A Comparative Study of Postmodern Understandings on the concept of the “Divine Transcendence” in the Negative Theology of Pseudo-Dionysius: Focused on Postmetaphysical Theology of Jean-Luc Marion and the Deconstructive Theology of Jacques Derrida and John D. Caputo

2015 ◽  
Vol 81 (null) ◽  
pp. 139-172 ◽  
Author(s):  
안택윤
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Study ◽  
Jacques Derrida ◽  
Negative Theology ◽  
Divine Transcendence ◽  
Pseudo Dionysius

The Mystical Abyss

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
An Yountae
Keyword(s):  
Jacques Derrida ◽  
The Self ◽  
Western Philosophy ◽  
Ethical Implication ◽  
Negative Theology ◽  
Slavoj Zizek ◽  
Meister Eckhart ◽  
Slavoj Žižek ◽  
A Site

This chapter examines the notion of the abyss as it has been developed within the tradition of Western philosophy and theology. It traces the abyss back to its first inception in Neoplatonic philosophy by Plato and his Timaeus, followed by Plotinus who develops the traces of panentheist mysticism lurking in Plato’s system into the seed of negative theology. In the Neoplatonic tradition and medieval mysticism of Pseudo-Dioysius and Meister Eckhart, the abyss points to the theological crossroad in which finitude and infinity, creaturely vulnerability and divine potency intersect with each other. The paradoxical path of via negativa renders the abyss a site of uncertainty and unknowing in which both God and the self are uncreated (Eckhart). Subsequently, the ethical implication or potential of the abyss is probed via the works of contemporary philosophers (Jacques Derrida, Jean-Luc Marion, Slavoj Zizek) who engage negative theology from a postmodern perspective.

Postmodern theology

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Merold Westphal
Keyword(s):  
Literary Theory ◽  
Negative Theology ◽  
Death Of God ◽  
Meister Eckhart ◽  
Postmodern Theology ◽  
Theological Discourse ◽  
Postmodern Philosophy ◽  
Absolute Knowledge ◽  
Knowledge Claims ◽  
Pseudo Dionysius

The term ‘postmodernism’ is loosely used to designate a wide variety of cultural phenomena from architecture through literature and literary theory to philosophy. The immediate background of philosophical postmodernism is the French structuralism of Saussure, Lévi-Strauss, Lacan and Barthes. But like existentialism, it has roots that go back to the critique by Kierkegaard and Nietzsche of certain strong knowledge claims in the work of Plato, Descartes and Hegel. If the quest for absolute knowledge is the quest for meanings that are completely clear and for truths that are completely certain, and philosophy takes this quest as its essential goal, then postmodernism replaces Nietzsche’s announcement of the death of God with an announcement of the end of philosophy. This need not be construed as the death of God in a different vocabulary. The question of postmodern theology is the question of the nature of a discourse about deity that would not be tied to the metaphysical assumptions postmodern philosophy finds untenable. One candidate is the negative theology tradition of Pseudo-Dionysius and Meister Eckhart. It combines a vigorous denial of absolute knowledge with a theological import that goes beyond the critical negations of postmodern philosophy. A second possibility, the a/theology of Mark C. Taylor, seeks to find religious meaning beyond the simple opposition of theism and atheism, but without taking the mystical turn. Finally, Jean-Luc Marion seeks to free theological discourse from the horizon of all philosophical theories of being, including Heidegger’s own postmodern analysis of being.

Ibn Paquda, Bahya (fl. early 12th century)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
L.E. Goodman
Keyword(s):  
Negative Theology ◽  
Philosophical System ◽  
12Th Century ◽  
Bodily Resurrection ◽  
Divine Transcendence ◽  
Medieval Hebrew

