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Select Works of Plotinus · 350 of 752 · tr. Thomas Taylor

Select Works, Section 334

Section 14 14. Of the corporeal thus brought into being by Nature the elemental materials of things are its very produce, but how do animal and vegetable forms stand to it? Are we to think of them as containers of Nature present within them? Light goes away and the air contains no trace of it, for light and air remain each itself, never coalescing: is this the relation of Nature to the formed object? It is rather that existing between fire and the object it has warmed: the fire withdrawn, there remains a certain warmth, distinct from that in the fire, a property, so to speak, of the object warmed. For the shape which Nature imparts to what it has moulded must be recognized as a form quite distinct from Nature itself, though it remains a question to be examined whether besides this [specific] form there is also an intermediary, a link connecting it with Nature, the general principle. The difference between Nature and the Wisdom described as dwelling in the All has been sufficiently dealt with.
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Themes
Divine Providencetheology

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 text focuses on the 'administration of the kosmos' and how the administrator follows Nature rather than deliberation, defining the active ordering of the universe.

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Divine Simplicitytheology

The doctrine that God has no parts, divisions, or composite attributes; pure undivided being.

The administrator acts on the basis of principle without calculation or deliberation, implying a simple and undivided mode of operation.

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Emanation Hierarchycosmology

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] It describes how all Kinds in the universe are dominated by a single Kind from which they develop and grow out.

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Living Godtheology

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

[auto] The text describes the cosmic administrator (Nature/Soul) as acting dynamically like a living organism rather than through mechanical calculation.

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Logoscosmology

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

The passage references an internal 'principle' that determines action without deliberation, aligning with the concept of divine reason.

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Unity Of Beingtheology

The doctrine that all existence is ultimately one substance or one divine reality; non-duality as a theological claim.

[auto] The passage centrally argues that the cosmos is a 'living unit' where all members are circumscribed by one Soul and dominated by one Kind.

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Related passages · 5 parallels
christian_mysticism|Pseudo-Dionysius: The Divine Names|Chapter 2, Section 1a
65 CHAPTER II Concerning the Undifferencing and the Differentiation in Divinity, and the Nature of Divine Unification and Differentiation. 166 166 περὶ ἡνωμένης καὶ διακεκριμένης θεολογίας καὶ τίς ἡ θεία ἕνωσις καὶ διάκρισις. I. ’ Tis th…”
Shared concept: Divine Simplicity — The doctrine that God has no parts, divisions, or composite attributes; pure undivided being. (derived)
christian_mysticism|The Life and Doctrines of Jacob Boehme|Chapter 7 (part 4)
28.) "In Paradise the substance of the divine world penetrated the substance belonging to time, comparable to the power of the sun penetrating a fruit growing on a tree, and endowing it with such qualities as render it lovely to the sight a…”
Shared concept: Logos — The divine reason, word, or ordering principle through which the universe was created; mediates between the transcendent God and the material world. (derived)
christian_mysticism|Pseudo-Dionysius: The Divine Names|Chapter 2, Section 1l
166 περὶ ἡνωμένης καὶ διακεκριμένης θεολογίας καὶ τίς ἡ θεία ἕνωσις καὶ διάκρισις. 167 The point of this section is that God’s Nature is not a sum total of separate Attributes. Therefore when we say that the Scriptural titles of God are o…”
Shared concept: Divine Simplicity — The doctrine that God has no parts, divisions, or composite attributes; pure undivided being. (derived)
jewish_mysticism|The Kabbalah Unveiled|Introduction, Section 1c
The Mantuan Codex terms this the sixth conformation of Macroprosopus, and refers it, as in the case of the fourth conformation, to the primal idea of the Sephira Netzach, victory.] 15. Therein are His two nostrils like mighty galleries, wh…”
Shared concept: Logos — The divine reason, word, or ordering principle through which the universe was created; mediates between the transcendent God and the material world. (derived)
christian_mysticism|The Life and Doctrines of Jacob Boehme|Chapter 4 (part 1)
p. 89 CHAPTER IV. CREATION. Everything we see in nature is manifested truth; only we are not able to recognise it as such, unless the truth is manifest within ourselves. God is the supreme, fundamental, universal, self-existent eternal…”
Shared concept: Unity Of Being — The doctrine that all existence is ultimately one substance or one divine reality; non-duality as a theological claim. (derived)