The Unknown God: Negative Theology in the Platonic Tradition: Plato to Eriugena

by Deirdre Carabine

Overview

"This book contains a careful, thorough, and where necessary skeptical as regards doubtful evidence (especially in the case of Plato and the Old Academy) of the beginnings in European thought of the negative or apophatic way of thinking and its relations to more positive or kataphatic ways of thinking about God. One of its greatest strengths, perhaps the greatest, is that the author makes clear that none of the persons concerned, Hellenic, Jewish or Christian, was engaged in the pursuit of a philosophical abstraction, or the heaping of rhetorical superlatives on God. They were rather concerned to present the origin of the universe as an intimately present living reality which infinitely transcends our thought and speech. This, combined with careful attention to the varieties of negative theology and its relations with positive, and the particular difficulties experienced by the members of the various traditions involved, makes the book the best introduction to the negative theology available." -A. H. Armstrong, Emeritus Professor of Greek, University of Liverpool, England. Emeritus Professor of Classics, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. Senior Fellow of the British Academy.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781725232723
Publisher:	Wipf & Stock Publishers
Publication date:	01/26/2015
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	374
File size:	52 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Irish academic Deirdre Carabine has lived and taught in Uganda for more than twenty years. She has recently been founder Vice-Chancellor at the Virtual University of Uganda (VUU), the first fully online university in Sub-Saharan Africa. Prior to that she set up International Health Sciences University in Kampala. She has taught at Queen's Belfast, University College Dublin, and Uganda Martyrs University. Currently, she is Director of Programmes at VUU. She attended the Queen's University of Belfast where she graduated with a PhD in philosophy, and University College Dublin where, as one of the first Newman Scholars, she gained a second PhD in Classics. She is also author of John Scottus Eriugena in the Great Medieval Thinkers Series (2000).
Irish academic Deirdre Carabine has lived and taught in Uganda for more than twenty years. She has recently been founder Vice-Chancellor at the Virtual University of Uganda (VUU), the first fully online university in Sub-Saharan Africa. Prior to that she set up International Health Sciences University in Kampala. Currently, she is Director of Programmes at VUU. In that role, she experienced a steep learning curve as caretaker of the university's Virtual Learning Environment. She began her Africa adventure at the Uganda Martyrs University as a pioneer staff member. You can read about her exploits there at her blog, Jacana Days: deirdrecarabine.wordpress.com. Carabine is also an artist and published musician.

She attended the Queen's University of Belfast where she graduated with a PhD in philosophy, and University College Dublin where, as one of the first Newman Scholars, she gained a second PhD in Classics. She has taught at Queen's Belfast, University College Dublin, and Uganda Martyrs University.

She is also author of John Scottus Eriugena in the Great Medieval Thinkers Series (2000). You can read some more recent comments about her negative theology at: http://www.holosforum.org/v5n1/carabine.html.