Bahya ibn Paquda, the chief exponent of Jewish pietism, gave that ecumenical strand of thought and practice a markedly philosophical cast, preferring the intellectual to the fideistic side of pietist tradition, and embracing rationalism as the ally of faith rather than rejecting it as an enemy. Drawing selectively from Muslim as well as Jewish sources, Bahya’s spiritual vademecum, al-Hidaya ila fara’id al-qulub (The Book of Guidance to the Duties of the Heart), was widely studied ever since its composition, especially in its medieval Hebrew translation, and parts of it are even included in the liturgical meditations of the Ten Days of Penitence. In it, Bahya thematizes his materials carefully, using his own sense of the reasonable to structure pietism as a philosophical system, controlling the monistic penchant of mysticism and disciplining the ascetic tendencies of the devotional cast of mind. Maimonides found Bahya’s asceticism excessive and rejected Bahya’s related leanings towards predestinarianism and resignation; but he quietly adopted Bahya’s moral and intellectual interpretation of the mystic quest for unity with God, fell into step with his predilection for spiritual immortality as distinguished from bodily resurrection, echoed his affirmation of God’s absolute unity and simplicity, and concurred in his admiration for negative theology, the theology of divine transcendence.

God beyond Being

2020 ◽  
pp. 120-138
Author(s):  
Michael C. Rea
Keyword(s):  
Divine Transcendence ◽  
Mystical Theology ◽  
Pseudo Dionysius

Theologians divide as to how best to understand God’s transcendence. Famously, towards the end of his Mystical Theology, Pseudo-Dionysius characterized God’s transcendence by saying that God is ‘beyond every denial, beyond every assertion’ and that God ‘lies beyond thought and beyond being’. Many in his wake have followed him in these affirmations. Contemporary analytic philosophers commonly dismiss such claims as unintelligible or inconsistent with basic doctrines of Christianity (e.g. that God exists, is personal, became incarnate). But they are so deeply entrenched in the tradition that it seems a worthwhile effort to try to do them justice. This chapter develops an intelligible account of divine transcendence that accommodates the language of beyondness while at the same time remaining consistent with the truth of central Christian doctrines.

scholarly journals On Not Saying, Not Knowing and Thinking about Nothing: Adorno, Dionysius, Derrida and the Negation of Art

Paragraph ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 196-217
Author(s):  
Johanna Malt
Keyword(s):  
Jacques Derrida ◽  
Work Of Art ◽  
Negative Knowledge ◽  
Null Object ◽  
Theodor Adorno ◽  
Contemporary Work ◽  
Pseudo Dionysius

This article examines accounts of negation or the apophatic in Pseudo-Dionysius, Theodor Adorno and Jacques Derrida alongside a contemporary work of art by London Fieldworks, Null Object: Gustav Metzger Thinks about Nothing (2011). By exploring models of negative knowledge offered in these works, it asks what happens to the work of art when it becomes preoccupied with negation and how a work of art might embody or manifest — without reproducing — philosophical discourses about negation.

The meaning of mystical ‘darkness’

2005 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 95-105 ◽  
Author(s):  
PETER KÜGLER
Keyword(s):  
Negative Theology ◽  
Pseudo Dionysius

Arguments by W. T. Stace and C. J. Insole show that metaphorical descriptions of God presuppose literal descriptions of God. This poses a problem for the metaphor of darkness which has often been used, for instance by Pseudo-Dionysius, in the context of negative theology and apophatic mysticism. Three strategies of dealing with the problem are discussed in this article. The negative, apophatic approach can be seen either as subverting itself, or as being restricted to certain properties, or as resting on a self-excluding principle. Whereas the first two strategies have their difficulties, self-exclusion is linguistically founded and adequate to the purposes of negative theology.

scholarly journals The Reception of Pseudo-Dionysius’s Negative Theology in Alan of Lille

2020 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 29-42
Author(s):  
José Osorio
Keyword(s):  
Final Section ◽  
Negative Theology ◽  
Alan Of Lille ◽  
Theological Language ◽  
Pseudo Dionysius

The article investigates the reception of Pseudo-Dionysius’s negative theology in Alan of Lille’s philosophical and speculative theological works. In the first part, the paper discusses how Alan applied Pseudo-Dionysius’s negative theology to the problem of translatio and the limits of theological language. In the second part, the article sheds light on the problematic textual references and allusions in Alan’s appropriation and remarks about Pseudo-Dionysius. In the final section, the paper argues that despite Alan’s lack of access to the complete Corpus Aeropagiticum, his interpretation and adoption of negative theology is philosophically compelling.

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