  What is the general character of Dionysius’ writing and is there anything philosophical in it? Dionysius presents us with complex affirmative (kataphatic) and negative (apophatic) forms of theology, exploring what we can say about God, what we mean by our statements, discovering the necessity for us to talk too much about God and to push language forms to their breaking points, and then to see what we cannot say about God. Negation is important here at both levels, in kataphatic theology as well as in apophatic theology. This complex theory of signification and its subversion is often referred to as negative theology: affirming our affirmations, then negating them, and then negating the negations to ensure that we do not make an idol out of a God about whom we know nothing. But it is also much more than this.