The Ineffable One

To say that the One "is" is already to impose on it a determination that it exceeds. Being requires some form of articulation — some way of being this rather than that — but the One is absolutely simple, without any internal distinction or differentiation. It is not the highest kind of being but what makes being possible: the principle of unity from which every existent derives the measure of coherence that allows it to be at all. Plotinus follows Plato's Republic in placing the Good "beyond being in dignity and power" — a position that became foundational for all subsequent Neoplatonic theology.

Every name we give the One — "the Good", "the One", "the First" — is a concession to the limitations of human speech. None of these names names what the One is; each names only a relation between the One and what proceeds from it. "The Good" names the One insofar as everything else desires it. "The One" names it insofar as it is the source of all unity. Even to say "it is simple" is to make a determination that the truly simple thing cannot coherently have. Plotinus is fully aware of this difficulty and does not try to resolve it: the One's transcendence of language is part of its nature, not a failure of philosophical nerve.

If the One cannot be positively described, it can be approached by negation: stripping away every attribute that would limit or define it — not this, not that, not being, not thought, not even goodness in any finite sense — until what remains is the bare indication of something utterly beyond determination. This negative theology (apophasis) is not nihilism: the One is not nothing but the fullness that cannot be contained in any category. Plotinus does not think the negative path achieves understanding of the One — it prepares the soul for the wordless contact of mystical union, which is the only "knowing" the One admits.

The treatise On the Good, or the One is Ennead VI.9, thought to be among the last texts Plotinus wrote. The description of the One as beyond being draws on Plato's Republic VI (509b). The apophatic tradition Plotinus launches runs through Proclus, Pseudo-Dionysius, Meister Eckhart, and Nicholas of Cusa.