THE EMANATION CONTROVERSY

I laid awake early this morning debating an age-old question in my mind; to whom does light emanate, or does it? Not only have I debated that, but so did the middle age ecclesia.

“Emanation” is “act of flowing or issuing from an origin; emission; radiation; what issues, flows, or is given out from any substance or body.”

In cosmology all things flow from God; He emanates matter and what is not matter; notably the heaven and the earth (Gen 1:1) “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” God emanated both of those substances.

“Cosmology” is the science of things; both the visible and the invisible. Genesis 1:1 is the origin of the cosmos, translated in the English as “world.” All the Book of Genesis is cosmology and so is the Book of John chapter one. Genesis chapters one and two are about the origin of the cosmos.

Most people think of the “world” as planet Earth. We are just one visible speck in a visible and invisible universe. The cosmos is the entirety of all things, both visible and invisible. As it turns out the heaven may be real but invisible. Invisibility is more than things of a different substance, but substances that emanate and reflect light at higher frequencies that remain unseen.

The James Watt Space Telescope (JWST) is currently sending back images of both the seen and the unseen because infrared light is filtered from darkness. Darkness is not the absence of light but light at higher frequencies such as gamma, or X-rays. You cannot see them, but they can “see” through you.

The ancient Christians wondered about emanation. The Fourth Lateran Council of the Catholic Church in 1215 A.D. ruled on emanation. That was ironic since it was during the “Dark Ages” which some consider to be between the fifth and fifteen centuries. Their ruling was truly dark! The Vatican “expressly condemns emanationism (I. De Deo rerum omnium creatore, can. iv), and anathematizes those "asserting that finite things, both corporeal and spiritual, or at least spiritual, have ‘emanated’ from the Divine substance” (From Catholic Encyclopedia 2024)

About creation, the Vatican decided (ibid): 

·         creation is not a change or transformation, since the latter process includes an actual underlying pre-existent subject that passes from one real state to another real state, which subject creation positively excludes;

·         it is not a procession within the Deity, like the inward emission of the Divine Persons, since its term is extrinsic to God;

·         it is not an emanation from the Divine Substance, since the latter is utterly indivisible;

·         it is an act which, while it abides within its cause (God), has its term or effect distinct therefrom; formally immanent, it is virtually transitive;

·         including, as it does, no motion, and hence no successiveness, it is an instantaneous operation;

·         its immediate term is the substance of the effect, the "accidents" (q.v.) being "con-created";

·         since the word creation in its passive sense expresses the term or object of the creative act, or, more strictly, the object in its entitative dependence on the Creator, it follows that, as this dependence is essential, and hence inamissible, (sic) the creative act once placed is coextensive in duration with the creature's existence.

 

The creation — the cosmos — “is not an emanation from a Divine Substance.” Hence, nothing emanated from God and since Jesus is an objective substance, Jesus would not have emanated from God.

Of particular interest is that “it is not a procession within the Deity, like the inward emission of the Divine Persons.” It is true that all things must have come from God since God created and there was only God (Gen 1:1) and also, “All things were made by Him; and without Him was not any thing made that was made” (John 1:3)

In the English, that would indicate that God made things. That infers that He was not the divine Ingredient, or Material, from which all things were made. “Made” in that passage is ginomai in the Greek. That means “come to pass” or “assembled” (Strong 2006). Come to pass means “emanates” as the definition reveals. However, “assembled” means putting things together. Therefore, emanation is ambiguous from what John wrote since assembling is not coming to pass from something before.

That fails, so let’s check the Book of Genesis. “Created” in the English is bara’ in the Hebrew. That means “to form by cutting” (ibid).  Forming is not assembling. It is molding. Molding is indeed done by removing material and shaping what remains. God did cut all things from something. What was before any thing? The “Holy Thing” that we call God. God is not the Creator’s name, but Existence itself. He was “It” alone and no thing other.

God did more than form all things but divided some things from other things. The smallest thing was once thought to be the “atom” and indeed both the ground (adam) and the man (Adam) have the same atomic composition in identical proportions.

God cut something? He cut the atoms to make sub-atomic particles which he assembled to form things. Adam was made from both visible and invisible particles. Genesis chapter one is the invisible “Image” (Selem) or the phantom, and in Genesis chapter two God made the visible Image from the dust of the ground which He molded into the shape of a man. The phantom was the same shape but of some invisible substance.

Only God existed in the beginning (Gen 1:1). The beginning was the first rank of things, not time as the Hebrew word indicates. Hence, all things emanated from God since all subsequent ranks came from Him.

We turn to John again who knew cosmology, “This then is the message which we have heard of Him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all.” (1 John 1:5).

Since God is Light, then all things emanated from God. In other words, God is in all existence, and everything that He made was good. That seems to be New Age thought but it is not. Things emanated from God but just like Adam, that did not make them gods.

In quantum mechanics, light emits both photons and light waves. They are neither, only a “cloud” until they are divided in some sort of divine splitter. (Refer to Young’s Slit Experiment.) Well, God divided the waters from the waters (Gen 1:6) “Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.” Whatever that firm thing was that was divided, it was much like Young’s barrier with two slits.

