Yet the complex, intertwined intellectual developments of the past two centuries make it difficult to trace the history of the Greek term "apophasis" and its relationship to the study of religion. Nadeau explains the ipso facto parasitic nature of "apophasis" through the legal case of the Greek rhetorician Hermogenes (fl.2nd CE).
Dialectics and Symbiosis: “Apophasis” as a Comparative Philosophical Concept Concept
The current use of the term 'apofasis' in reference to Buddhism and Hinduism broadly follows this scholarly emphasis on the dialectic that developed in the 1970s. When “apofasis” was used in this way in comparative philosophy in the 1970s, it was already associated with critical thinking.
Postmodern Times: “Apophasis” as Infinite Critique
Marion links the primacy of eventality and the absence of a donor to argue that negative theology does not affirm hyperreality. The Encyclopedia of Science and Religion, as a recent example, lists "negative theology" under the rubric of "apophase."
Summary
Despite Neo-Scholasticism's struggle against the central principles of modernity and the Enlightenment, the character of its reaction led to the unconscious acquisition of the same principles. Apophasis” as (1) an inessential rhetorical device, (2) a comparative philosophical or critical theoretical concept that cannot live without confirmation outside dialectical dynamics, (3) a native Neoplatonic term with hardly acceptable theological credentials , had a decisive shift in the 1970s.
NOT–RELIGION: A SHORT SURVEY ON THE APOPHATIC GOD OF ISLAM ISLAM
Beginnings
MacDonald's (d. 1943) critique of the inconsistent juxtaposition of immanence and transcendence resonates strongly with Hume's critique. In this unity, all the individuality of the Orient, all caste differences, all birthrights fall away.
Birth of the Science of Religion
With the rise of the study of religion as a linguistic endeavor, the more accurate ethnographic ethnic representations of Islam as a colorful local phenomenon (Indian, Turkish, Persian, etc.) were eclipsed by a monolithic Semitic religion in the late nineteenth century. 148 "He was thought to be omniscient and all-powerful and to be the absolute despot of the world.
Creation of the Aryan Modern in the Semitic Primitive: “Sufism”
The "morbid" imbalance between the apophatic God of Islam and the immanent God of Sufism is a major theological theme in this vast group of Orientalists. Following Nicholson, Arberry also argues that it is pantheistic Sufism that represents the positive, experiential dimension of the sacred.
Modern Gods of Post-Modernity
Rather than exclusively Christianity, it is the multi-faith project of the study of religion that has negotiated modernity since the early twentieth century. The critique of the transcendent god of monotheism is a very prominent theme in philosophy and theology today.
INTRODUCTION TO NEGATIVE THEOLOGIES IN SUFISM
This section narrows the study to the nature of the divine essence and presents the conceptual problems involved in discussing "negative theology" as such. In accordance with the contextualization of this work, the four chapters of the following work will analyze Sufi negative theological paths specifically on the nature of divine ipseity. Within this narrower theological topography, I define four distinct but interrelated trajectories of negative discourse in terms of the nature of God that circulated in thirteenth-century Sufism.
I will mention only three main reasons that correspond to the current literature on apophasis in Islam, comparative mysticism, and theories of mysticism. Second, the description of this period as the peak of Muslim apophatic mysticism actually reflects a broader description of the period in a comparative scholarly perspective. The 150-year period from the middle of the twelfth to the beginning of the fourteenth century represents the flowering of apophatic mysticism.
The period of the "flourishing of apophatic mysticism" interestingly follows the institutionalization of Sufi orders in the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries.
WHAT IS “NEGATIVE THEOLOGY:” A CONCEPTUAL GUIDE
A Guide to “Sufism,” “Theology,” “Sufi Theology”
In addition to the problem of mapping "theology" somewhere between kalām, ilāhiyyāt and 'ilm al-uṣūl, another territorial problem awaits the scholar of Islamic theology. However, when the Iraqi jurist Najm al-Dīn al-Ṭūfī (d. 1316) encountered a non-Muslim scholar's polemical attack on the question of predestination, he argued that this problem was actually not among the main problems of Islamic theology. .258 In other words, even if we agree that "Islamic theology" consists of kalām and 'ilm al-uṣūl or kalām and ilāhiyyāt, It is not surprising that what constitutes "theology" in relation to "Sufism" even more complications.
There is no consensus whatsoever on the thematic or methodological scope of "Islamic mystical theology" or "Sufi theology" in contemporary scholarship. 259 One pragmatic solution is to deal with the practical, institutional and legal definitions of "Islamic theology". In Western universities and other educational institutions, "Islamic theology" is de facto defined more broadly than kalām. Islamic theology” courses, much like throughout history, are organized in light of contemporary challenges, diverse student bodies, educational needs, and local or international political contexts.
In this broad sense, I define “theology” as “talking about God,”269 or “God-talk in general.
