Apophatic theology in the context of Problem of religious language

Eastern Orthodox theology is the theology particular to the Eastern Orthodox Church. It is characterized by monotheistic Trinitarianism, belief in the Incarnation of the divine Logos or only-begotten Son of God, cataphatic theology with apophatic theology, a hermeneutic defined by a sacred Tradition, a catholic ecclesiology, a theology of the person, and a principally recapitulative and therapeutic soteriology.

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.

The infinite qualitative distinction (Danish: den uendelige kvalitative forskel; German: unendliche qualitative Unterschied; Dutch: oneindig kwalitatief onderscheid), sometimes translated as infinite qualitative difference, is a fundamental concept in Christian theology. More colloquially, it is referred to as the Creator/creature distinction or the Categorical Distinction. In its present form, it is usually attributed to Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard. The distinction emphasizes the very different attributes of finite and temporal men and the infinite and eternal qualities of a supreme being. This concept can be said to fit into the apophatic theological tradition, although is generally considered a significant feature of classical Christian theology proper cross-traditionally, being found in confessional Lutheran, Reformed, Neo-Orthodox, and Anglican theologies. It is fundamentally at odds with theological theories which posit a supreme being able to be fully understood by man, found in strains of rationalist Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment thought, although such a claim is rare. The theologian Karl Barth made the concept of infinite qualitative distinction a cornerstone of his theology.

Ein Sof, or Eyn Sof (/eɪn sɒf/, Hebrew: אֵין סוֹף‎ ʾēn sōf; meaning "infinite", lit. '(There is) no end'), in Kabbalah, is understood as God before any self-manifestation in the production of any spiritual realm, probably derived from Solomon ibn Gabirol's (c. 1021 – c. 1070) term, "the Endless One" (שֶׁאֵין לוֹ תִּקְלָה, šeʾēn lo tiqlā). Ein Sof may be translated as "unending", "(there is) no end", or infinity. It was first used by Azriel of Gerona (c. 1160 – c. 1238), who shared the Neoplatonic belief that God can have no desire, thought, word, or action, emphasized by the negation of any attribute.

This is the origin of the Ohr Ein Sof or "Infinite Light" of paradoxical divine self-knowledge, nullified within the Ein Sof before creation. In Lurianic Kabbalah, the first act of creation, the tzimtzum or self-withdrawal of the divine to create a space, takes place from there.

Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite (or Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite) was a Greek author, Christian theologian and Neoplatonic philosopher of the late 5th to early 6th century, who wrote a set of works known as the Corpus Areopagiticum or Corpus Dionysiacum. Through his writing in Mystical Theology, he has been identified as the "progenitor of apophatic or negative theology."

The author pseudepigraphically identifies himself in the corpus as "Dionysios", portraying himself as Dionysius the Areopagite, the Athenian convert of Paul the Apostle mentioned in Acts 17:34.

In Islamic theology, taʿṭīl (Arabic: تَعْطِيل‎) means "divesting" God of attributes. The word literally means to suspend and stop the work and refers to a form of apophatic theology which is said because God bears no resemblance to his creatures and because the concepts available to man are limited and depends on his perceptions of his surroundings, so he has no choice but to remain silent about the divine attributes and suffice with the explanations given in the Quran and hadiths. Taʿṭīl is the polar opposite of tashbīh (anthropomorphism or anthropopathism), the ascription to God of physical characteristics or human attributes such as emotion. Both taʿṭīl and tashbīh are considered sins or heresies in mainstream Islam, frequently associated with a sect described by Sunni heresiography as the Jahmiyya.

The corrective doctrine against taʿṭīl is tathbīt (confirming God's attributes), and the corrective against tashbīh is tanzīh (keeping God pure).