The unknown God of negative theology (not this, not that) is a singularity that overflows attempts a generalizing with an essence, overflowing opposites like thing/non thing, being/ non being – transcending all theological attributes (Derrida, Sauf le nom, 52) in the form A is B.  We assume as our a priori that we have understood Angelus Silesius’s apophasis, which makes possible this a posteriori post scriptum we are creating in response to him.

Calling negative theology a language is not an axiom, but a provisional and revisable “guiding thread (Derrida, 61)” we are attempting to follow through Angelus Silesius’s writing.  What is a “guiding thread?”

In Robert Frost’s poem “The Road Not Taken,” a guiding thread could be the recurring motif of divergence and choice, embodied in the image of two paths splitting in a yellow wood. This thread illuminates the poem’s exploration of regret, individuality, and the human tendency to romanticize decisions after the fact—helping to navigate its deceptive simplicity by revealing how the speaker’s final sigh underscores the irony of claiming a path “less traveled” when both were equally worn.  Heidegger notes there was a fort reported taken in the war, and the soldiers looked and saw friendly flags flying.  It was disastrous because they approached the fort as though it was friendly, only to find out the false report was a “hupokeimenon” or substrate for mis-seeing the flags as friendly.

In effect, with negative theology we have only tentative guiding threads and so can’t take our clues from the axiomatic.  This points to the provisional nature of guiding threads in all writing, as we might always reach a dead end and so need to reorient ourselves.  Such a guiding thread is never certain, but rather explanatory and “not yet invalidated” – in the language of the via negativa of negative theology.

The via negativa is also the way of historical Jesus studies: excluding the miraculous, the propaganda, etc.  And, one’s portrait of the historical Jesus is always provisional as you may have missed something, emphasized wrong, simply misread, etc.  Scholars involved in the third and next quests for the historical Jesus have constructed a variety of portraits and profiles for Jesus.  However, there is little scholarly agreement on the portraits, or the methods used in constructing them.  The portraits of Jesus that have been constructed in the quest for the historical Jesus have often differed from each other, and from the image portrayed in the gospel accounts. These portraits include that of Jesus as an apocalyptic prophet, charismatic healer, Cynic philosopher, Jewish Messiah and prophet of social change, but there is little scholarly agreement on a single portrait, or the methods needed to construct it.  Some say Jesus was a historicized myth.  As said previously, you review the evidence and see what model speaks to you / resonates with you / tickles your fancy.  Or consider the models for love in social psychology.

Social psychology features several competing and complementary models for understanding love, reflecting different emphases on components like emotion, behavior, biology, and relational dynamics. These models often overlap but provide distinct frameworks, and researchers debate their applicability across cultures, relationship stages, and individual differences.

One prominent model is Sternberg’s Triangular Theory of Love, which posits that love consists of three core components—intimacy (emotional closeness), passion (physical attraction and romance), and commitment (decision to maintain the relationship)—combining to form seven types of love, such as consummate (all three) or empty (commitment alone).  This theory emphasizes balance and has been influential in explaining relationship satisfaction, but critics argue it overlooks cultural variations or evolutionary factors.

A competing approach is John Alan Lee’s Color Wheel Theory of Love (also known as Love Styles), which categorizes love into six styles based on ancient Greek concepts: Eros (passionate, romantic love), Ludus (playful, game-like love), Storge (stable, friendship-based love), Pragma (practical, logical love), Mania (obsessive, jealous love), and Agape (selfless, altruistic love).  Unlike Sternberg’s focus on components, this model treats love as diverse attitudes or “colors” that can mix, and it’s often used to study how personal styles influence partner selection and compatibility.

Attachment Theory, adapted from developmental psychology by researchers like Cindy Hazan and Phillip Shaver, views romantic love through the lens of early childhood bonds, classifying adults into secure, anxious, avoidant, or disorganized attachment styles that shape how they experience intimacy and dependency.  This model competes by prioritizing psychological security and past experiences over passion or commitment, and it’s widely applied in therapy but sometimes criticized for underemphasizing situational factors.

Other models include:

Passionate vs. Companionate Love: Proposed by Elaine Hatfield and others, this distinguishes between intense, short-term passionate love (arousal and idealization) and long-term companionate love (deep affection and attachment), highlighting how relationships evolve over time.

