Théologie cataphatique

Cataphatic theology or kataphatic theology is theology that uses "positive" terminology to describe or refer to the divine – specifically, God – i.e. terminology that describes or refers to what the divine is believed to be, in contrast to the "negative" terminology used in apophatic theology to indicate what it is believed the divine is not. "Cataphatic" comes from the Greek word κατάφασις kataphasis meaning "affirmation," coming from κατά kata (an intensifier) and φάναι phanai ("to speak"). To speak of God or the divine kataphatically is thought by some to be by its nature a form of limiting to God or divine. This was one of the core tenets of the works of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite. By defining what God or the divine is we limit the unlimited. A kataphatic way to express God would be that God is love. The apophatic way would be to state that God is not hate (although such description can be accused of the same dualism). Or to say that God is not love, as he transcends even our notion of love. Ultimately, one would come to remove even the notion of the Trinity, or of saying that God is one, because divine is above numberhood. That God is beyond all duality because God contains within himself all things and that God is beyond all things. The apophatic way as taught by Saint Dionysus was to remove any conceptual understanding of God that could become all-encompassing, since in its limitedness that concept would begin to force the fallen understanding of mankind onto the absolute and divine. In the Eastern Orthodox Church, kataphatic theology can lead to some knowledge of God, but in an imperfect way. The perfect and only way which is fitting in regard of God is the apophatic way, as the kataphatic way has as its object that which exists, but God is beyond all existing. The Life of Moses - Gregory of Nyssa St. Augustine Anselm of Canterbury Within Mahayana Buddhism, there is a species of scripture which essays a descriptive hint of Ultimate Reality by using positive terminology when speaking of it.