On the perfection of created beings.

— It is sometimes asked whether God could not have created the Spirits perfect, in order to spare them evil and all its consequences.

Without doubt God could have done so, since He is All-Powerful; and if He did not do so, it is because, in His sovereign wisdom, He judged it more useful that it should be otherwise. It does not belong to man to scrutinize His designs and, still less, to judge and condemn His works. Since he cannot admit God without the infinitude of perfections, without the sovereign goodness and the sovereign justice; since he has before his eyes, incessantly, thousands of proofs of His solicitude for His creatures, he ought to think that such solicitude could not have failed in the creation of the Spirits. On Earth man is like the child, whose limited vision does not extend beyond the narrow circle of the present, and who cannot judge the usefulness of certain things. He must, then, bow before that which is still above his reach. Nevertheless, since God has given him intelligence to guide himself, it is not forbidden him to seek to understand, halting humbly at the limit he cannot cross. Concerning all things kept in the secret of God, man can establish only systems more or less probable. To judge which of these systems comes nearest to the truth, there is a sure criterion: the essential attributes of the Divinity. Every theory, every philosophical or religious doctrine that tended to destroy the least part of a single one of these attributes would be flawed at its base and would be, for that very reason, tainted with error. Whence it follows that the truest system will be the one that best reconciles itself with these attributes. God being all wisdom and all goodness, He could not have created evil to counterbalance good; if He had made of evil a necessary law, He would have voluntarily weakened the power of good, since that which is evil can only alter and weaken that which is good. He has established laws that are entirely just and good; man would be perfectly happy if he observed them scrupulously; but the least infraction of these laws causes a disturbance whose recoil he experiences; hence all his vicissitudes. He is, then, himself the cause of evil through his disobedience to the laws of God. God created him free to choose his path; he who took the bad path did so by his own will and can accuse no one but himself for the consequences resulting therefrom for him. By the destination of the Earth, we see only Spirits of this category, and this is what has led to belief in the necessity of evil. If we could embrace the whole of the worlds, we would see that the Spirits who have remained on the good path traverse the diverse phases of their existence under entirely different conditions, and that, since evil is not general, it could not be indispensable. But there always remains the question of knowing why God did not create the Spirits perfect. This question is analogous to this other one: Why is the child not born fully developed, with all the aptitudes, all the experience, and all the knowledge of the age of manhood?

— There is a general law that governs all the beings of Creation, animate and inanimate: the law of progress. The Spirits are subjected to it by the force of things, without which the exception would have disturbed the general harmony, and God willed to give us an example synthesized in the progression of infancy. Since evil does not exist as a necessity in the order of things, for it is due only to prevaricating Spirits, the law of progress in no way obliges them to pass through this die in order to arrive at good; it obliges them only to pass through the state of intellectual inferiority or, in other words, through spiritual infancy. Created simple and ignorant and, for that very reason, imperfect, or rather incomplete, they must acquire by themselves and by their own activity the science and the experience that at first they cannot have. If God had created them perfect, He would have had to endow them, from the instant of their creation, with the universality of knowledge; He would have exempted them from all intellectual labor; but, at the same time, He would have taken from them the activity they must develop in order to acquire, and through which they contribute, as incarnates and disincarnates, to the material perfecting of the worlds, a labor that no longer falls to the superior Spirits, charged only with directing moral perfecting. By their very inferiority, they become an essential cog in the general work of Creation. On the other hand, if He had created them infallible, that is, exempt from the possibility of doing evil, they would inevitably have been impelled toward good, like well-prepared mechanisms that automatically produce works of precision. But then, no more free will and, consequently, no more independence; they would resemble those men who are born with their fortune already made and consider themselves dispensed from doing anything. By subjecting them to the law of optional progress, God willed that they should have the merit of their works, so that they might have the right to reward and enjoy the satisfaction of having conquered their own positions. Without the universal law of progress, applied to all beings, the order of things to be established would have been different. Without doubt, God had the possibility. Why did He not do so? Would He have done better had He acted otherwise? On this hypothesis, He would have been mistaken! Now, if God could be mistaken, then He is not perfect; if He is not perfect, He is not God. Since one cannot conceive of Him without infinite perfection, one must conclude that what He did is the best; if we are not yet able to understand His motives, we shall certainly be able to later, in a more advanced state. In the meantime, if we cannot probe the causes, we can observe the effects and recognize that everything in the Universe is governed by harmonious laws, whose wisdom and admirable foresight confound our understanding. Very presumptuous, then, would he be who claimed that God should have regulated the world in another manner, for this would signify that, in His place, he would have done better. Such are the Spirits whose pride and ingratitude God chastises, relegating them to inferior worlds, from which they will emerge only when, bowing their heads beneath the hand that strikes them, they recognize His power. God does not impose this recognition upon them; He wills that it be voluntary and the fruit of their observations, which is why He leaves them free and waits until, vanquished by the very evil they draw upon themselves, they turn toward Him.

