Abstract

Any talk of God wrestles with the challenge of divine ineffability. But, contrary to usual assumptions, we arrive at the ineffability of God not by way of faith but rather of philosophy. It is not philosophy that makes the strong claims about what we can know and say about God, but faith. Nevertheless, the claim that God is ineffable is in turn rooted in philosophical, metaphysical insights, which can be expressed in language. As Thomas Aquinas points out, “we name as we know,” and philosophical knowledge of God’s ineffability is itself knowledge of God. This philosophical knowledge turns out to be helpful for constructing an interreligious dialogue among different faith traditions and their claim to revelation.