Word.ws English Dictionary

via negativa

via negativa noun: a concept of God built up through negative statements about his nature.

Noun

via negativa

  1. A concept of God built up through negative statements about his nature.
    • The medieval Roman Catholic Church recognized two opposite roads to grace: the via negativa of the monk's cell and the hermit's cave, and the via affirmativa of immersion in human affairs, of being in the world whether or not one is of it.1986 December 28, John Barth, “A Few Words About Minimalism”, in The New York Times, →ISSN
    Synonyms:
    apophatic theology

Synonyms of via negativa

Questions about via negativa

What does via negativa mean?
Via negativa means a concept of God built up through negative statements about his nature.
What part of speech is via negativa?
Via negativa is a noun.

Words near via negativa in the dictionary

  1. via ferrata
  2. via ferratas
  3. via glareata
  4. via media
  5. via munita
  6. via negativa
  7. via terrena
  8. viabilities
  9. viability
  10. viable
  11. viables

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: via negativa (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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