1 Timothy 2:5 | For there is only one God, and only one mediator between God and men, Jesus Christ.

Thought I might take this opportunity to demonstrate a Neoplatonic argument for God. https://twitter.com/DonaldHasenbank/status/1362636283168841728

For this reason and many other such verses [Deut. 6:4, Mk. 12:29-32, Job 23:13, Gal.3:20, Zech. 14:9, 1 Cor. 8:4-6, James 2:19, Eph. 4:6]

Dionysius teaches us that the Neoplatonic name for God, "The One", is also a fitting name for our Lord.

We shall thus be seeking to prove that utterly unique and perfect, totally superior, first and sustaining cause from which creation overflows from and desires as their end.

For this, all men call God.

Now to present Proclus' arguments from the Elements of Theology.

Prop.1; That all multiplicity participates in unity.

"Infinite" here means not just numerical infinity but absolute infinity. The number line is numerically infinite but contains no pigs. It is thus limited and conditioned to just numbers and is not absolutely infinte.

Prop.2; All that is of a conditioned unity has both unity and multiplicity.

Our number line has a real unity (one) and a real multiplicity (not one).

Prop.3; All that is unified does so by having a share of unity-itself.

Everything that 'is', has in some respects this simple unity that traverses the infinite. This simple unity, unity-itself we call the One.

Prop.4; All that is becomes a unity is other than the One itself.

If the One were subject to unification, it'd beg the question for unity. Risking an infinite regress the series of unified things would have no explanatory cause. This cannot be so if there are unified things.

Prop.5; A further elaboration on the necessary uniqueness of the One.

Prop.7; The superiority of productive causes over their products.

Prop.8; The Good.

This one is a little bit less intuitive but becomes abundantly clear so I'm going to elaborate a bit:

In establishing the Good, the Neoplatonists follow an old Greek tradition that sees the Good as an aim of all human activity. Plato and Aristotle agree that whatever we do, we do "for sake of the good" [Plato, Gorg. 468; cf. Phlb. 20d;]

The good may be defined precisely as "that which all things desire". [Aristotle, NE. 1094a3]. At the basic level this is a fairly trivial claim. Socrates has little problem in the Gorgias (467-8) to convince Polus the sophist that the good is the aim of all human activities...

...for whatever we do, we do because we find it better to do this than not, seeing the activity as somehow useful for us. Polus accepts this claim, understanding it in a purely subjectivism way: in his view the good is whatever one considers as such.

Plato makes it clear that he interprets his thesis in a much stronger sense, being ready to distinguish between what seems good and what really is good regardless of what the agent may believe. This moral doctrine then is an ontological one too, and a necessity at that.

Why? For all we do we do because it is good in some manner. Our shared projects, our most mundane things all for 'some good'. But those goods are too good for some reason, some good.

So that this too doesn't fall to an infinite regress, so that we may actually conclude that these goods are good, we necessarily must have the Good itself to illumine all other goods.

We need that grounding first premise from which all others flow from into our conclusion, otherwise no such conclusions, evaluative conclusions that is, can be made.

We need the Good. All need the Good. All desire the Good. We have already established the One, now the move to make is to identify the Good as self-same with the One. Just a few more propositions. Bare with me.

Prop. 9; The dependency of that which is not self-sufficient.

Prop.11; The necessity of a first cause.

Prop.12; That the Good is this first cause.

Prop.13; That the One - unity itself - is the Good - the object of all desire - is the first cause.

Now, the grand synthesis and conclusion.

Let's use some examples to elaborate why the goodness of a thing is its unity. That goodness as such is simplicity, perfection and unity or existence.

Let us take the "good pianist". His practice of piano playing is such that after good practices and habits are developed, his ability might eventually be effortless.

The pianist who needs to be taught how to sit, how to properly position his hands, how to read sheet musics, how to do the basics of the practice -- he eventually, after drilling it into himself long enough comes to do all these things effortlessly. Simply.

Without recourse to discursive reasoning to get him to do all these things.

He does not need to think to himself, “ok so my hands go here, then my fingers go here and press these keys at this magnitude corresponding to this section of notation…”.

He sees and he does in one singular motion.

His goodness, his degree of perfection, is in his simplicity of act. Practice really does make perfect for human virtue. Good practices draw forth more goodness.

But for simplicity and unity itself, it need no practice. It is Good in itself. Perfect in itself. No stages of learning. No decision making was ever required.

“All beings are beings by the one, both those that are primarily beings, and those that are in any way said to be among beings. For what would something be, if it were not one? If they are deprived of the one which is said [of them], they are not those things.

For neither does an army exist if it will not be one, nor a chorus nor a herd if they are not one.” - Plotinus, Enneads VI.9.1.1-5.

An army is constituted by a manifold of individual soldiers, yet it is utterly dependant on its integral unity for its existence as an army.

Without such unity—perhaps as in a rout, when the soldiers flee in different directions—the army becomes a force without extension, as such ceases to exist.

Each of the individual soldiers may still exist, but only insofar as he still possesses his unity, constituting him as a living human being.

As such, we could continue applying the same reasoning not merely to groups, such as an army or a flock, but to artifacts, such as a ship or a house, continuous magnitudes, living things, souls, forms themselves, and being as a whole

Anything whatsoever is itself, and so is at all, just insofar as it is one integral whole. Wherever there is some share of unity, there is some being; where there is no unity whatsoever, there is nothing.

Unity-as-integration, therefore, makes the difference, or rather is the difference, between being and non-being, between ‘something there’ and nothing at all.

As such, we can naturally conclude that unity is the precondition for existence. The cause of all. The first cause. The superior producer of all unified, and thus existent beings.

Let's take stock. That which exists requires a concurrent cause. All that is presupposes unity. Unity itself is One. Without such unity, all would not exist. That which is truly Good is only such because of its unity. That which is all of these things is superior to all.

We have thus proven that utterly unique and perfect, totally superior, first and sustaining cause from which creation overflows from and desires as their end.

We might properly also call the Good and the One yet, for this, the Pagan and Christian Platonists alike called θεός, and all men call: God.

Let's also examine further Dionysius' elaboration of the names of God now too.

“The name "One" means that God is uniquely all things through the transcendence of one unity and that he is the cause of all without ever departing from that oneness. Nothing in the world lacks its share of the One.

Just as every number participates in unity; for we refer to one couple, one dozen, one-half, one-third, one-tenth-so everything, and every part of everything, participates in the One. By being the One, it is all things.

The One cause of all things is not one of the many things in the world but actually precedes oneness [unification] and multiplicity and indeed defines oneness and multiplicity. For multiplicity cannot exist without some participation in the One.

That which is many in its parts is one in its entirety. That which is many in its accidental qualities is one in its subject. That which is many in number or capabilities is one in species. That which is numerous in species is one in genus.

That which is numerous in its processions is one in its source. For there is nothing at all lacking a share in that One which in its utterly comprehensive unity uniquely contains all and everything beforehand, even opposites.

Without the One there is no multiplicity, but there can still be the One when there is no multiplicity, just as one precedes all multiplied number.

And, then, if one thinks of all things as united in all things the totality of things must be presumed to be one.” - Dionysius, The Divine Names, XIII.2 977C.3 -980A.12

So when someone asks us: "Pray tell, which of the many thousands of Gods do you believe in?"

We emphatically answer: "The One, of course."

《fin》

@mujaya_ this is the thread I was preparing ~