... nature of God, as it does not try to assign attributes to God which language cannot describe sufficiently. The via negativa originated from Plato's idea of the Forms, Plato theorised that there is a world above that of the sensory word which is the world of reason; he demonstrated this hierarchy of reality in his allegory of the line. The allegory shows that reality is derived from the Supreme Being that transcends existence and is unknowable, this being emanates down through a person's soul and eventually into matter but cannot be encountered on a human level. This is where the via negativa has its roots: humans cannot have direct knowledge and understanding of God, as Plato's Supreme Being cannot be encountered directly, and therefore we have to use the via negativa to try to gain some form of understanding of God. However, an obvious criticism of the approach is that the ...

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