Apophatic/Kataphatic

Apophatic / Kataphatic are two terms that are widely used and equally misunderstood. Apophatic means describing something by negation, e.g., 'it is not this or that' and then negating even the negation. Kataphatic is the other side of this coin, referring to description by positives, e.g., 'it is wet, it is good, it is invisible'. These terms are also used loosely to describe ways of thought that are without images (apophatic) or that use images (kataphatic). The two modes are dependent one on another, and mutually enriching. In terms of the diagram, the term kataphatic reflects the way the self-conscious mind operates, and apophatic the primary way of engaging the deep mind. The apophatic way is not 'elitist': it is simply a question of being willing to do the work of silence, to commit to it. It does not exclude the kataphatic, but balances and informs it. Each factor in the work of silence has its darkness, its counterfeit. For example, the counterfeit of the apophatic way is nihilism; that of the kataphatic, idolatry.

Having said this, the apophatic—especially in our day—is somewhat privileged for the following reasons:

— In order to restore our minds to their optimal balance, we need to co-operate with how the brain in fact works, not fight it ('grace builds on nature'). As Iain McGilchrist describes, the right hemisphere perceives through apophasis:

"This negating or apophatic mode of creation of whatever-it-is reflected in our experience that what we know about things as they truly are, starting with Being itself, is apophatic in nature: we can know only what they are not. Its particular significance is that it describes the path taken to truth by the right hemisphere, which sees things whole, and if asked to describe them has to remain 'silent'. It has no way of coming at what this thing is other than by pointing to it, or by unconcealing it, allowing the thing to reveal itself as much as possible (by not saying 'no' to it but by saying 'no' to whatever lies around and obscures it), as a sculptor chisels away the stone to reveal the form inside. Further, because what the left hemisphere has available to it is only what it does not say 'no' to of what 'presences' to the right hemisphere, it has parts of the whole only, fragments which, if it tries to see the whole, it has wilfully to put together again. It has to try to arrive at understanding by putting together the bits and pieces, positively constructing it from the inside, as though the statue were 'put together'. By such a process, a human person becomes like a Frankenstein's monster, rather than a living being—not for nothing one of the originating metaphors of Romanticism." The Master and His Emissary, pp. 197-198)

— We live in a time where increasing environmental noise and excessive information threaten to overwhelm us. [See Pico Iyar's article, "The Joy of Quiet" in The New York Times, Sunday, January 1, 2012] It is a commonplace that noise is damaging to health at every level. For this reason alone we need to privilege the work of silence. Furthermore, if we are to adapt in the best sense of maintaining balance in the face of this onslaught, we need to learn the art of interior silence, of apophatic listening. We need also to feed that silence with carefully selected information, and learn to block out the words and images that create interior static.

— As noted in the McGilchrist quotation above, we need to privilege the part of our minds that will root us in reality and help us to see the virtual world of self-consciousness—necessary and useful though it may be—for the artificial world that it is.

— It is through apophasis that we open our wounds to be trans-figured, though first they must be articulated in a kataphatic way. Medieval historian Rachel Fulton points to 'Elaine Scarry [who] says something very provocative (and wise) in her The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World (1986) about how pain destroys language, reduces us to animal cries. "Ah, ah, ah!" But as soon as we break into speech ("Woe is me!"), we take the first small step back into rationality and humanity. We begin to imagine things being other than they are, other than simply pain, and we start to articulate ways in which the world might be otherwise so that we are no longer in pain. Language is a tool for alleviating pain'. (Fencingbeaqratprayer.blogspot.com, 19 November, 2011). The next step in healing is to yield the acknowledged and articulated pain to silence so that the newly acquired perspective may be refined and enlarged, and in this way each part of the mind supports and supplements the other towards healing.

— The apophatic movement is described in Philippians 2:5-11, arguably the central text for Christianity.

—The apophatic way frees us from the fear of death at every level (Heb. 2:15), whether it is of mortality itself, or the investment we have made in self-image, or ideas of how the world works or should work.