Inquiry · “You Are Not Your Thoughts”
The Way of Unknowing
To approach the divine by the via negativa — systematically negating every concept, name, and image (‘not this, not this’) until thought falls silent and the mind rests in a knowing beyond knowing.
In 5 lines: Start with your highest names for God — good, light, life. Then deny them, lowest first: not a thing of the senses, then not even “wisdom” or “goodness” as you conceive them — because God is more than every word, not less. Finally let go of the denials too. What remains is not a blank but a luminous unknowing — rest there without grasping for a new concept.
What it is
Apophatic (negative-way) theology is Pseudo-Dionysius’s method of approaching God not by what He is but by what He is not. Where ordinary devotion piles up names and concepts for the divine, the apophatic practitioner deliberately strips them away, one after another — “not this, not this” — because every finite concept, however exalted, falls short of the infinite and so quietly distorts it.
In The Mystical Theology Dionysius runs the negation all the way up: the divine “neither lives, nor is life; neither is essence nor eternity, nor time” (Ch. V); it is “neither darkness, nor light; nor error, nor truth” (Ch.
V) — not because God lacks these, but because He exceeds them. The crucial twist: even the negations are finally let go, since “we neither predicate, nor abstract from It” (Ch. V). The mind, having released both its affirmations and its denials, is left in a knowing beyond knowing — “by knowing nothing, knowing above mind” (Ch. I).
Contrast — the Cloud. The Cloud of Unknowing is the great English heir of this method, but it works mainly by love — a single naked word of longing held against the dark. Dionysius’s via negativa here is more noetic: an active, ordered stripping of concepts. The Cloud forgets; Dionysius negates. (And neti-neti, below, negates to find the Self; Dionysius negates to meet a God beyond the self.)
The Method
From The Mystical Theology (faithfully described, not reproduced):
- Begin where the mind is — with the names. Bring to mind the highest things you can say of the divine: good, light, life, being, truth. Do not despise them; they are the proper starting rung.
- Negate the lowest first. Affirm that God is not any sensible thing — not a body, image, place, sound, or feeling. Let each go as you name it.
- Climb the negations. Then deny the conceptual attributes too — not “life” as you conceive life, not “wisdom” as you know wisdom, not “goodness” measured by yours. Dionysius makes the ascent explicit: “by making the ascents from the lowest to the highest, we abstract everything” (Ch. II).
- Understand why you negate. Not because the divine is empty, but because it is more than any word — every concept is a finite net thrown at an infinite reality. The denial honours, it does not diminish.
- Negate the negations. When the mind tries to settle in “God is not this,” release even that. “We neither predicate, nor abstract from It” (Ch. V). Both the saying and the unsaying are let fall.
- Rest in the unknowing. What remains is not a blank but a luminous not-knowing — “to see and to know that the not to see nor to know is itself the above sight” (Ch. II). Abide there without grasping for a new concept to fill the silence.
Source & Lineage
Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite was an anonymous Christian author, probably a Syrian monk of the late 5th or early 6th century, writing under the name of St Paul’s Athenian convert.
His short, programmatic Mystical Theology — read alongside the longer Divine Names — is the founding charter of Christian apophatic (negative) theology. He synthesised Neoplatonism (especially Proclus) with the apophatic strand of Gregory of Nyssa and the Cappadocians.
Through Maximus the Confessor, Eriugena, Aquinas, and Eckhart, his “way of negation” shaped a millennium of mysticism and stands directly behind The Cloud of Unknowing.
Common refinements
Treating negation as denial of value. You are not saying God is less than good or light, but more — the negation is a way of honouring the infinite, not emptying it.
- Stopping at the negations. The method is incomplete if you camp in “God is not X”; the final move is to let even the denials go.
- Trying to fill the silence. The mind rushes to replace a dropped concept with a new one. Notice and refrain; the unknowing is the destination.
- Confusing it with neti-neti. The form is similar but the aim differs: neti-neti negates to uncover the Self/Atman; Dionysius negates to meet a God beyond the self. Hold the distinction.
- Forcing it as pure intellect. Dionysius pairs the noetic ascent with love and reverence; cold analysis alone misses the contemplative point.