Harvard Divinity School

The Critical Value of Negative Theology

Author(s): John Peter Kenney
Source: The Harvard Theological Review, Vol. 86, No. 4 (Oct., 1993), pp. 439-453
Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Harvard Divinity School
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The Cnbcal Value of Negafive Theology

John Peter Kenney

Reed College

Tf metaphysics seems today to have buried its undertakers, then negative

ltheology may soon silence its critics. Having established a significant if
sometimes recessive presence in Western theism, negative theology is again
an important element in contemporary philosophical theology. While Anglo-
American philosophy of religion remains dominated by analytic neoscholasti-
cism,l in the last decade a countercurrent has emerged that makes common
cause with the apophatic tradition. The Gifford lectures of Stephen R. L.
Clark2 are examples of this development, as are the works of Leszek
Kolakowski.3 Each thinker has attempted to expand discussion beyond the
scholastic parameters of the field and make connections with important
historical figures who are often neglected in the literature. Neoplatonism
has featured prominently this development; as the principal philosophical
foundation for apophatic theology in the West, it has been invoked in both
its original Greco-Roman guise and its subsequent manifestation within the
Abrahamic tradition (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam).

lFor example, Alvin Plantinga of Notre Dame or Richard Swinbune of Oxford.

2Stephen R. L. Clark, From Athens to Jerusalem: The Love of Wisdom and the Love of God
(Oxford: Clarendon, 1984); see also idem, The Mysteries of Religion: An Introduction to
Philosophy through Religion (Oxford: Blackwell, 1986).
3Leszek Kolakowski, Religion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982); and idem, Meta-
physical Horror (Oxford: Blackwell, 1988). See also the recent volume of essays edited by
Robert P. Scharlemann, Negation and Theology (Charlottesville/London: University Press of
Virginia, 1992).

HTR 86:4 (1993) 439-53

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440 HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW

One figure has been particularly prominent in the historical and theo-
logical reappraisal of negative theology: A. H. Armstrong, the eminent
authority on Plotinus and Neoplatonism. His many studies have forcefully
and cogently articulated Neoplatonism's philosophical foundations and reli-
gious resources.4 Indeed, his essays constitute a type of historical theology,
that is, they are theological reflections that emerge from historical study.
This article will examine Armstrong's apophatic theology and consider some
of its implications for contemporary religious thought. The first part of the
article reviews his theological views with reference to their historical back-
ground in ancient Platonism and Christian Platonism. The second part then
discusses some aspects of negative theology that have been made especially
salient by Armstrong's sustained reflections over several decades.

g Axmstong's Theological views

It is tempting to think of Hilary Armstrong as a contemporary Cam-
bridge Platonist, given his academic origins at that university. In the intro-
duction to his most recent collection of essays, Armstrong locates himself
in such terms, suggesting that the liberal Christian Platonism of his Cam-
bridge days was his "true personal tradition or paradosis."5 He reacted
against this tradition, however, and adopted Roman Catholicism, "a more
conservative form of Christianity,"6 only to return to latitudinarian Angli-
canism in the 1980s. This religious development is significant for under-
standing Armstrong's views on negative theology; his historical studies often
evince a personal dynamism, with the result that these essays have the
quality of first-order theology.
For Armstrong, negative theology is far more than a puzzling emblem of
antique theology; it is the foundation of serious reflection about the divine.
He understands negative theology as consisting "in a critical negation of all
affirmations which one can make about God, followed by an equally criti-
cal negation of our negations."7 In his words, "without the negative theol-

4A. H. Armstrong's theological and historical essays are collected in two volumes: Plotinian
and Christian Studies (London: Variorum Reprints, 1979); and idem, Hellenic and Christian
Studies (London: Variorum Reprints, 1990). His scholarship also includes the Loeb edition
of Plotinus, Plotinus: Enneads I-V (LCL; 7 vols.; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
1966-88); editing The Cambridge History of Later Greek And Early Medieval Philosophy
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967); and editing World Spirituality, vol. 15:
Classical Mediterranean Spirituality: Egyptian, Greek, Roman (New York: Crossroads, 1986).
sA. H. Armstrong, "Introduction," in idem, Hellenic and Christian Studies, xi. He men-
tions the influence of Alexander Nairne, Regius Professor of Divinity at Cambridge in the
1920s, who was a Christian Platonist.
6Ibid., xi.

