Can you tell me what this is supposed to mean please? "God is all that is. Whatever is not God exists as becoming divine, and as such is God in the mode of what is other than God." -DBH
It's pretty standard platonism in a Christian key.
"God is all that is" = all that is substantially proper to the effects exists (usually indistinctly) in the cause in a "higher mode". Thus the cause *is* the effect, but in a higher substantial existence, and without or with less differentiation. The first cause would be the limit case, where all is present in the first cause in a "unitary" manner (to borrow from Proclus)
"Whatever is not God exists as becoming divine, and as such is God in the mode of what is other than God" = Basically reverse what was said before. The effect is what the cause is in a "lesser" mode, and subsists in being "different" from its cause, primarily in "power", but other things as well, like Unity. Its existence is in its being (or becoming, if it is in time) whatever the (first) cause is precisely in being produced by the first cause.
All DBH is doing is applying the principles of sameness and difference characteristic of the Platonic understanding of Ontological causation. The effect is "consubstantial" with the cause, is what the cause is, but "lesser" in power, unity, etc. He wouldn't apply the same logic to the Trinity however, for obvious reasons.
That's the "neutral" Platonic way of reading it. It applies to a large extent for both Monotheist (e.g. DBH) and Polytheist (e.g. Proclus) platonists, although not everywhere in the same manner.
Can you tell me what this is supposed to mean please? "God is all that is. Whatever is not God exists as becoming divine, and as such is God in the mode of what is other than God." -DBH
It's pretty standard platonism in a Christian key.
"God is all that is" = all that is substantially proper to the effects exists (usually indistinctly) in the cause in a "higher mode". Thus the cause *is* the effect, but in a higher substantial existence, and without or with less differentiation. The first cause would be the limit case, where all is present in the first cause in a "unitary" manner (to borrow from Proclus)
"Whatever is not God exists as becoming divine, and as such is God in the mode of what is other than God" = Basically reverse what was said before. The effect is what the cause is in a "lesser" mode, and subsists in being "different" from its cause, primarily in "power", but other things as well, like Unity. Its existence is in its being (or becoming, if it is in time) whatever the (first) cause is precisely in being produced by the first cause.
All DBH is doing is applying the principles of sameness and difference characteristic of the Platonic understanding of Ontological causation. The effect is "consubstantial" with the cause, is what the cause is, but "lesser" in power, unity, etc. He wouldn't apply the same logic to the Trinity however, for obvious reasons.
That's the "neutral" Platonic way of reading it. It applies to a large extent for both Monotheist (e.g. DBH) and Polytheist (e.g. Proclus) platonists, although not everywhere in the same manner.