Plotinus's Metaphysics: Emanation or Creation?

Author(s): Lloyd P. Gerson

Source: The Review of Metaphysics , Mar., 1993, Vol. 46, No. 3 (Mar., 1993), pp. 559-574
Published by: Philosophy Education Society Inc.

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.com/stable/20129375

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide
range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and
facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
https://about.jstor.org/terms

Philosophy Education Society Inc. is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend
access to The Review of Metaphysics

This content downloaded from

90.178.174.52 on Tue, 23 Jan 2024 11:48:51 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 PLOTINUS'S METAPHYSICS: EMANATION OR CREATION?
LLOYD P. GERSON

vJnE FREQUENTLY READS CASUAL REFERENCES to Neo-Platonic

metaphysics as emanationist. It is somewhat less common to find
analyses of the term "emanation" so used. In this paper I shall be
concerned solely with Plotinus. I hereby set aside all questions
regarding any common denominator one might suppose between
Plotinus and, say, Proclus.
There are several texts in the Enneads which employ noun and
verb forms of peco to describe the activity of the One in relation to
complex entities. For example,

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)

The first remark I wish to make about these passages is the

obvious one that to think of emanating or flowing in contrast to
creating is to make a sort of category mistake. For metaphors are
not properly contrasted with technical terminology.2 If one wants
convincing on this point, we need only recall that Aquinas sometimes

1 All translations are by A. H. Armstrong in the eight volume Loeb

edition of the works of Plotinus (Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
1966-88).
2 A similar point is made by Fernand Brunner, "Cr?ation et ?manation:
fragment de philosophie compar?e," Studia Philosophia 33 (1973): 33-63.

Review of Metaphysics 46 (March 1993): 559-574. Copyright ? 1993 by the Review of

Metaphysics

This content downloaded from

90.178.174.52 on Tue, 23 Jan 2024 11:48:51 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 560 LLOYD P. GERSON

uses the same metaphor in behalf of an explanation of creation, not

in contrast to it.3 Conceding this, there is still the reasonable sus
picion that some fundamental difference remains between Plotinus'
metaphysics and a creation metaphysics such as that of Aquinas.
I conjecture that the reason for this suspicion is that Plotinus is
supposed to be the faithful inheritor of the Parmenidean legacy
which lays down the axiom that ex nihilo nihilfit. Aquinas, however,
understands creation as ex nihilo. So it would seem just incorrect
to construe the metaphors of emanation in a manner which would
make Plotinus contradict that axiom.
This reasoning seems less cogent when we begin to explicate
the term ex nihilo; for one thing Aquinas does not mean by creatio
ex nihilo is temporal origin. That God is the creator of all Aquinas
believes he can demonstrate; that the world did not always exist is
held by faith alone.4 Thus, the philosophical core of the notion of
creation is causal dependence of being: Deus est causa universalis
totius esse. The proper effect of God's causal activity is the being
of everything.5 Let us compare this with a text of Plotinus:

But how is that One the principle of all things? Is it because as

principle it keeps them in being, making each one of them to be? Yes,
and because it caused them to be. (5.3.15.28-30)6

A good question for proponents of emanationism in Plotinus to ask

themselves at this point is how this passage and similar ones express
a noncreationist metaphysics.
One proposal sometimes made in order to differentiate a non
creationist from a creationist metaphysics is that in the former
creatures exist of necessity whereas in the latter they do not.

3 See, for example, Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae I, q. 45, a. 1:

"Sicut igitur generado hominis est ex non ente quod est non homo, ita
creatio, quae est emanatio totius esse, est ex non ente quod est nihil."
Heinrich D?rrie provides a useful survey of the literary uses of the language
of emanation in his "Emanation. Ein unphilosophisches Wort im sp?tan
tiken Denken," in Parusia, ed. Kurt Flasch (Frankfurt am Main: Minerva,
1960), 211-28.
4 See Summa theologiae I, q. 46, a. 2.
5 "Illud autem quod est proprius effectus Dei creantis, est illud quod
praesupponitur omnibus aliis, scilicet esse absolute"; Summa theologiae I,
q. 46, a. 5.
6 "ottoos be eneivo apxv r v iravro?v; ?pa, on avr? ou?ei ev enaarov
avTcov 7TOL7]aaaa elvac, rj koI otl virearrjaev avra." Cf. Enneads 3.8.10.1-2,
4.8.6.1-6, 5.3.17.11-14, 5.5.5.5-7, 6.7.42.11, 6.9.1.1-2.

