Gordon Clark: Emanation (The American People's Encyclopedia)

1948. In American People's Encyclopedia. Chicago: The Spencer Press. Emanation

The name given the process by which lower orders of nature come from the highest principle. It is found in some philosophies that reject the Hebrew-Christian conception of a voluntary act of creation. An illustration is NEOPLATONISM, which compares the world with the rays of light that emanate from the sun without diminishing its energy, Since temporal and spatial characteristics are denied, emanation may mean nothing more than logical structure, and theorems of geometry could be said to emanate from the axioms. In GNOSTICISM the emanations are conceived as 30 angels sprung from the mind of God. The last one, Sophia, is made the mother of Jehovah, and through her, human salvation is eventually effected. 

Gordon H. Clark