What was before? God alone.

“Waters” is figuratively “semen” according to the Hebrew. The “Semen” of God was His Genome — the Identity of God, or His Image. One Image was “Selem” — a Phantom, or Spirit. The other Image was the material from which Adam was molded. Hence, Adam emanated from God both spiritually and materially. Since Jesus was the “last Adam” (1 Cor 15:45), then Jesus could have emanated from God. However, He is God, so He did not emanate from anything.

“No man hath seen God at any time, the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he has declared Him” (John 1:8). God is in the bosom of Jesus. He is in what was called the “loins” of the man. The Ghost of Jesus was the Image (Hebrew, Selem) of the Father. So, the Holy Ghost of Jesus did not emanate from the Father but was the “Father” in the loins of Jesus who was His “Son,” or progeny. The Father was in the Son genetically. Jesus did not emanate from the Father like Adam, but He is the Father within.

Jesus was the “only begotten.” However, that too is ambiguous for Jesus was not begotten (emanated from) but “monogenes” in the Greek. Monos means “one” or “alone” and genes from ginomai, means “cause.” Jesus was the “First Cause,” or the “I AM THAT I AM” (YHWH: Yahweh) (Exod 3:14) that existed alone as the rank one.

Jesus was not from God… emanating from Him, but is God with the Genome of Yahweh in His flesh. It is not “Jesus AND God” but “Jesus IS GOD” for God is within the vessel, or “cup” of the man, Jesus (Mat 26:39).

Therefore Jesus, unlike Adam, did not emanate from God but IS God. Hence, the Vatican was right about Jesus, but other things, such as man, emanated from God. We are not gods but at one time were from Him. Sin de-emanated the Light of God from mankind, and to emanate from God again, we must be “born again” or “gennao” (engendered from above). God must imbue us old creatures with His Identify, or Genome, to make us new creatures. Hence, Christians emanate from God, and since Jesus is God, then Christians are “in Christ” (2 Cor 15:7), not Christ, but emanated from Him.

On the other hand, the “lost” — those not in Christ — emanated from the Wicked One as was Cain (1 John 3:12). “Born again” is basically a change of whom is our master — from the one from whom our genome comes.

Jesus did not emanate from Yahweh but is Yahweh. As such, Jesus is God in the flesh of a man. However, the flesh of Jesus did emanate from the Father (The Progenitor) to the “Son” (The Progeny). “Father” and “Son” do not indicate that the Son emanates from the semen of the Parent but that the Son has the Identity of the Father within. Hence, the Genome of the Son is the exact Image of the Father.

What is that “Image” (Selem)? A “Shadow” or “Phantom” (Strong 2006). Therefore, the Holy Ghost that left Jesus was Yahweh Himself. When Jesus gave up the Ghost at His death, many saw Yahweh leave Him; no wonder Jesus cried, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mat 27:46).

That leads to the concept of the “godhead” (Acts 17:29), or the “Father, Son, and Holy Ghost” (Mat 28:9). The Father is the Dynamic (Virtue; Greek Dynamis). The Father is the “Emanator” — the “Light” that appears as a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night (Exod 13:21).

The “Holy Ghost” is the specific pneuma that reveals the Father in the Son, or the Progenitor to His Progeny.

The man Jesus has the Phantom Yahweh in the shape of the Person of Jesus (Luke 3:22). Hence, the Holy Ghost looks like Jesus but is of a different divine Substance.

I imagine the Holy Ghost to be like chromosomes suspended in the shape or a body which they are. Chromosomes are practically invisible, requiring stain to reveal them. They are in every nuclear cell of the body, so in your mind’s eyes, just remove the flesh from the body, leaving the chromosomes in place and there you have the “ghost” of a person!

The Holy Ghost of Jesus did not emanate from the Virtue but Is the Virtue of God. His divine “Semen” is His Genome.

A “genome” is the composite of all the chromosomes in every cell of the creature. God, although not an organic Creature, has a Genome because he is able to imbue it to His creatures. He emanates His own substance to mankind to “fill” His people with the Holy Spirit. The filled person contains the spirit of God in the shape of a human, hence the “Holy Ghost” within the Christian.

Since God is Light and He is the first rank in the genomes to come, then all things, including mankind, emanated from God. That is “glorification.” Essentially, the Serpent de-glorified Adam and the woman. The resurrection is a re-glorification.

As for the “Son,” that is the vessel, or cup, that contains the Spirit of God — His Genome — in the Person of Jesus.

Those explanations should clarify the substances of the Holy Trinity, or “Godhead.” To summarize, the godhead is the Action of God, the Body of God, and the Genome, or Spirit, of God.

Therefore, all things do emanate from God except Jesus who IS God.

Indeed, God did divide Himself to make almost all things, with the firmament doing the splitting, but Jesus Himself did not emanate from anyone or anything. He was the One Thing that pre-existed all other things! (John 1).

The Vatican got it right about Jesus who did not emanate from the Father but apparently all else did. That is the science as well!