About

What God is Not is a Byzantine Catholic podcast about Divine Mystery, hosted by Father Michael O’Loughlin and Mother Natalia.

Father Michael and Mother Natalia started the podcast as part of the evangelization outreach of their non-profit, Photina. The goal is to reach people where they’re at, on audio devices, and call them to a deeper relationship with Christ. The episodes cover a variety of topics, all aimed at focusing our attention back to God.

The podcast title references apophatic theology, an acknowledgement of our human inadequacy to use language to completely and accurately describe God. Every analogy we make based on our limited human experiences fails to capture His essence. St. John of Damascus says that positive statements about God (cataphatic theology) reveal "not the nature, but the things around the nature."

Our logo was designed by Father Michael and Mike Schwalm, a friend of Father Michael’s. The hand on the left represents a priest giving a blessing, making the letters ICXC (the Greek abbreviation for Jesus Christ). The hand on the right represents the hand of God coming down from heaven. The negative space between the hands makes the shape of a Byzantine cross. The eight pointed star in the background is from the burning bush icon, where God speaks “I Am Who Am” from the burning bush. The eight pointed star is also a reference to the eighth day, the day of the resurrection.

Father Michael and Mother Natalia walk through our logo on one of our early  episodes, Still Relevant? Plus Logo. It starts around the 50-minute mark.