Ari Ojell - From Divine Denial to Human Negation:Gregory of Nyssa and Pseudo-Dionysius Areopagita on apophasis

As much as Gregory of Nyssa is one of the great architects of the Christian ‘apophasis’ or ‘negative theology’, in his writings he actually hardly ever uses the word apophasis, ‘negation’ or ‘denial’. Importantly, however, he uses it once in De vita Moyses in a very crucial instance, when explaining the idea of the divine incomprehensibility learned by Moses when entering the dark cloud. Gregory there asserts that the fact that the knowledge of the divine essence is unavailable to all rational creatures, may also be learned from the denial (apophasis) proclaimed by the sublime John, who says: ‘No one has ever seen God’. 

My aim in the communication is to address the importance of Gregory’s utilization of the word apophasis in this very instance, for the later development of the Christian apophatic tradition in Pseudo-Dionysius Areopagita. In short, I will argue that for Gregory, still, apophasis stood for a ‘divine denial’. For Gregory, there is God saying ‘no’, the speaking God, instructing us, ‘you cannot know my essence’, in the words of his servant. Thus the unknowability of the divine essence is something that God has revealed of Himself. It is not insensible to think that Pseudo-Dionysius took Gregory’s use of the word apophasis as a license from his own tradition, for taking over the Neoplatonic method of negation, where the human agent is active in negating things of God, when intellectually fighting his way toward the Unknowable God as No-thing.  So, what for Gregory was a ‘divine denial’ as a part of the divine self-revelation, Pseudo-Dionysius took and transformed into ‘human negation’ as a method. What other consequent transformations occurred thereby will also be discussed shortly in the communication.