GOD.

Existence of God. — On the divine nature.

— Providence.

— The vision of God.

EXISTENCE OF GOD.

— God being the primary cause of all things, the origin of all that exists, the foundation upon which rests the edifice of Creation, He is also the point that it behooves us to consider before all else.

— It is an elementary principle that a cause is judged by its effects, even when it remains hidden.

If, cleaving the air, a bird is struck by a deadly grain of lead, it is deduced that a skilled marksman aimed at it, even though the latter is not seen.

Thus, it is not always necessary that we see a thing in order to know that it exists.

In all things, it is by observing the effects that one arrives at knowledge of the causes.

— Another principle, equally elementary, and one that, being so true, has become an axiom, is that every intelligent effect must proceed from an intelligent cause.

If we were asked who the builder of a certain ingenious mechanism was, what would we think of one who answered that it made itself?

When one contemplates a masterpiece of art or industry, it is said that a man of genius must have produced it, because only a lofty intelligence could conceive it. It is recognized, however, that it is the work of a man, since it is verified that it is not beyond human capacity; but no one would think of saying that it issued from the brain of an idiot or an ignorant person, still less that it is the work of an animal, or the product of chance.

— Everywhere the presence of man is recognized by his works.

The existence of antediluvian men would not be proved solely by means of human fossils: it was also proved, and with great certainty, by the presence, in the terrains of that epoch, of objects fashioned by men; a fragment of a vase, a hewn stone, a weapon, a brick will suffice to attest his presence.

By the crudeness or perfection of the work, the degree of intelligence or advancement of those who executed it will be recognized.

If, then, finding yourselves in a region inhabited exclusively by savages, you should discover a statue worthy of Phidias, you would not hesitate to say that, the savages being incapable of having made it, it is the work of an intelligence superior to theirs.

— Well then! casting one's gaze around oneself, upon the works of Nature, noting the providence, the wisdom, the harmony that preside over those works, the observer recognizes that there is not one of them that does not surpass the limits of the most prodigious human intelligence.

Now, since man cannot produce them, it follows that they are the product of an intelligence superior to humanity, unless one maintains that there are effects without a cause.

— To this some oppose the following reasoning:

The works called those of Nature are produced by material forces that act mechanically, by virtue of the laws of attraction and repulsion; 3 the molecules of inert bodies aggregate and disaggregate under the dominion of those laws.

Plants are born, sprout, grow, and multiply always in the same manner, each in its species, by effect of those same laws; 5 each individual resembles the one from which it came; 6 growth, flowering, fruiting, coloration are subordinated to material causes, such as heat, electricity, light, humidity, etc.

The same occurs with animals.

The heavenly bodies are formed by molecular attraction and move perpetually in their orbits by effect of gravitation.

This mechanical regularity in the employment of natural forces does not betray the action of any free intelligence.

Man moves his arm when he wills and as he wills; but one who moved it in the same way, from birth until death, would be an automaton; now the organic forces of Nature are purely automatic.

All this is true; but those forces are effects that must have a cause, and no one claims that they constitute the divinity.

They are material and mechanical; they are not of themselves intelligent—this too is true—but they are set in action, distributed, appropriated to the needs of each thing by an intelligence that is not that of men.

The useful application of those forces is an intelligent effect, which denotes an intelligent cause.

A pendulum moves with automatic regularity, and it is in that regularity that its merit lies. The force that makes it move is wholly material and has nothing intelligent about it. But what would that pendulum be, if an intelligence had not combined, calculated, distributed the employment of that force, in order to make it run with precision? From the fact that the intelligence is not in the mechanism of the pendulum, and that no one sees it, would it be rational to deduce that it does not exist? We appreciate it by its effects.

The existence of the watch attests the existence of the watchmaker; the ingenuity of the mechanism attests his intelligence and his knowledge. When a watch gives you, at the precise moment, the indication you need, has it ever come to your mind to say: there is a very intelligent watch?

The same occurs with the mechanism of the Universe: God does not show Himself, but reveals Himself by His works.

— The existence of God is, therefore, a reality proven not only by revelation, but also by the material evidence of facts.

Savage peoples had no revelation; nevertheless, they believe instinctively in the existence of a superhuman power; they see things that are above the possibilities of man and deduce that those things come from a being superior to Humanity. Do they not show that they reason with more logic than those who claim that such things made themselves?

ON THE DIVINE NATURE.

— It is not given to man to fathom the intimate nature of God.