Self-Expansion Model: Aron and Aron’s theory suggests love involves expanding one’s sense of self through the partner, fostering growth and novelty, which contrasts with more static models like Sternberg’s.

Biological and Evolutionary Models: These incorporate hormones (e.g., dopamine for passion) or mate selection strategies, often competing with purely social-psychological views by emphasizing innate drives.

These models aren’t mutually exclusive but compete in explaining phenomena like why relationships fail or how love develops, with ongoing research integrating elements from multiple theories.  How you weigh and emphasize emotion, behavior, biology, and relational dynamics will reflect which model (s) speak to you / resonate with you.

Philosophically, models in academic disciplines serve as conceptual tools for organizing, interpreting, and making sense of data or phenomena within a given field. Drawing from traditions in the philosophy of science (e.g., influenced by thinkers like Thomas Kuhn, Karl Popper, and Imre Lakatos), a “model in general” can be understood as a simplified representation or framework that abstracts from reality to highlight patterns, relationships, or causal mechanisms. It is not a direct mirror of the world but a constructed artifact designed to facilitate understanding, prediction, or critique.

Models across disciplines—whether in social psychology, historical studies, literary criticism, or beyond—share several core philosophical traits. These are not exhaustive but capture the essence of how models function as interpretive devices. They emphasize utility over absolute truth, acknowledging that all knowledge is mediated by human cognition and context.

Abstraction and Simplification: Models reduce complexity by focusing on select variables or elements while omitting others. This allows for manageable analysis but inherently involves idealization. For instance, Sternberg’s Triangular Theory of Love abstracts romantic relationships into three components (intimacy, passion, commitment), ignoring nuances like cultural or socioeconomic factors to create a testable framework. Similarly, the “Jesus as an apocalyptic prophet” model in historical Jesus studies simplifies textual and archaeological data into a narrative of eschatological expectation, sidelining alternative interpretations like Jesus as a sage or miracle-worker.

Explanatory Power: A model provides a coherent narrative or mechanism to account for observed data, answering “why” or “how” questions. It connects disparate facts into a unified story. In feminist literary interpretation, the model explains texts by revealing gendered power dynamics, such as patriarchal biases in character portrayals, thereby making sense of ambiguities in works like Shakespeare’s plays through a lens of oppression and resistance.

Predictive or Retrodictive Capacity: Good models anticipate future observations or retroactively fit historical data. Popper emphasized falsifiability here: a model should risk being proven wrong. Sternberg’s model predicts that relationships with balanced triangles will be more stable, testable via empirical studies. The apocalyptic prophet model retrodicts Jesus’ actions (e.g., temple cleansing) as signs of impending divine judgment, aligning with Second Temple Judaism data.

Heuristic Value: Models act as guides for inquiry, suggesting new questions or hypotheses. They are tools for discovery rather than endpoints. The feminist model, for example, prompts readers to interrogate silences in texts (e.g., female agency in Jane Austen’s novels), uncovering layers that literal readings miss.

Contextual and Paradigmatic Embeddedness: Models are shaped by the discipline’s assumptions, methods, and historical context (per Kuhn’s paradigms). They operate within a “web of belief” (Quine), where data interpretation depends on auxiliary hypotheses. In historical Jesus studies, the apocalyptic model draws from form criticism and Qumran texts, reflecting a post-Holocaust scholarly shift toward Jewish contextualization.

Normative or Evaluative Dimension: Many models imply values or prescriptions. Sternberg’s implies that “consummate love” is ideal, influencing therapy. Feminist models evaluate literature for emancipatory potential, critiquing canonical works as tools of ideology.

Falsifiability and Revisability: Philosophically, models should be open to empirical challenge or refinement. Lakatos described them as “research programs” with a hard core (protected assumptions) and protective belt (modifiable elements). If data consistently contradicts, the model may be abandoned or evolved.

These traits make models indispensable for academic progress, as raw data alone is chaotic without interpretive structure. However, they also introduce limitations: models are metaphors or maps, not the territory itself (as Alfred Korzybski noted).

