Select Works, Section 198

Describing the divine only by negation—God transcends all positive categories and concepts; the via negativa.

The text defines Providence by what it is not, stating it 'cannot be a something reducing us to nothingness'.

A staged journey of the soul upward through heavenly realms or levels of being toward the divine source.

It states that man is ever being led upwards by the Divine devices to increase moral value.

Attributing human characteristics, emotions, or form to the divine; embodied divine imagery.

[auto] The passage explicitly rejects the idea that gods should lay aside divine life to direct daily concerns, critiquing human-like divine intervention.

Pronoia — the doctrine that the divine actively orders the unfolding of the cosmos and human affairs toward intelligible ends, against pure chance or blind necessity.

[auto] The passage explicitly defines the nature and function of Providence as preserving human nature without reducing it to nothingness.

A chain of divine beings or principles flowing downward from a single transcendent source (the One or the Father), each level less perfect than the one above.

[auto] The passage describes the Divine reaching forth to something other, implying a hierarchical flow from the transcendent source to the created universe.

The divine conceived as active, present, and dynamic—not an abstract principle but a personal responsive reality.

[auto] Providence is depicted as active and dynamic, having 'reached forth' to preside over the universe rather than remaining static.

The divine reason, word, or ordering principle through which the universe was created; mediates between the transcendent God and the material world.

[auto] The text refers to a 'providential law' that presides over human nature and dictates moral outcomes, functioning as an ordering principle.