The basis of "APOPHATIC THEOLOGY" (Ilāhiyyāt-e Tanzīhī) in the thought of Qāḍī Saʿīd can be sought through two distinct yet interrelated approaches: the ontological approach and the epistemological approach. The epistemological system of Qāḍī Saʿīd's thought is delineated in harmony with the three worlds of " sense (ḥiss), the soul (nafs), and intellect (ʿaql). " These created worlds, while maintaining proportionality and homogeneity, are known within the cognitive apparatus of "sense, imagination (khayāl), and intellect, " and a definition and description of each is obtained. From Qāḍī Saʿīd Qummī's viewpoint, knowledge (ʿilm) is encompassment of a thing, and cognition necessitates a kind of "vision" (ruʿyah). Sensory and imaginative cognition is accompanied by "occurrence upon the thing and attainment to it, " while intellectual cognition is achieved through "the return of the intellective subject (ʿāqil) to itself and the observation of the intelligible (maʿqūl), " requiring a kind of "vision" and "homogeneity" (sinhīyat). Although there may be another type of knowledge, other than "sense, imagination, and intellect, " which does not require homogeneity and similitude (mithliyyat) and is not dependent on the "existence of the known" (wujūd-e maʿlūm). The limitations of the human process of acquiring knowledge deprive it of the ability to cross the positive boundaries of knowing the Divine Essence and Attributes, thus establishing an "APOPHATIC THEOLOGY. " This THEOLOGY is accompanied by the recognition of human limits and his admission of inability to comprehend the reality (kunh) and modality of the Divine Essence and Attributes. APOPHATIC THEOLOGY is the foundation for glorifying and venerating God Almighty and focusing on the Divine Attributes of Action (ṣifāt-e fiʿlī), and it is the path of love and devotion to His Presence, the Glorified and the Exalted.

APOPHATIC THEOLOGY, as an important theory in the field of the language of religion, has many supporters in Jewish, Christian, and Islamic THEOLOGY, and a firm link continue to exist between them in the three areas of ontology, epistemology, and semantics of divine attributes. Based on the findings of this research, Allameh Tabatabai, in some philosophical and mystical treatises, and in some instances in his Tafsir al-Mizan, while passing through positive THEOLOGY in the field of the ontology of divine attributes and being influenced by some mystics, especially Sayyid Ahmad Krbalaeie, accepted APOPHATIC THEOLOGY in this area, and believed that great philosophers such as Farabi, Ibn Sina and even Mulla Sadra did not have any idea of this viewpoint. According to Allameh Tabatabai, the infinitude of the divine nature on the one hand, and the limitation of abstract understanding, on the other, justifies the APOPHATIC THEOLOGY and prevents the acceptance of positive THEOLOGY while confirming the variety of the concepts of perfection on the divine nature.

Denying any resemblances between the creator and creatures, Qazi Saeed Qomi sets his ideas apart from the typical cataphatic THEOLOGY in Islamic discourse as well as the conventional THEOLOGY of Shi’ism. This paper aims at investigating the relationship or lack of it between Qazi Saeed Qomi’s APOPHATIC THEOLOGY and the conventional predominant monotheistic perspectives of main schools of THEOLOGY (i. e., Ash’arism, Mu’tazila, Shi’ism). Qazi Saeed’s THEOLOGY is very different from the common rational THEOLOGY of Ash’arites or Shi’ites, both of which emphasize the congruities between the creator and creatures. Although differentiating the aforementioned ideas appears to be difficult, unlike other theologists, Qazi Saeed does not believe in the theory of substituting the essence for attribute. In spite of the fact that at the first sights, Qazi Qomi’s THEOLOGY brings a resemblance to rational-narrative-APOPHATIC theological thoughts (e. g., al-Shaykh al-Saduq’s narrative-APOPHATIC THEOLOGY), our argument is that his ideas are reliant on the theoretical mystical thought (although they are still different in some ways). Qazi Qomi’s THEOLOGY has been influenced by the theoretical mystical thought in terms of the following issues: believing in personal unity of existence, negating congruities between the essence and its manifestations, negating God’s essence from his attributes and believing in confinement of God’s names and attributes. The most considerable difference between them is that mystic theologists believe in being qua being principle, while Qazi Saeed Qomi fails even to accept this principle.

The English Dominican Herbert McCabe highlighted some ideas of Thomas Aquinas on the knowability of God and on creation, which can usefully challenge some widespread commonplaces. The purposes of this article are two: to present McCabe’ s sophisticated doctrine on the knowability of God and on creation in a systematic way, and to put this doctrine into its historical context. In the scattered and meagre scholarship on McCabe, both points are missing. In fact, despite being highly praised by leading intellectuals such as Stanley Hauerwas, Alasdair McIntyre, Terry Eagleton, David Burrell, Rowan Williams, Denys Turner, and Eamon Duffy, McCabe has remained widely unknown. According to McCabe, both the American creationists and some atheist scientists believe that God— given that he exists— is a powerful entity within the universe, and thus both the atheist and the creationist expect exactly the same elements in the universe. However, according to McCabe, God does not act like natural causes; he is not an element within the universe and not even the most powerful of all the elements, because he created the universe from nothing and is not part of it.

