Terango: Via Negativa

Gatta writes about he 'via negativa' or apophatic approach to understanding god in his chapter, 'reclaiming the sacred commons'. This method makes me think of the Muslim theologians Al-Sijistani and Al-Ghazali who used the via negativa method to reject the credibility of dogma and return Islam to its eternal introspection. Al-Sijistani use a technique of double negatives to attain to, as Gatta puts it, "confirm our knowledge of ignorance," of god. Using arguments that read similarly to, "al-Lah is not non-Being," and, "al-Lah is not not-good," Al-Sijistani tried to show the simplicity of a rational God discourse. This method closely resembles the neoplatonic via negativa.
Al-Ghazali's teachings were more directly in line with Gatta's description of the apophatic. He moved to this ideology after finding himself distant from sacred by the doctrines and dogma of contemporary Islam. This led him to the path of mysticism where he rejected the labeling of god's attributes as meaningless. Al-Ghazali found problems with concepts such as god is good because the word 'good' is relative therefore al-Lah cannot be associated with the word 'good' but he also is good because the true 'good' is too abstract to comprehend.
This shows how the via negativa can appear complicated but at heart is an attempt to become closer with god through the realization that our attempts to describe divinity only distance us from it. It further shows the theological struggles that lead to this kind of thinking stretch across the board.