Henry Corbin, The Paradox of Monotheism The Parmenides for Proclus is the Theogony that his very own Platonic Theology was to elaborate upon further. Platos Parmenides is in some ways the Bible, the Sacred Scripture of the eminently Neoplatonic, negative, apophatic theology. Negative theology, via negationis (tanzih in Arabic) rejects the cause beyond all causes, the absolute One beyond all the Ones; being beyond all existent beings etc. Negative theology is presumed precisely by the investment of being in all existent beings of the One in the Many etc. All the while appearing to destroy affirmative theology of the dogmatic consciousness, it is negative theology that in effect safeguards the truth it bears; and this is the second instance of the paradox of monotheism. The term is well known to both Greek and Arab Neoplatonists. In both cases it is resolved by simultaneity, the at once present [comprésent] One-God and the many divine Figures. Comparison of the process in these two cases has yet to be attempted. Let us say that in the system envisioned by Proclus, there are the One and Many Gods. The One-God is the henad of henads. The word One does not name what it is but is the symbol of the absolutely Ineffable. The one is not One. It does not possess the attribute One. It is essentially unificent [unifique], unifying, constitutive of all the Ones, of all the beings that can only be existents by being each time an existent, i.e. unified [made one], constituted in unities precisely by the unifying One. This sense of unifying of the One is what Proclus meant by the word henad [principal of unity]. When this word is used in the plural form, it does not denote productions of the One but manifestations of the One, henophanies. Those in addition to Unity, are the divine Names and these Names govern the diversity of beings. It is from beings that are their partners that it is possible to know the divine substances, that is to say the Gods that are themselves inconceivable. We have already compared the theory of the divine Names and celestial hierarchies in Proclus and in Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite. There is much to be learned from an in-depth comparison of the theory of divine Names and theophanies that are the divine Lords -- I mean to say the parallelism between Ibn Arabi -- the ineffability of God who is the Lord of Lords and the multiple theophanies that constitute the hierarchy of the divine Names -- and Proclus: the hierarchy originating in the henad of henads manifested by these henads themeselves, and permeating all levels of the hierarchies of being: there are the transcendant Gods; the intelligible Gods (at the level of being); the intellective-intelligible-Gods (at the level of life); the intellective Gods (at the level of intellect); the hypercosmic Gods (leaders and assimilators); the intracosmic Gods (celestial and sub-lunar); there are the superior beings: archangels, angels, heroes, daimons. However, these multiple hierarchies presuppose the One-Unique that transcends the Ones, because it unifies them; the being that transcends existents because it essentiates them; life that transcends the living because it vivifies them. In Proclus, harmony results from the encounter in Athens between philosophers of the Ionian School from Clazomenea and those of the Eleatic School, namely Parmenides and Zeno of Elea - all gathered for the Panathenian Festival. In Ibn Arabis school of thought, harmony is achieved by the confrontation between monotheism of the naïve or dogmatic consciousness and theomonism of the esoteric consciousness; in short the acceptance of the exoteric or theological tawhid (tawhid wojudi). This is precisely the form that the paradox of the One and the Many takes in Islamic theosophy.
Posted on: Mon, 17 Feb 2014 05:27:21 +0000
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