People sometimes ask if God could not have created the Spirits already perfect to spare them from evil and all its consequences. There is no doubt that God could, since he is Almighty. If God did not do that it is for the fact that God’s supreme wisdom found it more useful otherwise. It is not up to mankind to probe God’s designs and even less to judge and condemn God’s works.
Considering that one cannot admit God without the infinite of perfections, without a sovereign goodness and justice that incessantly shows His solicitude to His the creatures under our eyes, then realizing that such solicitude could not have failed at the creation of the Spirits.
The earthly mankind is like a child whose limited vision does not go beyond the small circle of the present and cannot assess the utility of certain things. Humanity must then bow before what is still beyond their reach. However, since God gave them intelligence as a guide it is not prohibited to try to understand and humbly stop at the limit of what cannot be transposed. Man can only establish more or less likely systems about all things maintained in the secrets of God. The safe criteria to judge which of those systems is closer to the truth is the attributes of the Divinity. Every theory, every doctrine, philosophical or religious, that tended to destroy a single one of those attributes would fail at the foundation and would be, for that very reason, stained by error, from what follows that the safer system is the one that better accommodate those attributes.
Since God is all about wisdom and goodness He could not have created evil as the counterpart of good. Had God made evil a necessary law He would have voluntarily weakened the power of good for something that is bad can only change good and not strengthen that.
God established laws that are entirely good and just. Man would be perfectly happy if he observed those laws scrupulously but the tiniest infringement of those laws cause a disturbance whose effect is felt and whose result is all sorts of vicissitudes. Hence man is the very cause of evil for his disobedience to the laws of God. God created man free to follow his path. The one that followed the wrong path did it out of his own choice and cannot accuse but oneself for the consequences that result from that. Given the destiny of Earth we only see the Spirits of that category and that made us believe that evil is a necessity. If we could embrace the whole set of worlds we would see that the Spirits that remained on the good path passed through the several phases of their existences in conditions that are completely different and since evil is not general it could not be indispensable. But there still remains the issue of knowing why God hasn’t created the Spirits already perfect. This question is analogous to this one: Why the child is not born completely developed, with all aptitudes, knowledge and experience of the adult age? There is a general law that governs all beings of creation, animate as well as inanimate. It is the law of progress. The Spirits are submitted to that law by the force of things without which the exception would have disturbed the general harmony and God wanted to give us an abbreviated example through the progression of infancy. However since evil is not a necessity in the order of things because it only exists to the prevaricator Spirits the law of progress absolutely does not oblige mankind to go through that row to get to good. That law only forces the Spirit to go through the state of intellectual inferiority or, in other words, the spiritual infancy.
Created simple and ignorant and for that very reason imperfect or better, incomplete, they have to acquire science and experience by themselves and their own activity, something that they cannot have from the beginning. If God had created them perfect they would have been gifted with the universal knowledge from the very beginning of their creation. They would have been exempted from any intellectual work and at the same time precluded from all the activity that is required to acquire that knowledge and to which they concur as incarnate or discarnate souls for the physical betterment of the worlds, a work that is no longer in the hands of superior Spirits that are only in charge of the moral improvement. Their own inferiority makes them an essential engine in the general works of creation.
On another hand, had God created them infallible, that is exempt from the possibility of making mistakes, they would be fatally pushed towards good like those well engineered mechanisms that automatically do precision work. They would be like those persons that are born wealthy and believe to be exempted from doing anything. But then there would not be any free-will and consequently no independence. God wanted them to have the merit of their own work by submitting them to the law of elected progress in order to deserve the merit of their work and consequently be rewarded accordingly with the satisfaction of having conquered their position on their own.
Without the application of the universal law of progress to all beings there should be another order of things, completely different. There is no doubt that God had the option but why it was not done? Would it have been better in a different way? If so, God would have made a mistake! Well, if God can make a mistake it means that God is not perfect hence it is not God. Since God cannot be conceived without the infinite perfection one must admit that God did what was best. If we are not able yet to understand God’s reasons we will certainly be later on in a more advanced state. While we wait if we cannot probe the causes we can observe the effects and acknowledge that everything in the universe is ruled by harmonic laws whose wisdom and remarkable providence blow our minds. It would consequently be too presumptuous on our side to believe that God should have governed the world in a different way for this would mean that we would have done better if in God’s shoes. Those are the souls whose pride and ingratitude are punished by God, sending them to inferior worlds that they will only leave when bending their heads under the hurting hand, acknowledging its power. God does not impose such recognition on them. God wants the recognition to be voluntary and born out of observation and that is the reason why God let them be free, waiting for their return after being convinced by the very mistakes that attract them.
To that, some say: “We understand that God did not create the Spirits perfect but if they were all supposed to be submitted to the law of progress couldn’t God have at least created them happy, without the need to undertake all miseries of life? Rigorously speaking peoples suffering can be understood since it could be deserved; but the animals suffer as well; they devour one another; the large prey the small. There are some whose life is just suffering. Would they also have the free-will as we do and have the demerit?”
That is still sometimes the objection that is made and to which the arguments above may serve well as a response. Yet, we will add a few considerations.
About the first point above we say that total happiness is the result of perfection. Considering that the miseries of life are the product of imperfection then the creation of totally happy Spirits would be the same as the creation of perfect Spirits.
