Necessarily Dissimilar
In the centuries following al Kindi, Muslim philosophers developed a coherent family of apophatic theological positions on the divine essence and its accessibility. The recurring aspects of this philosophical apophaticism were (1) a negative theology of divine attributes that reads them as negations, (2) the unknowability of the divine essence, closely connected with an Aristotelian version of the Neoplatonic distinction between discursive thought [dianoia] and non discursive intellection [noesis] (3) the necessary dissimilarity of God as the first cause of everything else, and (4) a philosophical hermeneutics that protects divine oneness and dissimilarity. Most of these aspects were established in conversation with the Mu'tazilites. As early as al Kindi, Muslim philosophers adopted such a philosophical apophaticism of the divine nature, which later would take diverse forms, while preserving strategic resemblances.
Unsaying God