Of course, Jung's ideas were developed in the last century when the dialogue between science, religion and science were in need of so much reconciliation. — Jack Cummins

It may be worth looking into Bernardo Kastrup's study of Jung. He sees Jung as an early form of analytic idealism. The Book is Decoding Jung's Metaphysics

Here's a taste:

I shall argue that Jung was a metaphysical idealist in the tradition of German Idealism, his system being particularly consistent with that of Arthur Schopenhauer and my own.

The consistency between Jung’s metaphysics and my own is no coincidence. Unlike Schopenhauer—whose work I’ve discovered only after having developed my system in seven different books—Jung has been a very early influencer of my thought. I first came across his work still in my early teens, during a family holiday in the mountains. Exploring on my own the village where we were staying, I chanced upon a small bookshop. There, displayed very prominently, was an intriguing book titled I Ching, edited and translated by Richard Wilhelm, with a foreword by one Carl Gustav Jung. Jung’s introduction to the book revealed the internal logic and root of plausibility of what I would otherwise have regarded as just a silly oracle. He had opened some kind of door in my mind. Little did I know, then, how far that door would eventually take me.

Such accounts seem to head towards the mystical and the murky realm of ineffability. — Tom Storm

This ought be the central point. The way to avoid the "mystical and the murky" is to remain silent about what cannot be said.

But that won't happen.

I certainly see problematic aspects of theism, especially the whole emphasis on 'sin', including original sin and sexuality. — Jack Cummins

Afaik, "sin and sexuality" belong particularly to Abrahamic forms of theism and not to most others like Mesoamerican, Aboriginal, Greco-Roman, Aegyptian, Celtic, Norse & Hindu traditions. As a concept, or category, of god/s, across all religious traditions theism seems to me to consist of only three claims:
(1) a deity is the/an absolute mystery,
(2) a deity is the/a creator of the whole of existence;
(3) a deity is the/a providential intervener (i.e. cause of impossible changes) in the universe-nature-world-creatures.

what I mean by magic [ ... ] whatever is impossible magic [ ... ] "makes" possible — 180 Proof

magic is about patterns and connections, and there being more to sensory (or extrasensory) perception than Cartesian-Newtonian thinkers have acknowledged — Jack Cummins

As superstitions gave way to theodicy and astrology gave way to astronomy and alchemy gave way to chemistry and teleology gave way to mechanics & natural selection, magic was rationalized (i.e. domesticated, deflated) into parapsychology (or pataphysics) especially in the 19th & 20th centuries. Remember, Jack, Newton was an alchemist and Descartes postulated occult or miraculous interactions between different physical (body) and spiritual (mind) substances. Until recent centuries, magic had always been considered much more than just "perception" (such as miracles, curses, blessings, transmutations, shapechanging, exorcism, necromancy, oracles-divination, fetishes amulets & talismans, etc :sparkle: :pray:).
.

When God is described as the Ground of Being, this typically means that God is the fundamental reality or underlying source from which all things emerge. God is not seen as a being within the universe, but rather as the condition for existence itself. The implications of such a view are interesting. — Tom Storm

A "ground of being" is a deistic god (an indifferent creator), not a theistic god (a god of religion) worth either worshipping or worrying about. While I don't think it's truly justifiable to believe such a god exists, it also seems irrelevant if it does.

:up: :up:

:smirk:

It’s superficially similar to deism. I think Tillich would say that there was no creator who, disinterested, has moved on (as in Deism) but rather we are all expressions of God as ground of being. God is the condition that makes us and all things possible. But as I say, this is not my area: I am interested in how these ideas are more fully understood.

A ground of being would indeed be the source of all the possibilities (i.e. all the contingency) in the world. A ground of being doesn't entail a god at all, it's just an opportunity to assume one. One could assume a minimalist god (deism) or something more - but then it's just more assumptions. So I don't see the point of it all. Even the simplest assumptions are unparsimonious.

I’d like someone who is across the literature to outline a clearer picture. Tillich aside, the notion of Being seems intriguing. As I said earlier, I also see an overlap with idealism, although I expect this too is a superficial resemblance.

I'm not sure what you're looking for when you write "outline a clearer picture" of "Being" (with respect to "God"?) Please clarify.

