Plotino – Tratado 39,11 (VI, 8, 11) — O Bem escapa a todas as categorias da ontologia

11. ¿Qué hemos de afirmar ahora de una cosa que no existe? Convendrá seguramente que mantengamos el silencio sobre ella y que, en la dificultad en que nos encontramos para conocerla, cesemos ya en nuestra investigación. Pues es claro que nuestra búsqueda no puede ir más allá, y llegada a un principio, en él se ve necesariamente detenida.

Por otra parte, toda investigación ha de versar desde luego sobre la esencia, la cualidad, el porqué o la existencia. En cuanto a que el Primer (Ser) es tal como hemos dicho, queda demostrado por los seres que le siguen. Si buscamos a esto un porqué, preguntamos ya por otro principio; y, verdaderamente, lo que es principio de todo no puede en modo alguno tener sobre sí otro principio. Cuando investigamos acerca de sus cualidades, miramos evidentemente a sus accidentes y esto sí que no tiene objeto. Al buscar lo que es, se nos ofrece con tal claridad que no hemos de plantearnos ninguna cuestión bajo tal aspecto. Si ello es posible, fijemos en nuestra mente la licitud de atribuirle alguna cosa.

Si nos parece que acumulamos dificultades sobre la naturaleza de ese principio, será porque nos representamos ante todo una región o un lugar, cual si se tratase de un caos, e introducimos ahí esa naturaleza que se ha originado o tiene realidad en nuestra imaginación. Nos preguntamos entonces de dónde ha venido y cómo ha venido ese ser, y no de otro modo que si se tratase de un advenedizo le hacemos aparecer como surgido y lanzado de una determinada altura. Mas si damos de lado a esta dificultad y prescindimos de la noción de lugar para el Primer Principio, trátese de un lugar en el que haya permanecido siempre o al que haya venido de algún modo, lo único que podremos decir de él es que es, y que es por la necesidad misma del razonamiento. El lugar, como todas las demás cosas, será posterior a él, e incluso posterior a todo lo que le sigue. Pensándolo, pues, fuera de todo lugar, tal como ahora hacemos, nada hay que aparezca en círculo alrededor de él. No diremos que nada le abraza, ni le atribuiremos por tanto magnitud o cualidad alguna. Ese Principio no tiene forma, ni siquiera forma inteligible. No dice relación a otra cosa, sino que existe por sí mismo y antes de que ninguna cosa exista ¹.

¿Qué querría decirse al afirmar que le ha ocurrido por accidente el ser así? ¿Cómo podríamos pronunciar esas palabras cuando todo lo que se ha dicho de él no son más que negaciones’? Sería más conforme con la verdad decir, no que le haya acontecido por accidente el ser así, sino que esto es precisamente lo que encierra falsedad, ya que nada en absoluto puede ocurrirle por accidente.

XI. Qu’est donc ce principe dont on ne peut pas même dire qu’il subsiste (40) (τὸ μὴ ὑποστάν) ? — Il faut abandonner ce point sans en parler, et ne pas pousser plus loin nos recherches. Que chercher en effet quand on ne peut aller au-delà, puisque toute recherche doit conduire à un principe et s’y arrêter. En outre, toutes les questions se rapportent à l’essence (τό τί ἐστι), à la qualité (το οἷον), à la cause ῾διά τί) ou à l’existence (τὸ εἶναι). Que le Premier existe, dans le sens où nous disons qu’il existe, nous le voyons par les êtres qui sont après lui; mais demander la cause de son existence, c’est chercher un autre principe, et le Principe de toutes choses ne peut avoir lui-même de principe; demander en outre quelle qualité il a, c’est chercher quel accident se trouve dans Celui en qui rien n’est accidentel; enfin, en demandant quelle est l’essence du Premier, on voit plus clairement encore qu’il n’y a nulle recherche a faire sur lui, qu’il faut seulement le saisir comme on peut, en apprenant a ne rien lui attribuer (41).

Ce qui nous conduit à poser ces questions sur la nature de Dieu, c’est que nous nous représentons d’abord l’espace et le lieu comme un chaos, et que nous introduisons ensuite le Premier principe dans cet espace et dans ce lieu que nous représente notre imagination ou qui existe réellement. Or, en l’y Introduisant, nous nous demandons d’où il y est venu et comment il y est venu. Le traitant alors comme un étranger, nous cherchons pourquoi il y est présent et quel il est ; nous nous imaginons qu’il est sorti d’un abîme ou qu’il est tombé d’en haut. Pour écarter ces questions, il faut donc retrancher de la conception que nous avons de Dieu toute notion de lieu, ne le placer en rien, ne le concevoir ni comme se reposant éternellement et comme édifié en lui-même, ni comme venu de quelque part, mais nous contenter de penser qu’il existe dans le sens où le raisonnement nous force à admettre qu’il existe, et bien nous persuader que le lieu est, comme le reste, postérieur à Dieu, qu’il est postérieur même à toutes choses. Ainsi concevant Dieu en dehors de tout lieu, autant que nous pouvons le concevoir, nous ne le circonscrivons pas en quelque sorte dans un cercle, nous n’entreprenons pas de mesurer sa grandeur, nous no lut attribuons ni quantité, ni qualité : car il n’a pas de forme, même intelligible, il n’est relatif à rien, puisqu’il subsiste eu lui-même et qu’il a existé avant toutes choses.

