in Christian and Platonic Doctrine

OF the main theories to account for the existence of the world, or its apparent existence,one is the theory of emanation (or manifestation) and another is the Christian theory of creation. The theory of emanation—it may be called Platonic (and this includes its neo-Platonic developments) since it is in this form that it presents itself in western tradition—is briefly as follows. The One—the Good or the Supreme—is absolute and perfect. As absolute, It must contain in Itself the seeds of everything, the possibility of everything, for if there were some possibility outside It, It would be, not absolute, but limited by this extraneous possibility. As perfect, It must distribute this perfection to the fullest extent possible. Its goodness must be everywhere. For if it were lacking anywhere, if there were some part of a possible universe from which something of this goodness were excluded, then the One would be failing Its own nature, It would be contradicting Itself: It would not be as perfect as It could be, It would be admitting a degree of imperfection there where it might impart greater perfection. Thus, not only must the One contain the seeds of everything within Itself, but It must also manifest those which are capable of manifestation. This manifesting activity expresses a necessity, is necessary: manifesta­tion is a necessary consequence of the fact not that the One is absolute, but that It is perfect, is the Good absolute.

This necessity of manifestation, this necessary breaking out of the One from Its self-inclosed isolation, might seem to imply a contradiction: that which affects the freedom of the One. It would seem that the One is under constraint, in that It has to bring Itself forth into manifesta­tion, has to emanate. But in this case it is not the One that is Supreme, but this other power according to which it is compelled to enter into manifestation. Thus, the One, if It is the Supreme, cannot be under any constraint or necessity to manifest Itself. So there is the contradic­tion that as the absolute Good It must manifest Itself, but as the Supreme It cannot be under any constraint. This contradiction is further complicated by the fact that even if It were not under any constraint to enter into manifestation, still the One could not actualize any of the seeds of manifestation It contains within Itself. To actualize any of these possibilities is to admit that there is something other and less than the One, that the One is not, in Itself, all-inclusive, is not total Reality, and this cannot be admitted. Not only therefore can the One not possess any possibility of self-determination, but also It cannot contain the seeds of manifestation in Itself in any actualized state, or in any state capable of being actualized, or in any state that implies any distinction from or differentiation in Its entirely simple and totally self-sufficient nature. The One therefore, in Itself, cannot be the principle of manifestation. What then brings forth or emanates is not the One in Itself, but pure Being. Being is the first determination of the One, and this in its turn determines all the subsequent ranks and conditions of manifestation. This does not mean that it is the One that determines Being: we have seen that this is an impossibility, for it would involve the disruption of the absolute simplicity and unity and self-sufficiency and non-determinable nature of the One. On the contrary, Being determines itself. Thus the One in Itself is exempt from any constraint. It is metaphysically free. Even pure Being, the principle of manifestation, is still free, even though this manifesta­tion is a necessary act. It is because it is free that it necessarily acts in this way. If it were anything less than free, it would be constrained to act in some other way. As it is, being free, it acts what it is: not in accordance with its nature—which assumes that its action is a conse­quence of its nature, which it is not—but as it is. Its action is itself, just as its non-activity is itself; and both are what it wills, though the willing and the action and the non-activity are all one.

From the Christian point of view, this theory of emanation seems to leave an unbridgeable gap between the One in Its totally non-differen­tiated and self-sufficient unity, and any degree of determination or multiplicity. If the One contains in Itself all the seeds of manifesta­tion, It must contain them not only in a state which is not actualized, but also in one which is free from any possibility of actualization. They must be so identified with the One, so totally subsumed in Its original nature, that there is no possibility of any distinction : they are essentially and necessarily one with Its entirely simple indivisibility. In a way, they constitute a kind of Godhead without a God. They have no author. And in so far as they are identified with the One, they cannot themselves produce or manifest anything. They could only produce or manifest anything on condition that they became distinct from the One, and this is impossible, since the One, subsuming in Itself total Reality, cannot admit anything other than Itself. How then does distinction or differentiation, or even the appearance of distinction or differentiation, first arise? In Platonic and neo-Platonic theory there is and can be no, answer to this question—or at least no answer which is not a kind of deus ex machina like, for instance, Proclus' theory of the henads, which is an attempt to bridge this gap between the One and multiplicity, or the appearance of multiplicity, while leaving unimpaired the perfect unity and non-determination of the One.