The animal issue requires some development though. They bear the intelligent principle, and that is incontestable. What is the nature of that principle? What is the relationship to mankind? Is it stationary in each species or is it progressive moving from one specie to the next? What is the limit of progress to the animal? Does it walk side by side with mankind or is it the same principle that improves and rehearses life in inferior species to receive later new faculties and go through a human transformation? These are so many other questions that are still unresolved today and if the veil that covers such mystery has not yet been unveiled by the Spirits it is because it would be premature since the human species is not yet mature enough to be shone upon by the whole light. It is true that several Spirits gave theories about it but none of them has a truly authentic character to be accepted definitely. Therefore and until the right time comes they cannot be accepted but as individual systems. It is only the general agreement that can consecrate them for that is the only and true control of the Spirits’ teachings. That is why we hardly accept everything that they teach individually as irrefutable truths.
A given principle, whatever it is, only becomes authentic to us by the universality of the teachings, that is, by identical instructions given everywhere through mediums that are strange to one another, not suffering the same influences and notably exempt of obsessions and assisted by good and enlightened Spirits. By enlightened Spirits we mean those that demonstrate their superiority by the elevation of their thoughts and the far reaching teachings, never contradicting themselves and never saying anything that can be dismissed by rigorous logic. That is how the several parts of the Doctrine found in The Spirits’ Book and in The Mediums’ Book were controlled.
The issue of the animals does not fall in that category yet and that is why we have not resolved it yet. Until more serious verification one should not accept theories that may be given about the subject but with reservation and wait for its confirmation or denial.
Generally speaking it is never too much to show prudence before new theories about which we could have some illusions. That is how we have seen many of them since the origin of Spiritism that were prematurely published only to enjoy an ephemeral life! That is what is going to happen to all of those that only have an individual character and that were not run by the control of general agreement.
By receiving communications from about a thousand serious Spiritist centers spread around the world, we are in the position to see the principles about which there was general agreement. That was the boundary that guided us up until now and will equally guide in the new fields that Spiritism is called to explore. That is how we have been observing for some time communications both from France and abroad with a trend to enter a new path through revelations of a totally special nature.
Such revelations, many times through concealed words, went unnoticed to many people that received them and others considered themselves the only ones to have received them.
When considered in isolation they would have no value to us but their agreement give them high importance that will have to be assessed later when the time to give them publicity is right. Without such a general agreement who could hold the flag of truth? Reason and logic are no doubt the first means of control to be used. In many cases that is good enough but when it is about an important principle, about the arrival of a new idea, it would be presumptuous to believe in ones’ infallibility for the appreciation of things. Besides, that is one of the distinct characters of the new revelation, that of being done everywhere and at the same time. That is what happens to the several parts of the Doctrine. Experience is there to demonstrate that all adventurous theories given by systematic and pseudo-wise Spirits were always isolated and localized. None of them became general withstanding the control of the general agreement. Several of them were even ridiculed, an evident demonstration that they were not right. Universal control is the guarantee to the future unity of the Doctrine.
The above digression was a little detached from the subject but useful to make our procedure clear with respect to new theories related to Spiritism and that is far from having given the last word about everything. We never issue them unless blessed by the sanction that we have just described and that is the reason why some people, a bit too impatient, are surprised by our silence in certain cases.
Since we know that each thing will come at its own time we do not yield to any pressure, from any source, for we know the fate of those that want to go too fast with their overconfidence in themselves and in their auto-illumination. We don’t want to harvest the fruit before it is ripe but we may all be assured that when it is ripe we will not allow it to fall down.
Having made that point there isn’t much to say about the proposed issue although the fundamental point cannot be resolved yet. It is incontestable that the animals suffer but is it rational to assign such suffering to the improvidence of the Creator or a lack of benevolence on God’s part for the fact that it escapes our intelligence like the utility of the homework escapes the young student? Side by side with such apparent iniquity don’t we see the shine God’s solicitude towards the tiniest creatures? Aren’t the animals gifted by means of preservation adequate to the environments where they live? Aren’t their skins more or less appropriate to their climate zones? Their nutritional organization, offensive as well as defensive weapons, aren’t they proportional to the obstacles and enemies? Before such numerous facts whose consequences only escape the eyes of the materialist, is it truly founded to say that there is no Providence towards them?
Certainly not although our vision is too limited to assess the whole. Our point of view, restricted to the small circle around us, only allow us to see apparent irregularities, but when we elevate our thoughts above the earthly horizon those irregularities fade away before the general harmony.
What impresses the most that localized vision is the mutual destruction of the animals! Considering that God’s wisdom and benevolence is demonstrated in everything that we can see one must admit that the same wisdom governs what we cannot see. As a matter of fact we don’t use to maximize that importance but by the importance attributed to matter, always by force of the narrow stand point from which humanity observes. It is definitely only the envelope that gets destroyed while the intelligent principle is not annihilated. The Spirit is as much untouched by the destruction of the body as a person is about one’s clothes. That destruction of the temporary envelopes is necessary to the formation and maintenance of new envelopes that are formed by the same elements but the intelligent principle is not touched be it with mankind as well as with the animals.
There still remains the suffering that sometimes is caused by the destruction of those envelopes. Spiritism teaches us and demonstrates that people’s suffering is useful to their moral advancement. Who can tell that the one endured by the animals don’t have the same utility as well; that it is not in their own right and following a certain order of things a cause of progress? It is true that this is no more than a hypothesis but at least it is based on God’s attributes: justice and goodness while the others are its very denial.
After a debate that took place at the Spiritist Society of Paris about the creation of perfect beings the Spirit Erastus dictated the communication transcribed below.