I guess some more nuanced information on what it means to say God is Being itself. What does it mean to say God is the fundamental existence or essence that underlies everything in the universe?

I guess some more nuanced information on what it means to say God is Being itself. What does it mean to say God is the fundamental existence or essence that underlies everything in the universe? — Tom Storm

Although its details are not easy to explain via the soundbites of forum posts (and I have no current interest in presenting them), one possible example of such "God is Being itself" outlook will be the following:

The Neoplatonist notion of "the One", aka "the Good" will be pure being itself of infinite, limitless, quality and magnitude that is divinely simple (devoid of any parts) and beyond both existence and nonexistence - this being a priority monism wherein the fundamental essence that underlies everything in the universe can also be conceptualized as God, this, for example, due to being a) of itself unmovable (i.e., a forever fixed, determinate, aspect of existence at large) and b) that which moves all that exists (this when understanding all that exists to be in significant part teleological and, hence, partly determined by final causes). Although open to various interpretations, this worldview then generally holds that the infinite (i.e., in no way limited or finite) pure being which is the One is the fixed and ultimate final cause of all existents, i.e. the unmoved mover of all existents to use Aristotelian terms (which as ultimate telos is thereby always contemporaneous with existence at large for as long as existence has been).

Of possible importance, the One then cannot be a deity - even when the One is expressed as being God - for a deity can only hold some existential finitude as a psyche, minimally, a limit of being by which it as deity is other than, say, an ameba's mind, a tree's life, or a human being in total (which as human might obey or otherwise listen to the deity's decrees as other than him/herself - a deity who in turn holds awareness of the human as other). The One is then at direct odds with any notion of an omni-creator deity - that said, with most nowadays understanding the latter to be what is addressed by the term "God" and having little to no comprehension of the former.

Nicely worded. Much of this matches the reading I have done. Do you find this model resonates?

Nicely worded. — Tom Storm

Thank you!

Do you find this model resonates? — Tom Storm

As I just described the big picture aspect of things, though I don't limit myself to Neoplatonic thought, yes, the notions resonate with me - the Good thus generally understood being what grounds my understanding of non-relativistic ethics. Although there are portions or Plotinus' writings which, in addressing the details of his own metaphysical understandings, I remember not resonating with me all that much. Its been a while since I've read him, though.

Thank you.

What does it mean to say God is the fundamental existence or essence that underlies everything in the universe? — Tom Storm

This reminds me of Spinoza's natura naturans, Schopenhauer's World As Will, (Hindu) Brahman or the Dao – even though, in a more pragmatic sense, I prefer Democritus-Epicurus-Lucretius' swirling atomic void.

Nice. I've never quite got my head around natura naturans, do you consider it a useful frame? I think I've heard you say Spinoza is not a pantheist but a... I forget... is it an acosmist?

Is Neoplatonism central to this notion of God as Being itself? The world emanates from The One.

It's influential, but the direction of influence goes in both ways. Often, it's assumed that the influence largely goes in the direction of Neoplatonism -> Christianity (-> Islam). Sometimes this is assumed because Platonism/paganism is older than Christianity, more often because this is the order of influence in the biography of the most influential "Christian Platonist," Saint Augustine.

Plotinus scholarship has really come around on this though. Plotinus grew up on a hot bed of Jewish, orthodox Christian, and gnostic Christian Platonism, and these intersected with pagan learning in Alexandria, with converts going both ways. He was a younger contemporary of Origen and Clement (although he would have been a teen when Clement died), and there is a recorded exchange of ideas between the groups. Plotinus has his own arguments against the Christians and against gnosticism in particular, but he borrows a lot from them. For instance, the whole solution of emanation and the structure of the hypostases seems to show up earlier in more recently discovered gnostic texts.

Nor was the "gnostic" always particularly divorced from the "orthodox" in Christianity at this point, some elements of it simply became orthodox theology, some outgrowths became the bizarre (at least to us ) alternative Genesis narratives of the Sethians (something embraced by a minority of "gnostics" it would appear). This "middle Platonism" set the stage for Plotinus and his students.

