Select Works, Section 358

A form of meditation that uses imagery, imagination, or symbolic thought rather than purely empty stillness.

The text describes the All as seeking or 'contemplates The Good' through its activity.

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

The author negates standard causal attributions, stating we cannot attribute causation to bodies or wills in the usual sense.

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.

The passage describes the cosmos as being under a 'law of reason' with 'harmony and ordinance' rather than haphazard chance.

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

The description of the being as a 'living unity' implies an undivided nature without composite parts or divisions.

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.

The text implies a structure where Reason-Principles and Nature produce entities within the All.

The absolutely simple, undivided first principle from which all multiplicity and existence flows.

The concept of a 'one will' governing the whole suggests a singular unifying principle.

The merging of the individual soul or self with the divine, transcending personal identity.

The text mentions the good servant whose purpose is in 'union with his master's' and the All seeking The Good.

The Stoic and Plotinian doctrine that all parts of the cosmos are bound by hidden affinities, so that a movement in one part resonates through the whole; the metaphysical basis for astrology, magic, and divination.

[auto] The passage explicitly describes the All as 'self-sympathetic' and states that all things become one entity grouped by the diffusion of power.

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

[auto] The divine being is characterized as a 'living unity' with a life that knows harmony and ordinance rather than haphazardness.

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 describes the universe as being under a 'law of reason' where groupings follow reason and harmony rather than haphazardness.

Numbers, proportions, and mathematical relationships as the underlying structure of divine reality.

[auto] The passage explicitly states that all members of the living whole are under a 'rule of Number' and references triangular configurations as examples of power.

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

[auto] The passage defines the being considered as a 'living unity' and refers to the 'expressive act of the All' as a cohesive whole.