This content downloaded from

90.178.174.52 on Tue, 23 Jan 2024 11:48:51 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
PLOTINUS'S METAPHYSICS 561

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.

7 Cf. Enneads 3.2.3.1-5.

8 Cf. Summa theologiae I, q. 19, a. 4; q. 25, a. 5; q. 28, a. 1, ad 3.
9 Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra gentiles 1.57.
10 Enneads 6.8.13.7-8, 53
11 "bel be oXcos irpbs ovbev avrbv Xeyeiv eari y?p oirep earl nal irpb
avr p' eirel kol? to eariv afyaipovpev, coore nal to wpbs r? ovTa ow o-ovv. . .";
Enneads 6.8.8.13-15.

This content downloaded from

90.178.174.52 on Tue, 23 Jan 2024 11:48:51 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
562 LLOYD P. GERSON

It is sometimes supposed that what distinguishes an emana

tionist metaphysics is an account of production by the first principle
whereby this principle is emptied of all that is in it.12 Alternatively,
one may think of Russian dolls or a telescoped antenna where what
is somehow contained within the whole is separated out from it.
There are certainly many texts in which Plotinus says that every
thing is contained within the One.13 But none of these texts, or
indeed no other that I know of, claims that anything is ever "outside"
of the One or separated off from it. Thus, the relation between the
One and everything else cannot be construed according to the above
metaphors, where what is suggested is a two-phase process: first,
everything is in the One, and second, everything is not in the One,
but emptied out of or unfolded from it.14
A somewhat more serious and complex suggestion for charac
terizing an emanationist metaphysics is to construe its account of
causal dependence according to the model of a per accidens series.
In a per accidens causal series, as opposed to a per se causal series,
A is the cause of B, B is the cause of C, and so on. In a per se causal
series, A would be the cause of C, and B would be an instrument of
^4's causal activity. For example, the tree of Jesse is a per accidens
causal series: Jesse begat David who begat Solomon and so on. A
man causing a traffic accident with his car is an example of a per
se causally ordered series. Applying this distinction to Plotinus's
claims about the causal activity of the One, we might interpret him
to mean that the causality is according to a per accidens ordered
series. Thus, the One would cause povs to be, povs would cause soul
to be, and soul would presumably cause nature to be.15

12 Cf. C. P. Gorman, "Freedom in the God of Plotinus," New Scholas

ticism 14 (1940): 379-405. Gorman uses the phrase "progressive unfolding
of reality" to characterize the One's relation to its products (p. 404).
13 For example, see Enneads 5.5.9, 6.4.2, 6.5.1.26.
14 Cf. H. F. M?ller, "Ist die Metaphysik des Plotins ein Emanations
system?" Hermes 48 (1914): esp. 416-22, where this interpretation is de
cisively refuted. More recently, in the same vein, see G. Reale, "I fonda
menti della metaf?sica di Plotino e la struttura della processione," in
Graceful Reason, ed. Lloyd P. Gerson (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Me
dieval Studies, 1983), esp. 153-8.
15 "Just as the One overflows into Mind and Mind into Soul and Soul
into the world, so the latent powers of Soul in their final exhaustion pass
over into blank nothingness, or, in other words, beget or produce it"; B. A.
G. Fuller, The Problem of Evil in Plotinus (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni
versity Press, 1912), 306.

