The Spirits' Book

Allan Kardec

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Attributes of Divinity

10. Is humanity capable of comprehending the essential nature of God?
“No, human beings lack the sense required to comprehend it.”

11. Will humans ever be able to understand the mystery of Divinity?
“Humans will see and understand God when their spirits are no longer obscured by matter, and when they have come closer by striving for perfection.”

The inferiority of human faculties makes it impossible for human beings to fully grasp the essential nature of God. In the early stages of life, humans often confuse the Creator with the creature, and attribute the imperfections of the latter to God. As the moral sense of human beings becomes more developed, they are able to penetrate the nature of things more deeply. They will be able to form a truer more conforming and rational idea of God, even though it will always be incomplete.

12. If we cannot comprehend the essential nature of God, can we grasp an idea of some of God’s perfections?
“Yes, some of them. Human beings understand them better as they rise above matter. They catch glimpses of them through thought.”

13. We say that God is eternal, infinite, unchangeable, immaterial, unique, all-powerful, supremely just and good. Is this not a complete impression of God’s attributes?
“From your point of view, yes, because you think that you sum up everything in those terms. However, you must understand that there are things that transcend the intelligence of even the most intelligent human being, and that your language cannot express. Reason tells you that God must possess all these qualities in the supreme degree because if one of them were short or not possessed to an infinite degree, the Creator would not be superior to everything and everyone, and thus would not be God. To be above all things, God must have no variations and must have no conceivable imperfections.”

God is eternal. If God had a beginning, it either would have had to spring from nothing, or have been created by a being that existed before God. This is how we gradually arrive at the idea of infinity and eternity.

God is unchangeable. If God were subject to change, the laws governing the universe would be unstable.

God is immaterial. God’s nature is completely different from everything that we call matter. Otherwise, God would not be unchangeable. God would be subject to the transformations of matter.

God is unique. If several Gods existed, there would be neither unity in the plans of the universe, nor power in its organization.

God is all-powerful because God is unique. Without supreme power, there would be something more powerful than, or as powerful as God. The Creator would not have created everything and those which God had not created would be the work of another God.

God is supremely just and good. The great wisdom of the Divine laws is clearly revealed in the smallest and the greatest things. This wisdom makes it impossible to doubt God’s justice or goodness.

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