In Christian theory—and here reference is to Patristic authors, not to the Scholastics—God, the Absolute or the Supreme, is not regarded as the logical God-Unity of the Platonic tradition. Certainly, God is One, but this unity includes multiplicity, includes the divine energies and powers. God's essence is, like the Platonic One, totally transcendent, totally non-differentiated, totally undetermined and incommunicable; but His energies and powers are multiple, creative, communicable. And it must be stressed that though these energies and powers are distinguished in this way from the divine essence, they are not on that account said to be any less real or less absolute than the essence; nor must one think of the essence apart from the energies and powers, or vice versa, in such a way as to conceive of the essence as unenergized or of the energies as inessential; nor finally is the essence to be regarded as a superior order of Reality in which the energies and powers are subsumed and lose their differentiation and distinction. God is not to be identified with His essence alone, nor is the essence to be thought of as His superior or more inclusive or absolute nature, and nor are His powers and energies to be identified with His essence. It might be said that while in Platonic theory God's essence is abstracted from all His principial determinations, including that of His Being, and this essence alone, in its perfectly undetermined, non-differentiated, and entirely simple nature is thought of as embracing in Itself the total­ity of the Real, as itself constituting the Absolute, so that all determinations—all powers and energies, even pure Being—are in the final analysis seen merely as contingent and relative modes or aspects or attributes of the essence, in Christian theory it is precisely this act of abstraction that is a primal doctrinal error. Thus, in Christian theory there is no question of how differentiation and distinction arise from the unity of the One: differentiation and distinction are inherent in an actualized state in this unity "in the beginning." God, the Absolute, is One-in-Many, simplicity-in-distinction, a divided indivisibility; and, as has been said, to seek to resolve this paradox by appealing to a higher principle in which its contradictory terms are subsumed and reconciled is a basic doctrinal error.

It is because of this paradoxical idea of the Absolute that Christian theory is able to envisage an act of creation which is entirely free and spontaneous, and no necessary consequence of the Absolute being what it is. God creates, brings forth out of nothing, through the spontaneous, undetermined operation of His powers and energies. What He creates—the whole intelligible order, including the intelligible archetypes of the visible world—is not a necessary part of His nature; neither is it to be principially identified either with His essence, or His Being, or His multiple powers and energies. It is a new mode of reality, not necessary in any way. In other words, this theory seems to emphasize God's free-will, His freedom, in a manner that amounts to an exclusion of the idea of divine necessity which plays so important a part in the emanation theory. God creates because it is His "pleasure," His "glory," to create, and that is all, humanly, to be said. It is understood in both theories that nothing is added to God's nature by the existence of the world: His plenitude and power are full and unimpaired, self-sufficient and self-contained, before either emanation or creation. But while the emanation theory posits manifestation as a necessary consequence of the absolute goodness of the One, the Christian theory of creation appears to do away with all idea of necessity where the Divine is concerned: it might equally have been God's "pleasure" not to create; He could be God, absolute and infinite Power and Perfection, without showing forth His power and perfection in any creature. He could refrain from creation and still be omnipotent.

At first sight this seems an absurdity. Logically it is an absurdity. There is no escaping the logic of the fact that if God is perfect—which is also Christian teaching—He must wish to distribute His goodness in all possible ways, so that to refrain from creating or emanating would mean that there were some possible ways of distributing His Goodness which He denies Himself. Or if God is omnipotent, which again is part of Christian teaching, how can He refrain from manifesting this omnipotence in all ways possible?—one of these ways being through the existence of the world. If the Christian is to deny all idea of neces­sity with respect to God, even the necessity of necessarily acting in a certain way because He is absolute and infinite freedom and omni­potence, then the Christian must say that his account of creation is not only one that transcends logic but also one that contradicts logic. He must be able to affirm what implies a logical contradiction—what is, in other words, an impossibility from a logical point of view.