To comprehend Him, we still lack the proper sense, which is acquired only through the complete purification of the Spirit.

But if he cannot penetrate the essence of God, man, once he accepts as a premise His existence, can, through reasoning, come to know His necessary attributes, since, seeing what He absolutely cannot be without ceasing to be God, he deduces therefrom what He must be.

Without knowledge of the attributes of God, it would be impossible to comprehend the work of Creation; 5 this is the point of departure of all religious beliefs, and it is for not having referred to it, as to the beacon capable of guiding them, that the majority of religions erred in their dogmas.

Those that did not attribute omnipotence to God imagined many gods; those that did not attribute to Him sovereign goodness made of Him a jealous, choleric, partial, and vengeful God.

— God is the supreme and sovereign intelligence.

The intelligence of man is limited, for he cannot do, nor comprehend, all that exists; that of God, embracing the infinite, must be infinite.

If we supposed it limited at any point, we could conceive another being more intelligent, capable of comprehending and doing what the first would not do, and so on, to infinity.

— God is eternal, that is, He had no beginning and will have no end.

If He had had a beginning, He would have come forth from nothing; 3 now, nothing being not anything, it can produce nothing; 4 or else, He would have been created by another, prior being, and in that case, this being would be God.

If we supposed Him a beginning or an end, we could conceive an entity existing before Him and capable of surviving Him, and so on, to infinity.

— God is immutable. If He were subject to changes, the laws that govern the Universe would have no stability.

— God is immaterial, that is, His nature differs from all that we call matter; 2 otherwise, He would not be immutable, for He would be subject to the transformations of matter.

God lacks any form appreciable by our senses, without which He would be matter.

We say: the hand of God, the eye of God, the mouth of God, because man, knowing nothing beyond himself, takes himself as the term of comparison for all that he does not comprehend.

Ridiculous are those images in which God is represented by the figure of an old man with a long beard and wrapped in a mantle; they have the disadvantage of lowering the supreme Being to the petty proportions of humanity; 6 from this to lending Him human passions and making Him a choleric and jealous God is but a step.

— God is omnipotent. If He did not possess supreme power, one could always conceive a more powerful entity, and so on, until reaching the being whose potency no other surpasses, and that one, then, would be God.

— God is sovereignly just and good.

The providential wisdom of the divine laws reveals itself in the smallest things, as in the greatest, that wisdom not permitting one to doubt His justice, nor His goodness.

The fact of a quality being infinite excludes the possibility of a contrary quality, because the latter would diminish or annul it.

A being infinitely good could not contain the most insignificant particle of malignity, nor the being infinitely evil contain the most insignificant particle of goodness, just as an object cannot be of an absolute black with the slightest nuance of white, nor of an absolute white with the smallest black stain.

God, therefore, could not be simultaneously good and evil, because then, possessing neither of those two qualities in the supreme degree, He would not be God; all things would be subject to His caprice, and for none would there be stability.

He could not, consequently, fail to be either infinitely good or infinitely evil; now, as His works bear witness to His wisdom, His goodness, and His solicitude, it will be concluded that, being unable to be at the same time good and evil without ceasing to be God, He necessarily must be infinitely good.

Sovereign goodness implies sovereign justice, for if He proceeded unjustly or with partiality in but a single circumstance, or with respect to a single one of His creatures, He would no longer be sovereignly just and, in consequence, would no longer be sovereignly good.

— God is infinitely perfect.

It is impossible to conceive God without the infinitude of perfections, without which He would not be God, for one could always conceive a being possessing what He lacked. In order that no being may surpass Him, it is necessary that He be infinite in all things.

Being infinite, the attributes of God are susceptible neither of increase nor of diminution, since otherwise they would not be infinite and God would not be perfect.

If the most minute particle were taken from any of His attributes, there would no longer be a God, for a more perfect being could exist.

— God is one.

The oneness of God is a consequence of the fact that His perfections are infinite.

There could not exist another God, save under the condition of being equally infinite in all things, since, if there were between them the slightest difference, one would be inferior to the other, subordinate to the power of that other, and, then, would not be God.

If there were between the two an absolute equality, that would be equivalent to there existing, from all eternity, one same thought, one same will, one same power. Thus merged, as to identity, there would be, in reality, no more than a single God.

If each had special attributions, one would not do what the other did; but, then, there would not exist perfect equality between them, since neither would possess sovereign authority.

