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Gerson PlotinussMetaphysicsEmanation 1993
Gerson PlotinussMetaphysicsEmanation 1993
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access to The Review of Metaphysics
For the soul now knows that these things must be, but longs to answer
the question repeatedly discussed also by the ancient philosophers,
how from the One, if it is such as we say it is, anything else, whether
a multiplicity or a dyad or a number, came into existence, and why it
did not on the contrary remain by itself, but such a great multiplicity
flowed [e?eppvr)] from it as that which is seen to exist in beings, but
which we think it right to refer back to the One. (5.1.6.2-8)1
This, we may say, is the first act of generation: the One, perfect because
it seeks nothing, has nothing, and needs nothing, overflows
[virepeppvrj], as it were, and its superabundance makes something other
than itself. (5.2.1.5-10)
Indeed, Plotinus does say that what exists does so necessarily and
not as a result of the discursive reasoning (XoyLapos) of the ?pxy of
all.7 By contrast, Aquinas says in many places that Deus produxit
creaturas, non ex necessitate, sed per intellectum et vol?ntateme Of
course, Aquinas also says that God's knowledge is not discursive,
and one of the reasons for this is that discursive knowing implies
imperfection.9 But Plotinus, too, says that the One is perfect and
that it acts according to its will (?ovXyats).10 So, whereas Aquinas
contrasts the alternatives of acting by necessity and acting by will
(and intellect), Plotinus contrasts acting by necessity and acting on
the basis of discursive reasoning. This should lead us to conclude
that the "necessity" as attributed to creation by Plotinus and "ne
cessity" as denied of God's acting by Aquinas do not mean the
same thing.
In fact, there are at least two reasons why the necessary exis
tence of things does not entail that the One acts by necessity. First,
the term ap?yny in Plotinus implies constraint from outside. But
there is nothing outside the One and it is constrained by nothing.
Second, the putative necessity by which the One acts cannot be really
distinct from the One or indeed from its will, for this would negate
its simplicity. So to say that the One acts by necessity could mean
nothing else but that it acts according to its will. Another, albeit
esoteric, facet of this second reason is that if the One acted by a
necessity really distinct from it, then this would set up, counter to
Plotinus's express argument, a real relation between the One and
what it produces.11 This would be so because if there is something
really distinct from the One, then the One is limited in relation to
it; and what prevents the One from being really related to anything,
is that it is unqualifiedly unlimited. Thus, it seems that if "neces -
sity" is understood as constraint ab extra, then the One does not act
of necessity. Since Aquinas's God does not act by this kind of ne
cessity either, we can hardly use it to contrast Plotinus's metaphysics
with Thomistic creation metaphysics.
This [vois], when it has come into being, turns back upon the One and
is filled, and becomes Intellect by looking towards it. Its halt and
turning towards the One constitutes being, its gaze upon the One,
Intellect. Since it halts and turns towards the One that it may see,
it becomes at once Intellect and being. Resembling the One thus,
Intellect produces in the same way, pouring forth a multiple power?
this is a likeness of it?just as that which was before it poured it
forth. This activity springing from the substance of Intellect is Soul,
which comes to be this while Intellect abides unchanged: for Intellect
too comes into being while that which is before it abides unchanged.
But Soul does not abide unchanged when it produces: it is moved and
so brings forth an image. (5.2.1.10-19)17
30 Symposium 206b.
31 Cf. Ibid., 212a.
32 For the documentation of the use of this principle in ancient Greek
philosophy in and before Plotinus see Klaus Kremer, "Barium est diffusivum
sui Ein Beitrag zum Verh?ltnis von Neuplatonismus und Christentum,"
in Aufstieg und Niedergang der r?mischen Welt, ed. Wolfgang Haase and
Hildegard Temporini, teil 2, bd. 36.2 (New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1987),
994-1032, esp. 1002-11.
33 Cf. Enneads 5.5.6.4, 5.5.11.2-3, 6.7.32.9.
epepyeia that is ovala, not beyond epepyeia tout court. For, of course,
that the One is beyond ovala does not mean that it is beyond existence
or being altogether. Suggestions to the contrary are just misun
derstandings of Plotinus's so-called negative theology. What Plo
tinus rejects in reference to the One is language that implies lim
itedness or complexity.
We must suppose that at this point in the reasoning Plotinus
had to ask himself whether or not epepyeia was so tied to ovala that
to attribute it to the One was wrong. There is a text which clearly
indicates his answer.
It is not too difficult to see why this must be so. The reasoning
leading to the positing of an ap\y of all in the first place is reasoning
from effect to cause.35 The first cause is not an essential cause, for
that role devolves upon ovala, which does not explain the datum that
the One is needed to explain. The only kind of cause that the first
cause can be is an efficient cause. Thus, for the One to be the
apxy of all it cannot be deprived of evepyeia. To deny epepyeia of it
would be to deny causal efficacy to it. For being an efficient cause
means acting as an efficient cause.