Yet the influence is obviously strong in the other direction, particularly through Augustine and we might suppose through Dionysius the Areopagite (although we don't know his exact sources and who he was). Plotinus was particularly helpful for Christianity (and Islam and Judaism) in resolving some crucial issues in Aristotle vis-á-vis the Divine Will and "potency" in God, not as "capacity to be moved/changed," but instead instead as "power" (the common translation here).

So take this influential passage from Aristotle's Metaphysics (XII):

The First Principle [is that ] upon which depends the sensible universe and the world of nature.And its life is like the best which we temporarily enjoy. It must be in that state always (which for us is impossible), since its actuality is also pleasure. (And for this reason waking, sensation and thinking are most pleasant, and hopes and memories are pleasant because of them.) Now thinking in itself is concerned with that which is in itself best, and thinking in the highest sense with that which is in the highest sense best...

Yet how is such a "being" thinking and simple? Doesn't "knowing" and "knower" imply duality? And how can God be free if It only does what is good (the Timaeus has already gotten at "why is God good?" but had left "God" as less than fully God and the Good.)

These issues are what Plotinus will help Christians with and his additions will be developed through lots of thinkers until Aquinas hits on the idea of power as perfect self-communication (which is already shaping up in St. Maximus).

And because Porphyry's introduction to Aristotle's Categories also had tremendous influence and staying power, Neoplatonism also had a lot of influence on more foundational approaches in philosophy.

The One is then at direct odds with any notion of an omni-creator deity - that said, with most nowadays understanding the latter to be what is addressed by the term "God" and having little to no comprehension of the former.

I think it would be fair to say that this has not been the common reception of Neoplatonism across history. Augustine, the Cappadocians, etc., found a lot to use there, so too for the Muslim philosophers. Neoplatonism has been taught as part of "natural theology" throughout most of the history of Christianity, and the scholastics flocked to it when it returned again in other forms through the Theology of Aristotle, Book of Causes, etc. And this interchange existed even when the two schools were coexisting in the same cities and engaged in active dialogue.

David Bentley Hart, mentioned at the outset of this thread, is an Eastern Orthodox Christian and often refers to himself as an "unreformed Neoplatonist" when poking fun at post-Kantian metaphysics for instance. Hence the common terms "Christian/Jewish/Muslim Neoplatonism."

That is very interesting and looks like a lifetime of study is requited to get on top of.

David Bentley Hart, mentioned at the outset of this thread, is an Eastern Orthodox Christian and often refers to himself as an "unreformed Neoplatonist" when poking fun at post-Kantian metaphysics for instance. Hence the common terms "Christian/Jewish/Muslim Neoplatonism." — Count Timothy von Icarus

Do you rate Hart as a theological thinker? When he writes of God:

He may be said to be “beyond being,” if by “being” one means the totality of finite things, but also may be called “being itself,” in that he is the inexhaustible source of all reality, the absolute upon which the contingent is always utterly dependent, the unity underlying all things.

How should one understand this? It certainly has a whiff of Neoplatonism. But also aligns with Hinduism. In Advaita Vedanta, Brahman is described as Nirguna (without attributes) and beyond all categories, including being and non-being. Brahman is also seen as the inexhaustible source or ground of all contingent existence.

Doesn't "knowing" and "knower" imply duality? — Count Timothy von Icarus

The ‘union of knower and known’ is also a strong motif in all of those traditions. That is the meaning of the ‘unio mystica’ is it not?

Do you have any initial thoughts on my original post? This seems like it's right in your wheelhouse. I can't help but feel that the idea of a "ground of being" starts to move into the territory of universal consciousness. Some people really dislike perennialist or syncretistic interpretations of spiritual traditions.

Do you rate Hart as a theological thinker?

I think Hart is pretty great, although I think he sometimes writes at a level that is probably going to be overly abstruse for general audiences, which is fine for some contexts, but he does so in books he publishes for general audiences. And I think this sometimes leads to him getting carried away in the flow of what might be "consensus" in his subfield, but which can hardly been taken for granted for more general audiences, which ends up having the effect that his arguments fail to anticipate likely objections. I haven't read his book addressing New Athiesm, so I'm not sure how much this tendency applies when he is presumably addressing a wider audience.

