This theory holds that the universe is of the same substance with God, and is the product of successive evolutions from his being. This was the view of the Syrian Gnostics. Their system was an attempt to interpret Christianity in the forms of Oriental theosophy. A similar doctrine was taught, in the last century, by Swedenborg.
We object to it on the following grounds: (a) It virtually denies the infinity and transcendence of God,—by applying to him a principle of evolution, growth, and progress which belongs only to the finite and imperfect. (b) It contradicts the divine holiness,—since man, who by the theory is of the substance of God, is nevertheless morally evil. (c) It leads logically to pantheism,—since the claim that human personality is illusory cannot be maintained without also surrendering belief in the personality of God.
Saturninus of Antioch, Bardesanes of Edessa, Tatian of Assyria, Marcion of Sinope, all of the second century, were representatives of this view. Blunt, Dict. of Doct. and Hist. Theology, art.: Emanation: “The divine operation was symbolized by the image of the rays of light proceeding from the sun, which were most intense when nearest to the luminous substance of the body of which they formed a part, but which decreased in intensity as they receded from their source, until at last they disappeared altogether in darkness. So the spiritual effulgence of the Supreme Mind formed a world of spirit, [pg 384]the intensity of which varied inversely with its distance from its source, until at length it vanished in matter. Hence there is a chain of ever expanding Æons which are increasing attenuations of his substance and the sum of which constitutes his fulness, i. e., the complete revelation of his hidden being.” Emanation, from e, and manare, to flow forth. Guericke, Church History, 1:160—“many flames from one light ... the direct contrary to the doctrine of creation from nothing.” Neander, Church History, 1:372-74. The doctrine of emanation is distinctly materialistic. We hold, on the contrary, that the universe is an expression of God, but not an emanation from God.
On the difference between Oriental emanation and eternal generation, see Shedd, Dogm. Theol., 1:470, and History Doctrine, 1:11-18, 318, note—“1. That which is eternally generated is infinite, not finite; it is a divine and eternal person who is not the world or any portion of it. In the Oriental schemes, emanation is a mode of accounting for the origin of the finite. But eternal generation still leaves the finite to be originated. The begetting of the Son is the generation of an infinite person who afterwards creates the finite universe de nihilo. 2. Eternal generation has for its result a subsistence or personal hypostasis totally distinct from the world; but emanation In relation to the deity yields only an impersonal or at most a personified energy or effluence which is one of the powers or principles of nature—a mere anima mundi.” The truths of which emanation was the perversion and caricature were therefore the generation of the Son and the procession of the Spirit.
Principal Tulloch, in Encyc. Brit., 10:704—“All the Gnostics agree in regarding this world as not proceeding immediately from the Supreme Being.... The Supreme Being is regarded as wholly inconceivable and indescribable—as the unfathomable Abyss (Valentinus)—the Unnameable (Basilides). From this transcendent source existence springs by emanation in a series of spiritual powers.... The passage from the higher spiritual world to the lower material one is, on the one hand, apprehended as a mere continued degeneracy from the Source of Life, at length terminating in the kingdom of darkness and death—the bordering chaos surrounding the kingdom of light. On the other hand the passage is apprehended in a more precisely dualistic form, as a positive invasion of the kingdom of light by a self-existent kingdom of darkness. According as Gnosticism adopted one or other of these modes of explaining the existence of the present world, it fell into the two great divisions which, from their places of origin, have received the respective names of the Alexandrian and Syrian Gnosis. The one, as we have seen, presents more a Western, the other more an Eastern type of speculation. The dualistic element in the one case scarcely appears beneath the pantheistic, and bears resemblance to the Platonic notion of the ὕλη, a mere blank necessity, a limitless void. In the other case, the dualistic element is clear and prominent, corresponding to the Zarathustrian doctrine of an active principle of evil as well as of good—of a kingdom of Ahriman, as well as a kingdom of Ormuzd. In the Syrian Gnosis ... there appears from the first a hostile principle of evil in collision with the good.”
We must remember that dualism is an attempt to substitute for the doctrine of absolute creation, a theory that matter and evil are due to something negative or positive outside of God. Dualism is a theory of origins, not of results. Keeping this in mind, we may call the Alexandrian Gnostics dualists, while we regard emanation as the characteristic teaching of the Syrian Gnostics. These latter made matter to be only an efflux from God and evil only a degenerate form of good. If the Syrians held the world to be independent of God, this independence was conceived of only as a later result or product, not as an original fact. Some like Saturninus and Bardesanes verged toward Manichæan doctrine; others like Tatian and Marcion toward Egyptian dualism; but all held to emanation as the philosophical explanation of what the Scriptures call creation. These remarks will serve as qualification and criticism of the opinions which we proceed to quote.
