Between the God of the Prophets and the God of the Philosophers: Reflections of an Athari on the Divine Attributes

by Hatem al-Haj

Since the 1970s, we have witnessed an increased interest in the concept of apophasis in the study of religion, which is described as a “new, ethicalized divine transcendence.”[4] The apophatic god of negative theology will provide some explanation and comfort without intervening in our lives. After all, nothing can be demanded by a god of which nothing can be predicated and about which nothing

can be said. It is a forever silenced god. It is the areligious philosophers’ preferred god (at least from the time of Aristotle); a god which is remote, detached, and can hardly be an object of adoration or worship, even though it may be an object of wonderment.