The problem of evil is reputed to be the most powerful argument against theism. This argument, however, does not make a distinction between primary and secondary causes. The vital distinction to be made is that while a perfect first cause would indeed produce effects which are free from from the inheritance of imperfection, secondary causes yield effects which invariably exhibit inheritance form a more circumscribed ancestor—and between man and God, there is room for a vast hierarchy of secondary creators and created beings.
As for morality and religion, even the devil wants to look like a saint. It is therefore is no, or even negative, correlation between what passes for religiosity and criminal behavior. It is what one believes at the unconscious level rather than what one knows or thinks he knows at the intellectual level that determines conduct and dominates personal performances. “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.” Purely factual knowledge exerts very little influence upon the average man unless it becomes emotionally activated.
Disbelievers are fond of saying that “enlightenment” does not require a personal God and cite Buddha as an example. This is only to call the trans-personal non-personal.
For thousands of years, men have been told that no one “finds God” by looking for him or by taking on the mantle of belief. Yet, he has also been told that only those who look for God shall find him—and when they do, his reality and truth are made self-evident. Why is there this paradox? Because unity and diversity, the imperishable and the perishable, while one, are not the same. Our reality as a personality is proportional to our identification with the imperishable. Mind identified with matter is material and perishes with the material brain; mind identified with spirit is spiritual and everlasting. Although we may have glimpses into our unity with God, we do not achieve union with him as a drop of water might find unity with the ocean, but by progressive reciprocal spiritual communion, by personality intercourse with the personal God, by increasingly attaining the divine nature through wholehearted and intelligent conformity to the divine will. Yet, while the factors of God-consciousness may be intentional, growth itself is unvaryingly unconscious. The experience of the realization of the reality of unconscious growth in the conscious mind is the only positive proof of the functional existence of superconsciousness, and such proof, while usually gradual, can come quite suddenly.
In God, the One First Source, we live, move, and have our being; in and through us, First Source escapes the experiential finality of the perfection of infinity. Ours are the eyes through which First Source sees himself from a variety of finite points of view; ours are the deeds that, in the aggregate with others, shape the universe. It matters little what idea of First Source you may entertain, so long as you are spiritually acquainted with the ideal of Its infinite, eternal and unified nature. Just as moonlight can be understood as the sun's light being used by the moon to express its reality, we can understand ourselves as using God's infinite presence to express our own reality in the unity of the Whole.
Men believe because it is written upon his heart to believe even if he does not see. They thirst to be like God. This is so apparent men have given it the name “general revelation.” They disbelieve because they want to be a law unto themselves; they want to be God as they believe God ought to be. Reason and acculturation is their god. They deny this, but rationalists seem to know nothing else. Reason and acculturation corrupts the heart of the believer and disbeliever alike: anything can be rationalized and taken to heart—from the slaughter of millions in the name of an atheistic or secular cause to the slaughter of millions in the name of a loving God.
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09-02-2008, 02:20 AM
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