Mu‘tazilites, Sufis and “Negative Theology” Unqualified
In short, the portrait of the Mu'tazilites as the Muslim negative theologians par excellence is still a popular view in various branches of the study of religion. On the other hand, regarding a negativist approach to the attributes of God, later schools or movements were not the only conduits between the Mu'tazilites and the Sufis in the thirteenth century. I met Abū 'Abd Allāh ibn Junayd al-Qabrafīqī among the masters of the [Sufi] order—originally from Ronda and from the Mu'tazilite school [madhhab].
Ibn al-'Arabi himself saw the divine names as a veil in front of the divine essence. For an English translation of the account in the Adornment of the Spiritually Transformed, see Ibn al-‘Arabī 2008, p.38. Indeed, this is exactly the position of Ibn al-'Arabi. approves in his discovery of the meaning of the secrets of beautiful names.
The attribute that al-Kabrafiki does not permit imitation is not one of the classic negative names of God among the early Mu'tazilite theologians.
Mu‘tazilites and “Negative Theology:” the Problem
According to the later Mu'tazilites followed by al-Kabrafiki, the knowledge of God's essence precedes not only the knowledge of His attributes, but also the truth of the revelation. Discussion of the claim that God cannot be apprehended by the sixth sense, as reported by Ḍirār. Discussion of the claim that children cannot know God unless it is given to them (by God) otherwise. 374.
Yet noted Ash'arite masters of that time supported divine accessibility through apodictic knowledge [burhān] obtained through reasoning or through the sacred texts [naṣṣ]. It should not be forgotten that it was indeed the Mu'tazilites who provided the first proofs of God's existence.400 At the meeting of the two Sufis in Seville, it is not al-Qabrafīqī but Ibn al-'Arabī who insists that God is unknowable, while its attributes are accessible. As for the gnosis of the divine ipseity [ma'rifat al-dhāt], it includes the.
At the same time, he was also quite consistent in insisting on the accessibility of the divine attributes to human imitation.
Summary: No “Negative Theology” Anymore
It can be argued that the Mu'tazilites took a negative theological approach to the nature of divine attributes; but most of them were far from negative theologians when it came to the question of the knowability of the divine essence. Many scholars, failing to recognize the distinctions made in medieval intellectual landscapes, confuse different views on the divine attributes and divine essence, as in the case of al-Qabrafīqī and Ibn al-‘Arabī. The general term "negative theology" ignores the fundamental distinction between various theological questions, such as the divine attributes and the divine essence.
Second, in a broader sense, "negative theology" inevitably presupposes that one is adopting a negative position on the entire field of theology. Do we mean a negative theology of divine essence, divine attributes, theodicy, divine will, religious leadership, free will, or divine love. The Mu'tazilites had a negative theology of the divine attributes, but most of them were far from adopting a negative theology of the divine essence.
Sufis in the lineage of Ibn al-'Arabī largely followed a negative theology of divine essence, but their approach to the divine attributes was far from, and even critically, purely negativistic.
NEGATIVE THEOLOGIES OF THE DIVINE ESSENCE IN THIRTEENTH CENTURY SUFISM CENTURY SUFISM
Sufi Paths of Ismāʻīlī Apophaticism in the Thirteenth Century
Khwāja Naṣīr al-Dīn Ṭūsī (d. 1274), one of the greatest thinkers in history, is among the most influential Isma'īlī scholars. This is probably one of the most concrete textual examples of concealment that betrays Ṭūsī's commitment to Ismāʻīlī. This depiction in the letter is in perfect harmony with the description in Attributes of the Famous and Origin and Destination.
The unique "Sufi path" of Tūsī's Attributes of Illustrations and Letters is laid out by an Isma'īlī approach to spiritual progress. The union station corresponds to the numerical unity of the Divine Word in the apophatic tradition that Ṭūsi inherited. The Attributes of the Enlightened Ones is not a Sufi-Isma'īlī (or Ismā'īlī-Sufi) treatise that seeks to harmonize the two.
However, the divine unity indicated by the self-cancellation of the discursive field is only a relative, numerical one, corresponding to the divine word in Ismāʻīlī cosmology. Balyānī's account has clear structural overlaps with the apophatic theology of the Ismāʻīlī tradition. If the apophatic theology of the Treatise on Divine Unity apparently follows the double negation in the Ismāʻīlī line, it is even more distant from that of Ibn al-.
Summary
NECESSARILY DISSIMILAR: PHILOSOPHICAL APOPHATICISM AND SUFISM SUFISM
The similarities between al-Kindi and the Mu'tazilites are clear in terms of this negative theology of the divine attributes. Ibn Sīnā gives a brief conclusion about divine essence at the end of the chapter. He is the principle of all things, and He is not of the things that come after Him.761.
Indeed, al-Fārābī's tension between the God of the qualified attributes and the apophatic. Al-Rāzī criticizes the concept of necessary existence advocated by Ibn Sīnā. Direct or not, all criticism of the negative evidence for divine unity was ultimately directed at Ibn Sīnā.
Accordingly, all the positive and negative qualities of the divine union ultimately boil down to.
