Plotinus and Thomas Aquinas: Different Views on Providence of God

Plotinus' perspective on God is that everything emanates from Him: "There was only one God, from whom all things have flowed in a descending fashion, with each descent things becoming progressively more imperfect" (Raftery). Plotinus saw things becoming increasingly more imperfect the farther they were from their source, as they became "less and less filled with His goodness" (Raftery). Finally, "at the end of this flow is the most basic form of matter, having none of the goodness of the all-perfect source," and "This matter...is the root of all evil and the cause of corruption and decay in creatures; it is the source of all suffering and tribulation in the world" (Raftery). From the standpoint that Plotinus saw God as the source of all good, he was correct. Likewise, assessing corruption and decay as being far from God is also an apt evaluation. On the other hand

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divine power" (Swedenborg, Dole, Johnson, & Rose 5). This statement is reminiscent of John 1:3, which states, "All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made" (KJV) and Hebrews 1:3, which asserts, "Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power" (KJV). It implies that it is only by the providence of God that things even exist or continue to survive, a concept that is at variance with Plotinus' assertion that God created nothing and that things merely emanate from him. Another pivotal concept in the issue of divine providence is whether God and the universe actually exist or whether they are only an intellectual entity, like a figment of the imagination(a thought rather than a being. Plotinus argues: We hold the universe, with its content entire, to be as all is always so and all is always so reproduced: therefore the reason-principles of things must lie forever There in their Intellectual mode. If this regime is to be called Providence it must be in the sense that before our universe there exists, not expressed in the outer, the Intellectual-Principle of all the All, its source and archetype (Plot
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 2001
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page)