apophatism

1. 1.

   the religious belief that God cannot be known but is completely `other' and must be described in negative terms (in terms of what God is not)

   Antonymscataphatismdoctrine of analogy

   Broaderreligion

Other forms of apophatism

plural

apophatisms·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about apophatism

What does apophatism mean?

apophatism means "the religious belief that God cannot be known but is completely `other' and must be described in negative terms (in terms of what God is not)".

How many syllables are in apophatism?

apophatism has 4 syllables: a-po-pha-tism. The stress falls on "po".

What is the opposite of apophatism?

The recorded antonyms are cataphatism, doctrine of analogy.

Is apophatism a common word?

apophatism is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.