Si Dieu est tel, comment dire encore qu’il est ce qu’il est par hasard? Comment affirmer de lui une pareille chose, quand nous ne saurions parler de lui que par négations(42)? Nous dirons donc, non qu’il est par hasard ce qu’il est, mais que, étant ce qu’il est, il ne l’est point par hasard, puisqu’il n’y a en lui absolument rien de contingent.

IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO TRANSCEND THE FIRST.

11. What then is the Principle which one cannot even say that it is (hypostatically) existent? This point will have to be conceded without discussion, however, for we cannot prosecute this inquiry. What indeed would we be seeking, when it is impossible to go beyond, every inquiry leading to some one principle, and ceasing there? Besides, all questions refer to one of four things: existence, quality, cause and essence. From the beings that follow Him, we conclude to the essence of the First, in that sense in which we say He exists. Seeking the cause of His existence, however, would amount to seeking an (ulterior) principle, and the Principle of all things cannot Himself have a principle. An effort to determine His quality would amount to seeking what accident inheres in Him in whom is nothing contingent; and there is still more clearly no possible inquiry as to His existence, as we have to grasp it the best we know how, striving not to attribute anything to Him.

THE ORIGIN OF GOD PUZZLES US ONLY BECAUSE WE HABITUALLY START FROM SOME PRE-EXISTENT CHAOS.

(Habitually) we are led to ask these questions about the nature (of the divinity) chiefly because we conceive of space and location as a chaos, into which space and location, that is either presented to us by our imagination, or that really exists, we later introduce the firsfirst Principle. This introduction amounts to a question whence and how He came. We then treat Him as a stranger, and we wonder why He is present there, and what is His being; we usually assume He came up out of an abyss, or that He fell from above. In order to evade these questions, therefore, we shall have to remove from our conception (of the divinity) all notion of locality, and not posit Him within anything, neither conceiving of Him as eternally resting, and founded within Himself, nor as if come from somewhere. We shall have to content ourselves with thinking that He exists in the sense in which reasoning forces us to admit His existence, or with persuading ourselves that location, like everything else, is posterior to the Divinity, and that it is even posterior to all things. Thus conceiving (of the Divinity) as outside of all place, so far as we can conceive of Him, we are not surrounding Him as it were within a circle, nor are we undertaking to measure His greatness, nor are we attributing to Him either quantity or quality; for He has no shape, not even an intelligible one; He is not relative to anything, since His hypostatic form of existence is contained within Himself, and before all else.

THE SUPREME, BEING WHAT HE IS, IS NOT PRODUCED BY CHANCE.

Since (the Divinity) is such, we certainly could not say that He is what He is by chance. Such an assertion about Him is impossible, inasmuch as we can speak of Him only by negations. We shall therefore have to say, not that He is what He is by chance; but that, being what He is, He is not that by chance, since there is within Him absolutely nothing contingent.

11. But this Unoriginating, what is it?

We can but withdraw, silent, hopeless, and search no further. What can we look for when we have reached the furthest? Every enquiry aims at a first and, that attained, rests.

Besides, we must remember that all questioning deals with the nature of a thing, its quality, its cause or its essential being. In this case the being – in so far as we can use the word – is knowable only by its sequents: the question as to cause asks for a principle beyond, but the principle of all has no principle; the question as to quality would be looking for an attribute in that which has none: the question as to nature shows only that we must ask nothing about it but merely take it into the mind if we may, with the knowledge gained that nothing can be permissibly connected with it.

The difficulty this Principle presents to our mind in so far as we can approach to conception of it may be exhibited thus:

We begin by posing space, a place, a Chaos; into this existing container, real or fancied, we introduce God and proceed to enquire: we ask, for example, whence and how He comes to be there: we investigate the presence and quality of this new-comer projected into the midst of things here from some height or depth. But the difficulty disappears if we eliminate all space before we attempt to conceive God: He must not be set in anything either as enthroned in eternal immanence or as having made some entry into things: He is to be conceived as existing alone, in that existence which the necessity of discussion forces us to attribute to Him, with space and all the rest as later than Him – space latest of all. Thus we conceive as far as we may, the spaceless; we abolish the notion of any environment: we circumscribe Him within no limit; we attribute no extension to Him; He has no quality since no shape, even shape Intellectual; He holds no relationship but exists in and for Himself before anything is.

How can we think any longer of that “Thus He happened to be”? How make this one assertion of Him of whom all other assertion can be no more than negation? It is on the contrary nearer the truth to say “Thus He has happened not to be”: that contains at least the utter denial of his happening.