This content downloaded from

90.178.174.52 on Tue, 23 Jan 2024 11:48:51 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
PLOTINUS'S METAPHYSICS 563

We need to distinguish two different questions here. The first

question is whether Plotinus's account of metaphysical causality is
per accidens or per se, assuming that these alternatives are exhaus
tive. The second question is whether the selected alternative does
indeed distinguish an emanationist from a creationist metaphysics.
Regarding this question, Aquinas is clear that God's creative activity
does not operate instrumentally.16 So, were we to opt for a per
accidens causal series, we should not therefore conclude that a per
se ordered series is a differentia of a creation metaphysics. Let us
turn now to the evidence pertaining to an answer to the first question.
The main text supporting the interpretation of metaphysical
causality as a per accidens ordered series is a continuation of the
text cited above in which the term "emanating" appears:

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

If we employ the concept of a per accidens ordered causal series to

interpret this passage, the causal activity of the One is limited to
the production of povs. We could still say that without this first
production nothing else would be produced, but the existence of the
One would no longer be a necessary condition for the production of
soul anymore than the existence of the grandfather is a necessary
condition for the production of the grandson. Even if we insist that
the One exists necessarily, this existence is irrelevant to the causality
of the being of soul, which, in the putative per accidens series, is
attributed solely to povs.

16 "Unde non potest aliquid operari dispositive et instrumentaliter ad

hunc effectum, cum creatio non sit ex aliquo praesupposito quod possit
disponi per actionem instrumentalis agentis"; Summa theologian I, q. 45,
a. 5.
17 Cf. Enneads 4.8.6, 6.7.42.17-20.

This content downloaded from

90.178.174.52 on Tue, 23 Jan 2024 11:48:51 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
564 LLOYD P. GERSON

The obvious impediments to the endorsement of this interpre

tation are the many texts where Plotinus says that the One preserves
all things in being. It might be thought that the interpretation can
be retained if this preservation is construed as a counterfactual.18
Thus, the One preserves everything in being means that if per im
possible the One were to cease existing, then everything else would
cease existing as well. We can imagine if we like an Atlas holding
the earth aloft, an Atlas who is no part of earthly production, but
who could not simply disappear without his burden crashing down.
The problem with this construal is that it imports an unacceptable
complexity into the One's causal activity. It presumes that the One
is the cause of the being of povs and then operates differently in
conserving the being of povs and everything else. However the ac
tivity of the One may be understood, we cannot accept an interpre
tation which has it do two different kinds of things. How could we
make a distinction within the One to account for this? So, either
the One is the cause of the being of povs and everything else or it is
the cause of neither. But the latter alternative is excluded by
the texts.
Perhaps this line of argument will seem problematic. There
is, however, another argument against the per accidens interpre
tation which removes the possibility of construing preserving in
being differently from causing being. The apxy of povs is the ulti
mate explanation or cause of thinking, life, and ovala.19 It is suf
ficient at this point to note that it is obviously not the apxy of that
which it receives from the One, the apxy above it. Now if the One
is the apxy of the being or existence of povs, then in no case is povs
the apxy of the being or existence of anything else. If soul, for
example, receives not only life, thinking, and ovala from povs but
existence as well, then povs performs for soul the identical function
that the One performs for povs. Then the uniqueness of the apxy
of being, to say nothing of its primacy, would be destroyed. I take

18 There is some textual support provided for this in the conditional

clause at Enneads 3.8.10.1-2: rjs prj ovarjs ovb' av ra iravra.
19 For example, see Enneads 6.7.13.28-42. See also Pierre Hadot,
"Etre, Vie, Pens?e chez Plotin et avant Plotin," in Les sources de Platin
(Geneva: Fondation Hardt, 1960), 107-41. Hadot richly documents his
conclusion that "la triade ?tre-vie-pens?e r?v?le la structure de l'Intelli
gence."