— To this they reply: “It is understood that God did not create the Spirits perfect; but, if He judged it fitting to subject them all to the law of progress, could He not, at least, have created them happy, without subjecting them to all the miseries of life? Strictly speaking, suffering is understood in the case of man, in view of his faults; but the animals also suffer; they devour one another; the large eat the small. There are some whose life is nothing but a long martyrdom; do they, like us, have free will, or have they acted in such a way as to receive divine chastisement?”

Such is, again, the objection that they sometimes make, and to which the arguments above can serve as a reply. In spite of this, we will add a few considerations.

On the first point we will say that complete happiness is the result of perfection. Since the vicissitudes originate from imperfection, to create perfectly happy Spirits would be to create them perfect.

The question of the animals requires some developments. [see The destruction of living beings by one another.] It is incontestable that they have an intelligent principle. Of what nature is this principle? What relations does it have with that of man? Is it stationary in each species, or progressive in passing from one species to another? What is its limit of progress? Does it march parallel with man, or is it the same principle that elaborates itself and rehearses life in the inferior species in order, later, to receive new faculties and undergo the human transformation? These are so many questions hitherto insoluble; and if the veil that covers this mystery has not yet been lifted by the Spirits, it is because it would be premature: man is not yet mature enough to receive the full light. It is true that several Spirits have given theories on the subject, but none has a character authentic enough to be accepted as definitive truth; thus, until further notice, they can be considered only as individual systems. Concordance alone can give them consecration, for therein lies the sole and true control of the teaching of the Spirits. This is why we are far from accepting as irrefutable truths everything they teach individually; a principle, whatever it may be, acquires authenticity for us only through the universality of the teaching, that is, through identical instructions, given in all places, by mediums who are strangers to one another and who do not undergo the same influences, notoriously exempt from obsessions and assisted by good and enlightened Spirits. By enlightened Spirits must be understood those who prove their superiority by the elevation of their thought and by the lofty scope of their teachings, never falling into contradiction and saying nothing that the most rigorous logic cannot admit. It is thus that the diverse parts of the doctrine formulated in The Spirits' Book and in The Mediums' Book were controlled. Such is not yet the case with the question of the animals, which is why we have not reached a decision. Until more serious verification, the theories that may be given on the subject should be accepted only with much reserve, and one should await their confirmation or their negation. [See: Scale of organic beings in Genesis.] In general, there could never be an excess of prudence in regard to new theories, about which we might harbor illusions. Thus, how many we have seen, since the origin of Spiritism, which, given prematurely to publicity, had only an ephemeral existence! So it will be with all those that have only an individual character and have not passed through the control of concordance. In our position, receiving communications from nearly a thousand serious Spiritist centers, scattered over diverse points of the globe, we are in a position to see the principles upon which there has been concordance. It is this observation that has guided us until today and will guide us equally in the new fields that Spiritism is called to explore. It is thus that, for some time now, we have noticed in the communications, coming from various quarters, both from France and from abroad, a tendency to enter upon a new path, by means of revelations of an altogether special nature. These revelations, often given in veiled words, passed unnoticed by many of those who obtained them; many others believed themselves the only ones to receive them; taken in isolation, they would have no value for us, but their coincidence gives them high prestige, and they must be judged later, when the moment comes for them to be delivered to the light of publicity. Without this concordance, who could be sure of possessing the truth? Reason, logic, reasoning are without doubt the first means of control that ought to be used; in many cases this suffices. But when it is a matter of an important principle, of the emission of a new idea, there would be presumption in believing oneself infallible in the appreciation of things. It is, moreover, one of the distinctive characters of the new revelation that it is made everywhere and at the same time; thus it occurred with the diverse parts of the doctrine. There is experience to prove that all the audacious theories, given by systematic Spirits and pseudo-savants, have always been isolated and localized; none became general nor could withstand the control of concordance; several, even, fell into ridicule, evident proof that they were not with the truth. Universal control is a guarantee for the future unity of the doctrine. [See the article: Authority of the Spiritist Doctrine — Universal control of the teaching of the Spirits.] This digression has drawn us a little away from the subject, but it was useful in making known the manner in which we proceed, with respect to new theories concerning Spiritism, which is far from having said the last word on all things. We do not put them forth except after they have received the sanction of which we have just spoken, which is why some persons, somewhat impatient, are surprised at our silence in certain cases. As we know that each thing will come in its time, we yield to no pressure, come from where it may, for we know the fate of those who wish to go too quickly and have, in themselves and in their own lights, an excessive confidence; we do not wish to pluck a fruit before it ripens, but — rest assured — when it is ripe, we will not let it fall.