He also seems to mostly write in the context of some sort of conflict (e.g. against infernalism and for universalism, against the nature/supernature distinction, against New Atheism, etc.), which is too bad because he sometimes has very cogent descriptions of the classical tradition nestled in these arguments, but they're always as asides, and this means his projects lack the strong positive formulations of someone like von Balthasar, or Ferdinand Ulrich.

How should one understand this? It certainly has a whiff of Neoplatonism. But also aligns with Hinduism. In Advaita Vedanta, Brahman is described as Nirguna (without attributes) and beyond all categories, including being and non-being. Brahman is also seen as the inexhaustible source or ground of all contingent existence.

There are similarities for sure. I sometimes think "Platonism" and "Neoplatonism" are unhelpful labels, even though I still find myself using them. Often, they get used for things that are only in Plato in embryonic form, or obliquely, and which are then not unique to, or even originating in the proper "Neoplatonists."

You can see some of the similarities and the implications in a passage like (about high scholasticism):

...these principles are that: (

1) the world of space and time does not itself exist in space and time: it exists in Intellect (the Empyrean, pure conscious being);

(2) matter, in medieval hylomorphism, is not something “material”: it is a principle of unintelligibility, of alienation from conscious being;

(3) all finite form, that is, all creation, is a self-qualification of Intellect or Being, and only exists insofar as it participates in it;

(4) Creator and creation are not two, since the latter has no existence independent of the former; but of course creator and creation are not the same; and

(5) God, as the ultimate subject of all experience, cannot be an object of experience: to know God is to know oneself as God, or (if the expression seems troubling) as one “with” God or “in” God.

Let me spell out these principles at greater length. In medieval hylomorphism (the matter-form analysis of reality), pure Intellect (consciousness or awareness) is pure actuality, or form, or Being, or God: it is the self-subsistent principle that spawns or “contains” all finite being and experience. Intellect Being is what is, unqualified, self-subsistent, attributeless, dimensionless. It has no extension in space or time; rather, it projects space-time “within” itself, as, analogously, a dreaming intelligence projects a dream-world, or a mind gives being to a thought. The analogy holds in at least three respects: (1) like dreams or thoughts, created things are radically contingent, and dependent at every instant of their existence on what gives them being; (2)as there is nothing thoughts are “made of,” so there is nothing the world is “made of”: being is not a “something” to make things out of; and (3) dreams and thoughts have no existence apart from the intelligence in which they arise, but one cannot point to that intelligence because it is not a thing. In the same way, one cannot point to the Empyrean, the tenth heaven that the Comedy presents as the infinite intelligence/reality “within” which all things exist; remove it and the universe would instantly vanish. Note that the analogy in no way implies that the world is “unreal” or a “dream” (except in contrast to its ontological ground); rather, it expresses the radical non-self-subsistence of finite reality. This understanding of the radical contingency of “created” things is the wellspring of medieval Christian thought, without which the rest of medieval thought makes little sense.

Conscious being spawns experience by giving itself to it, by qualifying itself as this-or-that, and thus in one sense becoming other than itself. This is how the world comes into being: it is one valence of the Incarnation and the Trinity. ...As Beatrice puts it in Paradiso 29: conceived in itself, the ultimate ontological principle is a splendore, the reflexive self-awareness of pure consciousness; creation is its re-reflection as an apparently self-subsistent entity, a limitation of its unqualified self-experience as something, as a determinate thing. This voluntary self-experience of self as “other” is love; thus Dante can say that creation is an unfolding of divine love

Christian Moevs - The Metaphysics of Dante's Comedy - Introduction: Non-Duality and Self-Knowledge - pg. 5-6

Indeed, that's partly Plotinus's response. Also that the empiricist conception of knowledge actually makes knowing anything impossible, and is perhaps not even coherent. The knowledge that is most properly called so is always a sort of self-knowledge. Lloyd Gerson's article on "Neoplatonic epistemology : knowledge, truth and intellection" is pretty good here.

Spinoza is not a pantheist but a... I forget... is it an acosmist? — Tom Storm

Yes, from the perspective of eternity (like e.g. Brahmanism), as I understand his thought:

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/spinoza/#GodNatu

or more succinctly ...