7A. H. Armstrong, "Negative Theology," in idem, Plotinian and Christian Studies, no. 24
(1977) 185. Negative or apophatic theology (apophasis means denial or negation) is usually

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 JOHN PETER KENNEY 441

ogy our representation of reality loses all depth and becomes abstract, flat,
and unreal."8 This happens because we lose sight of the divine whenever
we accept as final or complete any conceptual representation of it. The true
object of religious devotion and theological attention is not contained in the
formulas of its representation, however authoritative or conceptually exact;
rather it exceeds all finite capacity for conceptual similitude. This "escape
of the One" is the central spiritual motion in Armstrong's theology.9 Nega-
tive theology establishes a spiritual disquietude which calls the soul forth
into further and unceasing searches for the divine. It subverts our deep
human tendeney to settle for idols, reminding us that all theology can
function properly only as an icon of the divine, leading the spiritual self
into the immediacy of God.l° Thus, apophasis saves us from idolatry, that
is, from exaggerated love of those graven images of the human spiritual
imagination. By serving as an antidote to dogmatism,ll the apophatic mode
of reflection retains for philosophical theology a religious dimension, reas-
serting its ancient role as a spiritual exercisel2 and disabusing any pretense
that it exists as a disciplinary end in itself. This is "the critical value of
negative theology.''l3
The most striking aspect of Armstrong's interpretation of negative theol-
ogy is his association of the classical apophatic tradition with moderate
skepticism. Although he admits that this connection is interpretive and not
explicit in the ancient sources, he views it as a significant, tacit dimension
of ancient Neoplatonic theology:

If one pushed the critical mysticism of Plotinus rather further than he

would be willing to go himself, it might come to consort very well
with another kind of Platonism of which the Neoplatonists and their
immediate predecessors strongly disapproved, the ultra-Socratic
Platonism of the Skeptical Academy. It is possible that under the in-

contrasted with affirmative or kataphatic theology (kataphasis means affirmation).

8A. H. Armstrong, "The Negative Theology of Nous in Later Neoplatonism," in idem,
Hellenic and Christian Studies, no. 3 (1983) 36.
9A. H. Armstrong, "The Escape of the One," in idem, Plotinian and Christian Studies, no.
23 (1975) 77-89.
0Armstrong,"Negative Theology," 187.
Armstrong,''The Escape of the One," 83.
l2Armstrong stated ("The Negative Theology of Nous in Later Platonism," 34-35), "An-
cient philosophers hardly ever regarded their philosophy as simply the theoretical pursuit of
conclusions by a process of abstract reasoning. It was rather a process of training, an exercise
aiming at total self-transformation, at final enlightenment and liberation."
13Armstrong found this theme in the work of Jean Trouillard, the great French Catholic
scholar of Neoplatonism; in particular see Jean Trouillard, "Valeur critique de la mystique
plotinienne," Revue philosophique de Louvain 59 (1961) 431-44. Compare Armstrong, "The
Escape of the One," 83-84.

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442 HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW

fluence of Cicero and Porphry, something like this convergence of the

two Platonisms may have taken place in the minds of some of the last
pagans of Rome in the fourth century A.D.14

Thus, the via negativa is corrosive of definitive theological statement. It is

also disquieting, since it involves the negation of our customary concep-
tions about the divine. This process of denial is not enough, however, since
one cannot simply settle for inverted theology either. Real negative theol-
ogy would be equally ill at ease with a catechism of theological privatives.
This "negation of negations" makes apophatic theology an odd, paradoxical
program, teetering on the brink of nonsense. Armstrong has underscored
the difficulties involved:

If one does not find doing negative theology a fairly agonizing busi-
ness, one is not really doing negative theology at all.... Doing
negative theology is painful because, for anyone brought up in the
Hellenic tradition of dogmatic philosophy, it involves an uprooting of
one's whole thought, a radical criticism of the assumptions on which
our philosophical talk and thinking are based.l5

This radical criticism is nonetheless not a complete, Pyrrhonian skepti-

cism. It remains part of a religious program directed toward an inchoate
divine goal, the direction of which one can still dimly discern. This basic
vectorial sense prevents a collapse into what Armstrong has called "black
mysticism,''l6 the feeling that any theological fantasy may be entertained.

