Gods, Spirits, and Rebirth

26 February 2024

Gods, Spirits, and Rebirth

In Ennead III.4, On Our Allotted Guardian Spirit there is a section where Plotinus focuses on rebirth and how it works; it is an extended discussion starting with Section 2.  Plotinus discusses how what kind of life a human being lives will lead that individual to rebirth as a human being, or some kind of animal, and even raises the idea that some people will be reborn as plants.

What I want to focus on are the brief remarks Plotinus makes on human beings taking rebirth as a spirit or a god:

“Who, then, becomes a spirit?  He who was one here too.  And who a god?  Certainly he who was one here.  For what worked in a man leads him [after death—translator’s addition], since it was his ruler and guide here too.  Is this, then, ‘the spirit to whom he was allotted while he lived’?  No . . . “

(Plotinus, Ennead III.4.3, On Our Allotted Guardian Spirit, translated by A. H. Armstrong, Plotinus: Ennead III, Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1967, pages 147 & 149, ISBN: 9780674997874)

I want to highlight this passage because I think it is consistent with the idea that gods and spirits are part of our world, the third level, or hypostasis, of Platonic metaphysics.  Here are a few comments:

1.  The passage suggests that human beings can be reborn as gods or spirits if they have lived in a way that ‘leads’ them to such a rebirth.  In principle, the mechanism for this kind of rebirth as a god or spirit, is the same mechanism that leads someone to rebirth as a plant or animal.

2.  I think this implies that in at least some cases gods and spirits are embedded in genesis, samsara, and cyclic existence.  Cyclic existence is another name for the third level, or hypostasis, of the metaphysical map of the cosmos found in Platonism; it is the realm in which we dwell.

3.  I think this also implies that gods and spirits can be reborn in lower states, such as that of a human being, animals, and plants, depending on their dominant tendencies during their lifetimes; that is to say what ‘leads’ them.  It is true that Plotinus does not specifically say this, but it is the nature of the wheel of rebirth that rebirth can go to higher or lower conditions with each rebirth and since human beings can become gods or spirits through the mechanism of rebirth, I suggest that it follows that gods and spirits can become humans through the same mechanism.

4.  I am aware that this is not the final word on how Plotinus views deities; there are other passages that seem to align more with the idea that gods and spirits are immortal.  This may have to do with a typology of deities, or it may have to do with the particular topic being discussed at that time.  But here Plotinus indicates that the process of rebirth for gods, spirits, and humans is the same.

5.  This helps us to understand why Plotinus views the transcendental, the Good and the One, as beyond the realm of the gods and spirits.

6.  This kind of teaching suggests that the journey to the One entails transcending the realm of gods and spirits since they dwell in the third level, or hypostasis, of existence.  It also suggests that gods and spirits can also transcend the third level, or material level, of existence by following the path of philosophy; but if they don’t they will be reborn either in a deity dimension of the third level, or in a lower dimension of the third level such as that of humans, animals, or plants.

7.  Gods and spirits are dwellers in samsara, or genesis, just like you and me.  In this sense we, meaning gods, spirits, and humans, are on a common journey to transcendence.