Omnipresence in Renaissance neoplatonic thought: Nicholas of Cusa and Giordano Bruno

The relationship between transcendence and immanence is crucial to understanding the development of metaphysics from Nicholas of Cusa to Giordano Bruno. The transcendence of the cause marks the difference between the supernatural order and the natural domain. The immanence of the divinity implies the omnipresence of the cause, in accordance with the formula of quodlibet in quolibet. The divine being is entirely present in every being of nature and in every being of reason, but it is expressed in accordance with a particular perspective, a specific contraction. Starting from the peculiar interpretation of the Neoplatonic ubique et nusquam, the present essay analyses the positions of Nicholas of Cusa and Giordano Bruno. By rigorously applying the concepts connected to the enfolding and the unfolding of God (complicatio, explicatio and contractio), Cusanus affirms the difference between transcendence and immanence. In particular, immanence underpins the divine omnipresence within the infinite theophanic complex of nature. Portrait and self-portrait (Cusanus refers to the theories of the Flemish primitive painters) represent privileged tools displaying the immanence-transcendence dialectics. In the thought of Bruno, on the other hand, an immanentizing strategy favors omnipresence over transcendence. Nevertheless, a difference remains between the metaphysical level of the cause and the plane of natural theophany, i.e. between the negative infinite and the privative infinite. According to Giordano Bruno, «natura est deus in rebus», but the natural becoming (vicissitudo) does not remove the transcendence of the Origin.