Concerning "Power," "Righteousness," "Salvation," "Re- demption"; and also inequality.
1. Theologians praise the divine Truth and transcendent Wisdom for
being Power and Righteousness, Salvation and Redemption, 217. divine 889C
names which I must now try to explicate. It seems to me that anyone reared on scripture cannot be unaware of the fact that the Godhead transcends and surpasses every real and every conceivable power. Theology regularly speaks of the "Lordship" of the Godhead and makes a distinction between this and the heavenly powers. So, therefore, in what sense do the theologians praise it as power when it is in fact superior to power? In what sense do we apply the name "Power" to God?
2. This is how I would answer. God is Power in that all 889D
power is initially contained within his own self. He is Power in- ____________________ 214.Rom 8:39, 11:20?
215.Acts 26:24.
216.Perhaps derived from Rom 8:36 (Ps 44:22), this reference to martyrs is unique in the corpus. But see Ep. 10 1117A 8-12.
217.These four names are mentioned in DN 1 596B 21-24. Power: 2 Chr 20:6; Ps 24:8 (LXX); 1 Cor 1:18; Rv 19:1; Righteousness: 1 Cor 1:30; Salvation: Ex 15:2; Mt 1:21; Rv 19:1; Redemption: 1 Cor 1:30.
-110-
sofar as he exceeds all power. He is the cause of all power. He gives being to all things through his power which is total and unthwarted. He is the cause of power in its totality and in its specific form. His power is infinite because all power comes from him and
because he transcends all power, even absolute power. He possesses 892A
a superabundance of power which endlessly produces an endless number of other powers. The created powers never blunt the super-unbounded work of his power-producing power. His transcendent power is inexpressible, unknowable, inconceivably great, and, as it flows over, it empowers whatever is weak and it preserves and directs the humblest of its echoes. What happens may be compared to powers in the domain
of the senses. Brilliant light can reach through to the dimmest sight, and the loudest sounds can penetrate a deafened ear, for, of course, that which is absolutely incapable of hearing is not an ear and that which is absolutely unable to see is not sight.
3. God's infinite power is distributed among all things and 892B
there is nothing in the world entirely bereft of power. There has to be some manifestation of power, whether it be by way of intuition, reason, perception, life, or being. Indeed, if one may put it so, this last has its power for "being" from a Power beyond being.
4. Certainly it is from this that there emerge the godlike powers of the ranks of angels. It is from here that they derive the immutability of what they are and their perpetual movements of 892C intellect and
immortality. Their stability and their ceaseless desire for the Good come from that infinitely good Power which itself bestows on them their own power and existence, inspiring in them the ceaseless desire for existence, giving them the very power to long for unending power.
5. The benefits of this inexhaustible Power reach out to humans, to animals, to plants, and indeed to all of nature. They enable the assembly of all things to achieve mutual harmony and communion and they enable the distinguished to be so in accordance with the natural laws and qualities of each and without any confusion or intermingling of their characteristics. This Power ensures that the orders and direc
tions of the universe achieve their proper good and it preserves in im 892D
mortality the unharmed lives of the angelic henads. 218. It keeps the ____________________
218.Saffrey, "Nouveaux liens," p. 15.
-111-
stars of heaven in their shining and unchanging orders. It gives them the power to be eternal. It
distinguishes the circlings of time from its procession and duly brings them back to base. It fashions the unquenchability of fire and the ceaseless moisture of water. It keeps the atmosphere fluid, founds the earth upon the void, making its labors endlessly fruitful. It preserves the shared harmony and mixture of the linked elements in their distinctiveness and their separateness. It rein 893A
forces the bonds of soul and body. It stirs the powers which give nourishment and growth to plants. It guides the powers which keep each creature in being. It establishes the unshakable remaining of the world. To those made godlike it grants the power for deification itself. In short, nothing in the world lacks the almighty power of God to support and to surround it, for that which completely lacks power has neither existence, nor individuality, nor even a place in the world.
