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Select Works of Plotinus · 728 of 752 · tr. Thomas Taylor

Select Works, Section 695 (part 2)

For if the act of will springs from God Himself and is as it were His operation and the same will is identical with His essence, He must be self-established. He is not, therefore, "what He has happened to be" but what He has willed to be.
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Themes
Apophatic Theologytheology

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

The author suggests that 'Freedom may of course be an inappropriate term' for the divine reality, indicating the limits of positive language.

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Divine Simplicitytheology

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

[auto] The passage centrally defines the higher principle as an 'undivided Principle, a simplex Activity' where being and act are identical without distinction.

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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.

The text explicitly states that the Intellectual-Principle is referred to a 'yet higher' principle (the Good), establishing a hierarchical relationship.

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Evil As Privationtheology

Augustinian and Plotinian doctrine that evil has no positive being of its own but is a lack, distortion, or absence of the good — denying ontological dualism while preserving moral seriousness.

Servitude and the involuntary are defined as being powerless to move towards one's good or motion away from a good, reflecting evil as a lack of good.

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Monadcosmology

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

The description of the 'undivided Principle' and 'simplex Activity' aligns with the concept of the Monad as the simple first principle.

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Opposites Transcendedanthropology

The dissolution of binary oppositions (male/female, inner/outer, above/below) as a mark of spiritual completion.

The text asserts that in the Principle there is 'no difference of potentiality and act,' transcending the duality between being and efficiency.

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Return To Sourcesoteriology

The soul's journey back to its divine origin, reversing the fall into matter through stages of purification or illumination.

The passage mentions that the act is 'directed towards the Principle from which it proceeds,' implying a movement back to the origin.

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Related passages · 4 parallels
christian_mysticism|Pseudo-Dionysius: The Divine Names|Chapter 4, Section 1l
Need is there to understand that in proper truth we do but use the elements and syllables and phrases and written terms and words as an aid to our senses; inasmuch as when our soul is moved by spiritual energies unto spiritual things, our s…”
Shared concept: Apophatic Theology — Describing the divine only by negation—God transcends all positive categories and concepts; the via negativa. (derived)
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)
western_esoteric|The Book of Ceremonial Magic (A.E. Waite)|Page 5 (part 4)
Blessed and Holy are those who receive the experience of God in the dilucid contemplation, but sanctity and benediction and all in all is that state wherein contemplation is ineffably unified, by a super-eminent leap over of love, with that…”
Shared concept: Return To Source — The soul's journey back to its divine origin, reversing the fall into matter through stages of purification or illumination. (derived)
western_esoteric|The Tarot of the Bohemians (Papus)|Chapter II (part 2)
The ancients used a dot in the centre of a circle as the symbol of this idea, the representation of the Unity-principle ( the dot ) in the centre of eternity ( the circle , a line without beginning or end). According to these demonstration…”
Shared concept: Opposites Transcended — The dissolution of binary oppositions (male/female, inner/outer, above/below) as a mark of spiritual completion. (derived)