Arguing in this way, we reach a primary epepyeia, but we do
not yet have the premise that distinguishes its causal activity
according to a per accidens or a per se ordered series. One
might suppose, that is, that the epepyeia e/c rys ovalas of the
One is just povs alone. This, however, would imply a kind of
limitedness in the One: its causal activity operates so far and no
further. Yet there is nothing in the One to account for this
limitedness; indeed, everything said of the One speaks against
it. Another way, albeit rhetorical, of making the same point is
to ask, Why should the One stop here, or here? Must not it operate
. . . because it [the One] is not enslaved to itself, but is only itself and
really itself, while every other thing is itself and something else.
(6.8.21.32-3)
But where absolute substance [avroovala] [the One] is completely what
it is, and it is not one thing and its substance [ovala] another, what it
is it is also master of, and is no longer to be referred to another insofar
as it is and insofar as it is substance. (6.8.12.14-7)
But if it [the One] is needed for the existence of each and every sub
stance [eis ovalas eKaarrjs virbaraaiv]?for there is nothing which is
which is not one?it would also exist before substance and as gener
ating substance. For this reason also it is one-being [ev op], but not
first being and then one; for in that which was being and also one
there would be many . . . (6.6.13.49-53)37
Note that in the last text it is said that the One is needed for the
existence of every ovala, and that the reason for this is that there
is nothing which is not one. Since the One is unqualifiedly simple,
the immediate inference is that the oneness and the existence re
ceived from the One are the same thing. Thus, it is false to suppose
as some have that if the existence of things other than the One is
to be accounted for at all, then that is to be done otherwise than by
the One, for the One is simply and solely the cause of oneness. Per
haps a salutary reminder in this regard is that "One" is no more of
a correct description of the apxy of all than is any other description,
including, I must add, "apxy of all." So, the One is the cause of the
existence of ovala. As is seen in the second text, there is no dis
tinction within the One between what it is and that it is, between
its essence and existence, if you will. By contrast, in everything
other than the One, such a distinction needs to be made. The dis
tinction will be a real, minor one in Scholastic terminology, but that
is not my main point here. Rather, I am concerned to show that in
these texts what is presumed is a distinction between that which is
the proper effect of the One's causal activity, namely, existence, and
the recipient of this endowment, which is strictly and literally
ovala. But ovala apart from existence has no reality for Plotinus;
it is eternally in possession of its endowment. By "being" I mean
whatever it is that is in possession of existence, an existence really
distinct from "what" it is.
With the distinction between existence and being, we can see
the problem facing Plotinus. On the one hand, ovala or povs must
be an apxy distinct from the One, for the apxy of essence must be
sufficiently complex to serve as the guarantor of all eternal truths.
On the other hand, if the One is to be the apxy of all, ovala must be
subordinated to it. Indeed, it is, but only by having its existence
caused by the One. Ovala itself is a distinct apxy- If the One were
understood as the cause of being as opposed to the cause of existence,
it would assume an illicit complexity. In one place he does actu
ally say that the One has all forms in itself "indistinctly" (py
biaKeKpipepa).ss In fact, the reason given for the One's having the
ability to give existence to everything is just that it has everything
in it "beforehand." It must have everything indistinctly, however,
because otherwise this would compromise its simplicity.
Such language encourages the view that the Forms are emi
nently as well as virtually in the One. This view obscures the specific
causality that the One exercises: for it suggests that the One give
essence as well as existence to povs. If this were so, one might then
suppose that povs does the same for what is below it. Against such
a view are the texts in which Plotinus says that "there is no necessity
for something to have what it gives," and "the form is in that which
is shaped (that is, povs), but the shaper was shapeless."39 How then
can we reconcile the indistinct existence of Forms in the One with
the claim that it does not have them?
Let us recall that povs eternally achieves its good by contem
plating the Forms with which it is identical. The indistinct exis
tence of Forms in the One cannot be a superior mode of existence
for these Forms for several reasons. First, povs is the apxy of Forms.
Second, the Forms in povs are not an image of Forms in the One. If
they were, then povs would not have knowledge of Forms, but only
of images. Finally, indistinct Forms are not Forms at all, for the
entire point of positing Forms in the first place is to explain distinct
intelligible contents in the sensible world. If then povs achieves its
good by contemplating Forms, can we give any meaning to that good
achieved over and above povs itself? Yes, it is nothing but perfect
noncomposite being, that is, existence. Forms are not an image of
the One; the divided existence of povs is such an image. The perfect
simplicity of the One prevents it from having the Forms eminently.
But the fact that the goodness in the life of povs is identified with
imperfect oneness makes the Good or the One over and above it a
necessary superordinate principle.
The problem of the equal versus subordinate status of povs in
relation to the One comes plainly to the fore when we ask about the
cause of the being of everything else, especially everything else below
ypvxy, which is of course another apxy and the source of an analogous
problem. When Plotinus analyzes the being of things in the world
he will analyze them into essence or image of essence and existence,
positing the apxy of each as povs and One, respectively. That is, the
One's proper effect here is evident solely as the existence of things,
not their ovala, which derives from the second apxy> The One, then,
is represented as primary cause of existence, but ovala is the