Although it is impossible to enter into any full discussion of the theme here, something must be said at this point of the different understand­ings in Platonic and Christian theories of the relationship between logic and what transcends logic, for this difference very much deter-mines their subsequent doctrinal formulations, especially with regard to what they consider possible and impossible. What Platonic theory presupposes in this respect is that divine, or metaphysical, principles, although they stand above logic in their essence, yet do not contradict logic; and that doctrinal formulations or metaphysical ideas must comply with the laws of logic because these laws rest upon an essentially metaphysical basis. This being so, it follows that the hierarchy of metaphysical principles is reflected (in so far as it is or can be reflected) in the human intelligence in a purely logical order, so that there is a strict relationship of analogy or correspondence between metaphysical principles and their formulation on the mental and logical plane. The converse of this also applies: where the formulation of meta-physical principles is concerned, the formulation that stands highest in the logical order will demonstrate the precedence of its corresponding principle in the metaphysical order. The structure of logic, that is to say, reflects and reproduces on the level of human thinking the structure of the universe; and anything which from the logical point of view presents itself as an absurdity is on that account known to be also a metaphysical impossibility. In fact, absurdity and impos­sibility in the Platonic view are interchangeable, or synonymous, terms.

In Christian theory, this kind of relationship between logic and what transcends logic is not admitted in anything like the same way. Indeed, it might almost be said that Christian theory maintains in this respect a set of presuppositions opposite to those of Platonic theory: that there is no necessary pre-established analogy or correspondence between the logical order and the metaphysical order; that so far from doctrinal formulations having to observe the strictest logical laws on the assumption that these laws have a metaphysical basis, there is in fact no integral accord between logical human thought and what transcends it; and that our inability to accept a contradiction as expressing more adequately the truth of things than any logical statement derives, not from our wisdom, but from our foolishness, as St. Paul has it. Thus, from the Christian point of view a logical absurdity by no means on that account denotes a metaphysical impos­sibility; and what is really absurd, and really betrays our impotence, lies not in thinking that God can be and act in a way that is logical, but in thinking that He cannot be or act in any other way. Indeed, from this same point of view, a condition of attaining metaphysical understanding itself is a battle against allowing the mind to be captivated and subdued by the logical constructions of thought and language. In more positive terms, this also means that Christian theory must assert that the highest ideas the human mind can grasp of metaphysical realities are likely to be those which are essentially paradoxical. Such ideas are trans-logical, in the sense that they cannot be embraced by logic, or surpassed or resolved by any idea whose terms are logically consistent. They excel the limits of purely logical thought. Faced with these ideas, the mind constrained by purely logical categories will always seek to eliminate them, either by affirming one proposition of the paradox at the expense of the other, or by formulating a "superior" logically consistent idea in which both propositions of the paradox (mutually exclusive from the logical point of view) appear.. to be absorbed and reconciled. Such elimination, justified so long as the realities indicated by the paradox themselves pertain to the logical order, is not so when the realities indicated are supra-logical. The law of the logical order that "a thing cannot simultaneously be and not be" is valid on the quantitative level to which it applies; it is meaningless when applied to supra-logical qualitative truths. To argue that what may be logically stated about metaphysical realities is neces­sarily ontologically true is to maintain a paralogism involving a radical confusion of levels. Thus, the essentially logical argument demon­strating that the nature of the Absolute is so and so and that from this it follows that manifestation is a necessary consequence, is neither here nor there. This is not to say that logical deductions relating to the existence of man in this world cannot be made from the Christian doctrine of creation. But it is to say that this doctrine itself involves a logical absurdity. It is also to say that other aspects of Christian teaching deriving from this initial doctrine must also have about them something that is logically absurd.

Both Platonic and Christian theories agree that manifestation "in the beginning" is good. This goodness is not of course goodness absolute, for this belongs to God alone. It is a relative goodness. Compared with the perfection of God (if comparisons may be made in this sphere) a degree of imperfection has entered in. But it should be made quite clear that neither in the Platonic nor in the Christian theory is the presence of evil in manifestation a necessary consequence of this degree of imperfection. It is sometimes argued that in so far as anything falls short of the absolute perfection of God, to that extent it is bound to be implicated in evil. There is, according to this argument, some necessary connection between imperfection, or relative perfection, and evil; they are even in some sense identified, as if they were the same thing. This is not the case with the two theories under review. In neither does a relative perfection necessarily imply the presence of evil; it may imply the possibility of evil, but that is another matter. In both theories, on the contrary, what is relatively perfect may be entirely free from evil. In both theories, manifestation may be free from the actual presence of evil. This is something particularly emphasized in the Christian tradition ; indeed, in a certain sense, it is at the core of Christianity, being one of the essential aspects of the Incarnation : Christ assumes human nature in every respect except that in Him this human—and created—nature is free from evil. It is from this that derives the Christian promise of a new Heaven and a new Earth—of a created existence, that is to say, which while not identified with the perfection of God Himself is none the less entirely free from evil; and it is from this too that derives the Christian theory of the sacraments, a theory quite meaningless if evil is neces­sarily inherent in everything that is created. Hence the actual presence of evil for the Christian is no necessary consequence of creation. If it is a necessary consequence of certain phases of manifestation in Platonic theory, this is not because what is manifest is necessarily imperfect and hence evil. It is because certain "lower" phases of manifestation bring it into contact with evil.

