EMANATISMO. — Philosophical and religious doctrine that conceives the world as an emanation, derivation, or development of God. E. is generally intimately joined with pantheism and is opposed to creationism, dualism (v.) of God and world. The affinity of e. with evolutionism is more apparent than real, since the former is metaphysical-theological in character, while the latter is naturalistic and materialistic (E. Spencer, E. Haeckel).
E. presents no few variations: two forms seem fundamental: 1) that in which God is entirely resolved into the world; 2) that in which the world does not exhaust the essence of God, who remains outside and above it (Max Müller used the term panuavismo). In the Indian Bhagavadgītā, as in Plotinus’s Eunadi, this latter form is found. Kṛṣṇa says in the Bhagavadgītā: «there is nothing greater than I; all things are contained in me, as pearls on the thread of a necklace. I am the liquidity in water, the light of the sun and moon, manliness in man, the good odor in the earth, the heat of the sun, intelligence in the intelligent, heroism in the hero, strength in the strong, and I am also the desire that does not deviate from the path of virtue». And again: «I destroy and create; I am at once death and immortality, good and evil». The Bhagavadgītā not only affirms that everything is God, but repeatedly declares that God transcends everything and is simultaneously transcendent and immaterial in the world (S. Dasgupta, A history of Indian philosophy, II, Cambridge 1932, pp. 524–525). Plotinus posits the One as the supreme principle, above every determination and every quality. The two hypotheses of the vāṇa and of the vāṇa necessarily derive from the One, as flashes (ἐκκλησίς), images (ἐκκλησίς), but the One remains in itself unchanged and undiminished. Iamblichus, in order to preserve the transcendence of the One, multiplies the intermediaries. By contrast, the first principle of Stoicism, the πνεῦμα, in the διακόσμησις, loses some of its τόνος and is progressively weakened into fire, air, water, and earth; and although a part of it remains in a pure state and fulfills the function of the world-soul, it is not qualitatively different from those parts that give rise to cosmic reality. Stoic doctrine, insofar as it identifies the πνεῦμα with the λόγος, if it is not e., shares certain features with it (ἐν ἐκκλησίς). Essentially emanationist is the Gnostic doctrine of the aeons, particularly in Basilides and Valentinus.
In medieval scholasticism the use of the word is fairly common, but in a general sense, also referring to the derivation of things from God through creation: thus in St. Thomas: «mobilia ipsum esse non acquisiverunt per mutationem vel motum, sed per emanationem a primo rerum principio» (In Phys. Arist., VIII, 1, 3); «et hanc emanationem totica entia universalis a causa universali quae est Deus, designamus nomine creationis» (Sam. Theol., 1ᵃ, q. 45, a. 1).
Clear indications of c. reappear in Nicholas of Cusa (Deus = mundus implicitus; mundus = Deus explicitus); and later in Bruno and Spinoza, who identifies «emanative» cause and «active» cause and uses the expressions «Deum agere» and «ex natura Dei sequi» indiscriminately. E. can pantheism (v.), as may be seen, for example, in E. V. Hartmann and his principal disciple A. Drews (1865–1935), and in not a few other monistic currents of modern philosophy. E. shares with pantheism its internal, insuperable logical-metaphysical aporias.
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CHOROGRAFNICA DESCRIPTIO.DOMINII V. V. V. V. V. V. V. V. V. V. V. V. V. V. V. V. V. V. V. V. V. V. V. V. V. V. V. V. V. V. V. V. V. V. V. V. V. V. V. V. V. V. V. V. V. V. V. V. V. V. V. V. V. V. V. V. V. V. V. V. V. V. V. V. V. V. V. V.
(Int. Eur. Cult.)
FAZEVIEK – G. Contarini, *De republica
Venerorum libri quinque*, Leida 1828,
p. 5 – Rome, copy in the Biblioteca
Alessandrina.