John Peter Kenney

The Critical Value of Negative Theology

If metaphysics seems today to have buried its undertakers, then negative theology may soon silence its critics. Having established a significant if sometimes recessive presence in Western theism, negative theology is again an important element in contemporary philosophical theology. While Anglo- American philosophy of religion remains dominated by analytic neoscholasticism, in the last decade a countercurrent has emerged that makes common cause with the apophatic tradition. The Gifford lectures of Stephen R. L. Clark are examples of this development, as are the works of Leszek Kolakowski. Each thinker has attempted to expand discussion beyond the scholastic parameters of the field and make connections with important historical figures who are often neglected in the literature. Neoplatonism has featured prominently this development; as the principal philosophical foundation for apophatic theology in the West, it has been invoked in both its original Greco-Roman guise and its subsequent manifestation within the Abrahamic tradition (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam).

Contemplation and Classical Christianity: A Study in Augustine

Introduction 1. Contemplation and Pagan Monotheism 2. Transcendence and Christian Monotheism 3. Contemplation at Cassiciacum 4. Early Catholic Treatises 5. Christian Transcendentalism Conclusion Bibliography

The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium

UK-based Contributors: Thomas S. Brown, Senior Lecturer in Medieval History, University of Edinburgh. Robert Browning, Professor Emeritus of Classics, University of London. David Buckton, Curator of Early Christian and Byzantine Collections, British Museum. Lawrence I. Conrad, Lecturer in Arab-Islamic Medicine, Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine, London. Simon Franklin, Lecturer in Russian, University of Cambridge. Philip Grierson, Professor Emeritus of Numismatics, University of Cambridge. John Lowden, Lecturer in Art History, University of London. R. J. Macrides, Honorary Lecturer in Byzantine Studies and Modern Greek, University of St Andrews. Paul Magdalino, Lecturer in Medieval History, University of St Andrews. Cyril Mango, Bywater and Sotheby Professor of Byzantine and Modern Greek Language and Literature, University of Oxford. Marlia Mango, Art historian, Oxford. Sir Dimitri Obolensky, Professor Emeritus of Russian and Balkan History, University of Oxford. Nigel Wilson, Fellow and Tutor in Classics, University of Oxford.

The Platonic Monotheism of Plotinus

This paper will examine the concept of deity articulated in the Enneads of Plotinus. This conception of the divine is best understood as a type of monotheism, rooted both in the Greco-Roman theological tradition and in Platonism. Seven principal points will be considered: 1. The articulation of transcendence developed by the Platonic schools; 2. The Plotinian account of hypostatic levels of reality; 3. The levels of the self and of its noetic states that correspond to these hypostases; 4. The unique character of the One’s ‘deep’ transcendence; 5. The use of ‘pointer’ terms and the centrality of contemplation.

Augustine and Classical Theism

This paper is an abbreviated reflection on the notion of ‘classical theism’ in reference to Augustine. The importance of contemplation and interior ascension to Augustine’s theism is emphasized with particular reference to texts from the Confessions. For Augustine knowledge of the transcendent God of classical monotheism was available only through the soul’s moral transformation and its renewed ontological participation in the being of God. Thus God could only be known to be ‘one’ or ‘simple’ or ‘unchanging’ or ‘self same’ by souls who have come to share deeply in those characteristics through unmediated association with God. These well-known attributes of ‘classical theism’ are not, therefore, abstract terms – the products of speculative metaphysics – but characteristics that emerge from the soul’s exercise of contemplation. Hence ‘classical theism,’ as it is conventionally understood in post-Enlightenment philosophy of religion, captures only the manifest image of a much larger and deeper understanding of our approach to the divine, one that supersedes more limited, abstract representations.