This point established, little remains for us to say on the question proposed, for the capital point has not yet been able to be resolved.

— It is proven that the animals suffer. But is it rational to impute these sufferings to the improvidence of the Creator or to a lack of goodness on His part because the cause escapes our intelligence, as the usefulness of duties and of discipline escapes the schoolboy? Beside this apparent evil, does one not see His solicitude for the most insignificant creatures shine forth? Are the animals not provided with means of preservation appropriate to the environment in which they are to live? Does one not see their coat develop more or less, according to the climate? Their organs of nutrition, their offensive and defensive weapons proportioned to the obstacles to overcome and to the enemies to combat? In the presence of facts so multiplied, whose consequences escape only the eye of the materialist, is there ground for saying that there is no Providence for them? No, certainly, although our vision is too limited to judge the law of the whole. Our point of view, restricted to the small circle that surrounds us, lets us see only apparent irregularities; but, when we raise ourselves, in thought, above the terrestrial horizon, such irregularities will be effaced before the general harmony. What most shocks in this localized observation is the destruction of some beings by others. Since God proves His wisdom and His goodness in all that we can understand, we are forced to admit that the same wisdom presides over what we do not understand. Moreover, we only exaggerate the importance of this destruction because we always connect it with matter, a consequence of the narrow point of view in which man places himself. Definitively, only the envelope is destroyed; the intelligent principle is not annihilated; and the Spirit is as indifferent to the loss of its body as man is to that of his clothing. This destruction of the temporary envelopes is necessary to the formation and maintenance of new envelopes, which are constituted from the same elements, without the intelligent principle being affected, whether in the animals or in man.

There remains the suffering, which sometimes leads to the destruction of this envelope. Spiritism teaches us and proves that suffering in man is useful to his moral advancement. Who tells us that that of the animals does not also have a usefulness? that it is not, in its sphere and according to a certain order of things, a cause of progress? It is true that this is no more than a hypothesis, but at least it rests upon the attributes of God: justice and goodness, whereas the others are their negation.

— The question of the creation of perfect beings having been debated in a session of the Spiritist Society of Paris, the Spirit Erasto dictated, on the subject, the following communication:

ON THE NON-PERFECTION OF CREATED BEINGS.

(Spiritist Society of Paris, February 5, 1864. – Medium: Mr. d’Ambel.)

Why did God not create all beings perfect? By virtue of the very law of progress. It is easy to understand the economy [organization] of this law. He who marches is in movement, that is, in the law of human activity; he who does not progress, who by essence finds himself stationary, incontestably does not belong to the gradation or to the human hierarchy. I explain myself, and you will understand me easily. The man who is born in a position more or less elevated finds in his native situation a given state of being. Well then! he is sure that if his entire life were spent in that condition of being, without its having brought him modifications through his own action or through that of another, he would declare that his existence is monotonous, tedious, fatiguing, in a word, insupportable. I add that he would be perfectly right, considering that good is good only relatively to what is inferior to it. This is so certain that if you place man in a terrestrial paradise, in a paradise where one progresses no more, in a given time he will find his existence unsustainable and that abode a merciless hell. From this it results, in an absolute manner, that the immutable law of the worlds is progress or the movement forward, that is, every Spirit that is created is inevitably subjected to that great and sublime law of life; consequently, such is the human law itself. There exists only one perfect being, and there can exist only one: God! Now, to ask the Supreme Being for the creation of perfect Spirits would be to ask Him to create something similar and equal to Himself. To formulate such a proposition, is that not to condemn it beforehand? O men! why always ask the reason for being of certain questions that are insoluble or above human understanding? Remember always that God alone can remain and live in His gigantic immobility. He is the supreme summit of all things, the alpha and the omega of all life. Ah! believe me, my children, never seek to lift the veil that covers this grandiose mystery, which the greatest Spirits of Creation do not approach without trembling. As for me, humble pioneer of the initiation, all that I can affirm to you is that immobility is one of the attributes of God, or of the Creator, and that man and all that is created have, as an attribute, mobility. Understand, if you can understand, or else wait until the hour comes for a more intelligible explanation, that is, more within the reach of your understanding. I treat only of this part of the question, for I merely wished to prove that I had not remained a stranger to your discussion. As to all the rest, I refer to what was said, since all seemed to me to be of the same opinion. Shortly I shall speak of other cases that were pointed out (the cases of Poitiers). [see Manifestations of Poitiers.]

Erasto. n [1] [see Thomas Erastus.]