Plotino - Tratado 39,21 (VI, 8, 21) — O Bem é "inteiramente vontade"

21. ¿Podría el ser divino ser distinto a como es? ¿Y acaso vamos a privarle del poder de hacer el bien por el mero hecho de que no pueda hacer el mal? Lo potencia del Uno no consiste desde luego en poder hacer las cosas contrarias; es la suya una potencia sólida e inmóvil y es, a la vez, la mayor posible, dado que no se aleja del Uno. El poder hacer las cosas contrarias corresponde a los seres que no permanecen en la perfección.

Conviene, por tanto, que esta producción de sí mismo de que aquí hablamos exista una vez por todas; es en verdad una producción hermosa. Pues, ¿qué ser podría modificarla, si debe su nacimiento a la voluntad divina y es ella su voluntad misma? Porque si su ser se debe a su voluntad, ¿cómo imaginarse esta voluntad? ¿Qué es lo que realmente podría ser, de no referirla a un sujeto que ya existe? ¿Vendría tal vez la voluntad de una esencia que no está en acto? La voluntad, ciertamente, ha de encontrarse en su esencia; no debe ser otra cosa que su esencia. Porque, ¿qué hay en aquel Ser que no sea voluntad? Todo en El es voluntad y nada existe en El que no quiera. Ya desde un principio confúndense así su voluntad y él mismo. Todo se sigue de su voluntad, tanto lo que El quiso ser como la forma en que lo quiso ser, pues nada engendraría la voluntad que no se encontrase en El.

Es un Ser que no se contiene a sí mismo y, si nuestras palabras tienen un sentido, deben querer decir también que soporta en la existencia a todos cuantos seres provienen de El. Estos seres son por participación, de manera que se reducen todos a El. Mas El, en cambio, no es sostenido por sí mismo ni participa de sí mismo, sino que es todas las cosas por sí mismo aunque sin tener necesidad de ser ninguna de estas cosas.

Si alguna vez nos ocurre pronunciar su nombre o pensar en El, prescindiremos de todo lo demás. Le dejaremos sólo con esta clasificación, la de sí mismo, y nada buscaremos ya. Lo único que, al contrario, recalcaremos es si queda aún algo en el pensamiento que haga referencia a El.

Podrá alcanzarse así, en verdad, un principio del que no se pueda decir ni pensar otra cosa. Este principio estará muy por encima de todo otro y será el único verdaderamente libre, porque en realidad no es esclavo de sí mismo. Sólo El es él mismo, en tanto cada uno de los otros seres es él mismo y algo más.

XXI. Dieu pouvait-il donc se faire autre qu’il ne s’est fait ? [S’il ne le pouvait pas, il n’est pas tout-puissant.] — Tous lui enlevez le pouvoir de faire le bien, parce qu’il ne saurait faire le mal. En Dieu, la puissance ne consiste pas à pouvoir les contraires; c’est une puissance constante et immuable, dont la perfection consiste précisément à ne point s’écarter de ce qui est un : car pouvoir les contraires est le caractère propre de l’être incapable de se tenir toujours au meilleur. Il faut que ce que nous appelons l’acte par lequel Dieu s’est créé (ποίησις αὑτοῦ) existe une fois pour toutes : car cet acte est parfait. Qui pourrait changer un acte qui a été produit par la volonté de Dieu, un acte qui est sa volonté même?—Mais [dira-t-on], comment cet acte a-t-il été produit par la volonté de Dieu qui n’existait pas encore (71) ? — Qu’est-ce donc que la volonté de Dieu, si l’on ne reconnaît pas qu’il veut par cela seul qu’il subsiste ?

D’où lui est donc alors venue sa volonté? Serait-ce de son essence, qui [d’après l’objection qu’on nous fait (72)] n’agissait pas encore? Mais sa volonté était déjà dans son essence. Il n’y a donc en Dieu rien qui diffère de l’essence ; sinon, il y aurait eu en lui quelque ohose qui n’eût pas été sa volonté. Ainsi, tout en lui était volonté; il n’y avait en lui rien qui ne voulût, rien qui fût par conséquent antérieur à sa volonté. Donc, dès le principe, la volonté était Dieu même; par suite, Dieu est comme il a voulu être et tel qu’il l’a voulu. Quand on parle de ce qui a été la conséquence de la volonté de Dieu, de ce que sa volonté a engendré, [il faut bien concevoir que] sa volonté n’a rien engendré qu’il ne fût déjà. Quand on dit que Dieu se contient lui-même, il faut entendre cette assertion en ce sens que tous les autres êtres qui procèdent de Dieu sont soutenus par lui. Car ils existent par une espèce de participation de Dieu, et ils se ramènent tous à lui. Quant à Dieu, il n’a pas besoin d’être contenu ni de participer: il est toutes choses pour lui-même; ou plutôt, il n’est rien pour lui-même, parce qu’il n’a pas besoin de toutes les autres choses par rapport à lui-même.