6. Elymas the magician 219. has this to say: "If God is all-powerful, 893B
how then is it possible for your theologian to declare that there are some things he cannot do?" He is here criticizing the divine Paul for stating that God "cannot deny himself." 220. Such is his objection, and I may be laughed at for folly if I proceed to pull down tottering houses built by idle children on sand. I may be ridiculed for aiming at an inaccessible target when I undertake to deal with this theological issue. Still, this is how I would answer. Denial of the true self is a falling away from truth. Now truth is a being and a falling away from truth is a falling away from being. If the truth is a being and if a denial of the truth is a falling away from being, God cannot fall from being. One might say that he is not lacking in being, that he is not able to
lack power, that he does not know how to lack knowledge. The wise 893C
magician apparently did not grasp this. He is a bit like one of those incompetent athletes who is under the illusion that his competitor is weak. He judges him by his own standards, and so he misses him each time as he sends a mighty blow at his shadow, manfully batters the wind, 221. imagines he is the winner and, not knowing the power of the others, boasts of his abilities. But, on the other hand, I am on target, the target
set by the theologian; and I praise the super-powerful God for being omnipotent, blessed, the sole and mighty ruler, as sovereign in the reign of eternity. He has in no way fallen from being. Rather,
____________________ 219.Acts 13:8.
220.2 Tm 2:13.
221.The theme, but not the vocabulary, of 1 Cor 9:26.
-112-
in his transcendent power he is above all things and he has advance possession of all things. He it is who has granted the power to be
everything. This gift of existence comes through the unstinted out 893D
pouring of his overwhelming power.
7. Again, the title "Righteousness" is given to God because he assigns what is appropriate to all things; he distributes their due pro
portion, beauty, rank, arrangement, their proper and fitting place and 896A
order, according to a most just and righteous determination. He is the cause of their individual activity. It is the righteousness of God which orders everything, setting boundaries, keeping things distinct and unconfused, giving each thing what it inherently deserved. This being so, those who criticize the righteousness of God unwittingly stand condemned for utter unrighteousness. Such people claim that immortality should be given to what is mortal, perfection to what is imperfect, self-movement to those moved from without, 222. immutability to the changing, strength to the weak, eternity to the time-bound, im
mobility to the mobile, durability to fleeting pleasure. In short, they 896B
want everything changed around. What they really should know is that the righteousness of God is truly righteousness in that it gives the appropriate and deserved qualities to everything and that it preserves the nature of each being in its due order and power.
8. Someone might say that it is not a characteristic of righteousness to leave pious men without some help when they are oppressed by the wicked. To this the answer must be that if those whom you describe as pious are actually lovers of things basely sought on earth, then they have certainly fallen away from the yearning for God. I can
not therefore understand why they are called pious when they do this 896C
injustice to what is truly lovable and divine, when they so evilly abandon these out of a preference for things unworthy of their ambition and of their yearning. If they were to yearn for the truly real, if their desire were for this, then there should be joy when they obtain it. Would they not be closer to the virtues of the angels if, in their longing for the things of God, they shed their attachment to material things and bravely trained themselves for this in their quest for the beautiful? It would be very much more in keeping with righteousness if God were to refrain from undermining the courage of the noblest ones through giving them material goods, if he were to give help to them ____________________
222.The translation follows the variant reading adopted by S. Lilla ("Osservazioni sul testo," #293, p. 175).
-113-
when anyone tried to corrupt them, if he strengthened them in their admirable and firm steadiness, and if he gave them whatever befits their calling.
9. This divine Righteousness is also praised as the "Salvation of 896D
the world," 223. since it ensures that each being is preserved and maintained in its proper being and order, distinct from everything else. It is so called also because it is pure cause of everything active in the world. And if one were to praise Salvation as being that saving force
which rescues the world from the influence of evil, I would certainly 897A
accept this, since in fact Salvation takes many forms. I would only add that, basically, Salvation is that which preserves all things in their proper places without change, conflict, or collapse toward evil, that it keeps them all in peaceful and untroubled obedience to their proper laws, that it expels all inequality and interference from the world, and that it gives everything the proportion to avoid turning into its own opposite and to keep free of any kind of change of state. Someone might say—not apart from the intention of theology—that this Salvation, benevolently operating for the preservation of the world, redeems
everything in accordance with the capacity of things to be saved and it works so that everything may keep within its appropriate virtue. This is why the theologians name it "Redemption,"
because it does not permit the truly real to fall to nothingness and 897B
because it redeems from the passions, from impotence and deficiency anything which has gone astray toward error or disorder or has suffered a failure to reach its proper virtues. Redemption is like a loving father making up for what is missing and overlooking any slack. It raises a thing up from an evil condition and sets it firmly where it ought to be, adding on lost virtue, bringing back order and arrangement where there was disorder and derangement, making it perfect and liberating it from defects.
This, then, is the theme of Righteousness, by which the equality of things is measured and bounded, by which the inequality or defect
of equality affecting individual things is kept away. And even the in 897C
equality of things, the difference between all things for the whole, is protected by Righteousness which will not permit confusion and disturbance among things but arranges that all things are kept within the particular forms appropriate to each of them. ____________________
223.See DN 1 596B 23f., note 50.
-114-