the like, the names of the First Nature? What then?
Tap to expand
Select Orations of Saint Gregory Nazianzen · Gregory of Nazianzus
XVI. This was their course. But reason receiving us in our desire for God, and in our sense of the impossibility of being without a leader and guide, and then making us apply ourselves to things visib
Tap to expand
The Homilies of St. John Chrysostom on the Gospel of St. John · John Chrysostom
Homily XV. John i. 18 “No man hath seen God at any time; the Only-begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him.” [1.] God will not have us listen to the words and sentenc
Tap to expand
Treatise on The One God (QQ[2-26]) · Thomas Aquinas
Secondly, on account of its universality. For all other names are either less universal, or, if convertible with it, add something above it at least in idea; hence in a certain way they inform and det
Tap to expand
Treatise on The One God (QQ[2-26]) · Thomas Aquinas
Objection 2: Further, Dionysius says (Div. Nom. i): "You will find a chorus of holy doctors addressed to the end of distinguishing clearly and praiseworthily the divine processions in the denomination
Tap to expand
Treatise on The One God (QQ[2-26]) · Thomas Aquinas
I answer that, In names predicated of many in an analogical sense, all are predicated because they have reference to some one thing; and this one thing must be placed in the definition of them all. An
Tap to expand
How and why God is seen and yet not seen by those who seek him. HAST thou found what thou didst seek, my soul? Thou didst seek God. Thou hast found him to be a being which is the highest of all being
Tap to expand
These names have a different meaning with us, Eunomius; when we come to the transcendent energies they yield another sense. Wide, indeed, is the interval in all else that divides the human from the di
Tap to expand
Answer to Eunomius' Second Book · Gregory of Nyssa
Well, then, if God did not exist formerly, or if there be a time when He will not exist, He cannot be called either unending or without beginning; and so also neither inalterable, nor incorporeal, nor
Tap to expand
The Catechetical Lectures of S. Cyril · Cyril of Jerusalem
Lecture IX. On the Words, Maker of Heaven and Earth, and of All Things Visible and Invisible. Job xxxviii. 2–3 Who is this that hideth counsel from Me, and keepeth words in his heart, and thinketh
Tap to expand
Treatise on The One God (QQ[2-26]) · Thomas Aquinas
Objection 3: Further, the knowledge of natural reason belongs to both good and evil, inasmuch as they have a common nature. But the knowledge of God belongs only to the good; for Augustine says (De Tr
Tap to expand
But Peter and Paul, he says, were named by men, and hence it comes that it is possible in their case to change the appellations. Why, what existing thing has not been named by men? I call you to testi
Tap to expand