Ainsi, quand vous voulez parler de Dieu ou le concevoir, écartez tout le reste. Quand vous aurez fait abstraction de tout le reste, et que vous aurez de cette manière isolé Dieu, ne cherchez pas à lui ajouter quoi que ce soit (73); examinez plutôt si, dans votre pensée, vous n’avez pas omis d’écarter de lui quelque chose. Vous pouvez ainsi vous élever à un principe dont vous ne sauriez ensuite ni affirmer ni concevoir rien d’autre (74). Ne placez donc au rang suprême que Celui qui est véritablement libre, parce qu’il n’est point même dans la dépendance de lui-même, qu’il est seulement Lui, essentiellement Lui, tandis que chacun des autres êtres est soi et autre chose en outre.

FURTHER OBJECTIONS TO THE SELF-AUTOCRACY OF THE DIVINITY.

21. Could (the divinity) have made Himself different from what He made Himself? (If he could not, He would not have been omnipotent). If you remove from Him the power of doing evil, you thereby also remove the power of doing good. (In the divinity), power does not consist in the ability to make contraries; it is a constant and immutable power whose perfection consisted precisely in not departing from unity; for the power to make contraries is a characteristic of a being incapable of continuously persisting in the best. Self-creation (the actualization by which the divinity created Himself) exists once for all, for it is perfect. Who indeed could change an actualization produced by the will of the Divinity, an actualization that constitutes His very will? But how then was this actualization produced by the volition (of the divinity) which did not yet exist?

What could be meant by the “volition of (the Divinity”) if He had not yet willed hypostatic form of existence (for Himself)? Whence then came His will? Would it have come from His being (which, according to the above objection) was not yet actualized? But His will was already within His “being.” In the (Divinity), therefore, there is nothing which differs from His “being.” Otherwise, there would have been in Him something that would not have been His will. Thus, everything in Him was will; there was in Him nothing that did not exercise volition; nothing which, therefore, was anterior to His volition. Therefore, from the very beginning, the will was He; therefore, the (Divinity) is as and such as He willed it to be. When we speak of what was the consequence of the will (of the Divinity), of what His will has produced, (we must indeed conclude that) His will produced nothing that He was not already. The statement that (the Divinity) contains Himself means (no more than that) all the other beings that proceed from Him are by Him sustained. They indeed exist by a sort of participation in Him, and they relate back to Him. (The Divinity) Himself does not need to be contained or to participate; He is all things for Himself; or rather, He is nothing for Himself, because He has no need of all the other things in respect to Himself.

THE OBSTACLE TO THE DIVINITY IS FAILURE TO ABSTRACT ENOUGH FROM HIM.

Thus, whenever you wish to speak of (the Divinity), or to gain a conception of Him, put aside all the rest. When you will have made abstraction of all the rest, and when you will thus have isolated (the Divinity), do not seek to add anything to Him; rather examine whether, in your thought, you have not omitted to abstract something from Him. Thus you can rise to a Principle of whom you could not later either assert or conceive anything else. Classify in the supreme rank, therefore, none but He who really is free, because He is not even dependence on Himself; and because he merely is Himself, essentially Himself, while each of the other beings is itself, and something else besides.

21. Could He then have made Himself otherwise than as He did?

If He could we must deny Him the power to produce goodness for He certainly cannot produce evil. Power, There, is no producer of the inapt; it is that steadfast constant which is most decidedly power by inability to depart from unity: ability to produce the inapt inability to hold by the fitting; that self-making must be definite once for all since it is the right; besides, who could upset what is made by the will of God and is itself that will?

But whence does He draw that will seeing that essence, source of will, is inactive in Him?

The will was included in the essence; they were identical: or was there something, this will for instance, not existing in Him? All was will, nothing unwilled in Him. There is then nothing before that will: God and will were primally identical.

God, therefore, is what He willed, is such as He willed; and all that ensued upon that willing was what that definite willing engendered: but it engendered nothing new; all existed from the first.

As for his "self-containing," this rightly understood can mean only that all the rest is maintained in virtue of Him by means of a certain participation; all traces back to the Supreme; God Himself, self-existing always, needs no containing, no participating; all in Him belongs to Him or rather He needs nothing from them in order to being Himself.

When therefore you seek to state or to conceive Him, put all else aside; abstracting all, keep solely to Him; see that you add nothing; be sure that your theory of God does not lessen Him. Even you are able to take contact with Something in which there is no more than That Thing itself to affirm and know, Something which lies away above all and is - it alone - veritably free, subject not even to its own law, solely and essentially That One Thing, while all else is thing and something added.