Sheldon, Ch. Hist., 1:206—“The Syrians were in general more dualistic than the Alexandrians. Some, after the fashion of the Hindu pantheists, regarded the material realm as the region of emptiness and illusion, the void opposite of the Pleroma, that world of spiritual reality and fulness; others assigned a more positive nature to the material, and regarded it as capable of an evil aggressiveness even apart from any quickening by the incoming of life from above.” Mansel, Gnostic Heresies, 139—“Like Saturninus, Bardesanes is said to have combined the doctrine of the malignity of matter with that of an active principle of evil; and he connected together these two usually antagonistic theories by maintaining that the inert matter was co-eternal with God, while Satan as the active principle of evil was produced from matter (or, according to another statement, co-eternal with it), and acted in conjunction with it. 142—The [pg 385]feature which is usually selected as characteristic of the Syrian Gnosis is the doctrine of dualism; that is to say, the assumption of the existence of two active and independent principles, the one of good, the other of evil. This assumption was distinctly held by Saturninus and Bardesanes ... in contradistinction to the Platonic theory of an inert semi-existent matter, which was adopted by the Gnosis of Egypt. The former principle found its logical development in the next century in Manichæaism; the latter leads with almost equal certainty to Pantheism.”
A. H. Newman, Ch. History, 1:192—“Marcion did not speculate as to the origin of evil. The Demiurge and his kingdom are apparently regarded as existing from eternity. Matter he regarded as intrinsically evil, and he practised a rigid asceticism.”Mansel, Gnostic Heresies, 210—“Marcion did not, with the majority of the Gnostics, regard the Demiurge as a derived and dependent being, whose imperfection is due to his remoteness from the highest Cause; nor yet, according to the Persian doctrine, did he assume an eternal principle of pure malignity. His second principle is independent of and co-eternal with, the first; opposed to it however, not as evil to good, but as imperfection to perfection, or, as Marcion expressed it, as a just to a good being. 218—Non-recognition of any principle of pure evil. Three principles only: the Supreme God, the Demiurge, and the eternal Matter, the two latter being imperfect but not necessarily evil. Some of the Marcionites seem to have added an evil spirit as a fourth principle.... Marcion is the least Gnostic of all the Gnostics.... 31—The Indian influence may be seen in Egypt, the Persian in Syria.... 32—To Platonism, modified by Judaism, Gnosticism owed much of its philosophical form and tendencies. To the dualism of the Persian religion it owed one form at least of its speculations on the origin and remedy of evil, and many of the details of its doctrine of emanations. To the Buddhism of India, modified again probably by Platonism, it was indebted for the doctrines of the antagonism between spirit and matter and the unreality of derived existence (the germ of the Gnostic Docetism), and in part at least for the theory which regards the universe as a series of successive emanations from the absolute Unity.”
Emanation holds that some stuff has proceeded from the nature of God, and that God has formed this stuff into the universe. But matter is not composed of stuff at all. It is merely an activity of God. Origen held that ψυχή etymologically denotes a being which, struck off from God the central source of light and warmth, has cooled in its love for the good, but still has the possibility of returning to its spiritual origin. Pfleiderer, Philosophy of Religion, 2:271, thus describes Origen's view: “As our body, while consisting of many members, is yet an organism which is held together by one soul, so the universe is to be thought of as an immense living being, which is held together by one soul, the power and the Logos of God.” Palmer, Theol. Definition, 63, note—“The evil of Emanationism is seen in the history of Gnosticism. An emanation is a portion of the divine essence regarded as separated from it and sent forth as independent. Having no perpetual bond of connection with the divine, it either sinks into degradation, as Basilides taught, or becomes actively hostile to the divine, as the Ophites believed.... In like manner the Deists of a later time came to regard the laws of nature as having an independent existence, i. e., as emanations.”
John Milton, Christian Doctrine, holds this view. Matter is an efflux from God himself, not intrinsically bad, and incapable of annihilation. Finite existence is an emanation from God's substance, and God has loosened his hold on those living portions or centres of finite existence which he has endowed with free will, so that these independent beings may originate actions not morally referable to himself. This doctrine of free will relieves Milton from the charge of pantheism; see Masson, Life of Milton, 6:824-826. Lotze, Philos. Religion, xlviii, li, distinguishes creation from emanation by saying that creation necessitates a divine Will, while emanation flows by natural consequence from the being of God. God's motive in creation is love, which urges him to communicate his holiness to other beings. God creates individual finite spirits, and then permits the thought, which at first was only his, to become the thought of these other spirits. This transference of his thought by will is the creation of the world. F. W. Farrar, on Heb. 1:2—“The word Æon was used by the Gnostics to describe the various emanations by which they tried at once to widen and to bridge over the gulf between the human and the divine. Over that imaginary chasm John threw the arch of the Incarnation, when he wrote: ‘The Word became flesh’ (John 1:14).”