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divine
October 2009 
How Can We Know The Infinite?
Posted on Feb 25th, 2009
by 
Brian
Brian
“You ask, how can we know the Infinite? I answer, not by reason. It is the office of reason to distinguish and define. The Infinite, therefore, cannot be ranked among its objects. You can only apprehend the Infinite by a faculty superior to reason, by entering into a state in which you are your finite self no longer—in which the divine essence is communicated to you. This is ecstasy. It is the liberation of your mind from its finite anxieties. Like only can apprehend like; when you thus cease to be finite, you become one with the Infinite. In the reduction of your soul to its simplest self (ἅπλωσις), its divine essence, you realize this union—this Identity (ἕνωσις).”
– Plotinus, “Plotinus to Flaccus” (3rd century AD)
– Plotinus, “Plotinus to Flaccus” (3rd century AD)
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