Implications of Contrasting Models: The existence of contrasting models for the same data strongly suggests that models often suppress ambiguity and recalcitrant evidence to maintain coherence, which warrants epistemic humility and underscores their tentative, provisional nature. This aligns with philosophical views on underdetermination, pluralism, and fallibilism. Data in any field is inherently ambiguous—multivalent, incomplete, or open to multiple readings. Models impose order by privileging certain interpretations while marginalizing others. For example, Sternberg’s model might downplay evidence of love as a cultural construct (e.g., arranged marriages in non-Western societies) to emphasize universal components, creating a neat triangle at the expense of messier realities. In historical Jesus studies, the apocalyptic prophet model (championed by scholars like Bart Ehrman) contrasts with the “cynic sage” model (John Dominic Crossan), each selectively emphasizing texts (e.g., Mark’s eschatology vs. Q’s wisdom sayings) while explaining away contradictions as later redactions. Feminist literary models might suppress formalist evidence (e.g., aesthetic structure) to highlight gender critique, risking overdetermination. This isn’t necessarily malicious but a pragmatic necessity: as Paul Feyerabend argued in Against Method, science (and academia) advances through “anarchistic” competition, where models “proliferate” by bending evidence to fit.

Warranting Humility: Contrasting models highlight the Duhem-Quine thesis: no single experiment falsifies a theory in isolation, as adjustments can always save it. This underdetermination means no model has a monopoly on truth; choices between them involve values, aesthetics, or simplicity (Occam’s razor). Humility is thus epistemically virtuous—acknowledging that our models are human constructs, prone to bias (e.g., cultural, gender, or ideological). Scholars like Bart Ehrman (historical Jesus) advocate humility by noting how scant evidence allows multiple plausible models, none definitive.

Explanatory but Tentative and Provisional: Models excel at explanation within their scope but remain fallible tools, subject to revision or paradigm shifts (Kuhn). They are “provisional” because new data, methods, or critiques can upend them—e.g., neuroimaging might refine Sternberg’s model by adding biological layers, or postcolonial feminism could expand the feminist literary model beyond Western binaries. This tentativeness encourages ongoing dialogue: contrasting models aren’t flaws but drivers of progress, fostering a pluralistic academy where synthesis (e.g., integrating attachment theory with Sternberg’s) emerges.

In summary, models are powerful yet imperfect lenses, embodying the philosophical tension between order and chaos. Embracing their limitations promotes a more robust, humble pursuit of knowledge.

Derrida’s point in Sauf le nom with negative theology is that the ineffability of God in His individuality overflows our ability to conceptualize him with general concepts (wise, powerful, etc).  And so, we might say the more and more we get specific about the individual, the less reliable our general concepts are at encapsulating the individual.  For example, physicist Carlo Rovelli notes our usually reliable categories like substance with properties seem to be less useful at describing reality at the level of the very small.

This interpretation of Derrida’s “Sauf le nom” (translated as “Save the Name” or “Except the Name”) aligns closely with his engagement with negative theology (apophasis), where the divine—God in His absolute singularity or individuality—eludes capture by affirmative predicates or general concepts like “wise,” “powerful,” “good,” or even “being.” God is an utterly unique entity. Derrida posits that naming or conceptualizing the divine inevitably falls short, as language and thought operate within structures of presence, difference, and repeatability that cannot encompass the utterly unique or ineffable. In this text, part of his broader reflections in On the Name, he stages a polylogue (a multi-voiced dialogue) to explore how negative theology both approaches and betrays this overflow: it denies attributes to God to preserve His transcendence, yet even this denial relies on linguistic traces that reinscribe what it seeks to escape.

The “sauf” (save/except) signals a reservation or safeguarding of the name, suggesting that the individual (here, God) exceeds generalization, much as deconstruction reveals the instability of concepts when pushed to their limits.  Extending this philosophically, the more we drill into the specificity of an individual—whether a divine entity, a person, or a physical phenomenon—the more our general categories fray or prove inadequate. This resonates with Derrida’s deconstructive ethos: concepts are not timeless universals but contingent, differential networks that suppress their own undecidability. In negative theology’s tradition (drawing from figures like Pseudo-Dionysius), this manifests as the via negativa, where God is “beyond being” or “hyper-essential,” resisting encapsulation to avoid idolatry.

This generalization captures a key tension: universality relies on abstraction, but the concrete particular disrupts it, revealing concepts as provisional tools rather than exhaustive truths.