— It was the ignorance of the principle that the perfections of God are infinite that engendered polytheism, a cult adopted by all primitive peoples, who gave the attribute of divinity to every power that appeared to them above the powers inherent in humanity; 2 later, reason led them to gather those diverse powers into one alone.

Then, in proportion as men came to comprehend the essence of the divine attributes, they withdrew from the symbols, which they had created, the belief that implied the negation of those attributes.

— In short, God cannot be God except under the condition that no other surpass Him, for the being that exceeded Him in whatsoever it might be, even if only by the thickness of a hair, would be the true God; 2 in order that such may not occur, it becomes indispensable that He be infinite in all things.

It is thus that, the existence of God being proven by His works, by simple logical deduction one comes to determine the attributes that characterize Him.

— God is, therefore, the supreme and sovereign intelligence; He is one, eternal, immutable, immaterial, omnipotent, sovereignly just and good, infinite in all perfections, and cannot be otherwise.

Such is the axis upon which the universal edifice rests; 3 such is the beacon whose rays extend over the whole Universe, the only light capable of guiding man in the search for truth; orienting himself by that light, he will never go astray.

If, therefore, man has erred so many times, it is solely for not having followed the course that was indicated to him.

Such also is the infallible criterion of all philosophical and religious doctrines; to appraise them, man has at his disposal a rigorously exact measure in the attributes of God and can affirm to himself that every theory, every principle, every dogma, every belief, every practice that is in contradiction with even a single one of those attributes, that tends not so much to annul it, but simply to diminish it, cannot be in accord with the truth.

In philosophy, in psychology, in morality, in religion, there is nothing true except that which does not depart, not by a jot, from the essential qualities of the Divinity.

The perfect religion will be that none of whose articles of faith is in opposition to those qualities; that all of whose dogmas withstand the test of this verification without suffering anything.

PROVIDENCE.

— Providence is the solicitude of God toward His creatures.

He is everywhere, sees all, presides over all, even the smallest things; it is in this that the providential action consists.

“How can God, so great, so powerful, so superior to all, meddle in minute details, concern Himself with the least acts and the least thoughts of each individual?” — This is the question that the unbeliever addresses to himself, concluding by saying that, the existence of God being admitted, one can only admit, as to His action, that it is exercised upon the general laws of the Universe; that this functions from all eternity by virtue of those laws, to which every creature is submitted in the sphere of its activities, without there being any need for the incessant intervention of Providence.”

— In the state of inferiority in which they still find themselves, men can only with great difficulty comprehend that God is infinite; seeing themselves limited and circumscribed, they imagine Him also circumscribed and limited; imagining Him circumscribed, they figure Him as they themselves are, in their image and likeness.

The pictures in which we see Him with human features contribute not a little to sustain this error in the spirit of the masses, who in it adore the form more than the thought.

For the majority, He is a powerful sovereign, seated upon an inaccessible throne and lost in the immensity of the heavens; 4 their faculties and perceptions being restricted, they do not comprehend that God can and deigns to intervene directly in the smallest things.

— Powerless to comprehend the very essence of the Divinity, man can make of it no more than an approximate idea, by means of comparisons necessarily very imperfect, but which, at least, serve to show him the possibility of that which, at first sight, appears to him impossible.

Let us suppose a fluid subtle enough to penetrate all bodies; 3 being unintelligent, this fluid acts mechanically, solely by means of material forces; if, however, we suppose it endowed with intelligence, with perceptive and sentient faculties, it will no longer act blindly, but with discernment, with will and freedom: it will see, hear, and feel.

— The properties of the perispiritic fluid give us an idea of this.

It is not of itself intelligent, for it is matter, but it serves as a vehicle for the thought, the sensations, and the perceptions of the Spirit.

This fluid is not the thought of the Spirit; it is, however, the agent and the intermediary of that thought; 4 being the one that transmits it, it remains, in a certain way, impregnated with the transmitted thought; 5 and, in the impossibility in which we find ourselves of isolating it, it appears to us that the thought makes one body with the fluid, that it is confounded with the latter, as happens with sound and air, so that we may, properly speaking, materialize it.

Just as we say that the air becomes sonorous, we could, taking the effect for the cause, say that the fluid becomes intelligent.

