English is not my mother tongue so I apologize if there are mistakes in the text.
Greetings, first I would like to say that the blog really is wonderful, as someone who is just starting on the path I have found it very useful, I think almost all of us agree that the pagan traditions are not oriented towards dogma but towards praxis and personal experiences with the divine, however, the writings of the sages can be of great help to understand the great mysteries, perhaps if Romanism had survived we would have seen something similar to India with numerous schools of theological thought.
I must admit that I am not a scholar of Platonism and neither do I claim to speak for Butler as I have barely read a few loose articles by him, but I think the key to explaining how the Henads and the one can be above intelligence without affecting the unity or simplicity of the one lies in our concept of the one. To understand the one as a particular entity endowed with personality would be a mistake, instead we would have to consider it as a kind of abstraction, being fundamentally an underlying principle, the one would be the principle of uniqueness, individuation and also the good. The Gods would therefore not be aspects of a single God, but the whole would be within each of them following the Pythagorean maxim of Panta-en-pasin, In the same way each God would be within each God but expressing his omnipotence according to his own Hyparxis, his own personality and essence.
It is important to note that the phrase “The One neither is nor is One.” Not coming from Butler but from (Parmenides Plato, 141e), this phrase can perhaps be interpreted to mean that the one is beyond being and likewise is not a singular entity.
Finally, I want to point out that saying that the Gods are only one God using many masks is somewhat problematic (and is also something like monotheism with more steps) mainly because it does not explain how something like a pantheon can exist without reducing the Gods to their mere functions. If we observe for example the ancient Paphos we will see that its citizens did not consider Aphrodite only as the Goddess of love and not only prayed to her for love matters but also prayed to her for health, money, protection, etc. Something similar can be found in the hymns of Greece and Egypt where each God is assigned qualities that usually are not characteristic of them and even omnipotence is attributed to them.
I leave some additional links that I found interesting and that can help to enrich the discussion.
The problem lies in what we can call "God". The abrahamic religions call The One "God", but christianity introduces a plurality with the trinity, which becomes problematic. Hindu philosophies also call it "God", but as Dr. Butler rightly observes, The One does not create, hence it does not fit into our usual idea of "God", which is creative and in relation with creation, but the 'gods' are still dependent on The One. The central problem however, as you've mentioned, is that the gods are simply intelligible-intellectual perceptions of reality. What does this mean? Are they not real? They are inasmuch as there is division in perception and intelligiblity, which leads to the often ignored practice, which even Proclus recognized (P.T. 1:3), which is that when there is found no more division in intelligiblity, and between the gods in the contemplation of their forms, all that is left is the One Being beyond intelligibility. I say ignored, because this is akin to meditation (dhyana), which is not an intelligible-intellectual contemplative practice, but rather an indiscriminative contemplation, which leads to Samadhi, or "state of existence equal-to-itself without distinction", which is yoga, union, and henosis.
Now does all this invalidate the worship of a multitude of gods? The One cannot be worshiped or known either, way, since it admits no duality, no observer and observed. The bridge then lies within us through the duality which comes after the One, namely the One and the Many, which the One Being constains in itself. In the stillness of our being is revealed that bridge and the duality of observer-observed, One and not-one, but as hindu philosophers already stated, the observer (me) is no different than the observed, so where is the duality? It is only apparent, and in that appearance lies the beginning of creation. There is One, and there is another one (in the One) which proceeds, but which can revert back to itself (the One). So the gods become natural and necessary essences, lives and intellects and functions of reality, not unreal in themselves, but merely fragmented aspects which issue fromThe One. They are just as worthy of worship as they are worthy of being recognized as intrinsic parts of ourselves, or as functions from which we participate in the ascent towards a more comprehensive, unified meaning of things. Why would I discard one or another aspect, or god, when they are part of me already? Even I am a unit, comprised of a multitude of units like the gods, and also a simplicity recognized in the silence beyond everything. This may sound too "simplistic", but isn't that what yogis teach, and what Plotinus sought after, and what Proclus meant by the ascent of the Soul? To become "simple"? It's paradoxical I know. Yet if it weren't possible, it wouldn't be mentioned or talked about, and to be honest, there would be no sense of religiosity or transcendence in us, even in and through a multitude of gods.
English is not my mother tongue so I apologize if there are mistakes in the text.
