P.D. Steeves, �Orthodox Tradition, The� in the Evangelical Dictionary of Theology
Relying principally on the sixth century writer Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite, Orthodox writers insisted that God in his nature is beyond any understanding. Humans can know nothing about the being of God, and therefore all theological statements must be of a negative, or apophactic, form: God is unchanging, immovable, infinite, etc. Even a seemingly positive affirmation has only negative significance; for example, to say, �God is Spirit,� is actually to affirm his noncorporeality. Theology, then, is not a science of God, which is impossible, but of his revelation. That which is known is not necessarily true of God but is what God chooses to disclose, although in that sense it is indeed true knowledge.
[Umberto Eco notes that it is better to call him, �Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, and I find that C.S. Lewis uses “Pseudo-Dionysius” in “Modern Theology and Biblical Criticism”.]
Now the concluding sentence of the quote from Steeves’ article is one that is rather difficult to accept. And if Matthew Winzer and Richard Muller are correct, the reformed scholastics have left us in no need of accepting it. Thus, in Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics, v.1, p.229 Muller writes:
…the theology of the Reformation recognized not only that God is distinct from his revelation and that the one who reveals cannot be fully comprehended in the revelation, but also that the revelation, given in a finite and understandable form, must truly rest on the eternal truth of God: this is the fundamental message and intention of the distinction between archetypal and ectypal theology.
Ectypal theology is not archetypal theology: ectypal theology is certainly accomodated theology; but it is nonetheless true theology and speaks truly of God.