— Whether or not it be so as concerns the thought of God, that is, whether the thought of God acts directly, or by the intermediary of a fluid, in order to facilitate comprehension for our intelligence, let us figure it under the concrete form of an intelligent fluid that fills the infinite universe and penetrates all the parts of creation: all of Nature plunged into the divine fluid; 2 now, by virtue of the principle that the parts of a whole are of the same nature and have the same properties as it, each atom of that fluid, if we may so express ourselves, possessing thought, that is, the essential attributes of the Divinity, and that same fluid being everywhere, all is submitted to its intelligent action, to its foresight, to its solicitude; there will be no being, however minute we may suppose it, that is not saturated with it.

We find ourselves, then, constantly in the presence of the Divinity; none of our actions can we withdraw from His gaze; our thought is in uninterrupted contact with His thought, there being, therefore, reason to say that God sees the deepest recesses of our heart.

We are in Him, as He is in us, according to the word of the Christ.

To extend His solicitude to all creatures, God does not need to cast His gaze from the height of immensity; 6 our prayers, in order that He may hear them, do not need to traverse space, nor to be uttered with a resounding voice, for, He being continually at our side, our thoughts reverberate in Him.

Our thoughts are like the sounds of a bell, which make all the molecules of the surrounding air vibrate.

— Far be from us the idea of materializing the Divinity; the image of a universal intelligent fluid is evidently no more than a comparison suited to give of God an idea more exact than the pictures that present Him under a human figure; it is intended to make comprehensible the possibility that God has of being everywhere and of occupying Himself with all things.

— We have constantly before our eyes an example that allows us to form an idea of the manner in which the action of God perhaps is exercised upon the most intimate parts of all beings and, consequently, of the manner in which the most subtle impressions of our soul reach Him. This example we draw from a certain instruction that a Spirit gave on the subject.

— Man is a small world, having as director the Spirit and as the directed the body.

In this universe, the body will represent a creation whose God would be the Spirit. (Understand well that here there is a simple question of analogy and not of identity.)

The members of this body, the different organs that compose it, the muscles, the nerves, the joints are so many material individualities, if it may so be said, localized at special points of the said body; though the number of its constituent parts, of so varied and different a nature, be considerable, no one is permitted to suppose that movements, or an impression, can be produced in any place whatever, without the Spirit having consciousness of what occurs.

Are there diverse sensations in many places simultaneously? The Spirit feels them all, distinguishes, analyzes, assigns to each one the determining cause and the point at which it was produced, all by means of the perispiritic fluid.

“An analogous phenomenon occurs between God and Creation.

God is everywhere, in Nature, as the Spirit is everywhere, in the body; 7 all the elements of Creation are in constant relation with Him, as all the cells of the human body are in immediate contact with the spiritual being; 8 there is, then, no reason why phenomena of the same order should not be produced in an identical manner, in the one case and the other.

“A member stirs: the Spirit feels it; a creature thinks: God knows it.

All the members are in movement, the different organs are vibrating; the Spirit senses all the manifestations, distinguishes and localizes them.

The different creations, the different creatures stir, think, act diversely: God knows what is happening and assigns to each one what concerns it.

“From this one can equally deduce the solidarity of matter and intelligence, the solidarity among themselves of all the beings of a world, that of all the worlds and, finally, of all the creations with the Creator.” (Quinemant — Spiritist Society of Paris, 1867.)

— We comprehend the effect: that is already much; 2 from the effect we ascend to the cause and judge its greatness by that of the effect; 3 its intimate essence, however, escapes us, as does that of the cause of an immensity of phenomena.

We know the effects of electricity, of heat, of light, of gravitation; we calculate them and, nevertheless, we are ignorant of the intimate nature of the principle that produces them.

Would it then be rational to deny the divine principle, because we do not comprehend it?

— Nothing prevents one from admitting, for the principle of the sovereign intelligence, a center of action, a principal focus radiating incessantly, flooding the Universe with its effluvia, as the Sun does with its light.

But where is that focus? That is what no one can say.

Probably, it is not fixed at a determined point, just as its action is not, it being also probable that it constantly traverses the regions of endless space.

If simple Spirits have the gift of ubiquity, in God that faculty must be without limits.

God filling the Universe, one could even admit, by way of hypothesis, that this focus does not need to transport itself, since it forms in all the parts where the sovereign will judges it fitting that it be produced, whence it can be said that it is everywhere and nowhere.

— Before these unfathomable problems, it behooves our reason to humble itself.

God exists: of this we cannot doubt;

He is infinitely just and good: such is His essence; 4 to all things His solicitude extends: this we comprehend; 5 only our good, therefore, can He will, whence it follows that we ought to trust in Him: this is the essential; 6 as for the rest, let us wait until we have become worthy to comprehend it.

