GOD.

God and the infinite.

— 2. Proofs of the existence of God. — 3. Attributes of the Divinity. — 4. Pantheism.

God and the infinite.

What is God?

“God is the supreme intelligence, the primary cause of all things.” n

What should be understood by the infinite?

“That which has neither beginning nor end: the unknown; everything that is unknown is infinite.” n

Could one say that God is the infinite?

“An incomplete definition. The poverty of human language, insufficient to define what is above the language of men.”

God is infinite in His perfections, but the infinite is an abstraction. To say that God is the infinite is to take the attribute of a thing for the thing itself, to define a thing that is not known by another that is no more known than the first. Proofs of the existence of God.

Where can the proof of the existence of God be found?

“In an axiom that you apply to your sciences. There is no effect without a cause. Seek the cause of all that is not the work of man, and your reason will answer.”

To believe in God, it is enough to cast one's gaze upon the works of Creation. The Universe exists, therefore it has a cause.

To doubt the existence of God is to deny that every effect has a cause and to assert that nothing could make something.

What deduction can be drawn from the instinctive sentiment, which all men carry within themselves, of the existence of God?

“That God exists; for whence would this sentiment come to them, if it had no basis? It is yet again a consequence of the principle — there is no effect without a cause.”

Could the intimate sentiment we have of the existence of God not be the fruit of education, the result of acquired ideas?

“If that were so, why would this sentiment exist in your savages?”

If the sentiment of the existence of a supreme being were solely the product of a teaching, it would not be universal and would exist only in those who had been able to receive that teaching, as is the case with scientific notions.

Could the primary cause of the formation of things be found in the intimate properties of matter?

“But, then, what would be the cause of those properties? A primary cause is always indispensable.”

To attribute the primary formation of things to the intimate properties of matter would be to take the effect for the cause, since those properties are themselves also an effect that must have a cause.

What should be thought of the opinion of those who attribute the primary formation to a fortuitous combination of matter, or, in other words, to chance?

“Another absurdity! What man of good sense can consider chance an intelligent being? And, moreover, what is chance? Nothing.”

The harmony that exists in the mechanism of the Universe manifests determined combinations and designs and, by that very fact, reveals an intelligent power.

To attribute the primary formation to chance is folly, for chance is blind and cannot produce the effects that intelligence produces.

An intelligent chance would no longer be chance.

In what way, in the primary cause, is revealed a supreme intelligence superior to all intelligences?

“You have a proverb that says: By the work the author is recognized. Well then! Behold the work and seek the author. It is pride that begets incredulity. The proud man admits nothing above himself. That is why he calls himself a strong spirit. Poor being, whom a breath of God can lay low!”

The power of an intelligence is judged by its works; 3 since no human being can create what Nature produces, the primary cause is, consequently, an intelligence superior to Humanity.

Whatever prodigies human intelligence may have wrought, it itself has a cause, and the greater that which it works, the greater must be the primary cause. That superior intelligence is the primary cause of all things, by whatever name it may be given. Attributes of the Divinity.

Can man comprehend the intimate nature of God?

“No; he lacks the sense for that.”

Will it one day be given to man to comprehend the mystery of the Divinity?

“When his spirit is no longer obscured by matter. When, through his perfection, he has drawn near to God, he will see and comprehend Him.”

The inferiority of man's faculties does not allow him to comprehend the intimate nature of God.

In the infancy of Humanity, man often confuses Him with the creature, whose imperfections he attributes to Him; but, as the moral sense develops in him, his thought penetrates better into the heart of things; then he forms a juster idea of the Divinity and, though always incomplete, one more in conformity with sound reason.

Although we cannot comprehend the intimate nature of God, can we form an idea of some of His perfections?

“Of some, yes. Man comprehends them better in proportion as he raises himself above matter. He glimpses them through thought.”

When we say that God is eternal, infinite, immutable, immaterial, unique, omnipotent, sovereignly just and good, do we have a complete idea of His attributes?