This content downloaded from

90.178.174.52 on Tue, 23 Jan 2024 11:48:51 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
PLOTINUS'S METAPHYSICS 565

it that any interpretation that leads to this result is to be firmly

rejected.20
If, owing to these objections against an interpretation of the
metaphysical causality in Plotinus in terms of a per accidens series,
we opt for a per se ordered series, then the One is the sole cause of
the being of everything else and the role of the other principles is
at most instrumental. One of the central texts relevant to assessing
this proposal is also perhaps one of the texts most frequently thought
of as somehow expressing emanation:

All things which exist, as long as they remain in being, necessarily

produce from their own substances [ovalas], in dependence on their
present power, a surrounding reality [viroaraaiv] directed to what is
outside them, a kind of image of the archetypes from which it was
produced: fire produces the heat which comes from it; snow does not
only keep its cold inside itself. Perfumed things show this particularly
clearly. As long as they exist, something is diffused from themselves
around them, and what is near them enjoys their existence. And all
things when they come to perfection produce [yevva\, the One is always
perfect and therefore produces everlastingly; and that which it pro
duces is less than itself. (5.1.6.31-8)21

There are many, many important features in this passage. Of par

ticular interest to us is just what it is that the One produces. From
the above arguments, we can infer that the answer is not simply
povs. On the other hand, we must bear in mind that povs is indeed
a product of the One. It is in fact the "first" product, that which

20 At Enneads 5.2.1.14-15 Plotinus says that povs "makes likenesses

[r? opoia iroie?]" as does the One. Armstrong is wrong to translate this
as "produces in the same way." As the text goes on to make clear, the
point is that the relation of vovs to what is below it is analogous to the
relation of the One to vovs. The specific feature of the analogue is imagery
or copying. That is, the image of vovs is analogous to the image of the
One. This does not make vovs the cause of existence of anything.
21 Cf. Enneads 4.8.6.8-12, 5.4.1.27-34, 6.8.18.51. I doubt that 5.3.12.20ff,
which seems to hold that the irp rri evepyeia is vovs, should be taken to
indicate that the distinction between first and second evepyeia does not
apply to the One. Rather, vovs is where the concept of evepyeia can be
applied without the qualification olov. The apxy vovs is the irp?rri evepyeia
of ovala. Against Hans B?chner (Plotins M?glichkeitslehre [Munich: Anton
Pustet, 1970], 99), Enneads 1.7.1.17-20 does not imply that there is no
evepyeia in the One. Rather, it implies that the evepyeia in the One, though
producing a secondary evepyeia, does not thereby erect a real relation be
tween the One and everything else.

This content downloaded from

90.178.174.52 on Tue, 23 Jan 2024 11:48:51 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
566 LLOYD P. GERSON

is eternally in closest proximity to the source of all.22 All we are

told in the present passage is that what is produced by the One is
inferior (eXarrop) to it.
In order to proceed further we need to adduce another text which
will guide us toward the goal:
In each and every thing there is an activity of the substance [evepyeia
tt]s ovalas] and there is an activity from the substance [evepyeia en
t?)s ovalas]; and that which is of the substance is each thing itself,
while the activity from the substance derives from the first one, and
must in everything be a consequence of it, different from the thing
itself: as in fire there is a heat which is the content of its substance,
and another which comes into being from that primary heat when
fire exercises the activity which is native [avpcjyvrov] to its substance
in abiding unchanged as fire. So it is also in the higher world; and
much more so there, while it [the One] abides in its own proper way
of life, the activity generated from the perfection in it and its coexistent
activity [avvovarjs evepyei?s] acquires existence [viroaraaiv], since it
comes from a great power, the greatest indeed of all, and arrives at
being and substance [to eivai nal ovalav], for that [the One] is beyond
being. That is the productive power [bvvapis] of all, and its product
is already all things [r? iravra]. (5.4.2.27-39)23

