Both Catholic theology and Perennialist thought draw heavily from Neoplatonism, the last great flowering of pagan Greek philosophy founded by Plotinus (205-270 CE). Yet despite this common source, the two traditions arrived at radically different destinations. Catholic theology transformed Neoplatonic emanationism into free creation and subordinated the impersonal One to the personal Trinity. Perennialism retained the core Neoplatonic structure: an impersonal Absolute, necessary emanation, and subordination of personal deities.
Plotinus's metaphysics begins with a radical assertion: the ultimate principle, which he calls the One or the Good, transcends all categories of finite thought.
"God exceeds all the categories of finite thought. It is not correct to say that He is a Being, or a Mind. He is over-Being, over-Mind. The only attributes which may be appropriately applied to Him are Good and One."
— Catholic Encyclopedia on Neo-Platonism
From the One flows reality in descending degrees through necessary emanation:
"Thus from the One, there emanates in the first place Intellect (Nous), which is the image of the One... From the intellect emanates... the World-soul... From the World-Soul emanate the Forces (one of which is the human soul), which, by a series of successive degradations towards nothing become finally Matter, the non-existent, the antithesis of God."
— Catholic Encyclopedia
Plotinian Hierarchy:
The One → Intellect (Nous) → World-Soul → Individual Souls → Matter
"Matter is, in fact, for Plotinus, essentially the opposite of the Good; it is evil and the source of all evil. It is unreality and wherever it is present, there is not only a lack of goodness but also a lack of reality."
— Catholic Encyclopedia
This Neoplatonic judgment—that matter is evil and multiplicity/otherness represents degradation from the One—arises from what we may call finite parallax: the error of projecting the structure of created relations onto the Absolute. In creatures, relation is an accident inhering in a substance; multiplicity involves composition; otherness involves limitation. Plotinus correctly saw that the Absolute cannot have accidents or composition. But he incorrectly concluded that the Absolute must therefore be utterly simple and impersonal, beyond all relation and otherness.
Objection: Didn't Catholic theology just baptize pagan philosophy?
If both Catholic theology and Perennialism draw from Neoplatonism, isn't Catholicism just Hellenized Christianity? Maybe the Perennialists are right to preserve the original pagan wisdom.
Response:
The issue is not whether Christianity engaged with Greek philosophy—it did—but how it transformed it. Catholic theology didn't merely adopt Neoplatonism; it revolutionized it by subordinating philosophy to revelation. The doctrines of creation ex nihilo, the goodness of matter, and the personal Trinity are not developments from Plotinus but corrections of Plotinus based on divine revelation. Perennialism, by contrast, retains the core Neoplatonic errors: necessary emanation, matter as degradation, and the impersonal One as supreme. The question is not "Who uses Greek philosophy?" but "Whose use is faithful to revealed truth?" Catholic theology uses philosophy as a handmaid to theology (ancilla theologiae), correcting philosophical errors through revelation. Perennialism subordinates revelation to philosophy, reducing Christ to a symbol of timeless metaphysical truths.
What Plotinus could not know—and what natural reason alone cannot discover—is that in God, relations are not accidents but subsistent realities identical with the divine essence. The Trinity reveals that otherness and relation, far from being limitations, constitute the very life of the Absolute. The finite parallax error consists in absolutizing the via negativa (denying created imperfections of God) while refusing the analogical ascent (affirming created perfections of God in an eminent mode).
St. Augustine (354-430) used Plotinus to overcome materialism but fundamentally transformed Neoplatonism:
"The Christian writer whose neo-Platonism had the widest influence in later times, and who also reproduced most faithfully the doctrines of the school, is the Pseudo-Dionysius... They are from the pen of a Christian Platonist, a disciple of Proclus, probably an immediate pupil of that teacher."
— Catholic Encyclopedia
Thomas Aquinas adopted Neoplatonic participation but transformed it through Aristotelian metaphysics:
René Guénon's metaphysics mirrors Plotinus's hierarchy:
| Guénon | Plotinus | Vedanta |
|---|---|---|
| The Infinite / Beyond-Being | The One | Nirguna Brahman |
| Being | Intellect (Nous) | Saguna Brahman |
| Universal Manifestation | Emanation | Maya |
Guénon retains: necessary emanation, impersonal Absolute as ultimate, personal God as subordinate manifestation.
| Issue | Catholic Theology | Perennialism |
|---|---|---|
| Origin of World | Free creation ex nihilo | Necessary emanation |
| Ultimate Reality | Personal Trinity | Impersonal Absolute |
| Matter | Good (created by God) | Lower/less real |
| Personal God | Ultimate (Trinity IS essence) | Subordinate to Absolute |
Neoplatonism provided rich philosophical vocabulary for both traditions. But beneath superficial similarity lies fundamental divergence:
Catholic theology transformed Neoplatonism by replacing emanation with free creation, subordinating the impersonal One to the personal Trinity, and affirming matter's goodness. The doctrine of the Incarnation—God becoming matter—is the ultimate vindication of matter's reality and goodness, a doctrine utterly incompatible with Neoplatonic metaphysics.
Perennialism retained Neoplatonism by keeping necessary emanation, subordinating the personal God to the impersonal Absolute, and treating matter as lower and less real. This is why Perennialists cannot accept the literal truth of the Incarnation—for them, God cannot truly become matter without degradation.