Neoplatonists are only enabled to resist this temptation by their obsti-

nate conviction, in spite of all their negations, that the God who is
driving them onwards himself is only not the Good because he is
better than the Good, the source and cause of all good. The name
"Good" is for them a kind of direction-finder, like the mihrab in the
wall of a mosque. Their sense of direction is something given in the
original awareness which propels or invites them to engage in negative
theology. 17

This resolute theological skepticism, when combined with a pragmatic

sense of religious direction, presents Neoplatonic thought as somewhat of
a return to Socraticism. Constant questioning of religious claims is itself
viewed as a form of spirituality. When the "negation of negations" is per-
formed, negative theology moves beyond mere theological skepticism.
Content with neither an affirmative representation of God nor the negative

14Armstrong, "Negative Theology," 185; compare idem, "The Hidden and the Open in
Hellenic Thought," in idem, Hellenic and Christian Studies, no. 5 ( 1987) 81-1 17.
Armstrong,''Negative Theology," 184.
Ibid., 185.
7Ibid.

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 JOHN PETER KENNEY 443

image that results from stripping away theological predication, the true
negative theology presses on to a negation of these negations, thus avoiding
a "blank little pseudo-concept of God which signifies nothing.''l8 This pro-
cess becomes for Armstrong a spiritual exercise, a theological act rather
than a piece of speculation:

We must not be content to say that God is not anything. We must not
only say, but experience and be aware, that he is not not anything
either. If we go the whole way like this, we may experience a great
liberation of mind, a freedom from language and concepts which will
enable us to use them properly, in the endlessly critical way which I
have indicated. We become, however dimly, aware, beyond our dis-
tinctions and definitions, positive and negative, not of an abstract,
contentless monadic simplicity which the pagan Neoplatonists are of-
ten mistakenly thought to believe in but of an unspeakably rich and
vivifying reality.l9

The result of negative theology is not mystical experience as such, but the
combination of a firmly critical sensibility, recalcitrant to all theological
dogmatism, with a strengthened awareness of divine presence. The moder-
ate skepticism of genuine apophatic theology and its resultant antidogmatism
are both reasons for resistance to it in some theological circles. Neoplatonism
is "a very subversive philosophy," with the result that "it is dangerous to
the stability of philosophical and ecclesiastical establishments to let any
form of the genuine article get in."20
Reference to "the genuine article" should alert us to the importance that
Armstrong places on the negative theology of the pagan or Hellenic
Neoplatonists, in contrast to their theological opponents in late antiquity.
The apophatic theology of Hellenic Neoplatonists differed from that of
their Middle Platonic predecessors and the Christians in its scope. The key
point of contrast is between the "apophatic-kataphatic mixture" found in
Middle Platonism,2l with its combination of theological assertion and de-
nial, and the more radical and austere apophatic theology of most later
Hellenic Neoplatonism. The former often combined denials that God is
anything that we could conceive with assertions that God is the supreme

Ibid., 1 88.
i9Ibid.

20Ibid., 185; compare idem, "The Escape of the One," 87.

2lArmstrong, "The Escape of the One," 77-78. "Middle Platoni
employed to refer to the Platonists who were active prior to the sc
century CE. These figures, from Philo of Alexandria through N
a less systematic commitment to negative theology, especially t
beyond "being" and knowledge. The primary study of the period
Middle Platonists (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1977).

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444 HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW

being or intellect. The latter moved to separate the ultimate One from the
level of predication or description, availing itself only of the pointer terms,
mentioned above, to locate the One or to indicate its systematic location.
A richer range of description is eschewed. Middle Platonism is thus en-
demically paradoxical, favoring denial or description in different contexts.
Neoplatonism, however, insists that the level of theological predication stop
at the second hypostatic level, the level of the intelligibles although even
here our capacity for finite description is pressed to the breaking point.22
Armstrong holds that, according to this taxonomy, most Christian theol-
ogy, especially in the West, has been "Middle Platonic" in its character.23
It has used apophasis as a supplement to kataphasis, in order to underscore
the divine mystery or, in some cases, in order to slip out of conceptual
aporiae. Thus, "the genuine article" of more radical apophatic theology has
not been central to Christian theology.24 This point is important, since
Armstrong's views on the contemporary significance of apophatic theology
are significantly influenced by his understanding of the incompatibility of
orthodoxy and radical apophasis.
There are several distinct reasons for the traditional Christian demurral
from radical Neoplatonic apophasis. Armstrong has noted in particular that
Neoplatonism rejects such critical divine attributes as intellection: the One
cannot be adequately described as exercising thought or consciousness. This
consorts ill with the biblical imagery of divine attention to human beings
and their history. Indeed, radical apophasis would undercut much that Middle
Platonists or orthodox Christians might customarily claim, including, re-
spectively, the intelligible cosmos or the Holy Trinity.25 It is not the asser-
tion that God is personal that occasions problems for Christians. Even though
antianthropomorphism may have been nascently involved with negative
theology,26 Neoplatonists had strategies for representing the One as per-
sonal. Rather, the traditional understanding of Christianity requires a thor-
oughgoing commitment to a whole range of divine attributes; without them,
core religious doctrines, such as the Incarnation, are theologically unsup-
ported. Radical apophasis thus sweeps away Christian dogmatism, even
though these concepts and stories remain available in order to direct Chris-
tians spiritually in much the same way that the Neoplatonists continued to

22See Armstrong, "The Negative Theology of Nous in Later Neoplatonism," 32-33.