As will I hope become clear, there is no doctrine in Plotinus

which better illustrates his original use of his Platonic and Aris
totelian sources than the distinction between epepyeia rrjs ovalas and
epepyeia e/c rys ovalas. To begin with, the word epepyeia is apparently
of Aristotelian origin. There is no occurrence of the word form in
Plato. I would add, though this is perhaps a bit more contentious,
that the concept pair epepyeia-bvpapis is not clearly to be found in
Plato at all, though bvpapis does of course appear in the sense of
"power" rather than "potency."24 Nevertheless, the use to which
Plotinus puts the concept of epepyeia, particularly in reference to
the One, is most un-Aristotelian.
For Aristotle, the most perfect epepyeia in the universe is the
noetic activity of the unmoved mover.25 This activity of self-con
templation is the antithesis of an activity "in another"; and it is
precisely because the unmoved mover is perfect that its activity is

22 On the texts indicating gradation in the One's products, cf. Dominic

O'Meara, Structures hi?rarchiques dans la pens?e de Plotin (Leiden: E. J.
Brill, 1975), esp. 120-4.
23 Cf. Enneads 2.6.9.14-23,2.9.8.22-5,4.5.7.51-5,5.1.6.34,5.3.7.23,5.9.8.13,
6.2.22.24-9.
24 For example, Republic 509b9, in reference to the Form of the Good.
25 Cf. Metaphysics 1071bl9-20, 1072b26-7.

This content downloaded from

90.178.174.52 on Tue, 23 Jan 2024 11:48:51 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
PLOTINUS'S METAPHYSICS 567

unqualifiedly immanent. To have an actuality outside of itself would

mean that it had a potency in relation to that actuality and hence
that it is imperfect in some respect. Thus, insofar as the actuality
of an agent is in the movable, the agent is in potency to that actuality
even if it is itself the movable.26 Aristotle does in fact make a
distinction between something like an "internal" and an "external"
epepyeia, as in the case of sight, on the one hand, and building a
house on the other.27 But these are different species of epepyeia,
and there is no suggestion at all that an internal epepyeia has con
nected with it an external one necessarily. For example, what would
be the external epepyeia following necessarily upon seeing? So when
Plotinus makes the distinction between epepyeia rys ovalas and
epepyeia e/c rys ovalas he may reasonably be thought to be quite con
sciously diverging from Aristotle's use of the concept of epepyeia.
For a concept of external actualization we naturally look back
to Plato. There are at least three relevant passages. First, there
is the famous text regarding the Form of the Good which produces
knowability, existence, and being in the other Forms.28 Though this
text does not clearly distinguish between what the Form of the Good
is or does in itself and what it produces outside itself, the analogical
representation of it by the sun and the unique attributes it possesses,
such as being eireneipa rys ovalas, make it reasonable to conclude at
least that some such distinction is in harmony with Plato's intention.
The second relevant text is the description of the Demiurge in
the Timaeus. The Demiurge is good and so without grudgingness
(<f)6bpos).29 He desires that the world should be as much like himself
as possible. So he creates order out of chaos. Notice that in the
Demiurge benevolent desire cannot be capricious or transitory.
He is permanently well-disposed. But here one hesitates?well
disposed to what? Not to a nonexistent creation, nor to the inchoate
heaps of disordered quasi-elements which represent the necessity the
Demiurge must overcome. Reflecting on an answer to this question,
it is natural enough for Plotinus and indeed for an entire tradition
to surmise that the Demiurge or apxy of all or God or the gods are
essentially benevolent in the sense that their goodness is always

26 Cf. Physics 202al3-21.

27 Metaphysics 1050a23-9.
28 Republic 509b6-10.
29 Timaeus 29e.

This content downloaded from

90.178.174.52 on Tue, 23 Jan 2024 11:48:51 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
568 LLOYD P. GERSON

