A. What are the attributes of God?
B. Under what form does God appear to those who can see God?
C. What is divine providence?
Text for reading
146. It was ignorance of the principle of the infiniteness of God’s perfections that gave rise to polytheism, the religion of all primitive peoples. They attributed divinity to every power that seemed above humanity. Later, reason led them to fuse all those various powers into only one.
147. In sum, God cannot be God except under the condition that God cannot be surpassed in anything by another being, because then the being that surpassed God – in whatever way – even by so much as a hair’s breadth, would be the true God. That is why it is necessary that God be infinite in all things.
148. It is thus in God’s existence being proven by the fact of God’s works that, through a simple logical deduction, one arrives at determining the attributes that characterize God. 19. God is therefore the supreme and sovereign intelligence; God is unique, eternal, immutable, immaterial, all-powerful, supremely just and good, infinite in all God’s perfections – it can be no other way. Such is the main point on which the edifice of the universe rests. It is the beacon, whose rays extend throughout the entire universe, and the only one that can guide humans in their search for the truth.
149. In philosophy, psychology, ethics and religion there is nothing true except that which does not wander one bit from the essential qualities of the Divinity. The perfect religion will be the one in which not one article of faith contradicts those qualities, and in which all its dogmas can bear the proof of that test without being affected.
150. Providence is God’s care for all creatures. God is everywhere, sees everything and presides over everything, even the very smallest things; this is what providential action consists of. How is it that God, so great, so powerful and so superior to everything, can get involved in the tiniest details and be concerned with the smallest acts and thoughts of each individual? Such is the question that unbelievers ask themselves, from which they conclude that, even if they were to believe in the existence of God, God’s action would extend only to the general laws of the universe, and that the universe has functioned throughout eternity by virtue of those laws, to which all creatures are subject in their sphere of activity, without there being any need for the incessant support of Providence.
151. In their current little-evolved state, humans can comprehend the infinite God only with difficulty. Since they are bound and limited, they imagine God to be bound and limited; they picture God as a circumscribed being and create an image after their own. The pictures we paint of a God with human traits have contributed in no small way to maintaining such error within the minds of the masses, who worship God more in form than in thought.
152. For most, God is a powerful sovereign on an inaccessible throne, lost in the immensity of the heavens. And because their faculties and perceptions are limited, they cannot understand that God could intervene or deign to intervene directly in small matters.
153. Hence, we are constantly in the presence of the Divinity. There is not one of our actions that we may hide from its gaze. Our thought is in constant contact with its thought, and it is correct to say that God reads the deepest folds of our mind. We are in God just as God is in us, according to what Christ said.
154. To extend kindness over all creatures, God does not have to look down from the heights of the immensity. To be heard by God, our prayers do not have to cross through space, nor do they have to be spoken with a resounding voice, since, God being constantly at our side, our thoughts resound within God. Our thoughts are like the sound of a bell, which makes all the molecules of the surrounding air vibrate.
155. Regarding the presence of God in our lives, we understand the effect, and that is already plentiful; from the effect we work backwards to the cause and judge its greatness by the greatness of the effect. However, its inner essence escapes us, as does that of the cause of a huge number of phenomena. We are familiar with the effects of electricity, heat, light and gravity and we can calculate them; however, we are ignorant of the inner nature of the principle that produces them. So, is it any more rational to deny the divine principle because we do not understand it?
156. Nothing prevents us from believing that the principle of sovereign intelligence has a center of action, a main focal point that radiates outward continuously, flooding the universe with its emanations in the same way as the sun with its light. But where is this focal point? That is what we cannot say. It is probable that it is not fixed at one point any more than is its action, and that it travels the regions of space unbound.
157. Before these impenetrable questions, our reason must be humbled. God exists: this we cannot doubt. God is infinitely just and good: that is God’s essence. God’s solicitude extends to everything: this we understand that. Thus, God can desire only our good, and that is why we must trust God: this is essential. As for the rest, let us wait until we are worthy of understanding it.
158. Another point that is discussed concerns seeing God. Since God is everywhere, why can we not see God? Will we see God when we leave earth behind?
159. The first one is easy to answer. Our physical organs have limited perceptions that render them incapable of seeing certain things, even material ones. Thus it is that certain fluids completely escape both our sight and our scientific instruments; nevertheless, we do not doubt their existence. We see the effects gravitational force but we do not see that force.
160. Physical organs cannot perceive things of a spiritual essence. It is through spirit sight only that we can see the spirits and the things of the immaterial world. Thus, only our soul could have the perception of God. Will our soul see God immediately after death? That is what only the communications from beyond the grave can teach us. Through them we know that seeing God is the privilege of the most purified spirits and that therefore very few, upon leaving their earthly envelope behind, possess the necessary degree of dematerialization required for such an opportunity.
Answers to Proposed Questions
A. What are the attributes of God?
God is unique. God’s uniqueness is the consequence of the absolute infiniteness of God’s perfections. Another God could not exist except in the condition of being equally infinite in all respects, because if between them there were the slightest difference, one would be inferior to the other, subordinate to the other’s power, and would not be God.
God is eternal. Meaning that God had no beginning and will have no end. If God had had a beginning, God would have had sprung from nothingness. But nothingness being nothing cannot produce anything; or God would have been created by another former being, in which case, so that would be God. If we supposed that God had beginning or will have an end, then we conceive existing entity before God or being able to survive after God, and so on ad infinitum.
God is immutable. If you were subject to change, the laws that govern the universe would have no stability.
God is immaterial. Meaning that God’s nature differs from everything we call matter. Otherwise, God would not immutable, because it would be subject to the transformations of matter. God has no form perceivable by our senses. Those images in which God is represented by the figure of an old man with a long beard and dressed in a robe are absurd.
God is all-powerful. If God did not possess supreme power, one could always conceive a more powerful being, and so on and so forth until one encountered the being that no other could surpass in power. That being would be God.
God is supremely just and good. The providential wisdom of the divine laws is revealed in the smallest things as well as the greatest, and that wisdom allows no doubt about either God’s justice or goodness. Supreme goodness implies the supreme justice, because if God were to act unfairly or with bias in just instance, or with respect to just one of God’s creatures, God would not be supremely just and therefore would not be supremely good. (Genesis, Ch. II, items 9 to 19)
B. Under what form does God appear to those who can see God?
God has no form perceivable to our senses; otherwise, God would be matter. We say: the hand of God, the eye of God, the mouth of God, because humans, knowing only themselves, take themselves as terms of comparison for everything they do not understand. Under what form does God appear to those who have made themselves worthy of such a favor? Is it under some form? Is it a human form or a point of resplendent light? This is what human language is powerless to describe, because there is no point of comparison that could provide us an idea. We are like the blind from birth, to whom one would try in vain to explain the sunlight. Our vocabulary is limited to our needs and the circle of our ideas. The vocabulary of early peoples could not describe the wonders of civilization. That of the most civilized people is extremely poor for depicting the splendors of heaven. Our intelligence is too limited for comprehending it and our very weak sight would be dazzled. (Genesis, Ch. II, items 12 and 37)
C. What is divine providence?
Providence is God’s care for all creatures. There is not one of our actions that we may hide from its gaze. Our thought is in constant contact with its thought, and it is correct to say that God reads the deepest folds of our mind. God is everywhere, sees everything and presides over everything, even the very smallest things. Therein lies the providential action. (Genesis, Ch. II, items 20 and 24)
