Neoplatonism

Anima Mundi, by Ed Perkins

  

NEOPLATONISM

A Very Brief Primer

Good Ol’ Plato

Plato is the father of Western philosophy. You may never have read his great works, perhaps you’ve never even heard of him, but I guarantee that you think like him. Plato (c. 428–347 BC) was the most famous student of Socrates (c. 470-399 BC)—who never left a written record of his own—and in turn the instructor of Aristotle (384–322 BC). Aristotle then tutored Alexander the Great (356-323 BC), who spread Hellenistic civilization across the known world. The majority of Western philosophy is but footnotes to Plato, and most of those footnotes were written by Aristotle.

The Plot Thickens

Centuries after the fact, Plotinus (c. AD 204-270), a student of the Platonic philosopher Ammonius Saccas (AD 175-243), compiled what he considered to be orthodox Platonism over and against misinterpreters of the tradition, e.g. Gnostics. Ammonius taught both pagans and Christians, and has been claimed by both traditions. Plotinus’ student Porphyry (AD 234-c. 305) edited and published Plotinus’ masterwork, The Six Enneads. We consider Plotinus to be the founder of Neoplatonism, but he surely would have identified himself as a traditional, stalwart Platonist.

One Above All

Plato’s writings refer obliquely to “the Good above the Demiurge,” the Good “beyond essence.” Demiurge here refers to the divine Artisan or Craftsman who shapes our world. Plotinus calls this Good the Monad, or the One, the Infinite Source of Being, as opposed to the many and finite beings known to us here below.

The One does not exist in the way that we do. Rather, the One is Existence itself, Being itself, the only true reality. Everything that exists only exists insofar as it participates in the One and draws being from Him. The Infinite One transcends categories of existence or nonexistence, indeed all categories of thought or understanding. Everything is brought forth, directly or indirectly, by the One, like a series of concentric emanations, or hypostases.

Derived existence, however, is subject to a law of diminishing completeness. The farther we are from God, the One, the Good, the less real or true we are. All derived existence has a longing for and draw towards the higher. We all desire to return to God.

In the Beginning Was the Word

The One emanates, or “throws out,” the Nous (Mind), which is the perfect Image of the One, and the archetype of all things. Everything exists in, through, and for, the Mind of God. The Nous is the highest sphere accessible to the human mind, pure intellect itself. The Nous is Plato’s Demiurge, who is the energy, or does the work, of manifesting and organizing Creation; hence, the divine Craftsman or Architect.

The Spirit Is Willing

As the One emanates the Mind, so the Mind emanates the World-Soul. Like the Monad and the Nous, the World-Soul is immaterial, i.e. spirit. The World-Soul permeates the created world, unified yet divisible, as the intermediary between the Mind and the physical realm. It embraces innumerable individual souls, which can either be ruled by the Nous, or turn away from intellect and lose themselves in things sensible and finite.

Plotinus is no dualist. So long as the Intellect guides the Soul, and the spirit the body, the world is fair and good, existing as a shadowy image of the upper world, i.e. higher levels of existence. Evil here is understood as parasitic; it has no substance, and does not exist in itself. Rather, evil is disharmony, a lack of good order, and thus an abuse of free will.

Homeward Bound

The Neoplatonic goal of life is for the soul to retrace its steps back to the One from whom we all descend. This is accomplished first by retuning to our true selves—the World-Soul at the root of each and every soul—through the practice of virtue. We obtain harmony of the soul; then rise to the intellect; then seek oneness with God.

As the One transcends thought (Nous), such henosis can only be found in contemplative ecstasy, bathed in the light of eternity. Plotinus claimed to experience this only a handful of times. Salvation and perfect happiness could be obtained through philosophy; where Plato spoke of reincarnation, Plotinus focused on return to the One. Neoplatonists synthesized these views: eventual salvation of all through many lifetimes.

Oh, My Gods

Later Neoplatonic philosophers proposed a litany of intermediate divine beings—gods, angels, demons, &c.—as mediators between the One and humanity. Some even spoke of “hypercosmic gods” between the One and the Nous. Iamblichus in particular focused on theurgy, or “divine work,” religious rituals that sought ecstatic union with the divine beyond the confines of rational thought. Think of the Christian Eucharist.

Neoplatonism heavily influenced Jewish Kabbalah, Islamic Sufism, and Christian theologians from Origen and the Cappadocian Fathers through St Augustine and Boethius to C.S. Lewis and David Bentley Hart. We can see how Platonic terminology inspired Christian understandings of the Trinity and theodicy (the problem of evil). The Byzantine Neoplatonist Gemistus Pletho introduced this philosophy to Cosimo de Medici, who then founded a new Platonic Academy in Renaissance Florence.

Imagine That

Neoplatonism posits that imagination bridges the gap between intellectual intuition and sensory impressions. The universe is a greater whole that can only be experienced metaphorically, through signs, symbols, images—the real value of magic, astrology, and mythology, together creating a chain of being between the mortal and the divine.