Negative theology or apophasis--the idea that God is best identified in terms of what we cannot know about him, in terms of "absence", "otherness", "difference"--has been influentiual in modern Christian thought, resonating as it does with secular notions of absence, otherness and difference developed in recent continental philosophy. Leading Christian thinkers now offer a range of important new perspectives on this tradition, both historical and contemporary, to show how a dimension of negativity has characterized not only traditional mysticism but most forms of Christian thought over the years.