Greetings, first I would like to say that the blog really is wonderful, as someone who is just starting on the path I have found it very useful, I think almost all of us agree that the pagan traditions are not oriented towards dogma but towards praxis and personal experiences with the divine, however, the writings of the sages can be of great help to understand the great mysteries, perhaps if Romanism had survived we would have seen something similar to India with numerous schools of theological thought.
I must admit that I am not a scholar of Platonism and neither do I claim to speak for Butler as I have barely read a few loose articles by him, but I think the key to explaining how the Henads and the one can be above intelligence without affecting the unity or simplicity of the one lies in our concept of the one. To understand the one as a particular entity endowed with personality would be a mistake, instead we would have to consider it as a kind of abstraction, being fundamentally an underlying principle, the one would be the principle of uniqueness, individuation and also the good. The Gods would therefore not be aspects of a single God, but the whole would be within each of them following the Pythagorean maxim of Panta-en-pasin, In the same way each God would be within each God but expressing his omnipotence according to his own Hyparxis, his own personality and essence.
It is important to note that the phrase “The One neither is nor is One.” Not coming from Butler but from (Parmenides Plato, 141e), this phrase can perhaps be interpreted to mean that the one is beyond being and likewise is not a singular entity.
Finally, I want to point out that saying that the Gods are only one God using many masks is somewhat problematic (and is also something like monotheism with more steps) mainly because it does not explain how something like a pantheon can exist without reducing the Gods to their mere functions. If we observe for example the ancient Paphos we will see that its citizens did not consider Aphrodite only as the Goddess of love and not only prayed to her for love matters but also prayed to her for health, money, protection, etc. Something similar can be found in the hymns of Greece and Egypt where each God is assigned qualities that usually are not characteristic of them and even omnipotence is attributed to them.
I leave some additional links that I found interesting and that can help to enrich the discussion.
An article by Butler
https://henadology.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/wp32-butler-pp3538-version-2.pdf
A couple of articles from a blog I found interesting.
https://willdam20.wordpress.com/principles/
https://willdam20.wordpress.com/lessons-faqs/
An additional article
https://symmetria.substack.com/p/the-one-is-each-god?s=w.
PD: I really enjoyed your book
For the glory of Jove indeed.
Had to read through some of the paragraphs more than once but I think I finally get it.
The problem lies in what we can call "God". The abrahamic religions call The One "God", but christianity introduces a plurality with the trinity, which becomes problematic. Hindu philosophies also call it "God", but as Dr. Butler rightly observes, The One does not create, hence it does not fit into our usual idea of "God", which is creative and in relation with creation, but the 'gods' are still dependent on The One. The central problem however, as you've mentioned, is that the gods are simply intelligible-intellectual perceptions of reality. What does this mean? Are they not real? They are inasmuch as there is division in perception and intelligiblity, which leads to the often ignored practice, which even Proclus recognized (P.T. 1:3), which is that when there is found no more division in intelligiblity, and between the gods in the contemplation of their forms, all that is left is the One Being beyond intelligibility. I say ignored, because this is akin to meditation (dhyana), which is not an intelligible-intellectual contemplative practice, but rather an indiscriminative contemplation, which leads to Samadhi, or "state of existence equal-to-itself without distinction", which is yoga, union, and henosis.
Now does all this invalidate the worship of a multitude of gods? The One cannot be worshiped or known either, way, since it admits no duality, no observer and observed. The bridge then lies within us through the duality which comes after the One, namely the One and the Many, which the One Being constains in itself. In the stillness of our being is revealed that bridge and the duality of observer-observed, One and not-one, but as hindu philosophers already stated, the observer (me) is no different than the observed, so where is the duality? It is only apparent, and in that appearance lies the beginning of creation. There is One, and there is another one (in the One) which proceeds, but which can revert back to itself (the One). So the gods become natural and necessary essences, lives and intellects and functions of reality, not unreal in themselves, but merely fragmented aspects which issue fromThe One. They are just as worthy of worship as they are worthy of being recognized as intrinsic parts of ourselves, or as functions from which we participate in the ascent towards a more comprehensive, unified meaning of things. Why would I discard one or another aspect, or god, when they are part of me already? Even I am a unit, comprised of a multitude of units like the gods, and also a simplicity recognized in the silence beyond everything. This may sound too "simplistic", but isn't that what yogis teach, and what Plotinus sought after, and what Proclus meant by the ascent of the Soul? To become "simple"? It's paradoxical I know. Yet if it weren't possible, it wouldn't be mentioned or talked about, and to be honest, there would be no sense of religiosity or transcendence in us, even in and through a multitude of gods.