The analogy to Carlo Rovelli’s work in quantum physics is apt and illuminating. In books like Helgoland and Reality Is Not What It Seems, Rovelli advocates for relational quantum mechanics, arguing that classical ontological categories—such as “substance” (independent objects with inherent properties)—dissolve at the quantum scale. Instead, reality emerges from interactions and relations: particles lack fixed properties until measured in relation to something else, and the universe is a web of processes rather than standalone entities with attributes like position or momentum.

This echoes Aristotelian substance theory (where relations are secondary to substances) but inverts it: at the “very small,” as I noted, properties aren’t intrinsic but contextual, much like how Derrida’s God overflows predicates. Rovelli draws philosophical inspiration from thinkers like Nagarjuna and Ernst Mach to challenge naive realism, suggesting that our everyday concepts are effective approximations that falter when confronting the radically particular or relational nature of the world.

This parallel highlights a broader metaphysical humility: whether in theology, philosophy, or physics, general concepts serve as scaffolds for understanding, but they buckle under the weight of irreducible individuality. Derrida might see this as a trace of différance—the play of differences that defers full presence—while Rovelli grounds it in empirical science, yet both underscore the limits of conceptualization.

Similarly, we get our models for love in social psychology by oversimplifying.  Love is not a simple subject-predicate “love is romance.”  Love is said in many ways from the Greek: eros, agape, philia, etc.  And some are more love than others.  We generally say agape as love of undesirables like widow, orphan, alien, and enemy as more important than self is love incarnate.  Social psychologists break off a small piece of the love complex and treat it in isolation, where a more expansive approach is warranted.

Our extension of the discussion captures a profound critique of modeling in social psychology, echoing philosophical traditions that emphasize the polysemy (multiple meanings) of concepts like love. Drawing from Aristotle’s insight in the Metaphysics that “being is said in many ways” (where terms like “healthy” or “being” have related/analogical but non-identical senses), love indeed resists reduction to a single predicate or essence. The ancient Greeks’ distinctions—eros (passionate desire), philia (affectionate friendship), storge (familial loyalty), and agape (unconditional, self-giving care)—highlight this multiplicity, which later thinkers like C.S. Lewis popularized in The Four Loves. Our prioritization of agape as “love incarnate,” particularly in its extension to the marginalized (widows, orphans, aliens, enemies), aligns with biblical and ethical traditions (e.g., the Sermon on the Mount or Levinas’s ethics of the Other), where love transcends reciprocity or merit, embodying a radical alterity that challenges self-centered models.

Social psychology’s models, as we’ve discussed (e.g., Sternberg’s triangular theory or Lee’s love styles), do often “break off a small piece” for analytical tractability, treating love as a dissectible object rather than a holistic, overflowing phenomenon. This isolation mirrors what Derrida critiques in conceptualizing the singular: by applying general categories (e.g., “love is intimacy + passion + commitment”), we suppress the ineffable excesses—the ways love manifests uniquely in contexts, defying neat boundaries. For instance, agape might overlap with companionate love in long-term bonds but exceeds it by incorporating sacrifice without expectation, which empirical scales struggle to quantify without flattening. Rovelli’s quantum analogy holds here too: just as classical substance-properties falter at the subatomic level, revealing relational flux, psychological models of love as fixed traits or components lose reliability when confronting the “very specific”—the idiosyncratic, culturally embedded, or ethically demanding expressions of love that don’t fit controlled experiments.  This oversimplification isn’t a flaw per se but a methodological trade-off: models enable prediction and intervention (e.g., in relationship therapy) but at the cost of breadth. A more expansive approach, could integrate interdisciplinary lenses—blending social psychology with philosophy, theology, anthropology, or even neuroscience (e.g., how oxytocin underpins attachment but not necessarily agape’s moral dimension). Emerging frameworks like positive psychology’s PERMA model or evolutionary perspectives on altruism attempt this, but they still risk prioritizing measurable facets over the ambiguous whole. Ultimately, this warrants the humility we touched on: models are tentative maps, illuminating paths through love’s complexity while reminding us that the terrain—multifaceted, hierarchical in value (with agape perhaps at the apex)—always overflows our charts.