overflowing. Whether the result of this overflowing goodness is an

adjunct to a product or the product itself, the idea that bonum est
diffusivum sui can be traced back to this text.
The last text that should be mentioned is from the Symposium,
where Diotima declares that the epyop of love is birth in beauty.30
More precisely, all men love to possess the good everlastingly and
in their possession of it they produce beauty, particularly, as the
passage goes on to say, the beauty that is true virtue.31 So here,
though it is not goodness that is itself diffusive, it is association
with goodness that spontaneously, or better, naturally, produces.32
As suggestive as these three texts undoubtedly are, they do not
quite amount to the distinction between epepyeia rys ovalas and
epepyeia e/c tt]s ovalas as this is applied to the One. The Form of the
Good works exclusively on the other Forms; these other Forms are,
if anything, the causes of the being of their participants. This would
reflect the per accidens series we have already rejected. The
Demiurge, which in neither Plato nor Plotinus is equivalent to the
Good or One, quite explicitly works on a pr?existent chaos, whereas
for Plotinus there is no room for an independent apxy "from below."
So, the pressing question is not merely why Plotinus endorses the
axiom of the diffusiveness of goodness but why he reinterprets this,
using or perhaps misusing an Aristotelian concept.
I answer this question as follows. When Plotinus rejected the
primacy of povs as postulated by Aristotle, he thereby rejected the
primacy of ovala. Since ovala represents limitedness or distinctness
in nature, the immediate consequence is that the apxy of all is going
to be beyond ovala and so beyond limit.33 This much could be in
ferred alone from a reaffirmation of Plato's account of the Form of
the Good in opposition to Metaphysics 12. It is Aristotle who iden
tified primary ovala with epepyeia; it is Plotinus who reasoned that
if the apxy of all is beyond ovala, then it is beyond the kind of

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.

This content downloaded from

90.178.174.52 on Tue, 23 Jan 2024 11:48:51 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
PLOTINUS'S METAPHYSICS 569

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.

Nor should we be afraid to assume that the first activity [evepyeia] is

without substance [ovala], but posit this very fact as his, so to speak,
existence [virbaraaiv]. But if one posited an existence without activity,
the principle would be defective and the most perfect of all imperfect.
And if one adds activity one does not keep the One. If then the activity
is more perfect than the substance, and the first is most perfect, the
first will be activity. (6.8.20.9-16)34

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

34 Cf. Enneads 6.8.7.47-8, 6.8.13.7-8.

35 Cf. Ibid., 5.3.17.11-14; 5.3.15.12-13,28; 6.4.10.1-31; 6.7.23.22-4; 6.8.18.7.

This content downloaded from

90.178.174.52 on Tue, 23 Jan 2024 11:48:51 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
570 LLOYD P. GERSON

up to the limit of logical possibility?36 An unlimited or infi

nite evepyeia cannot, it seems, produce its proper effect
restrictedly.
If this is so, then the epepyeia e/c rfjs ovalas of the One is neither
povs alone nor just that which povs receives from the One. It is not
the former because povs or ovala does not as such have an ?pxy.
That is, essence does not have an essential cause. It is not the latter
because that would imply a limitation in the One. The epepyeia e/c
rys ovalas is rather the being of everything that can possess being,
from povs down to and including matter.
If this were the whole story, we could simply conclude that
Plotinus's metaphysics is creationist in the sense that the proper
effect of the first principle of all is the being of everything else. But
this would be an oversimplification. In rejecting a per accidens
ordered series for metaphysical causality, we still have before us
the alternative of a per se ordered series. As we have seen, according
to Aquinas at least, if a per se series involves instrumentality, then
it is not creationist. Surely the fact that povs and i/o>x?7 are ?pxal
in themselves should give us pause. In fact, I have hitherto sup
pressed an important distinction in this matter: that between being
and existence. To this I now turn.
I shall not now recount the philological evidence, which is in
any case ambiguous, though not as ambiguous as some would sup
pose. Several texts are, however, most revealing.

. . . 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

36 Cf. Enneads 5.5.12.44-50, where Plotinus bases the plenitude of cre

ation on the ungrudging nature of the One.
37 Cf. Enneads 5.5.3.25, 6.9.1.1-2.

This content downloaded from

90.178.174.52 on Tue, 23 Jan 2024 11:48:51 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
PLOTINUS'S METAPHYSICS 571

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.