23Armstrong, "The Escape of the One," 77-78
24Ibid., 78. Eastern and Western Christianity have appropriated radical apophasis in dif-
ferent ways, however, and there are exceptional figures in each tradition.
25Ibid., 85-86.
26Ibid., 86.

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 JOHN PETER KENNEY 445

use direction-finding terms for the divine One.27 In large measure, there-
fore, Christianity has avoided radical negative theology, preferring instead
to use apophasis in counterpoint with the more fundamental assertions of
the tradition.28
Armstrong sees this antidogmatism as the basis for the contemporary
intellectual and religious appeal of Neoplatonic negative theology. We live
in an age in which theological absolutism has broken down; no longer can
claims of timeless and universal truth be made about formulations or con-
cepts of deity.29 This is due to growing intellectual dissatisfaction with the
arguments for incompatible positions, to a renewed but acute sense of our
own historical limitations, and to a heightened recognition of the irreduc-
ibility of different faiths, each worthy of understanding aIld respect.30 In
such a situation, intellectual and moral integrity demand forbearance of
putative certainty, whether it is offered on the basis of ecclesiastical, scrip-
tural, or philosophical authority. "A genuine religious faith in our time
must be compatible with limitless criticism.''3l Dogmas can only have the
status of hypotheses. Negative theology represents a form of spirituality,
ancient in lineage, that has wrought an intellectual and religious response
to this cognitive situation.
One aspect of our contemporary religious situation with special signifi-
cance for Armstrong's thought is religious pluralism. Here again Hellenic
Neoplatonism is apposite, because the moderate skepticism of apophatic
theology engendered an attitude of theological tolerance. The famous view
of Symmachus sums up this Hellenic viewpoint: "Not by one path only can
one reach so great a mystery."32 This approach to alternate religious tradi-
tions suggests to Armstrong a fundamental requirement for both the recog-
nition of real theological diversity and the acceptance of religious parity.33
The separate paths are distinct and not collapsible according to any simple
formula; they each constitute a distinct and irreducible appraisal of the
divine. This is something that Armstrong urges conservative Christians in
particular to recognize, for Christian intolerance has had a continued, del-

27A. H. Armstrong, "On Not Knowing Too Much About God," in idem, Hellenic and
Christian Studies, no. 15 (1989) 136-37; compare idem, "Negative Theology, Myth, and
Incarnation," in idem, Hellenic and Christian Studies, no. 7 (1981) 47-62.
28Armstrong, "On Not Knowing Too Much About God," 144.
29Armstrong, "Negative Theology, Myth, and Incarnation," 47-48.
30Ibid., 49.
3lArmstrong,''The Escape of the One," 87.
32Armstrong, "Negative Theology," 185.
33Armstrong, "The Escape of the One," 88-89; idem, "Some Advantages of Polytheism,"
in idem, Hellenic and Christian Studies, no. 1 (1981) 186-87.

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446 HARVARD THEOLOG ICAL REVI EW

eterious effect long after the political enforcement of religious intolerance

has passed.

The choice of the way of intolerance by the authorities of Church and

Empire in the late fourth century has had some very serious and last-
ing consequences. The last vestiges of its practical effects, in the form
of the imposition of at least petty and vexatious disabilities on forms
of religion not approved by the local ecclesiastical establishment, lasted
in some European countries well into my lifetime. And theoretical
approval of this sort of intolerance has often long outlasted the power
to apply it in practice. After all, as late as 1945 many approved Ro-
man Catholic theologians in England, and the Roman authorities, ob-
jected to a statement on religious freedom very close to Vatican II's
declaration on that subject. In general, I do not think that any Chris-
tian body has ever abandoned the power to persecute and repress while
it actually had it. The acceptance of religious tolerance and freedom as
good in themselves has normally been the belated, though sometimes
sincere and whole-hearted, recognition and acceptance of a fait
accompli. This long persistence of Theodosian intolerance in practice
and its still longer persistence in theory has certainly been a cause,
though not the only cause, of that unique phenomenon of our time, the
decline not only of Christianity but of all forms of religious belief and
the growth of a totally irreligious and unspiritual materialism.34

