Elements of Theology, Proposition 31

Every thing which proceeds from another essentially, returns to that from which it proceeds.

For if it should proceed, indeed, but should not re­turn to the cause of this progression, it would not desire its cause. For everything which desires is converted to the object of its desire. Moreover, every thing desires good, and to each thing the attainment of it is through the proximate cause. Every thing, therefore, desires its cause: and the cause of being to any particular thing is likewise the cause of well-being (good) to it. But desire is primarily directed to the cause of well-being: and con­version or return is to that to which desire primarily tends.

 COMMENTARY

For Proclus, all things are subject to a threefold movement, viz. abiding, proceeding, and returning (mone, prohodos, epistrophe). In the previous Proposition he discussed remaining and proceeding. He now discusses the third movement, returning or conversion. 

We have seen that all things must both abide in and proceed from their cause. Everything must be united to its cause in some way, or it can't be caused by it; therefore, it remains in its cause on some level. But everything must also proceed from its cause-- otherwise, we wouldn't be able to call it a separate thing. This is somewhat alien to our usual way of thinking, but easy enough to grasp. 

But what about returning? 

Proclus tells us that everything must return to its cause, because otherwise "it would not desire its cause." This is a little less familiar even than the idea of abiding while proceeding. They key to it lies in Plato's understanding of the Good. The Good, Plato tells us, is "that which all things desire." As human beings, we are sometimes mistaken about what our good actually is. We are hungry; we think that a cookie will satisfy our hunger. We eat the cookie, desire three more, eat them, and wind up with a crash in our energy and an upset stomach, followed in short order by inflammation and weight gain. We mistake an apparent good for our actual good. Learning, we have a steak salad instead of a cookie; our body becomes stronger, our energy increases, we feel better. Rising still further, we refuse our hunger entirely for an hour or for a day, seeking instead to discipline our appetites by fasting. 

 The Good, which is God Himself, is both our source and our end. Proclus discusses this in a very beautiful passage from his commentary on Plato's Timaeus: 

 

All things that exist are offspring of the gods, are brought into existence without intermediation by them and have their foundation in them. For not only does the continuous procession of entities reach completion, as each of them successively obtains its subsistence from its proximate causes, but it is also from the very gods themselves that all things in a sense are generated, even if they are described as being at the furthest remove from the gods, [indeed] even if you were to speak of matter (hulê) itself. For the divine does not stand aloof from anything, but is present for all things alike. For this reason, even if you take the lowest levels [of reality], there too you will find the divine present. The One is in fact everywhere present, inasmuch as each of the beings derives its existence from the gods, and even though they proceed forth from the gods, they have not gone out from them but rather are rooted in them. Where, indeed, could they ‘go out’, when the gods have embraced all things and taken hold of them in advance and still retain them in themselves? For what is beyond the gods is That which is in no way existent, but all beings have been embraced in a circle by the gods and exist in them. In a wonderful way, therefore, all things both have and have not proceeded forth. They have not been cut off from the gods. If they had been cut off, they would not even exist, because all the offspring, once they were wrenched away from their fathers, would immediately hasten towards the gaping void of non-being. In fact they are somehow established in them [the gods], and, to put the matter in a nutshell, they have proceeded of their own accord, but [at the same time] they remain in the gods. 

 

But those beings which proceed forth must also return, imitating the manifestation of the gods and their reversion to the cause, so that they too are ordered in accordance with the perfective triad, and are again embraced by the gods and the most primary henads. They receive a second kind of perfection from them, in accordance with which they are able to revert to the goodness of the gods, so that, being rooted at the outset in the gods, through their reversion they can be fixed in them once again, making this kind of circle which both begins from the gods and ends with them. All things, therefore, both remain in and revert to the gods, receiving this ability from them and obtaining in their very being a double signature, the one in order to remain there, the other so that what proceeds forth can return. And it is possible to observe these not only in souls, but also in the lifeless beings that follow them.

 

That all things desire God is not a doctrine limited to pagans, or even to professed Platonists. Thomas Aquinas was generally hostile to Plato himself, but his thinking was so shaped by Dionysius and Augustine-- and by Aristotle, who could never escape his master's way of thinking, no matter how hard he tried-- that his work is filled with Platonic ideas and is incomprehensible without them:

All things, by desiring their own perfection, desire God Himself, inasmuch as the perfections of all things are so many similitudes of the divine being... And so of those things which desire God, some know Him as He is Himself, and this is proper to the rational creature; others know some participation of His goodness, and this belongs also to sensible knowledge; others have a natural desire without knowledge, as being directed to their ends by a higher intelligence. 

On Prayer

A great help in our reversion to the gods is prayer. This also Proclus discusses at length in the Timaeus commentary: 

 

This is the best end of true prayer, in order that the conversion of the soul may be conjoined with its permanency, and that every thing which proceeds from The One of the Gods, may again be established in The One, and the light which is in us may be comprehended in the light of the Gods.

 

Prayer therefore, is no small part of the whole ascent of souls. Nor is he who possesses virtue superior to the want of the good which proceeds from prayer; but on the contrary the ascent of the soul is effected through it, and together with this, piety to the Gods, which is the summit of virtue.

Nor is prayer limited to human beings. As all things desire the Good, for Proclus, all things pray. Even a flower or a stone, by its very nature adores the Gods who are the source of its existence. 

But perhaps this is better expressed, again, by Proclus himself, in his hymn to the One: 

 

O, Absolutely Transcendent! (what else is it rightful to call Thee?)

 

How shall I fittingly hymn Thee, that art of all things most exalted?

 

How would words speak Thy Splendor? For words cannot name or denote Thee,

 

Sole Unspeakable Being, since Thou art the cause of all speaking.

 

How might the mind know Thy Nature? For mind cannot grasp or conceive Thee,

 

Sole Unknowable Being, since Thou art the cause of all knowing.

 

All things existing, the speaking and speechless together proclaim Thee.

 

All things existing, the knowing and nescient together, adore Thee.

 

All keen desires or lust, all painful passions are yearnings

 

Only for Thee. Thine is the whole world’s prayer; to Thee all,

 

Sensing Thy tokens within them, utter a paean of silence.

 

Everything issues from Thee. Only Thou art dependent on nothing.

 

Everything nestles within Thee. Everything surges upon Thee.

 

For Thou art the Goal of all beings. And Thou art One Thing, and All Things,

 

And yet neither one thing, nor all things.

 

O, Most-Named, how then shall I name Thee?

 

That art alone the Unnamable? What even Heaven-born Mind then

 

Could possibly penetrate Thy distant Shroud? I Pray Thee, be gracious!

 

O, Absolutely Transcendent, what else is it rightful to call Thee?’