38 Enneads 5.3.15.31. Cf. 5.2.1.1, 5.4.2.17, 6.7.32.12, 6.8.18.3, 6.8.21.24-5.

This content downloaded from

90.178.174.52 on Tue, 23 Jan 2024 11:48:51 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
572 LLOYD P. GERSON

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

39 Enneads 6.7.17.3-4, 17-18.

This content downloaded from

90.178.174.52 on Tue, 23 Jan 2024 11:48:51 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
PLOTINUS'S METAPHYSICS 573

instrumental cause of being. Since there is no being without ex

istence, the One's causal activity is completely instrumental, in
cluding even ovala itself, which as such does not require a cause
outside itself. In the being of ovala, the One uses ovala as an instru
ment. So also with everything else.
An objection may occur to some. Does not the instrumental
activity of ovala or povs place some constraint or limitation on the
One, counter to its purported unlimitedness as explained above?
This is an important objection, one which strikes a vital nerve. It
is precisely owing to a suspected denial of omnipotence in Christian
creation metaphysics, coming out of the Plotinian tradition, that
Aquinas refuses to join instrumentality with creation. I think that
the correct answer to this objection is to admit that it does place a
constraint upon the One, but to deny that it is the sort of constraint
that Plotinus means to deny in saying that the One is unlimited.
In endowing things with existence, the One is unlimited. It
does not run out of power or goodness. There is nothing that could
exist that does not. Yet what could exist is not the One's business.
That birds and bees can and do exist, that griffins could exist, but
do not, and that square circles cannot exist, are owing to facts about
ovala, to put it crudely. When the One produces existence, it uses
the template of ovala. Its causal power is a pure stream, flowing
out and over whatever it is that can receive it according to its own
nature.
No doubt Plotinus saw a certain advantage in instrumentalism.
For example, he did not see it so much as a limitation but as a way
to divest the One of responsibility for evil. The ultimate explanation
of evil is to be found in what things are, and for this the One is not
the apxy- Ironically perhaps, Plato would have found it easier to
assimilate ovala to the Good, but only at the cost of making matter
a separate ?pxy, independent of ovala. Yet Plotinus does come tan
talizingly close to undercutting the separateness of the ?pxy of
ovala when he says that all the Forms exist in the One indistinctly.
One may perhaps usefully compare this with Anaximander's aireipop,
which at least on Aristotle's testimony appears to be a unique
apxy in which all things are contained indistinctly and from which
all things come.40 Although Plotinus's One is obviously a more
sophisticated metaphysical principle that is the aireipop of

40 Cf. Physics 187a20-l.

This content downloaded from

90.178.174.52 on Tue, 23 Jan 2024 11:48:51 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
574 LLOYD P. GERSON

Anaximander, there must be something in the nature of ovala or in

the nature of the One which prevents Plotinus from collapsing the
former into the latter.
It is well to be clear about the alternatives facing the philosopher
who has arrived at this point. Either ovala, shorthand for the locus
of eternal truths, is a really distinct albeit subordinate apxy, or it
is merely a conceptually distinct description of the One. I think we
should resist concluding that Plotinus neatly accommodates both
alternatives when he calls the One oiop ovala. For this would be to
undervalue his unqualified insistence that ovala is an apxy- To re
ject the first, Plotinian, alternative is either to introduce real com
plexity into the One or to reduce all eternal truth to a single truth,
perhaps least misleadingly represented as "the One exists." I have
of course left aside the theological adaptation of the first alternative
wherein ovala becomes identified with the second person of the
Christian Trinity.
Returning to the question with which I began this paper, Is
Plotinus's metaphysics creationist or emanationist? if it is allowed
that instrumental creationism is a legitimate species of creationism,
then I think the answer is the former. If, on the other hand, one
insists that there is no common genus for a metaphysics that holds
that the existence of everything depends on the first principle and
a metaphysics that holds that the being of everything depends on
the first principle, then Plotinus's metaphysics is not accurately
called creationist. But it is not emanationist either. I do not have
a convenient label to offer for this alternative.

St. Michael's College, University of Toronto

This content downloaded from

90.178.174.52 on Tue, 23 Jan 2024 11:48:51 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms