Percy-L: Literary, Religious, Scientific, and Philosophical Discussion of Walker Percy

[Charles Lowry <lowry.charles AT gmail.com>]

The first thing to note is the etymology of emanation.  It comes from the Latin verb emanare, a perfectly good but not widely used word meaning to flow from, to originate from, to arise from, to spread.  It is an intransitive verb and its stem should not be confused with the more common verb manere (to stay or remain).  The classic theological explanation is from the Summa of St.Thomas, Pars Prima, Quaestio xlv de modo emanationis rerum a primo principio (First Part, Question 45, on the manner of the emanation of things from the first principle).  There are eight articles in this question.  Here is the first, which is important, since it discusses the difference between a particular emanation (an agent produces something from something else) and the universal emanation, in which all being emanates from nothing.  This latter emanation we call creation, and that actor is God.

After declaring that he will consider the action of God's creation, St.Thomas first takes up the question of emanation as a type of creation.  After noting some other opinions and objections (that is the standard manner of proceeding in the Summa), he offers his own opinion:

Respondeo dicendum quod, sicut supra dictum est, non solum oportet considerare emanationem alicuius entis particularis ab aliquo particulari agente, sed etiam emanationem totius entis a causa universali, quae est Deus.  Et hanc quidem emanationem designamus nomine creationis.  Quod autem procedit secundum emanationem particularem, non praesupponitur emanationi: sicut, si generatur homo, non fuit prius homo, sed homo fit ex non homine, et album ex non albo.  Unde, si consideratur emanatio totius entis universalis a primo principio, impossibile est quod aliquod ens praesupponatur huic emenationi.  Idem autem est nihil quod nullum ens. Sicut igitur generatio hominis est ex non ente quod est non homo, ita creatio, quae est emanatio totius esse, est ex non ente quod est nihil.

In my towering vanity, I shall not subject you to a standard translation but offer my own:

I reply that it ought to be said that, as was noted previously, it is important that we consider not only the emanation of some specific thing from some specific actor, but we must also consider the emanation of all being from a universal cause, which is God.  And the technical term we give to this type of emanation is creation.  Something which comes forth from a specific emanation is not to be regarded as more important than the [universal] emanation.  Thus if a man is brought forth, it was not previously a man; rather a man is made from "that substance which is not man," or white is made from "that substance which is not white."  We learn from this that if the emanation of all being from a first principle is under consideration, it is impossible that any particular being should be thought to be more important than the [universal] emanation.  But nothing is the same thing as no being.  Thus in the same way that the production of a man is from the not being which is not man. so creation, which is the emanation of all being, is from that being which is nothing.   

And I thus prove G. B. Shaw's observation that a scholar is someone who knows more and more about less and less.

Chuck Lowry

Brooklyn, New York

 

On Wed, Jul 8, 2020 at 4:16 PM Lauren Berdy <lauren.stacy.berdy AT gmail.com> wrote:

I took the liberty of asking a question
Outside this circles former content.

Although I have read deeply in
Dr Percy’s landscape my
Portal wasn’t thru Catholicism.


Can someone please explain the
Theological meaning for
Emanation ?
The metaphors behind?
I wonder this as it is a  word
That might help along my own
Thoughts on “first causes”
 Thanks








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