“From your point of view, yes, because you believe you embrace everything. Know, however, that there are things that are above the intelligence of the most intelligent man, which your language, restricted to your ideas and sensations, has no means to express.

Reason, indeed, tells you that God must possess these perfections in the supreme degree, since, if one were lacking in Him, or were not infinite, He would no longer be superior to all, He would not, consequently, be God.

To be above all things, God must be free from any vicissitude and from any of the imperfections that imagination can conceive.”

God is eternal. If He had had a beginning, He would have come from nothing, or, then, He too would have been created by a prior being. It is thus that, from step to step, we ascend to the infinite and to eternity.

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

He is immaterial. This means that His nature differs from all that we call matter. Otherwise, He would not be immutable, because He would be subject to the transformations of matter.

He is unique. If there were many Gods, there would be no unity of views, nor unity of power in the ordering of the Universe.

He is omnipotent. He is so because He is unique. If He did not dispose of sovereign power, there would be something more powerful or as powerful as He, who then would not have made all things. Those He had not made would be the work of another God.

He is sovereignly just and good. The providential wisdom of the divine laws is revealed, thus in the smallest things as in the greatest, and this wisdom does not permit one to doubt either the justice or the goodness of God.

Pantheism.

Is God a distinct being, or is He, as some opine, the resultant of all the forces and all the intelligences of the Universe brought together?

“If it were so, God would not exist, since He would be effect and not cause. He cannot be at the same time the one and the other thing.

“God exists; of this you cannot doubt, and that is the essential thing.

Believe me, do not go beyond that. Do not lose yourselves in a labyrinth from which you will not manage to emerge. That would not make you better, but rather a little more proud, for you would believe you knew, when in reality you would know nothing.

Set aside, consequently, all these systems; you have enough things that touch you more closely, beginning with yourselves. Study your own imperfections, in order to free yourselves from them, which will be more useful than seeking to penetrate what is impenetrable.”

What should be thought of the opinion according to which all the bodies of Nature, all beings, all the globes of the Universe would be parts of the Divinity and would constitute, taken together, the Divinity itself, or, in other words, what should be thought of the pantheistic doctrine? “Not being able to make himself God, man wants at least to be a part of God.”

Those who profess this doctrine claim to find in it the demonstration of some of the attributes of God: The worlds being infinite, God is, by that very fact, infinite; there being no void, or nothing, anywhere, God is everywhere; God being everywhere, since everything is an integral part of God, He gives to all the phenomena of Nature an intelligent reason for being. What can be opposed to this reasoning?

“Reason. Reflect maturely and it will not be difficult for you to recognize its absurdity.”

This doctrine makes of God a material being who, though endowed with supreme intelligence, would be on a grand scale what we are on a small scale. Now, matter transforming itself incessantly, God, if it were so, would have no stability; He would find Himself subject to all the vicissitudes, even to all the necessities of Humanity; He would lack one of the essential attributes of the Divinity: immutability.

The properties of matter cannot be allied to the idea of God without His being lowered before our comprehension, and there will be no subtleties of sophisms that can manage to resolve the problem of His intimate nature.

We do not know all that He is, but we know what He cannot fail to be, and the system of which we are treating is in contradiction with His most essential properties; 5 it confuses the Creator with the creature, exactly as one would do who claimed that an ingenious machine were an integral part of the mechanic who conceived it.

The intelligence of God is revealed in His works as that of a painter in his picture; but the works of God are not God Himself, just as the picture is not the painter who conceived and executed it.

[1] The text placed between quotation marks, following the questions, is the answer the Spirits gave. To set off the notes and explanations added by the author, when there is a possibility of their being confused with the text of the answer, a different, smaller typeface has been employed. When they form whole chapters, without the confusion being possible, the same typeface used for the questions and answers has been employed. [2] Infinite and indefinite — As to why infinite and not indefinite was employed in the answer given by the Spirits in the expression: “everything that is unknown is infinite,” v. in the Spiritist Review of August 1863, the study on these two words.