We can see the deconstructive movement here.  Agape is exemplary love, but also the least loving if your reason for loving widow, orphan, alien and enemy as more important than self is because Jesus obligates/commands you to in the Sermon on the Mount and so you are just being economical exchanging sacrifice for rewards in heaven.  We see this double deconstructive movement too with politeness where exemplary polite people like waitresses and airline stewardesses are at the forefront with their politeness because that’ their job description/obligation:  Waitressing is not politeness for politeness sake such as when a defeated chess player congratulates her opponent on great play.  Similarly, a person may be overly polite to someone they just rear ended in a car accident to keep the victim from losing their temper and de-escalate the situation.  And so, in deconstruction we move beyond the notion that the exemplar is also the universal incarnate like when we say the mansion is houseness incarnate, since the next person might find the mansion gawdy.  This has major implications for ethics, and so 9’11 may be paradigmatically evil to many, but celebrated as the most holy by some Palestinians at the time.

Our articulation of the deconstructive movement here is incisive, revealing how purported exemplars—whether in love (agape), social conduct (politeness), or ethics—unravel upon closer scrutiny, exposing internal contradictions and contextual contingencies that undermine their claim to universality. Derrida’s influence looms large, as this “double movement” echoes his notion of différance and the supplement: the exemplar supplements (adds to and replaces) the ideal it purportedly embodies, but in doing so, it defers purity and reveals a play of absences. Let’s unpack this across our examples, culminating in the ethical implications.

In the case of agape, as I note, it positions itself as love par excellence—selfless, extending to the undeserving (widows, orphans, aliens, enemies) in a manner that elevates the Other above the self, per the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7). Yet, when motivated by divine command or eschatological economy (sacrifice traded for heavenly rewards), it inverts into something transactional, perhaps the “least loving” form, akin to Kant’s critique of heteronomous ethics where duty driven by external incentives lacks moral worth. This deconstructs the hierarchy: agape, meant to transcend eros or philia’s self-interest, circles back to it via deferred gain, much like how negative theology’s denials inadvertently affirm what they negate. The exemplar overflows its own frame, refusing to incarnate “love” universally—what seems incarnate (pure selflessness) is haunted by its supplement (obligation/reward).

This mirrors the politeness paradigm I describe. Exemplary figures like waitresses or airline stewardesses embody hyper-politeness as a professional mandate, scripted and performative, which Derrida might term a “trace” of genuine courtesy but lacking its spontaneity. Contrast this with the chess player’s unsolicited congratulations—a gratuitous act without utility—or by contrast the post-accident politeness as strategic de-escalation, aimed at averting conflict rather than honoring the Other. Here, the deconstructive twist exposes how the “forefront” exemplar (job-enforced politeness) is supplemental: it adds layers of obligation or instrumentality, displacing the ideal of politeness-for-its-own-sake. We move beyond Platonic forms where the exemplar incarnates the essence (e.g., the mansion as “houseness incarnate”), recognizing subjectivity’s intrusion—the next observer’s judgment of gaudiness disrupts universality, aligning with Derrida’s critique of presence and logocentrism. Concepts like politeness or houseness are not stable universals but disseminated across contexts, always already differing from themselves.

These insights cascade into ethics with profound ramifications, as our 9/11 example illustrates. What many in the West view as paradigmatically evil—the attacks on September 11, 2001, killing nearly 3,000—can be refracted through cultural, political, or ideological lenses as heroic or holy resistance. Historical accounts confirm that while Palestinian leaders like Yasser Arafat publicly condemned the attacks and organized blood donations, footage captured small groups (e.g., around 20 people in Nablus) celebrating in the streets, distributing sweets, and viewing it as a blow against perceived American-Israeli hegemony. However, pro-Palestinian perspectives emphasize that these reactions were not representative of the broader population (estimated at 3 million in Gaza and the West Bank), often amplified by media bias to stoke anti-Arab sentiment, while the majority expressed sympathy or horror amid the ongoing Second Intifada.

This duality deconstructs ethical universals: evil isn’t incarnate in the act but disseminated across interpretations, where one side’s terrorism is another’s jihad or liberation. Derrida would see this as the undecidability of justice—always contextual, haunted by its other—challenging foundationalist ethics (e.g., natural law or utilitarianism) and inviting a Levinasian responsibility to the infinite Other, beyond calculable norms.

Ultimately, this deconstruction fosters ethical humility: models of the good (or evil) are provisional, their exemplars neither pure nor universal, but sites of contestation that demand ongoing negotiation in a plural world.