Being, hierarchy of
Being, hierarchy of
(Scholastic) The Neo-Platonic conception of a hierarchy of “emanations” from the “One” persisted throughout the Middle-Ages, though it was given another meaning. Emanationism properly speaking is incompatible with the notion of creation. But the medieval writers agree that there is a hierarchy, comprising within the visible world inanimate beings, plants, animals, and rational beings, men; above them rank the immaterial substances (subsistent forms, angels) and finally God Who, however, is so far distant from any created being that he cannot be placed in line. Whatever is asserted of God is so only “analogically” (see Analogy). There is analogy also between the grades of created beings; their various levels are not of one kind, no transition exists between inanimate and animate bodies, or between material and spiritual substances. Though the original meaning has been abandoned, the term “emanation” is still used, even by Aquinas. — R.A.