Beyond mere tolerance, Christianity should welcome other theological

points of view. They constitute the "unfamiliar faces of the Logos,"3s and
as such they should be valued and respected. Having acquired its fascina-
tion with exact theological formulation from the Hellenic tradition, contem-
porary Christianity needs to recover Hellenism's own antidote to dogmatism
and intolerance, namely, negative theology.36 Perhaps more significant is
the need fundamentally to qualify the exclusivism stemming from Chris-
tianity's origins in the Abrahamic religious trajectory.37 The tension be-
tween the Hellenic or inclusive monotheism and the exclusivism of biblical
monotheism has given Christian theology and history a distinctive com-
plexity. Armstrong has at times appeared pessimistic about the continuation
of these two poles within Christian culture, suggesting that "Our Inherited
Conglomerate" to use the phrase of Gilbert Murray and E. R. Dodds is

34A. H. Armstrong, "The Way and the Ways: Religious Tolerance and Intolerance in the
Fourth Century A.D.," in idem, Hellenic and Christian Studies, no. 13 (1984) 1.
35A. H. Armstrong, "Christianity and Other Religions," (unpublished lecture) 16.
36Armstrong,"On Not Knowing Too Much About God," 130-31; idem, "Itineraries in
Late Antiquity," in idem, Hellenic and Christian Studies, no. 14 (1989) 127.
37Armstrong, "Itineraries in Late Antiquity," 110-11.

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 JOHN PETER KENNEY 447

finally and ilTevocably coming apart.38 Yet his most recent writings suggest
that the rich intelTelation of these aspects of Christian theology may well
have a future and that the resources of the inclusive and tolerant approach
to be found within the apophatic tradition will come to the fore.39

W Positive arld Negafive Theology

Armstrong has repeatedly stated that the connection between Socratic
skepticism and Neoplatonism is interpretive, one that would shock Plotinus.40
It results from an admittedly partial reading of the aspects of Neoplatonism
that are potentially incompatible with the rationalism of the classical philo-
sophical tradition. Armstrong's "wild" Plotinus is the result of a legitimate
effort to extract some of the latent tendencies in the Enneads, elements that
later resurfaced in medieval Neoplatonism. This version, however, is a radical
Plotinus designed with an eye toward certain issues in contemporary the-
ology. As Armstrong notes, this approach to the sources is itself a very
Platonic project.4l Yet it is striking to contrast Armstrong's moderately
skeptical and intensely apophatic Neoplatonism with that of another greater
revisionist Neoplatonist in our time, the late J. N. Findlay.42 Findlay's
Neoplatonism treats the One as an absolute first principle, a metaphysical
entity whose nature is established by philosophical intellection and whose
existence is secured by dialectic. There is no room for skepticism here.
This contrast underscores the fact that Armstrong's Neoplatonism is but one
approach. It is a Platonic theology designed to subvert religious dogmatism
and support a broader religious vision.

38Armstrong, "Negative Theology, Myth, and Incarnation," 53-54. Compare Gilbert Murray,
Greek Studies (Oxford: Clarendon, 1947) 66ff; E. R. Dodds, The Greeks and the Irrational
(Berkley: University of California Press, 1951) 179-80.
39Armstrong, "Itineraries in Late Antiquity," 123-31; idem, "On Not Knowing Too Much
About God," 144-45; and idem, "Introduction," in idem, Hellenic and Christian Studies, x-
Xi.

40Armstrong remarked ("Elements in the Thought of Plotinus at Variance with Classical

Intellectualism," in idem, Plotinian and Christian Studies, no. 16 [1973] 22), "I hope I have
made it sufficiently clear. . . that neither he nor many, perhaps most of his interpreters would
approve of the way I have isolated certain passages in this paper and put them together to a
picture of sorts of the "wild" Plotinus whom Plotinus himself could not altogether tame." See
also idem, "Negative Theology," 185-86.
4lArmstrong, "The Hidden and the Open in Hellenic Thought," 102; of Trouillard, Armstrong
said: "He was sometimes accused of reading more than was 'really there' into the texts. This
is, of course, a thoroughly Platonic thing to do, and something which anyone who is con-
cerned to make an ancient way of thought alive and powerful in a later time must do."
42J. N. Findlay, Ascent to the Absolute (London: Allen & Unwin, 1970); idem, The Tran-
scendence of the Cave (London: Allen & Unwin,1967); I owe this point to Professor Findlay's
comments in conversation at Boston University in 1977.

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448 HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW

It should be noted, however, that in his most recent papers, Armstrong

has remarked on the need for a kataphatic foundation for apophatic theol-
ogy: "a negative theology needs a positive theology to wrestle with and
transcend."43 Armstrong now seems to recognize that without an estab-
lished form of first order religious discourse, the complex theological varia-
tions that constitute negative theology are impossible. This admission seems
to be a critical qualification of his earlier, more theologically skeptical
position; its implications require analysis. According to this revised thesis,
it would be admitted that the ascension of the spiritual intellect which
apophatic theology is meant to initiate could not begin without a fairly
well-grounded conception of the divine, since otherwise there would be
nothing to negate and nothing to invite the religious imagination to exceed
and surpass. An established religious language would seem, therefore, to be
a precondition of apophasis. The critical value of negative theology would
thus be understood to result from the force of this exception to theological
orthodoxy. Hence, there exists an intricate process by which a normative
religious language is established with authority and then excerpted and
revised to a higher spiritual end. An effective apophatic theology can be
seen to derive its critical value from the shock of aphairesis, of conceptual
stripping away, and so from the recognition that even the best descriptions
of the divine are inadequate. Read in this fashion, Armstrong's thesis of
"critical value" can be redrafted and its valence modified with elements he
himself has supplied.
This binary understanding of negative theology accentuates the kataphatic
component in Neoplatonism, including both the claims made on behalf of
the intelligibles,44 the second hypostasis, and the significance of a whole
cluster of pointer terms diffidently employed in reference to the One. There
is no escaping kataphasis; the efficacy of negative theology is proportional
to the strength of the theological assertions that it serves to deny. If this is
so, as Armstrong himself has now admitted, then orthodoxy and dogmatism
have a place in theology, even apophatic theology. The critical value of
negative theology would thus appear inevitably to function in much the
way that Armstrong has described it as operating within the Christian theo-
logical mainstream, namely, as a supplement to an established mode of
discourse. The kataphatic and the apophatic theologies are directly interre-
lated. It may even be said that apophasis without kataphasis is empty, and
kataphasis without apophasis lacks mystery and depth.
According to this alternative construal of Armstrong's thesis, the critical
value of negative theology may thus be seen as accruing within a number

43Armstrong, "On Not Knowing Too Much About God," 137.

44See Armstrong, "The Negative Theology of Nous in Later Neoplatonism."

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 JOHN PETER KENNEY 449

of theological traditions in different ways. It goes by different names and

serves subtly different ends conditioned by the theological foreground against
which it is responding. My own contention has been that Plotinus and some
of his predecessors employed it as a means of theological portraiture.45
They clarified and enlarged upon a specific concept of deity that had evolved
within the Greco-Roman tradition. To this end, negative theology helped to
mark off the absolute status of the One, securing its transcendence and its
ontological primacy by separating it from the Platonic level of being. In the
developing Abrahamic tradition, however, it served both analogous and
different functions, including securing God's ontological status, modifying
the vagaries of anthropomorphic imagery, and establishing the singularity
and uniqueness of the one true God. In each case, negative theology had
a critical value, although its value varied with the character of the norma-
tive theological foreground. Negative theology may thus be construed as a
formal method in theology, the final import of which is conditioned by the
immediate uses to which it is put within a religious tradition.
The historical record thus suggests that there are different types of nega-
tive theology, each associated with distinct traditions of religious discourse.
This diversity would imply that the focus of theological negation was con-
ditioned by the needs to which it was put, that is, the varying tasks of
theological portraiture within a tradition. Hence, the relevant distinction is
not between authentic and suspect forms of apophatic theology as
Armstrong's initial "critical value" thesis held46 but among the various
forms that negative theology has taken in different religious traditions and
indeed within individual religions. The complex and varied use of negative
theology by different traditions and subtraditions as part of their own in-
digenous strategies for presenting the mystery of divinity is a matter for
historians of religion to investigate.
An additional problem, however, bears mention: that of portability. Is
ancient apophatic theology amenable to translation into contemporary con-
ceptual categories? To what extent was the negative theology of the an-
cients, of Hellenic, Jewish, and Christian Platonists alike, indexed to the
realist ontology of classical Platonism? Can this theology be understood
and employed absent this set of metaphysical assumptions and commit-
ments? It seems clear that for Philo of Alexandria, Clement of Alexandria,
and Plotinus, the intelligible world of being served as a common philo-

45John Peter Kenney, Mystical Monotheism: A Study in Ancient Platonic Theology (Hanover/
London: Brown University Press, 1991); also idem, "Monotheistic and Polytheistic Elements
in Classical Mediterranean Spirituality," in Armstrong, Classical Mediterranean Spiritual-
ity.
46See above, pp. 440-47.

