Negative Theology According to Maimonides
Subject Areas : Christianity
مریم Mahmoudi
1
,
طاهره Hajebrahimi
2
1 - دانشآموختۀ دکتری ادیان و عرفان، واحد علوم و تحقیقات، دانشگاه آزاد اسلامی، تهران، ایران
2 - دانشیار گروه ادیان و عرفان، واحد علوم و تحقیقات، دانشگاه آزاد اسلامی، تهران، ایران
Keywords: Maimonides, Guide for the Perplexed, Negative Theology, attributes of God,
Abstract :
Negative Theology is a type of theological thinking that attempts to describe God by negation, in contrast to Positive Theology that uses "positive" terminology to describe the Divine. Negative Theology, based on the idea of inaccessibility and transcendence of God, claims that He is imperceptible and ineffable. According to this viewpoint God is beyond all personal and anthropomorphic descriptions. Thus we cannot speak of Him except by negation. Maimonides is one of the greatest Jewish philosophers of medieval period. He is a famous representative of this kind of theology. For him there is no similarity between God and man, so there is no way to describe God, i.e. we can speak only in terms of what may not be said about Him.