(2021)
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/528116

(2021)
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/578506

@Tom Storm @Count Timothy von Icarus
This is a great discussion. Even our arch-atheist @180 Proof Is playing nice.

The One is then at direct odds with any notion of an omni-creator deity - that said, with most nowadays understanding the latter to be what is addressed by the term "God" and having little to no comprehension of the former. -- javra


I think it would be fair to say that this has not been the common reception of Neoplatonism across history. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I of course acknowledge the hybridization of the One and the omni-creator deity in the course of history - such that the omni-creator deity takes on the characteristics of the One. Omni-benevolence being one such characteristic when it is addressed in relatively very abstract manners - which can be simplified into the dictum of "God is Love".

Are you however disagreeing with the thesis that the characteristics by which the One is defined - e.g. that of perfectly infinite pure being (hence, devoid of any and all finitudes) - are logically incommensurate with the characteristics of any deity - which, as deity, necessitates some finitude(s) in at least so far as being a psyche/mind distinct from other co-occurring psyches/minds?

I of course acknowledge the hybridization of the One and the omni-creator deity in the course of history - such that the omni-creator deity takes on the characteristics of the One. Omni-benevolence being one such characteristic when it is addressed in relatively very abstract manners - which can be simplified into the dictum of "God is Love".

Well, I guess there are two questions here: compatibility and historical influence. "God is love" (1 John 4:8) predates Plotinus by a good deal and likely influenced his thought. It is not something that grows out of Neoplatonism, although it is perhaps an understanding sharing common roots in the Alexandrian intellectual milieu (e.g. Philo).

The self-subsistent ontological ground of being, being itself, in some ways is more reflective of the "I AM" than the Platonic demiurge who must create from pre-existing materials as well.

Are you however disagreeing with the thesis that the characteristics by which the One is defined - e.g. that of perfectly infinite pure being (hence, devoid of any and all finitudes) - are logically incommensurate with the characteristics of any deity - which, as deity, necessitates some finitude(s) in at least so far as being a psyche/mind distinct from other co-occurring psyches/minds?

I'm not sure. I'd disagree if the idea is somehow that what the transcendent transcends is somehow absent from the transcendent itself, e.g. if God is incapable of what man is capable of. Or as Plotnius says, if we suggest that what is best in the Nous is somehow absent from the One, or something that the One is incapable of, this would be "absurd." There can be no actuality coming from anywhere else.

I don't think they're logically incommensurate though, or at least they haven't been seen as such. In Dante's Paradiso for instance, the blessed can all read Dante's thoughts before he speaks because they can "read" them in the fullness of the Divine Mind. The angels and celestial intelligences need no independent memory because all knowledge is contained in Light they are turned to. There is no separation here, the Celestial Rose at the climax of the Commedia is "in" the Empyrean, in the fullness of the Divine Mind (but in no way exhaustive of it). See the quote above by Moevs.

There is also the idea of the creature as mirroring the divine in precisely the way it extends beyond its nature (becoming self-determining). "A thing made by a consummate artist radiates a certain gratuitousness, not in the sense of being arbitrary, but in the sense of being unconstrained, and this freedom coincides with an evident necessity." That is, God's power empowers, creatures are the authors of themselves to the extent they also transcend their finitude. Hence, "at the first beginning of [the] world, we must therefore postulate not so much a power that exercises its force, as an infinite goodness that communicates itself to the world: Love is the deepest spring of all causality.” (From Schindler, Retrieving Freedom).

I don't think the above contradicts the earlier view, but is rather a thinking out of what it means for what is not-God.

Tom Storm Count Timothy von Icarus
This is a great discussion. — T Clark

:up:

Even our arch-atheist 180 Proof Is playing nice.

:smirk:

Well, I guess there are two questions here: compatibility and historical influence. "God is love" (1 John 4:8) predates Plotinus by a good deal and likely influenced his thought. — Count Timothy von Icarus

If the One were to in fact be real - by this or any other name - then it is by no means impossible, but rather quite plausible, that others than Plotinus experienced what in Ancient Greek was termed henosis - and if JC was a real person, then I can find no reason to deny that he too experienced henosis in his own right. This long before Plotinus came around (for Plotinus would not have invented the reality of the one). But this addresses extreme proximity, if not unity, with the One as completely infinite being devoid of any dualistic ego (with "dualistic ego" being denoted as holding any kind of duality between I-ness and other) - this rather than being extreme proximity or else unity with an omni-creator deity. Though, of course, interpretations can vary galore.

