The Philokalia

by Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain

123. Apophatic theology does not contradict or confute cataphatic theology, but it shows that although statements made cataphatically about God are true and reverent, yet they do not apply to God as they might to us. For example. God possesses knowledge of existent things, and we, too, possess this in some cases. But we know things in so far as they exist and have come into existence, whereas God does not know them solely in this way, since He knows them just as well even prior to their coming into existence. Thus he who says that God does not know existent things as existent does not contradict him who says that God knows existent things and knows them as existent. There is also a cataphatic theology which has the force of apophatic theology, as when one says that all knowledge is affirmed of some object, namely, the thing known, while God's knowledge does not refer to any object. This is the same as saying God does not know existent things as existent, and He does not have knowledge of existent things - that is to say, does not have it as we do. In this way it can be said that in terms of His pre-eminence God does not exist But he who asserts this in order to show that people who say God exists are not speaking correctly, clearly employs apophatic theology not in a way that connotes pre-eminence, but as though it connoted deficiency and signified in this case that God has absolutely no existence whatsoever. This is the uttermost impiety, of which, alas, those are guilty ...