THE VISION OF GOD.

— If God is everywhere, why do we not see Him? Shall we see Him when we leave the Earth? Such are the questions that are formulated every day.

To the first it is easy to respond; the perceptions of our visual organs being limited, they render them unfit for the vision of certain things, even material ones.

It is thus that some fluids escape our vision and our instruments of analysis entirely; nevertheless, we do not doubt their existence.

We see the effects of the plague, but we do not see the fluid that transports it; we see bodies in movement under the influence of the force of gravitation, but we do not see that force.

— Our material organs cannot perceive things of spiritual essence; only with spiritual vision can we see Spirits and the things of the immaterial world; 2 only our soul, therefore, can have the perception of God.

Will it see Him immediately after death? On this subject, only communications from beyond the tomb can instruct us.

Through them we know that the vision of God constitutes the privilege of the most purified souls and that very few, upon leaving the terrestrial envelope, find themselves in the degree of dematerialization necessary to such an effect.

A common comparison will make it easily comprehensible.

— A person who is at the bottom of a valley, enveloped by dense mist, does not see the Sun. Nevertheless, by the diffuse light, he perceives that the sun is shining. If he begins to climb the mountain, as he ascends, the fog will become clearer, the light ever more vivid. Yet he will still not see the Sun. Only after he has risen above the misty layer and reached a point where the air is perfectly limpid will he contemplate it in all its splendor.

The same occurs with the soul. The perispiritic envelope, although to us invisible and impalpable, is, with respect to it, true matter, still too gross for certain perceptions.

It, however, becomes spiritualized, in proportion as the soul rises in morality.

The imperfections of the soul are like misty layers that obscure its vision; each imperfection of which it rids itself is one blemish less; nevertheless, only after having purified itself completely does it enjoy the plenitude of its faculties.

— God being the divine essence par excellence, only the Spirits who have attained the highest degree of dematerialization can perceive Him.

From the fact that they do not see Him, it does not follow that imperfect Spirits are more distant from Him than the others; 3 those Spirits, like the rest, like all the beings of Nature, find themselves plunged in the divine fluid, just as we are in the light; 4 the matter is that the imperfections of those Spirits are vapors that prevent them from seeing Him; when the fog dissipates, they will see Him resplendent; 5 for this, they need not ascend, nor seek Him in the depths of the infinite; the spiritual vision being freed of the films that obscured it, they will see Him from every place where they may be, even from the Earth, since God is everywhere.

— The Spirit purifies itself only with time, the diverse incarnations being the alembic at whose bottom it leaves each time some impurities.

In abandoning their corporeal envelope, Spirits do not strip themselves instantaneously of their imperfections, which is why, after death, they do not see God any more than they saw Him when alive; but, in proportion as they purify themselves, they have of Him a clearer intuition; they do not see Him, but they comprehend Him better: the light is less diffuse.

When, then, some Spirits say that God forbids them to answer a given question, it is not that God appears to them, or addresses the word to them, in order to command or forbid them this or that, no; they, however, feel it; they receive the effluvia of His thought, as happens to us with respect to the Spirits who envelop us in their fluids, although we do not see them.

— No man, consequently, can see God with the eyes of the flesh.

If this grace were granted to some, it would be only in the state of ecstasy, when the soul is so detached from the bonds of matter that it renders the fact possible during the incarnation.

Such a privilege, moreover, would belong exclusively to souls of election, incarnated on a mission, not in expiation.

But, as the Spirits of the most elevated category shine with dazzling brilliance, it may happen that less elevated Spirits, incarnate or disincarnate, marveling at the splendor with which the former show themselves surrounded, suppose they are seeing God Himself. It is like one who sees a minister and takes him for his sovereign.

— Under what appearance does God present Himself to those who have become worthy to see Him? Will it be under some form? Under a human figure, or as a focus of resplendent light?

Human language is powerless to say it, because there exists for us no point of comparison capable of furnishing us an idea of such a thing; we are like the blind from birth in whom one might vainly seek to make comprehensible the brilliance of the Sun.

Our language is limited by our needs and by the circle of our ideas; that of savages could not describe the marvels of civilization; that of the most civilized peoples is extremely poor for describing the splendors of the heavens, our intelligence too restricted to comprehend them, and our sight, being too weak, would be dazzled.