Plotinos: Complete Works, v. 3: In Chronological Order, Grouped in Four PeriodsPlotinus
Philosophy
Plotinos: Complete Works, v. 3: In Chronological Order, Grouped in Four Periods
Plotinus
Plotinus
(Habitually) we are led to ask these questions about the nature (of
the divinity) chiefly because we conceive of space and location as
a chaos, into which space and location, that is either presented to
us by our imagination, or that really exists, we later introduce the
first Principle. This introduction amounts to a question whence and
how He came. We then treat Him as a stranger, and we wonder why He is
present there, and what is His being; we usually assume He came up
out of an abyss, or that He fell from above. In order to evade these
questions, therefore, we shall have to remove from our conception
(of the divinity) all notion of locality, and not posit Him within
anything, neither conceiving of Him as eternally resting, and founded
within Himself, nor as if come from somewhere. We shall have to content
ourselves with thinking that He exists in the sense in which reasoning
forces us to admit His existence, or with persuading ourselves that
location, like everything else, is posterior to the Divinity, and that
it is even posterior to all things. Thus conceiving (of the Divinity)
as outside of all place, so far as we can conceive of Him, we are not
surrounding Him as it were within a circle, nor are we undertaking to
measure His greatness, nor are we attributing to Him either quantity
or quality; for He has no shape, not even an intelligible one; He is
not relative to anything, since His hypostatic form of existence is
contained within Himself, and before all else.
THE SUPREME, BEING WHAT HE IS, IS NOT PRODUCED BY CHANCE.
Since (the Divinity) is such, we certainly could not say that He is
what He is by chance. Such an assertion about Him is impossible,
inasmuch as we can speak of Him only by negations.[189] We shall
therefore have to say, not that He is what He is by chance; but that,
being what He is, He is not that by chance, since there is within Him
absolutely nothing contingent.
EVEN WE MAY BE SAID TO BE MASTERS OF OURSELVES; HOW MUCH MORE THE
SUPREME!
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