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450 HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW

sophical springboard for their negative theology. It was this level that the
One or some aspect of God was understood to surpass. We are speaking
not about simple predication that is exceeded by the One, but the perfect
predication if predication it is that obtains in the representation of the
forms. More broadly, if the One represents the "surpassing of classical
Greek ontology,"47 then negative theology requires this classical ontology
to be in the background. This suggests that ancient apophatic theology is
rooted in a specific philosophical culture, and that it requires, at the least,
a complicated process of conceptual translation in order to make it intelli-
gible. To understand ancient apophatic theology adequately, it is necessary
clearly to comprehend exactly what the One is represented as exceeding.
This contextualist suggestion may help to register a significant concern
abollt the contemporary accessibility of the ancient apophatic tradition. It
can be illustrated further in reference to Paul Tillich. Inquiring minds,
schooled in modern religious thought, may recall Tillich's criticism of the
application of "the concept of existence" to God.48 This criticism bears an
intended similarity to the ancient apophatic denial of the adequacy of "be-
ing" to the One. Yet the ancient apophatic thinkers were not operating in
a conceptual environment in which there was a clear-cut notion of "exist-
ence," which was understood to be distinct from the essence or nature of
a thing.49 This is a later distinction. Thus, they did not question the ad-
equacy of the "concept of existence" in reference to the One and certainly
not the "existence" of the One as such. Yet they did deny that the One was
assimilable to finite beings or to the perfect but conceptually definable
divine ideas. Even the perfect "being" of the Platonic forms was deemed
unworthy to the infinite One. They also sought, however, to portray the
One as the ground of "being," distinct from its ontological products. We
are thus faced with the problem of distinguishing the intention of this early
theology, which is captured in some respects by modern negative theolo-
gians such as Tillich, from the specific idiosyncracies of its formulation.
This is a difficult task that must be pursued with scholarly diligence and
care. More than conceptualization is involved, however. Whatever one
concludes regarding these problems of conceptual translation and the avoid-

47Pierre Aubenque has suggested this point for the Plotinian One; the notion could be
expanded to include the first principles of other apophatic theologians. See Pierre Aubenque,
"Plotin et le depassement de l'ontologie grecque classique," in Pierre Maxime Schuhl and
Pierre Hadot, eds., Le Neoplatonisme (Paris: Editiones du Centre national de la recherche
scientifique, 1971) 101-9.
48Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology (2 vols.; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951)
1. 186-210.
49For a discussion of the problem of "being" and "existence" in Greek philosophy and its
implication for later Platonic theology, see Kenney, Mystical Monotheism, 3-15.

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 JOHN PETER KENNEY 451

ance of anachronism, it remains the case that the ancient apophatic theolo-
gians understood themselves as contemplatives. They considered the rejec-
tion of theological predicates, including preeminent ontological epithets such
as "being," to be part of a spiritual program meant to improve recognition
of the divine reality within the contemplative soul, and in some cases, to
insure the soul's reassimilation into the divine. The broader context of such
negative theological discourse was thus significantly different from the
largely academic and speculative domain of contemporary negative theol-
ogy. The project of theology for Philo and Plotinus was, after all, very
different from Tillich's; in the former instances, it demanded an intense
commitment to contemplative asceticism along with theological dialectics.
We are thus forewarned against too easy an assimilation of ancient apophatic
theology, rooted in a contemplative conviction of the One's transcendent
presence, with contemporary negative theology, which can fade into uncer-
tainty about the reality of the divine. To this latter sort of agnosticism the
ancient contemplatives were hostile.

