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 Moses Maimonides isa negative theologian who strongly believes in ‘The Negative Way’ which allowsus to our language to speak about God’s characteristics and essence.

Negativetheology states the only way to make a true statement about the absolute divine(God), is to only say what God is not instead of what God is. This is alsoknown as ‘negativa’ meaning negative way or from apophatic theology which comesfrom the Greek apophasis which is defined as saying no or denying something. Maimonides statesin his book ‘Guide for the Perplexed’ that he does “not merely declare that hewho affirms attributes of God has not sufficient knowledge concerning theCreator … But I say that he unconsciously loses his belief in God”[1].In saying that Maimonides is correct in what he is saying, does the language weuse in order to speak about God is successful enough to define something whichis outside of ourselves? Maimonides states that God does not have any essentialattributes “in any form or in any sense whatever, and that the rejection ofcorporeality implies the rejection of essential attributes”[2]. By stating as God as an absolute one, which Christians do, Maimonidesbelieves they are contradicting themselves.

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This is due to all the attributeswe have given to our idea of God being human attributes, putting God on thesame level as humans.  In order tounderstand God, Maimonides states we have to believe that God is a simple substancebut there is nothing in which can be added to God’s essence, making it unableto possibly define God. Maimonides states that God is also unable to havequalities, as this would be calamities that do not belong to God’s essence, as “everythingsuperadded to the essence of an object joins it without forming part of itsessential properties, and that constitutes an accident”[3].

 Human beings have perfections, if aperson has a specific trait it distances them from other traits. On the otherhand, God is all traits in one; this is due to God being simple. The differencebetween God and humans is that human beings are contingently and God isnecessarily. We are known as finite positive aspects in Maimonides theory, butGod’s goodness is a better version than human beings could ever understand. Godis no way similar to mankind.

Maimonides statesthat the majority of accidents occur from humans literally reading of scriptures. He stated that the Torah was a rudimentsource for defining God, due to the attributes are carried out with ourlanguage. If we attempted to understand God by using out language was seen asanthropomorphic to Maimonides. Due to scriptures teaching readers, as what isseen as a conclusion about who God and is seen as less intelligent foraccepting it. Maimonides does believe that religious language is essentiallyequivocal. He describes when we come to understand God that it is impossible todescribe the characteristics of God. Pseudo-Dionysiuswho wrote ‘The Mystical Theology’ states that God is beyond all humans and the knowledgein which we behold.

“Is not soul or mind, nor does it possessimagination, conviction, speech, or understanding… It cannot be spoken of andit cannot be grasped by understanding. It is not number or order, greatness orsmallness, quality or inequality, similarity or dissimilarity.”[4]Pseudo-Dionysius is a pseudonymous philosopher and theologian states thatscripture, is able to give us some understanding and knowledge of God’s characteristicsand nature, but like Maimonides, he states that we have a limit in the languagethat we use in order to fully define what God is, this means that we are unableto get a full understand of God. He states that God is unknowable and we do nothave the capacity in order to define God.

Maimonides believes that God is notcomparable to anything, his oneness is unique and out of this universe. You areunable to add anything to God’s essence. Similarly Pseudo-Dionysius describesthe idea of God’s oneness and the analogical language we use takes away God’snature and essence. Pseudo states that by saying what God is not, and that weneed to accept that we our knowledge has a limit, allows us to get closer toGod and understanding the divine’s essence. Both Pseudo and Maimonides agree onnegative theology.  Maimonides states that youcan see things in themselves but not in themselves, but within God. All thingsget their thingness from God. God is unable to be physical or mental; he isseen as above all of those attributes.

It does not let you limit God becauseGod is known as everything. We have separation and division but due God notbeing present (not there) we should just believe the divine is. Maimonides statesthat we should live in a none ‘not’ world. We should take away our distinctionof what we think God is and we should be left with oneness. He states that thelanguage we use can be used in order to describe the ways in which God workswith positive language but not who God is, as long as we remember that “all theactions of God emanate from His essence”[5].Creation within the universe is freely willed by God but does not add anythingto God due to God being everything.

Maimonides states we praise God through anindirect way and leave aside the divine’s essence a mystery allowing us to getcloser to God and gaining true knowledge of the unknown. Through Maimonides theoryallows us to understand the importance to theological language as it eliminatesmistakes and guides us in the right direction of understanding God’s transcendence.By speaking about God, we could easily fall in to the trap of thinking God in acorporeal form.

In comparison Thomas Aquinasis the opposite of Maimonides, within his book ‘Summa Theologiae’ talks aboutanalogical language of how we speak about God in a positive instead of anegative way. Aquinas does agree with Maimonides that God is simple but hestill argues that it is right to make positive statements about God. This isbecause creaturely perfections do substantially reflect divine perfections,without contradicting God’s simplicity. If they are perfections they shouldreflect God. Aquinas states that there must be some idea of God in order to saywhat God is or what God is not. In article two of Aquinas’s Summa Theologica, ‘Whetherany name can be applied to God substantially?’, and states that negative words areable to be applied to God but what God creates does not always fully relate tothe substance that he creates. Aquinas rejects the use ofunivocal and equivocal language when speaking about God, so he uses analogy inorder to help get a comparison to understand the complex idea of God.

Hefocuses on two types of analogy; ‘Analogy of Attribution’ and ‘Analogy ofProportion’. Analogy of Attribution is the language we use to describe God canalso be applied to ourselves. Aquinas gives the example of these words being “good”and “wise”. Due to God creating the universe there is the ability of acomparison as we have been shown the definition of these words through God ashe has revealed it to the world, allowing them to be used in order to describeGod’s essence. In stating that ‘God is good’ and descrbing others as ‘good’also, due to ourselves seeing goodness in human beings, that God is the sourceof goodness due to him being the creator but he says that even though thesewords are given by us to describe the divine is seen to “use more to expresssome remotion from God, rather than to express anything that exists positivelyin Him”[6].Analogy of Proportion, Aquinas describes God as seen as the perfect good, dueto God being eternal and unable to change. Aquinas does not state about a moralgoodness. Aquinas states that negative theologygives us no reason to use some words about God rather than others.

Aquinasstates that we have intellect and it can operate without the body meaning itcan exist on its own. Philosopher Alexander Broadie is a Scottish Philosopherwho strongly disagrees with Maimonides idea of negative theology. He states inhis article ‘Maimonides and Aquinas on the Names of God’.  He states that his “contention is that thedifference is one of formulation rather than of substance”[7].

He discusses in his article about the concept of God’s knowledge, and that bothphilosophers state that they recognise that we have a problem with theknowledge that we have and it is limited but in order for us to gain knowledgeand take the step forward in order to concept of God and God’s knowledge is toaccept our determined knowledge would be removed from ourselves. Broadie statesthat Aquinas believes we represent God’s goodness and they are different butthey have a connection due to God being the creator of the universe. On theother with the notion of God’s simplicity, Broadie states that the simplicityundermines our true understanding of the definition of the positive andnegative words we use to describe God.

He concludes that “the difference [betweennegative thelogy and analogy] is one of formulation rather than of substance”[8].

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