I'm not sure. I'd disagree if the idea is somehow that what the transcendent transcends is somehow absent from the transcendent itself, e.g. if God is incapable of what man is capable of. Or as Plotnius says, if we suggest that what is best in the Nous is somehow absent from the One, or something that the One is incapable of, this would be "absurd." There can be no actuality coming from anywhere else. — Count Timothy von Icarus

As I previously mentioned in passing, while I endorse the reality of "the Good", I don't much find good reason to subscribe to Plotinus' description of the Emanations - the Nous / Demiurge included. For starters, there is no cogent reason for the emanations to emanate from the One in the first place - other than ad hoc attempts to give best explanation for what in fact exists. All the same, it is the One from which the emanations emanate (even if non-temporally so), and it is the One rather than its emanations which serves as the ultimate and fixed final cause of all existents.

When one addresses the One as God - i.e. as the ultimate reality/actuality - one does not (or at least ought not) then address the Nous / Demiurge as the ultimate reality/actuality which is therefore termed God. The latter would be contrary to what the One specifies.

Even when the Nous / Demiurge is deemed inseparable from the One for as long as existence exists, this Nous / Demiurge is not of itself a deity. It is not a psyche/mind distinct from all other psyches/minds - this as an omni-creator deity conception of God has it - but is instead, in many a sense, the raw thought from which all of us are constituted and, thereby, of which all of us are a fragmented aspect of. It is an inherent aspect of us, rather than being some other mind/psyche in relation to our own.

We might not find agreement on this, but I do find the One (to emphasize, this rather than its emanations) to be logically contrary to any notion of an omni-creator deity:

As just one example, the One is in and of itself the Good - to which all deities will themselves be subject to, this were deities to occur. Whereas the omni-creator deity is not (it is instead fully amoral - such that no matter what it decides it will not be subject to judgments of whether the decision is good or bad) but instead is that from whose might/power as deity the notion of the good takes form for all of us separate psyches/minds that are of this omni-creator deity's creation. In the first, right makes might (such as when speaking truth to power), this at least in some spiritual sense if not in the corporeal here and now - whereas in the second, quite blatantly, might makes right. These two perspectives then being logically contradictory in respect to each other.

As a less pertinent example, via the One it can be validly affirmed that, despite our many differences as individuals, "we are all one" - this in a priority monism sense. Whereas via the omni-creator deity - which, for one cultural example, sends us via his judgment either into eternal Heaven or eternal Hell after our corporeal death - there is no valid means of so appraising that "we are all one" (if for no other reason, for we all are not one with the omni-creator deity himself - this in many circles being blasphemy)

Great quote you provided by Spinoza -

...But some people think the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus rests on the assumption that God is one and the same as ‘Nature’ understood as a mass of corporeal matter. This is a complete mistake.
— Spinoza, from letter (73) to Henry Oldenburg

I think Hart is pretty great, although I think he sometimes writes at a level that is probably going to be overly abstruse for general audiences, which is fine for some contexts, but he does so in books he publishes for general audiences. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes, he is a prodigious scholar and "superbrain" so I can imagine it must be challenging for him to write for the general reader.

There are similarities for sure. I sometimes think "Platonism" and "Neoplatonism" are unhelpful labels, even though I still find myself using them. Often, they get used for things that are only in Plato in embryonic form, or obliquely, and which are then not unique to, or even originating in the proper "Neoplatonists." — Count Timothy von Icarus

:up:

Christian Moevs - The Metaphysics of Dante's Comedy - Introduction: Non-Duality and Self-Knowledge - pg. 5-6

That's a great overview.


I'm also curious: if God is Being itself, what are the implications for divine action? A God who acts throughout history would seem unlikely in that case. I'm assuming that God can’t or doesn’t act like a being in this world, but instead provides the conditions that make action possible. But what exactly does that look like, beyond the obvious?