Plotinus

The metaphysics of Plotinus begins with a Holy Trinity: The One, Spirit and Soul. These three are not
equal, like the Persons of the Christian Trinity; the One is supreme, Spirit comes next, and Soul last.

The One is somewhat shadowy. It is sometimes called God, sometimes the Good; it transcends Being,
which is the first sequent upon the One. We must not attribute predicates to it, but only say "It is." (This
is reminiscent of Parmenides.) It would be a mistake to speak of God as "the All," because God
transcends the All. God is present through all things. The One can be present without any coming: "while
it is nowhere, nowhere is it not." Although the One is sometimes spoken of as the Good, we are also told
that it precedes both the Good and the Beautiful. †Sometimes, the One appears to resemble
Aristotle's God; we are told that God has no need of his derivatives, and ignores the created world. The
One is indefinable, and in regard to it there is more truth in silence than in any words whatever.

For Plotinus, the One is the source of life. It is a perfect thing without any limitations. It is so
unlimited, it can’t even be described other than to say that it is indescribable. This is known as
negative theology, that one can only know what the divine isn’t, and not what it is. This One
represents the unity in the world before there is any distinction between this or that, subject and
object, man and God. The One transcends the world as this perfect unity, which exists in
perpetual self-contemplation. By understanding that there is a One, and not that the world was
created by some intelligent and intentional designer, we can start to identify with our higher
nature. Plotinus emphasized on God being the One Beyond Being through explaining three phenomena:

Finitely Bound Character of Being

Being” is derived from and applies to things of sense experience: the realm of finite, individual, changing
things. God is necessarily above the finite things of sense experience and so must be above being.

Unity of God

Since multiplicity is a feature of finite things, God must be one. God is the One, since God is not a single
or individual thing, nor can God be divided into parts.

Via Negativa

Nothing can be positively predicated of God since this would entail multiplicity (substance and
properties). We can only deny of God things that are true of finite things. Immaterial = not material; one
= not many; eternal = not temporal, etc.

We now come to the Second Person, whom Plotinus calls nous also referred as "mind”. Nous has the
One and itself as the object of immediate apprehension. Nous contains the Forms.

Nous, we are told, is the image of the One; it is engendered because the One, in its self-quest, has
vision; this seeing is nous. This is a difficult conception. A Being without parts, Plotinus says, may know
itself; in this case, the seer and the seen are one. In God, who is conceived, as by Plato, on the analogy
of the sun, the light-giver and what is lit are the same. Pursuing the analogy, now may be considered as
the light by which the One sees itself. It is possible for us to know the Divine Mind, which we forget
through self-will. To know the Divine Mind, we must study our own soul when it is most god-like: we
must put aside the body, and the part of the soul that moulded the body, and "sense with desires and
impulses and every such futility;" what is then left is an image of the Divine Intellect.

From the One, a next level of being was emanated which he called the realm of Intelligence. Intelligence
is the aspect of reality where everything is understood in terms of Forms, Plato’s Forms. For example,
Intelligence consists of the Forms of Beauty and Truth and Justice and the Good. The Intelligence
represents our intuition, the understanding of these Forms that underlie the things of the world and
make up their eternal nature.

We stand towards the Supreme when we hold nous pure; we know the Divine Mind within, that which
gives Being and all else of that order: but we know, too, that other, know that it is none of these, but a
nobler principle than anything we know as Being; fuller and greater; above reason, mind, and feeling;
conferring these powers, not to be confounded with them

Thus when we are "divinely possessed and inspired" we see not only nous, but also the One. When we
are thus in contact with the Divine, we cannot reason or express the vision in words; this comes later.

We may know we have had the vision when the Soul has suddenly taken light. This light is from the
Supreme and is the Supreme; we may believe in the Presence when, like that other God on the call of a
certain man, He comes bringing light; the light is the proof of the advent. Thus, the Soul unlit remains
without that vision; lit, it possesses what it sought. And this is the true end set before the Soul, to take
that light, to see the Supreme by the Supreme and not by the light of any other principle--to see the
Supreme which is also the means to the vision; for that which illumines the Soul is that which it is to see
just as it is by the sun's own light that we see the sun.

The experience of "ecstasy" (standing outside one's own body) happened frequently to Plotinus:

Many times it has happened: Lifted out of the body into myself; becoming external to all other things
and self-encentered; beholding a marvellous beauty; then, more than ever, assured of community with
the loftiest order; enacting the noblest life, acquiring identity with the divine; stationing within It by
having attained that activity; poised above whatsoever in the Intellectual is less than the Supreme: yet,
there comes the moment of descent from intellection to reasoning, and after that sojourn in the divine, I
ask myself how it happens that I can now be descending, and how did the Soul ever enter into my body,
the Soul which even within the body, is the high thing it has shown itself to be.

This brings us to Soul, the third and lowest member of the Trinity. Soul, though inferior to nous, is the
author of all living things; it made the sun and moon and stars, and the whole visible world. It is the
offspring of the Divine Intellect. It is double: there is an inner soul, intent on nous, and another, which
faces the external. The latter is associated with a downward movement, in which the Soul generates its
image, which is Nature and the world of sense. The Stoics had identified Nature with God, but Plotinus
regards it as the lowest sphere, something emanating from the Soul when it forgets to look upward
towards nous. This might suggest the Gnostic view that the visible world is evil, but Plotinus does not
take this view. The visible world is beautiful, and is the abode of blessed spirits; it is only less good than
the intellectual world. The World Soul is the link between Nous and the sensible world.

There is a higher soul, and a lower soul. The higher soul, man’s higher nature, remains in
contemplation of the Forms in the realm of Intelligence. The lower soul, man’s lower nature, is
contained in the world of senses and matter. The soul is the place where rational thought occurs,
however, because the lower aspect of the soul is contained in the world of nature, emotions and
other such things can cause us to act irrationally. Matter, lacking divine being, is therefore the
source of evil and the reason why we fall into error.

In this way, Plotinus is able to explain both why the world is the way it is, for example why there
is evil in the world (in philosophy known as the Problem of Evil or theodicy), and he is also able
to provide a path to enlightenment and salvation. When man forgets his true nature, his higher
self, and instead focus his energies exclusively on things in the material world, he is lost.

When one focuses on his higher nature, he is able to progressively identify with his higher soul,
with Intelligence, and with the transcendent One. Moral virtue is important (i.e. doing good
things in the world) because it allows one to be at peace with himself and therefore in a position
to contemplate/think of/examine/look at the higher realities of the world.

He believes that Matter is created by Soul, and has no independent reality. Every Soul has its hour;
when that strikes, it descends, and enters the body suitable to it. When the soul leaves the body, it must
enter another body if it has been sinful, for justice requires that it should be punished. If, in this life, you
have murdered your mother, you will, in the next life, be a woman, and be murdered by your son. Sin
must be punished; but the punishment happens naturally, through the restless driving of the sinner's
errors. Common to both Plato and Pythagoras, as well as certain Indian philosophies, Plotinus
believed in reincarnation. He explains that depending on where one’s focus is, one will be
reincarnated in one of several different life forms. If one is focused solely on material concerns,
they will be reincarnated as an animal or even a plant. If they focus on what is rational, they will
come back as a human being. And if they are able to identify with Intelligence, the realm of
Forms, they can escape this cycle of reincarnation and unite with the One.