Objectives: The purpose of this study is to compare, evaluate and evaluate the Kataphatic THEOLOGY in the epistemological domain of Divine attributes in the monkey mind (born 530 AH / 1135 AD), a prominent Jewish scholar and Ayatollah Dr. Mohammad Sadeghi Tehrani (6-1), contemporary Quran researcher. Method: The present study used a descriptive-analytical method to rationally analyze these two views. Results: According to this character, not only the inherent affirmative attributes of God but also "divine existence" expresses the negative meaning and the "resemblance" of their common argument in critique of the THEOLOGY. Conclusion: "Confusion between concept and case", "equilibrium of substantive and non-material cognition", "incorrect interpretation of two Quranic teachings of Hamad's accompaniment to glorification and divine essence of impersonal description" and "lack of correct picture of the most important objective THEOLOGY" are epistemological and ontological aspects of these two perspectives.

Meister Eckhart is one of the Christian Mystics that Christian Orthodoxy and Catholic Church accused his thoughts in Medieval Ages and named him heretic. Most important themes that disparate the Theism of Eckhart from his Christian predecessors are belief to Godhead beyond God, Denial of possibility of Knowing God, Innovations about Trinity, belief to APOPHATIC THEOLOGY and etc. He defended of his beliefs against this charges, but because of his interior tendency, the Theism of Eckhart is result of APOPHATIC THEOLOGY of Dionysius and Neoplatonism and without Denial of Trinity; while accepting its function and essence in his preachers; regards Unity superior specialty of Godhead above existence and nothing.

One of major discussions in the history of THEOLOGY and philosophy, whether in western or Islamic culture, is whether the reason can gain a positive Knowledge of the divine attributes. The author in this paper has attempted to show, on the basis of both rational proofs and textual proofs that Negative (or APOPHATIC) Knowledge is the only available Knowledge of God's qualities, so that any attempt to acquire a positive Knowledge is resulted in anthropomorphism, which is false by reason and tradition.

The Orthodox Church, presenting itself as the extension of early Christianity’ s Orthodoxy, has created a distinctive THEOLOGY system based on early doctrines of God. Comprehending this Church and its THEOLOGY without having a true perception of its special doctrine of God is not feasible. This doctrine is mainly based on Orthodox Church’ s special approach toward “ unknowability of God” . This approach is the key term to a true perception of this Church which can be traced back to “ Father” ’ s distinguished role in Orthodox Trinity. Speaking in negative language is regarded as an integral part of this doctrine which is based on Transcendence and Unknowability of God. Therefore, Orthodox Church is characterized by APOPHATIC THEOLOGY. In the next step, to fill the gap between creatures and such a Transcendence and Unknowable Being, “ Energy Concept” has been proposed by this church. Energy is the revealed or perceptible form of Transcendent God. Orthodox believers try to unite with Energy of God to obtain the Deification status which is considered as ultimate purpose of life. Sacraments and Icons are primary passages of Holy Energy. This study aims to investigate Orthodox approach regarding the “ Unknowability of God” in three stages of Roots, Language and Consequence.

There are attributes in the ordinary language that have been commonly attributed to God and His creatures. Ascribing these attributes to God and His creatures univocally or equivocally leads respectively to anthropomorphism and agnosticism. To solve this problem, some Islamic thinkers have appealed to the gradational meaning of these attributes. Mulla Sadra has presented a theory for this problem thatbased on his philosophical principles and can be called “gradational THEOLOGY”. St. Tomas Aquinas has tried to cope with the problem by appealing to the doctrine of Analogy. This theory has been criticized both by Islamic and Christian thinkers. By the semantic analysis of the key words of Aquinas’s theory, it can be said that his theory is similar to the gradational THEOLOGY with some slight differences. Besides, it can be said that, concerning this problem, he was influenced by Avicenna. This article seeks to explain this claim in an analytic-descriptive way along with comparing the theories of Mulla Sadra and Thomas Aquinas.

In this article, we try to answer to two questions. The first one is "What is the meaning and the consequences of the absence of esoteric experience in the works of Rumi?" In answering this question, firstly we explain the notion of "the absence of esoteric experiences". Then after a short examination of this notion in the works of Muslim and Christian mystics, in the middle ages, we discuss the Rumi`s point of view about and his approach to the esoteric experiences and in the next step, we talk about the consequences of his view and his approach to this notion. These approaches are humiliating the esoteric experiences, silence and finally pointing to them implicitly. In the last section of the article, we reach the second question: how we can say that Rumi is a mystic despite the absence of esoteric experiences in his works? We discuss five viewpoints concerning mysticism including those of Turner, McGinn, Underhill and Russell, based of which Rumi could be recognized as a mystic.