Christian theology has typically been a path of negation, denial, asceticism, celibacy – but that there was also a (neglected) path focused on romantic love, art and poetry, richness of imagery etc.

But it is hard to see how these could be equal, since they are so different – alternatives, yes, but in real life one or other of such vastly different paths is surely to be preferred; one or another must become the focus of societal aspiration and organization – one cannot aim both at being a celibate, solitary ascetic hermit or monk; and also at being a husband and father engaged with ‘the world’.

Mormonism has for a long time been advocating and practicing something pretty close to Positive Theology: a Christian ‘way’ focused on marriage, family and engagement and with no tradition of monasticism or the eremitic (reclusive) life.

Fundamentally I believe there are very different aspects of human psychology at work behind the positive and negative paths. The negative path aims at the relief of suffering, and the positive path at making life more fulfilling.

To feel the desire for the Christian negative path seems to me a desire to escape the sufferings of this world and live, instead, in a state of static bliss – absorbed in a permanent communion with God (who is, in essence, an abstract entity about which nothing positive may be asserted): doing nothing, simply being.

In the negative path, Love is seen as a sameness, a fusion of wills, the loss of barriers and all strangeness. And there is no sex – indeed there are no sexes: maleness and femaleness are lost.

To desire the positive path is to wish that the best things in life be amplified and sustained – it also stems from the concern that static bliss would (sooner or later) become boring; and the conviction that the only thing which is not, ultimately, boring is actual, real, other-persons.

The dyadic goal of Mormon exaltation can be seen in this light – the ultimate bliss is not the state of an individual soul in permanent communion with God, it is a man and woman in a permanent and divine Loving relationship at the centre of a network of loving relationships including God the Father and Jesus Christ (who are solid persons).

The difference between this version of the positive ideal and the negative ideal is profound – because in a permanent and eternal dyadic and sexual relationship between husband and wife, there would not be a desire for fusion and sameness but rather a delight in fundamental and complementary difference.

Edited from: http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/positive-and-negative-theology.html