Non-being as the inaccessibility of the higher to the lower: Derived from the first mode of non-being, in the order of Nature, the affirmation of the higher existence is the denial of the lower, and the denial of the lower existence is the affirmation of the higher. Anything is, in so far as it is ‘known by itself or by what is above it; it is not, in so far as it cannot be comprehended by what is below it. Non-being as all latent or seminal or potential existence: All men who will ever exist were potentially created in the first man; all plants that will ever exist now exist potentially in the seed of existing plants. But in this sense, actual existence is existence, and potential existence is non-existence. Non-being as that which is phenomenal and material: All that exists by generation as a form of matter in space and time, and is liable to increase and decrease. All this is not, in the full sense of being. Only what is solely comprehended by the intellect is real being. All else is appearance and not reality. Non-being as sin: This last mode of non-being belongs only to human nature. Man properly is in so far as he is in the image of God: in so far a he loses the image of God through sin, he is not. When is restored to him in Christ, he is again, as St. Paul the Apostle says: Who calleth the things that are not as though they were. Cataphatic and apophatic theology This dimension of Eriugena's theology consists largely of his direct intellectual inheritance from Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite. While the same predicate may rightly be affirmed and denied of God, the affirmation is metaphorical (metaphorice) yet truly indicative, the denial is literal (proprie). This depends upon the fact that every human thought involves a contrary, and God, as the Absolute, is beyond all oppositions, for He is the reconciliation and the resolution of contraries and tensions. Therefore, for Eriugena, God may be said to be essentia, as He is conceived to be the essence of all that is, yet strictly He is not essentia (of which the contrary is nihil) because God is beyond opposition, so he is more appropriately super-essentia. Similarly He is more-than-good and more-than-goodness, more-than-eternal, and more-than-eternity. The use of phrases like these is the attempt to unite the