God The Father Essay, Research Paper

The Chain of Being

Definition

Basically The Chain of Being (also called The Divine Order) is an order in which people are ranked from the closest to God, all the way down to the minerals in the earth.

Information

This originated through ancient Greek Neoplationists. We also see evidence of this during the European Renaissance and the 17th and early 18th centuries.

Elizabethan’s felt that there was a place for everything and that everything should be in its place. If something was to come out of place, there would be complete chaos until it was restored.

For example, In Macbeth, he disrupted this order by murdering the king, and taking over his position. Macbeth ruled the country, not out of love, but out of fear that someone would find out about his wrong doing. This brought the downfall of England financially, and failed to allow England to prosper. Order was not restored until Macbeth was killed and the rightful King was placed on the Throne.

Basically the chain represents perfection. God being at the top, then the King or Queen, and then it basically follows social status, all the way to the poorest of the poor. After that it moves onto animals, plants and vegetation, and minerals from the earth. This cycle is complete. Therefore the universe would not be complete if the chain did not go all the way to the bottom or if there where positions missing throughout the chain.

Every point on the chain above the very bottom has some degree of perfection. Dependence is looked upon as imperfect. The top of the chain is self-sufficient or absolute and therefore it represents perfection. For example, If A causes B to become into creation, then B depends on A and is therefore less perfect that A.