*** Part Two ***

The question of evil in Platonic and neo-Platonic theory is intimately linked with that of the descent of the soul into a bodily form. The existence of the soul at all is itself a further consequence of the initial necessity of emanation. The first degree of emanation from the One, the Supreme, is pure Being. Being is the first determination of the undetermined One. Pure Being contains all the possibilities of particular beings—all the souls—in a unified state. Just as Being is necessarily determined, so it necessarily determines all its own possibilities—necessarily, because it is in the nature of things for the One to manifest Its goodness in all ways possible. Hence particular beings —souls—receive their particular existence. These souls must have some activity different from that of pure Being, for otherwise the two would be identical. They must have a different manner or mode of being. This different manner or mode of being involves the assertion of variety and individuality which, since they are possibilities in pure Being, must be made manifest. This outward movement, movement away from the centre, the One, must continue without any halt until all possible degrees of manifestation are accomplished and exhausted—until there is nothing left to manifest. This is a natural and necessary accomplishment deriving from the original nature of the One.

Where, then, into this process of emanation does evil enter? It cannot be imputed to the process itself, since, this process being in the nature of things, so to do would be to impute evil to the originator of the process, to the One Itself; and what is the Good absolute cannot also be the source of evil. Nor can it be imputed to individual souls as such, for these, in spite of their differentiation, are still essentially modes of the intelligible world of pure Being, rooted in the substance of pure Being, and so free from evil. Evil, therefore, enters into the process in some sense from without, or, rather, from a sphere opposite to that of Being from which the soul derives, of which it is a mode, and which knows no admixture of anything evil. This sphere is that of Matter. Matter is the total opposite to Being. It is total Non-Being, total lack and destitution, unformed and measureless, having no share whatsoever in Being: so inconceivable in its unreality that it may be apprehended only by a kind of spurious reasoning. But if it has no share whatsoever in Being, and Being is essential goodness, it can have no share in the Good, it is the negation of the Good. It is, therefore, evil, evil utterly. And it is from its implication in Matter that the soul is implicated in evil. In the last phase of its outward manifestation, soul, naturally good, and seeking to distribute this goodness to the farthest extreme, seeks to give Matter, essential Non-Being, some share in Being; seeks to confer on it some form. It is from this determination of Matter by the outward-flowing soul that bodily forms come into existence, and it is from the soul's commerce with or entry into bodily existence, and hence from its contact with Matter, that it becomes prone to evil. It is inherence in a bodily form and a sharing in the body's states that corrupts the soul.

Three observations are relevant here. The first is that evil is only actively present in the world of corporeal existence. The second is that it is necessarily actively present in this world, for a pre-condition of this world is an actualization of Matter, and hence of evil. In soul free from body and bodily states there is no evil. The third—and in this context the most significant—is that since a condition of his being at all is the possession of a corporeal nature, man only exists and can only exist in a world in which evil is actively present: as man, he can never be free from evil and the suffering that goes with it. At the same time, since it is in the nature of things that soul descends into a bodily form (for it is a necessary phase of the process of manifestation), it would seem that no blame can be attached to the soul or to man for this actualization of evil: no blame, and hence no responsibility for evil done.

Yet there is another aspect to this descent of the soul in Platonic theory which introduces the idea of definite choice on the soul's part and hence of culpability. On the one hand, the soul's descent is a necessary spontaneous outward movement of its nature. But on the other hand it is a turning away from a greater good to a lesser good.

It is a failure to choose what is better. It is better for the soul to remain in the intellectual world, free from body and its accompanying evils, for this is a better world. At the same time, the soul (that soul, that is, whose task it is in the process of manifestation to distribute the Good to the farthest limits) is under compulsion to participate in the sense-world. A condition of its descent is that it in some degree separates itself from its source, becomes self-centred, ignores the Divine, falls into forgetfulness, lapses. Thus, viewed from this angle, its descent into bodily form is a kind of punishment for its failure to choose the Good. It is its nature to enter into the sense-world; its descent, its "fall," is pre-determined by its allotted task in the process of manifestation; yet the performance of this task involves an apostasy and a degree of self-ownership which brings its own punishment: complicity in evil and in the sufferings that spring from it.

