Chapter 11, Section 1d

Now, since thou hast, on a previous occasion, sent me an epistle asking what I mean by Very Being Itself, Very Life Itself, Very Wisdom Itself: and since thou saidst thou couldst not understand why sometimes I call God “Life” and sometimes the “Fount of Life”: I have thought it necessary, holy man of God, to solve for thee this question also which hath arisen between us. In the first place, to repeat again what hath often been said before, there is no contradiction between calling God “Life” or “Power” and “Fount of Life, Peace, or Power.” 477 477 Absolute Existence or Life, etc., is in God super-essentially, and timelessly emanates from Him. It is in Him as a Super-Essence and projected from Him as an Essence. The former titles are derived from forms of existence, and especially from the primary forms, 478 478 i. e. The angels, who, being the highest creatures, possess Existence, Life, Peace, Power, etc., in the greatest degree. and are applied to Him because all existences come forth from Him; the latter titles are given Him because in a superessential manner He transcends all things, even the 179 primary existences. 479 479 The titles “Absolute Life,” etc., correspond to the Via Affirmativa, and the titles “Cause of Absolute Life,” etc., to the Via Negativa. “But,” thou wilt say, “what mean we at all by Very Being and Very Life and those things to which we ascribe an Ultimate Existence derived primarily from God?” We reply as follows: “This matter is not crooked, but straightforward, and the explanation thereof is easy. The Very Existence underlying the existence of all things is not some Divine or Angelic Being (for only That Which is Super-Essential can be the Principle, the Being and the Cause of all Existences and of Very Existence Itself) 480 480 The Godhead causes: (1) the particular existent thing, (2) the ultimate fact of Existence, i. e. Absolute Existence. The Exemplars are in the Godhead and not in the emanating Absolute Existence. nor is It any life-producing Deity other than the Supra-Divine Life which is the Cause of all living things and of Very Life, 481 481 See last note. nor, in short, is It identical with any such originative and creative Essences and Substances of things as men in their rash folly call “gods” and “creators” of the world, though neither had these men themselves any true and proper knowledge of such beings nor had their fathers. In fact, such beings did not exist. 482 482 Perhaps under the pretence of attacking Paganism D. is really aiming his shafts against Manicheism or some Gnostic heresy current in his day. Our meaning is different: “Very Being,” “Very Life,” “Very Godhead” are titles which in an Originating Divine and Causal sense we apply to the One Transcendent Origin and Cause of all things, but we also apply the terms in a derivative sense to the Providential Manifestations of Power derived from the Unparticipated God, i. e. to the Infusion of Very Being, Very Life, and Very Godhead, which so transmutes the creatures where each, according to its nature, participates therein, that these obtain the 180 qualities and names: “Existent,” “Living,” “Divinely Possessed,” etc. 483 483 (1) God possesses and is Absolute Being, Absolute Life, etc. (2) He pours forth Absolute Being that the creatures may share it and so exist and be ennobled.