Page 190 [190]
OCR
MIKLÓS VASSÁNYI be a final cause by our author (and by the Peripatetic tradition in general).* In a way, this identity of the efficient and the final cause already prefigures the fundamental circular pattern of the universal motion induced by God, in Dionysian metaphysics: the cosmic cycle of outflow from, and return into Him. But the important point for now is that Denys consecrates his first serious theological analysis to the Good—and not to the One, nor to Being— conceived as the first efficient and final cause of all that there is. It is a presupposition of Denys’ that God is good intrinsically and by nature, insofar as creativity seems an essential feature of God; and in that it is selfevidently good that there be a broad range of different existents. In other words, God is good essentially insofar as He is the Creator. An analytical description of the seamless spectrum of created beings is therefore part and parcel of Denys’ theology of the Good because the Good and Being are in correlation: It is characteristic of the Good to produce Being, and all Being characteristically turns towards and strives after the Good. This correlation helps us to fine-tune our understanding of the Good, which, in order to qualify as Good, must first reveal its goodness by producing Being. Hence although for Denys, God conceived as the Good takes precedence over God conceived as (the source of) Being—which is the subject of Part 5 of On the Divine Names—in the order of discussion, still the Good may theoretically be no more than the paramount aspect of God, the first divine attribute in the order of human cognition, the primum quoad nos. In other words, the Good is a facet of God which depends on the goodness of Being; the notion that Being as such is more perfect—and so more valuable—than non-being seems an implicit but absolute axiological premise underlying Denys’ system of values. That premise itself may rely on an understanding of perfection in terms of reality, if perfection is considered to be the most complete realization of a thing’s potencies. On the other hand, in historical terms, the Good and Being had already been brought into a relationship of cause and effect by Plato in Book 6 of the Republic, where he asserts that the Good causes at least the intelligible realities to be.* Later, Plotinus, in Ennead 1, 8, also brought goodness and being into correlation as he suggested that Being and the realm beyond it (that is, the One) are intrinsically good.° Proclus, then, broadened Plato’s perspective 4 Aristotle himself calls God r} äpiotn ovoia in Metaphysics XII/9 (1074 B 20), describing the divine thinking as 16 dptotov, and the object of divine thinking as Tö deiöTatov Kal TiuuwTatov (ibidem, 1074 B 33 and 26, respectively). Kai Toig YIYVWOKOHÉVOLG TOÍVVV UM HOVoV TO yıyvworeodaL pavaı Ind Tod Ayadod napeivaı, aAXG Kai 16 civai te Kal tiv ovoiav br Exeivov adtoic HpOGSÍVAL, OÜK Odolag övrog Tod Ayadoö, AAN Erı enereiva tfg oboiag npeoßeiqa Kal duväneı drrepexovroc. (Respublica 509 B 6-9) Ei ön radtd &otı tä ÖVTA kal TÖ ÉTÉKEIVA TÖV ÖVTWV, OÚK Av ÉV TOÍG OŰOL TÖ kaköv éveín, 00097 Év TŐ ÉTÉKEILVA TV ÖVTWV: áyagá yáp tadta. (Quae sint et unde mala? - Ennead 1, 8, 3, 1-3.) See also Ennead 1,7 where Plotinus, again, correlates the Good and Being: Ta 5é GAAa nmavta + 188 e Daréczi-Sepsi-Vassänyi_Initiation_155x240.indb 188 6 2020.06.15. 11:04:20