So that in Platonic and neo-Platonic theory one gets finally a situation something like this: given that the Good is the Good, it is inevitable that certain souls should come into being whose nature predetermines an apostasy from their source; at the same time, this apostasy is a consequence of their own self-will and deliberate choice; the descent which follows on their choice is both an actualization of the choice itself, a punishment for it, and, thirdly, a natural fulfilment of the task appointed to that soul in accomplishing God's purpose in the universe. God is only to "blame" for this descent, and the suffering in which it involves the soul, to the extent that God is to blame for being God. The alternative would be no God, no Being, no differentiation, no souls, no sense-world, nothing, absolute blank. If this would be a better state of affairs than the present one, with all its tribulations yet with its real possibilities of release from these tribulations by a return to the Source, then God is to blame. If it would not be, then God must be absolved: God is blameless, as Plato puts it.

In spite of the assertion of an element of choice in, and hence of responsibility for, the soul's suffering condition in this world, it is difficult to see how, according to Platonic theory, things could have been other than they are, how they are being as good as they can be, given the circumstances in which necessarily they must come to be. "Fallen" existence is in the nature of things, and the individual souls present in this existence are present because in this way they fulfil their appointed nature: there are necessarily certain weaker souls predestined to fall, and it would have been contrary to nature, as well as a breach in God's purpose, for them not to have fallen. In other words, fallen existence, and man's presence in a world inseparably involved with evil, are perfectly natural, indeed, inevitable, a direct consequence of the Absolute being what It is. This does not make evil any less real, or any less shameful and vicious, or lighten the suffering it entails; but on the other hand it is unavoidable, since it has its roots in a certain lack of Being, a certain lack of Reality, that is inseparable from the sense-world itself and so from created human existence itself. One might say that evil is an accident that occurs not in all manifestation as such, but certainly in all manifestation that includes man as a created being.

The whole of the Platonic theory of manifestation and of the presence of evil within manifestation is, in short, an inevitable development of the introduction of the idea of a necessity—of a logical necessity, it might be said, for that is the way it presents itself to us—operating in the original "fiat lux" according to which the first emanent, pure Being, is determined. It follows from this necessity that this world is as good as it possibly can be—and it must be—in the circumstances under which it has come into existence. This means there is really very little scope for what one might call moral responsibility on the part of man, or for its correspondent, moral guilt: if someone acts destructively, inflicts deep suffering, murders, he will be punished for his crime by a process of natural retribution (the justice of Adrasteia, ineluctable Retribution) which will keep him bound to the wheel of becoming until he has exhausted the proclivities that attach him to it; yet at the same time if, in committing his crime, he acts truly according to his nature (which he must do, for otherwise he could not act as he does), he is ultimately morally blameless. Evil, as we said, does not cease to be evil, but, first, it contributes to the good of the whole and, second, the individual instrument is not to blame that he or she acts in an evil manner, since the harmony and well-being of the whole demands that this evil should be manifest through him or her: as Plotinus writes, the well-run state has to have an executioner, or from the adultery or the violation of prisoners may spring fine children.

Compared with the Platonic theory, the Christian teaching on the "fall" presents an illogicality similar to, and indeed deriving from, that we noted when speaking of the Christian idea of creation. Just as the original act of creation is essentially free and excludes all idea of necessity, so the fall is a consequence of choice and not something accomplished under the constraint of a natural divine law. There is no need for it to have happened as part of the inevitable process of manifestation. It happened because primal man—Adam—chose that it should happen. This in its turn presupposes two conditions. The first is the possibility, already noted, of a creation including man that is free from evil—of a creation whose perfection, though relative (when compared with the perfection of God), does not necessarily entail the presence of evil; and the second is that it is possible for Adam to have chosen not to fall. That both these possibilities are real, and not simply ideal, or sentimental, or "anthropomorphic," is established for Christians in the revelation of the Incarnate God, the second Adam, who, as man (and not in so far as He is God), and as therefore a created being, is free from sin, and who, again as man, does not succumb to the temptations of the Devil in the wilderness. Christ, in other words, fulfils the destiny that Adam failed to fulfil. What from the Platonic point of view is a metaphysical impossibility is thus seen to be the central message of the Christian revelation: that there can be, and is, a created existence which is free from evil and suffering; that evil and suffering are no necessary characteristics of creation as such.

