Emanation

Emanation, from the Latin for “flowing out”, is the term modern scholars use for the Neoplatonic account of how reality proceeds from the One. Plotinus does not use a single technical word, but he describes the procession of Intellect from the One, and of Soul from Intellect, with images of overflow: light from the sun, heat from fire, fragrance from a perfume. The source gives without loss and without choice, remaining in itself.

Each level proceeds from the one above and turns back to contemplate it, and in that turning becomes what it is. Later Neoplatonists, especially Proclus, formalized this as a triad of remaining, procession and return, which became a pattern for much medieval thought.

Christian, Jewish and Islamic thinkers adopted the language of emanation with caution, since it seemed to make creation necessary rather than free. Pseudo-Dionysius speaks of God’s processions as the outpouring of goodness; Kabbalah describes the emanation of the sefirot; the Islamic philosophers al-Fārābī and Avicenna built emanationist cosmologies. Each had to reconcile emanation with a God who creates by will.