Negative Theology Quotes

Man, sometimes God really sucks.

God is represented as infinite, eternal, incomprehensible; he is contained under every predicate in non that the logic of ignorance could fabricate.

God does not exist. He is being-itself beyond essence and existence. Therefore to argue that God exists is to deny him.

Atheism is indeed the most daring of all dogmas . . . for it is the assertion of a universal negative.

There is a story about a schoolboy who was asked what he thought God was like. He replied that, as far as he could make out, God was 'the sort of person who is always snooping around to see if anyone is enjoying himself and then trying to stop it.'

Because we cannot know what God is, but only what He is not, we cannot consider how He is but only how He is not.

The heart of their [Walsingham Witnesses] religion seemed to lie in disproving the religion of others.

What I think I have in common with the school of deconstruction is the mode of negative thinking or negative awareness, in the technical, philosophical sense of the negative, but which comes to me through negative theology.

It connects with the theologians' point that you can say what God is not, but not (easily) what He is.

God is a pure no-thing, concealed in now and here; the less you reach for him, the more he will appear.

What you have to consider is the possibility that God doesn't like you. Could be, God hates us. This is not the worst thing that could happen.

With regard to philosophical metaphysics, I always see increasing numbers who have attained to the negative goal, but as yet few who climb a few rungs backwards; one ought to look out, perhaps, over the last steps of the ladder, but not try to stand upon them.

It's easier for me to say what God is not, and then what God is.

Nothing can shake my belief that this world is the fruit of a dark god whose shadow I extend.

You almost had to have grown up in the church like I did to realize how dark that is, how dark it is to be a kid and be told that God hates you or that there's something wrong with you.

It is impossible to exaggerate the evil work theology has done in the world.

Our manners have been corrupted by communication with the saints. Our hymn-books resound with a melodious cursing of God and enduring Him forever. One would say that even the prophets and redeemers had rather consoled the fears than confirmed the hopes of man. There is nowhere recorded a simple and irrepressible satisfaction with the gift of life, any memorable praise of God.