From this point of view, then, man's fall as well as his consequent implication in evil and suffering are neither necessary nor natural. Or, rather, evil and suffering are a necessary consequence of Adam's choice, but this choice itself is both undetermined and involves man in a state of existence that is not his by nature. If this is the case, it may be asked, why did God allow it? If He could create a world that is free from evil (not from the possibility of evil, which is another matter), and a human nature capable of resisting the seduction of evil (and that He could is demonstrated by the incarnate life of Christ), why did He permit Adam's fall? And further, since He did permit Adam's fall, must not this fall have been in the original scheme of things, and therefore as much according to nature as the fall of the soul in Platonic theory? In any case, does not Christian theory implicate God one way or another in man's fall and fallen state and therefore in the evil and suffering inseparable from it?

The Christian answer to this is again by reference to the freedom in which man (Adam) is originally created. God's intention in creating man is that he should be a creature that, once having been given existence, should be responsible for what he does with it. His freedom to turn to God or to turn away from God, to exist in life or to exist in death (for existence is the one thing he cannot get out of), is therefore an inherent property of his original nature: Adam, unlike the soul that in Platonic theory is predestined to manifest the Good in the sense-world, could have chosen not to fall. If God had created an Adam incapable of falling, or in some way have prevented him from falling, or had abstained from the creation of Adam knowing that he would, certainly or possibly, fall, He would have been frustrated in His purpose. In other words, from the Christian viewpoint, God is to "blame" for man's fall and the consequent evil and suffering in which it involves him only in so far as He is to blame for wishing to create man free from constraint in his choice of accepting or rejecting His love and life; for wishing that man should participate actively and voluntarily and not merely passively and compulsorily in this love and life. Had He created man in a state from which he had no possibility of falling, man's goodness would have been conditioned in a servile and arbitrary manner and would not be the consequence of any choice or co-operation on his part. One can say that God is "at fault" in wishing man to possess this freedom; but once it is granted that this freedom is within the intention of God's original creation of Adam, the responsibility for the fall and for all its disastrous consequences lies with man.

Several further distinctions between Platonic and Christian theory are implicit in these primary distinctions. Four seem to be of direct relevance in this context. The first is one about which something has already been said, and concerns the difference in attitude to freedom and necessity. In Platonic theory, the notion of necessity plays a far greater part than it does in Christian theory, where on the contrary freedom is pre-eminently stressed. But this does not mean that the pre-eminence attributed to freedom in Christian theory, and its refusal to recognize categories of necessity where the Absolute is concerned, are the result of arbitrary prejudice or sentimentality. The difference between the two theories in this respect derives from their different attitudes to logic and their different understandings of the relationship between logic and metaphysic, of which mention has already been made. The notion of necessity, which involves relating one thing to another (part to whole, effect to cause, and so on) in a purely logical manner is one that itself can only arise within the logical order. In Platonic theory, it is legitimate to transpose such a notion to the supra-logical order, on the grounds that the laws of logic reflect or correspond to metaphysical realities. In this way it is legitimate to speak of necessity in connection with the Absolute Itself. From the Christian view-point, freedom—the absence of any constraint, logical or other—is of the nature of the uncreated divine order, while necessity, taking its rise in the relative and quantitative sphere of the created order within which logic also arises, merely characterizes certain aspects of this order and its conditions. To apply this notion to the divine order, as if there were a necessary and pre-established analogy between the divine and the logical orders, is to assume a relationship between the two orders which Christianity does not assume.

A second distinction is connected with the first. According to Platonic theory there is a necessary relationship between man and God —or, rather, between man's soul and God. Man's soul, though it adds nothing to God, is yet the natural and generic offspring of divine Being; it is rooted in this Being, is of the same essence as this Being. The soul may go up and down the scale of Being, but it cannot lose its essential identity as a mode or phase—an emanant ray—of God. There is an essential continuity of all things with their ontological Principle. This means that the line of demarcation between the Divine and "other than Divine" does not in Platonic theory pass between God and His Being on the one hand, and soul and sense-world on the other, but between soul and sense-world tout court; or, rather, since soul is a mode of Being, it passes between Being and the whole intelligible world including soul on the one hand, and the sensible world on the other. In Christian theory, on the contrary, not only does the creation of man not add anything to God, but also there is no necessary (natural and generic) relationship between God and man or God and man's soul; man, either as soul or body, or as both together, does not participate in Being as a natural right, nor is there any essential identity between his soul and Being. Soul and body are an independent act of creation, an establishing of a new form of existence in the presence of God. The line of demarcation therefore, in Christian theory, between the Divine and "other than Divine" does not pass between the intelligible world of Being and the world of sensible existence, but between God and His Being on the one hand, and the intelligible and sensible world considered as a single organic creation on the other; and there is no essential identity or continuity between these two spheres. It is because of this that Christian theory is able to envisage a degree of human independence and freedom that is impossible according to Platonic theory.