W Conclusion
A final theological observation concerning dogmatism and theological
orthodoxy is apposite. As I have discussed above, there must always be an
interplay between positive and negative theology. In a functioning tradition
there are many reasons for both to occur and each to flourish. The balance
between them will vary among religious traditions and the schools of thought
within them. In historical terms, Armstrong's own writings may be under-
stood as an effort to reassert the vitality of negative theology at a time and
a place at which it was occluded by a domineering dogmatism. This situ-
ation suggests a distinction between two sorts of orthodoxy: "authoritarian
dogmatism," which demands obeisance to formulas and those who autho-
rize them, and "definitional dogmatism," which seeks to set down and
clarify beliefs. According to the latter, this process of clarification may be
viewed as divinely inspired and sanctioned, but it must also be recognized
that these dogmas are meant both to represent the transcendental within the
confines of human discourse and to inspire souls to encounter the divine.
The best orthodoxy is aware of its theological limitations.
Negative theology can be an integral part of definitional dogmatism and
may even help to prevent a spiritually constraining sort of orthodoxy from
developing. It can also underscore the need for the soul's continual search
for God through and beyond these conceptual aids. Dogmas can-and in-
deed must-constitute the pointer terms for the via negativa, directing the
spiritual vector of the soul. Here the epistemic attitude toward orthodox
theology subtly shifts from a tacit descriptivism to a contemplative pragma-
tism. Dogmas are not so much pictures or mirrors of the divine as they are

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452 HARVARD THEOLOG ICAL REVI EW

sanctioned sources of guidance for the soul, rough maps for navigating the
supernatural terrain. These predicates, assertions, and images are sanctioned
within religious traditions because they have worked: they have been pro-
ductive of the contemplative visions of mystics and the conspicuous sanc-
tity of saints.S° Thus, theological analogy is understood as anagogy, and
orthodoxy becomes contemplative orthopraxy. Although they are as straw
before the experience of God, the conceptions of orthodox theology provide
the finite context by which contemplation can be personally represented,
remembered, and reported. For contemplatives and followers of the via
negativa, the affirmations of positive theology remain necessary and are
rightly hallowed.5l
These remarks are meant to follow from Armstrong's analysis of the
fashion in which negative theology functions, although they suggest a less
skeptical attitude toward the cognitive value of doctrine. If Armstrong has
accentuated the "wild" Plotinus, this analysis is intended to recover the
"tame" Armstrong, someone who would countenance a significant role for
kataphatic theology. Indeed, the enthusiasm that differentiates Armstrong's
moderate, Socratic skepticism from radical, Pyrrhonian skepticism is itself
a tacit admission on his part of some undefined spiritual direction. In
Armstrong's negative theology, just as in the ancient Platonists, one never
encounters any serious doubt about the reality of the One, only skepticism
about our capacity to define or describe it. If pressed, this recognition and
the pointer terms that go with it can become the basis of a positive theol-
ogy. Everything depends on the attitude that one brings to these assertions.
For them to work as a soundboard for apophatic theology, however, they
must be more than just hypotheses. Clearly, the efficacy of certain spiritual
strategies has lent these theological affirmations great prestige; they can be
revered as defining the conceptual foundations for contemplation, or they
can harden into a normative structure that seems an end in itself. The
significance of Armstrong's "critical value" thesis is that it clarifies the way
in which apophatic theology has been corrosive to the latter sort of dogma-
tism, the orthodoxy that leads to spiritual sclerosis.
We may note in closing that Armstrong's studies have provided a fine
example of historical theology, that is, theological reflection emerging from

50Although this has the appearance of a contemporary move, I believe such "contempla-
tive pragmatism" has deep roots in ancient mystical theology, but this subject cannot be
explored here.
5lHere the recent effort to focus on the conservative character of mysticism is apposite;
see Stephen Katz, ed., Mysticism and Religious Tradition (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1 983).

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 JOHN PETER KENNEY 453

historical inquiry. It is sometimes suggested that the history of ancient

philosophy and theology is fundamentally antiquarian, scholarship for
scholarship's sake. Armstrong's papers, however, belie such sentiments; their
signiElcance is both historical and theological. Moreover, they are not nar-
rowly theological, given their varying loci from Downside Abbey to Ascona.
These are the essays of a genuine historical theologian, whose thought is
grounded in a lifetime of historical research in classical and patristic the-
ology, the Cambridge Platonist of our time.52

52This paper was read at the "Platonism and Neoplatonism Group of the American Acad-
emy of Religion during its annual meeting in November 1992 in San Francisco, CA. My
thanks to the session participantss including Robert Berchman, Jay Bregman, Kevin Corrigan,
and Huston Smith, for their observations. I am also grateful to Professor Armstrong for the
opportunity to discuss these issues with him over more than a decade. Thanks are also due
to both Jo Cannon and Kathy Stackhouse of Reed College, who have been very helpful with
the production of this paper.

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