ABSTRACT
The Doctrine of the Triplex Via is central to the Christian mystical tradition. Encountering its origins in the De Divinis Nominibus of Dionysius the Areopagite and reaching its apotheosis in the tradition of St. John of the Cross, the Triplex Via in St. Thomas Aquinas is a privileged instance of his transcendence of Aristotelian essentialism. St. The teaching combines epistemological and metaphysical considerations because it insists that whatever intelligibility man affirms of God is in strict proportion to the radical inscrutability of His Being. The thesis advanced in this note argues that the Triplex Via is an indispensable methodological principle for the future progress of metaphysics. St. Thomas Aquinas worked the Triplex Via into two specifically epistemological dimensions of his own teaching. The act of conceptualizing issuing into simple understanding, intentionally reiterates natures or essences. The second epistemological consideration is Aquinas' insistence that only judgment grasps existent reality.