A third distinction between the two theories is also one that has already been touched on. Both theories agree that evil has no substantive existence, that it is a kind of negation, a defect, a total lack of Being. Both further agree that it is not a natural property of all manifestation as such: in Platonic theory the whole realm of Being is free from evil, and in Christian theory both Paradise and the new Heaven and the new Earth are free from evil. Nor is either theory Manichaean. But while in Platonic theory evil is a necessary function of existential manifestation, and hence of man's existence, this is not so in Christian theory: evil is no necessary part either of existence as such or of man's life as such. In Christian theory, both existence and man's life become implicated in evil as a result of the fall, which in itself is neither a necessary nor a natural occurrence. Evil is a possibility inherent in creation (a possibility which measures the distance, if one may put it like this, between the uncreated and the created), but one that need not ever be actualized. That it is actualized, through Adam's choice, brings about a rupture in creation. It is not because evil and suffering are a natural and inescapable condition of existence that man must sin and suffer so long as he remains an existential creature—a notion which has as its counterpart a theory of deliverance according to which man can only be free from evil and suffering on condition that he ceases to exist as a creature altogether. It is because man has perverted existence that he sins and suffers, and with him the rest of creation; so that deliverance from evil and suffering is not a matter of escaping from the natural and inevitable limitations of creaturely existence, but of restoring or remaking its integrity. This means that the Christian idea of the fall introduces a tension into fallen human existence quite alien to the life of man as envisaged in Platonic theory. In Platonic theory, everything basically is in its place, is where it has to be according to its nature, and there is "injustice" and stupidity in wishing human life, for instance, or existence in general, to be other than it is. It is only possible to find fault with the ordinance of things in the sensible world, and so with human life, on the assumption that everything ought to come into existence in this world with all the perfection of those beings that, since they have remained in the intellectual world, have never known such a coming into existence at all. Such an assumption is ludicrous, for things in the intellectual realm cannot have an unbroken continuity with things in the world of sense. It would be better if things had not come into existence in the world of sense, for the simple reason that this has involved a lapse from the intellectual world, which is a better world. But this lapse has to be because God has to be: the soul guilty of it is under divine compulsion. In Christian theory, on the other hand, man's existence as he now knows it, is not as it should be: there has been this breach in creation, this rupture, and this, since it has been brought about by man and not by any natural or necessary divine process in which man is inevitably involved, places on man a different kind of responsibility and introduces this tension to which reference has been made.

Fourthly, and partly as a consequence of what has been said immediately above, there is a distinction between the two theories in their attitude to time and in the significance attached to it. In the Platonic theory, time is the life of the soul in its various transmigrations in the world of sense: it comes into being as a consequence of the soul's descent and its flight from eternity. As this descent and flight are part of a natural and necessary process, so also is time. In one sense, time must always exist: intellectual beings are eternal and as these must necessarily generate their own likenesses, the images they produce in time must stand for as long as their archetypes, which is always: God ever is, and so must all that is sequent to God ever be. Thus evil, which is inseparable from the becoming-process, is inseparable also from time; and as the becoming-process is perpetual, so too is the actualization of evil perpetual: there can be no final end of evil, as there can be no final end of time. On the other hand, this perpetuity of time is punctuated by a certain inner cyclic rhythm, and one of the phases of this rhythm is the return of all things to their pre-manifest source: the becoming-process, and time with it, are brought, for this phase, to a halt; and consequently, during this phase, evil lies dormant, unactualized. But this phase is only a phase, for God cannot cease from being God and so the necessary process of manifestation must again be radiated forth. This being so, time is really a function of a certain lack of true being; it is the movement of the fallen soul, a kind of fragmentary flight splintering eternity, which eternity can reclaim only by destroying.