Ineffability is the quality of something that surpasses the capacity of language to express it, often being in the form of a

taboo A taboo is a social group's ban, prohibition or avoidance of something (usually an utterance or behavior) based on the group's sense that it is excessively repulsive, offensive, sacred or allowed only for certain people.''Encyclopædia Britannica ...

or incomprehensible term. This property is commonly associated with

philosophy Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...

theology Theology is the study of religious belief from a Religion, religious perspective, with a focus on the nature of divinity. It is taught as an Discipline (academia), academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itse ...

, aspects of existence, and similar concepts that are inherently "too great", complex or abstract to be communicated adequately. Illogical statements, principles, reasons and arguments may be considered intrinsically ineffable along with impossibilities,

contradictions In traditional logic, a contradiction involves a proposition conflicting either with itself or established fact. It is often used as a tool to detect disingenuous beliefs and bias. Illustrating a general tendency in applied logic, Aristotle's ...

and

paradoxes A paradox is a logically self-contradictory statement or a statement that runs contrary to one's expectation. It is a statement that, despite apparently valid reasoning from true or apparently true premises, leads to a seemingly self-contradictor ...

. An object, event or concept is ineffable if it cannot adequately be expressed by the use of natural language. The term (Latin: ''ineffābilis'') is composed of the prefix ''in-'', meaning 'not', and adjective ''effābilis'', meaning 'capable of being expressed'. In Greek, ἄρρητος (α depritive + ῥητὸς) means 'what cannot or should not be spoken of'. Terminology describing the nature of

experience Experience refers to Consciousness, conscious events in general, more specifically to perceptions, or to the practical knowledge and familiarity that is produced by these processes. Understood as a conscious event in the widest sense, experience i ...

cannot be conveyed properly in dualistic

symbol A symbol is a mark, Sign (semiotics), sign, or word that indicates, signifies, or is understood as representing an idea, physical object, object, or wikt:relationship, relationship. Symbols allow people to go beyond what is known or seen by cr ...

ic language; it is believed that this knowledge is only held by the individual from which it originates.

Profanity Profanity, also known as swearing, cursing, or cussing, is the usage of notionally word taboo, offensive words for a variety of purposes, including to demonstrate disrespect or negativity, to relieve pain, to express a strong emotion (such a ...

and vulgarisms can easily and clearly be stated, but by those who believe they should not be said, they are considered ineffable. Thus, one method of describing something that is ineffable is by using apophasis, i.e. describing what it is ''not'', rather than what it ''is''. An example is the name of

God in Judaism In Judaism, God has been conceived in a variety of ways. Traditionally, Judaism holds that Yahweh—that is, the God in Abrahamic religions#Judaism, god of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and the national god of the Israelites—delivered them from ...

, written as

YHWH The TetragrammatonPronounced ; ; also known as the Tetragram. is the four-letter Hebrew-language theonym (transliterated as YHWH or YHVH), the name of God in the Hebrew Bible. The four Hebrew letters, written and read from right to left, a ...

but substituted with

Adonai Judaism has different names given to God in Judaism, God, which are considered sacred: (), (''Adonai'' ), (''El (deity), El'' ), ( ), (''El Shaddai, Shaddai'' ), and ( ); some also include I Am that I Am.This is the formulation of Josep ...

("the Lord") or HaShem ("the name") when reading.

In the Roman Catholic Church

The ineffability about God is affirmed by the

First Vatican Council The First Ecumenical Council of the Vatican, commonly known as the First Vatican Council or Vatican I, was the 20th ecumenical council of the Catholic Church, held three centuries after the preceding Council of Trent which was adjourned in 156 ...

's apostolic constitution ''

Dei Filius ''Dei Filius'' is the incipit of the dogmatic constitution of the First Vatican Council on the Catholic faith, which was adopted unanimously, and issued by Pope Pius IX on 24 April 1870. The constitution set forth the teaching of "the holy Cath ...

'': God's ineffability deals with His being infinite, invisible and incomprehensible. This

dogmatic Dogma, in its broadest sense, is any belief held definitively and without the possibility of reform. It may be in the form of an official system of principles or doctrines of a religion, such as Judaism, Catholic Church, Roman Catholicism, Protes ...

definition comes from a longtime tradition:

Tertullian Tertullian (; ; 155 – 220 AD) was a prolific Early Christianity, early Christian author from Roman Carthage, Carthage in the Africa (Roman province), Roman province of Africa. He was the first Christian author to produce an extensive co ...

, Athenagoras of Athens, and

Clement of Alexandria Titus Flavius Clemens, also known as Clement of Alexandria (; – ), was a Christian theology, Christian theologian and philosopher who taught at the Catechetical School of Alexandria. Among his pupils were Origen and Alexander of Jerusalem. A ...

believed that ineffability is a property of God.. Quote: "For Athenagoras and Tertullian, God is the truly real, one, eternal or timeless, ineffable and impassible...If it is supposed that biblical texts and Greek sources have similar meaning, Clement described God as invisible, ineffable, inexpressible by human concepts, indivisible, infinite, bearing no figure, time, movement, place or name."

References

{{reflist, 2 Religious philosophical concepts

In the Roman Catholic Church

See also

References