Editing Apophatic theology (section)

==Apophatic theology and atheism==
Even though the ''via negativa'' essentially rejects theological understanding in and of itself as a path to God, some have sought to make it into an intellectual exercise, by describing God only in terms of what God is not. One problem noted with this approach is that there seems to be no fixed basis on deciding what God is not, unless the Divine is understood as an abstract experience of full aliveness unique to each individual consciousness, and universally, the perfect goodness applicable to the whole field of reality.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Pondé |first1=Luiz Felipe |title=Crítica e profecia: A filosofia da religião em Dostoiévski |date=2003 |publisher=Editora 34 |isbn=8573262842 |location=São Paulo |pages=74–92}}</ref> Apophatic theology is often accused of being a version of [[atheism]] or [[agnosticism]], since it cannot truly say that God exists.<ref>{{Cite book |editor-last=Kvanvig |editor-first=Jonathan |editor-link=Jonathan Kvanvig |year=2015 |chapter=7. The Ineffable, Inconceivable, and Incomprehensible God. Fundamentality and Apophatic Theology (pp. 158 — 176) |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=V4cSDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA158 |last=Jacobs |first=Jonathan D.|title=Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Religion. Volume 6 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=V4cSDAAAQBAJ |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-198-72233-5  |page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=V4cSDAAAQBAJ&dq=%22Apophatic+theology+is+often+accused+of+being+a+version+of+atheism+or+agnosticism,+since+we+cannot+say+truly+that+God+exists.%22&pg=PA168 168]}}</ref> "The comparison is crude, however, for conventional atheism treats the existence of God as a predicate that can be denied ("God is nonexistent"), whereas negative theology denies that God has predicates".{{sfn|Fagenblat|2017|p=3}} "God or the Divine is" without being able to attribute qualities about "what He is" would be the prerequisite of positive theology in negative theology that distinguishes theism from atheism. "Negative theology is a complement to, not the enemy of, positive theology".{{sfn|Bryson|2016|p=114}} Since religious experience—or consciousness of the holy or sacred, is not reducible to other kinds of human experience, an abstract understanding of religious experience cannot be used as evidence or proof that religious discourse or praxis can have no meaning or value.<ref>[[Bernard Lonergan|Lonergan, Bernard]] (1972), "Method in Theology", New York, N.Y.: Seabury Press, {{ISBN|0-8164-2204-4}}.</ref> In apophatic theology, the negation of theisms in the ''via negativa'' also requires the negation of their correlative atheisms if the dialectical method it employs is to maintain integrity.<ref>[[Michael J. Buckley|Buckley, Michael J.]] (2004), "Denying and Disclosing God: The Ambiguous Progress of Modern Atheism", New Haven, C.T.: [[Yale University Press]], pp. 120ff, {{ISBN|0-30009384-5}}.</ref>