Summary
Apophatic Theology, otherwise known as Negative Theology is theological way of thought that asserts the only way to truly approach God is through negation, meaning that one can only describe God's perfect goodness by means of describing what God isn't. This idea is most commonly found in Orthodox Christianity and other faiths such as Gnosticism and Jewish Mysticism, in which the concept originates from.
The philosophy is based on the assumption that God's essence is unknowable or ineffable, ergo being inadequate to describe in terms of human language. The extend in which God is incomprehensible to the human mind is to the degree all the words and concepts fail to adequately describe God, with human understanding merely provide a limited description of divinity akin to merely seeing the tip of an iceberg.
Why Is This Relevant To Scaling
The concept of Negative Theology impacts scaling because one who possesses such a nature would essentially lie beyond the scope of human understanding, including the vastness of all concepts and words that could be potentially used to describe said entity. In other words, possessing an apophatic nature would imply that an entity is completely removed from all concepts and words as any and all descriptors of the human language, including concepts would fail to adequately describe the "perfect" nature that is said entity's nature.
Bare in mind, Apophatic Theology is not just merely being "incomprehensible" as opposed to existing in a state of "perfection" that is so vast that any word or concept that you could ascribe to god becomes a separate thing altogether and is fundamentally non-applicable to god's perfection. It would be vastly beyond incomprehensibility given Apophatic Theology is a total negation of human understanding in it's entirety in relation to a higher being.
How Is This Treated On-Site
Simply put, having Apophatic Theology as an ascribed nature to an entity in a verse does not inherently mean anything unless it's tied to something. So for example, if a character possesses an apophatic nature and the concept of dimensions is ascribed to it, this would mean that the character in question would be rated as baseline 1-A considering they are completely removed from the concept of dimensionality entirely. From there, the same would hold true if there was an entity who possessed an apophatic nature in relation to even a 1-A being, making that entity in question 1-A β and so on for however long this would potentially continue.
To cut things short, Apophatic Theology inherently scales nowhere in a verse but when it's in relation to something, such as the aforementioned concept of dimensions then it's fair to argue it as 1-A given we know what the character is apophatic in relation towards. Without any proper evidence, it's considered fallacious to argue it being at the peak of the tiering system as it's extrapolating the highest interpretation of what it is when the writers themselves may possess only a vague understanding of what the concept is in itself,
Notable Characters That Qualify
- The Root (Nasuverse)
- Reason: The Root is the most notable example of Negative Theology and it's to a point where one could say it's essentially exactly how it's described in actual theology. For this reason, the prospect of The Root operating under Negative Theology is clear cut and hard to dispute given how many pieces of evidence indicate that it possesses such nature.
- Chaos (Monster Girl Quest)
- Reason: Similarly to The Root, Chaos has many examples that indicate that it operates under a similar framework to what Negative Theology falls under and thus it's considered an applicable example of it applying in a verse. While not as explicit, the evidence is clear that the idea behind Negative Theology is there and thus it's accepted on the site itself.
- Laplace's Demon & Kami (Hololive)
- Reason: Unlike either Chaos and The Root, the examples of Negative Theology aren't as strong but evidences of it just being there are actually more than enough for the instance of Hololive considering how the series draws concepts and ideas basically 1:1 from Gnosticism and many other theologies in a way that isn't drastically different from the source itself. What this means is whilst the evidence for it on it's own isn't inherently indicative that Laplace's Demon and Kami operate under a apophatic framework, the fact that Kami is supposed to be literal God from Gnoticism and one of their most basic attributes is being apophatic, it's logical to assume the same nature applies to Kami and by extension Laplace's Demon.