Emanation

Lat. emanatio, “outflow,” translation of Gk ἀπορροή/ἀπόρροια (apórrhoḗ/apórrhoia), a keyword and figure of thought in the doctrinal structure of Gnosis/Gnosticism (in Irenaeus's Lat. trans. emissio: Haer. II 13.1–14.1 etc.). Probably inspired by Platonic thought, in the 3rd to 1st century bce Wis 7:25 calls wisdom an “emanation of the glory of the Almighty.” The image of the water that flows out of a spring as though through the terraced basins of a hellenistic fountain, graphic and yet not anthropomorphic, meets the strong need of gnostic authors to sketch quasi-genealogies and hierarchical series of abstract absolutes about diverse divinities, aeons, numbers, or essences down to the human soul; at the same time, they had in mind a path from light and purity to darkness and deterioration, which can be reversed through knowledge (cf. e.g. Pistis Sophia 10; Hippolytus, Haer. VI 36, 42; Mark, Valentinus). In addition, there was the (probably Iranian) idea of an antithesis between positive and negative emanations. Used rather sparingly by Plotinus (Ennead II 1.4.4; III 2.2.17, 4.3.25; V 2.1.8) because of the blurring of the boundary between the transcendent and the world, the concept of emanation was rejected in the christological  dispute by Athanasius (after it had been accepted by e.g. Theognostus of Alexandria) because of the gnostic context and the risk of denigration (as well as exchangeability) of the person of Jesus (Symbolum 1.1; Ar. 1.21; etc.). In the early modern period the term was used by Nicholas of Cusa for the productions of the transcendent (De docta ignorantia II 27) and adopted by writers such as G. Bruno and G.W. Leibniz.

Philosophy of Religion

The metaphors used in later Platonic philosophy for the relation of the One to the Many include the spread of light, warmth, or perfume from a central source (Plotinus, Enneads V 1.6) or the overflowing of a fountain (Enneads III 8.10). In Plato's dialogue Timaeus, the universe is pictured as the work of a divine craftsman, in imitation of eternal archetypes sustained and illuminated by the Good. Most commentators chose to regard this as a convenient story, urging that the Intellect arose from the Good (or the One), the Soul from Intellect, and the world of nature from the Soul, not by any deliberate plan, but as the necessary consequence of the higher reality's nature. Those higher realities might not even know of the lower ones and are certainly not diminished, nor affected, by their reflection.
These corporeal metaphors should not be taken too seriously. Strictly, Plotinus denies that light, which is not corporeal, is an emanation (a flow; Enneads IV 5.7), and the point applies even more clearly to the Intellect and the Soul. It is not that any kind of matter is literally distributed more thinly through a preexistent medium: the place of forms (i.e. the Intellect) and of animate bodies (i.e. the world we now inhabit) ceaselessly come into and continue in their being by their response (or else, equivalently, by the higher reality's outgoing; cf. Plotinus, Enneads IV 3.9). Again, that outgoing may be inevitable, but it is not mindless: the God who is everywhere and nowhere is not just as he chanced to be, but as he willed (Enneads VI 8.16), and each and every thing in the All is as he would have willed it. We might reasonably say that he made it – if there ever was a time from which the universe began to be (Enneads VI 8.20). Nor is the One any less present even at the very edges of the light (Enneads IV 3.10). The point of the image is not that God is far away, but that he is here.

Dogmatics

Doctrines of emanation have their place in dogmatics in the doctrines of creation and the Trinity. Originally at home in Greek thought (the perception of smell, sound, form, and color; the emanations of gods), notions of emanation have survived only subliminally since Plato. They became important in gnostic systems, since they explained the relationship of the world to God, who was thought to be outside the world. From an early date, doctrines of emanation were offensive to church thinking (Clement of Alexandria, Origen). The concept was not constitutive for Plotinus. Ideas of emanation survived in Latin theology (Tertullian; Augustine dismissed them critically), while with Athanasius the concept of emanation disappeared from the doctrine of the Trinity in Greek theology. Through Ps.- Dionysius Areopagita and others, the neo-Platonic ideas of emanation, transformed by the Christian doctrine of creation, were passed on to the Middle Ages (e.g. Albertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas, Meister Eckhart, Nicholas of Cusa). Because of the closeness of God and world, ideas of emanation emerged in early natural scientific thought in the transition from the Middle Ages to the modern period (Paracelsus, G. Bruno, J. Kepler), but emanation was no longer understood speculatively, but as a process of historical progress. Occasionally the monads of Leibniz were interpreted as emanations of God. Vatican I rejected emanation. In 20th-century theologies, emanation is often absent, or is rejected, since it would restrict the freedom and diversity of God (Barth, Pannenberg, Polkinghorne). Only rarely do ideas of emanation appear, above all in feminist theology (McFague, Mulack), in Anglo-American contributions to the dialogue between theology and science (Peacocke), and also in systematic theological constructions (Tillich, Moltmann). Once again, the main concern is with the question of the immanence and transcendence of God and the role of wisdom (cf. Wis 7:25f.).

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