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Spiritist Review - Journal of Psychological Studies - 1866 > August > Questions and problems > Perfectibility of the Spirits
Perfectibility of the Spirits
Paris, February 3rd, 1866. Group of Mr. Lat…, medium Mr. Desliens
Paris, February 3rd, 1866. Group of Mr. Lat…, medium Mr. Desliens
Question: If the Spirits or souls improve indefinitely, according to Spiritism, they must become infinitely perfected or pure. Why aren’t they like God when they get to that point? That is not in line with justice.
Answer: Man is a singular creature! Always finds his horizon very limited. Wants to understand everything, grasp everything, and know everything! Wants to penetrate the unfathomable, neglecting the study of what is of immediate reach; wants to understand God, judge His actions, making Him fair or unfair; says how he wants God to be, unsuspecting that God is all that and much more!... But, miserable worm, have you ever understood absolutely what surrounds you? Do you know the law that has the flower colored and perfumed by the vivifying kisses of the sun? Do you know how you are born, how you live and why your body dies?... You see facts but the causes remain surrounded by a veil that is impenetrable to you, and you wanted to judge the principle of all things, the primary cause, and finally God! There are many other studies much more necessary to the development of your being, that deserve all your attention!...
When you solve a problem of algebra you go from the known to the unknown, and to understand God, this insoluble problem of so many centuries, you want to address Him directly! Do you have all the necessary elements to establish the equation? Aren’t you lacking a document to judge your Creator in the last instance? Will you ever believe that the universe is limited to this little grain of sand lost in the immensity of spaces, where you move more imperceptible than the tiniest infusoria where the universe is a drop of water? However, let us reason and see why, according to your current knowledge, God would be unfair by not allowing himself to be ever achieved by His creature.
In all sciences there are axioms or irrefutable truths, that are admitted as fundamental basis. The mathematical sciences, and all sciences in general, are based on the axiom that the part can never equal the whole. Man, a creature of God, according to this principle, can therefore never, according to this principle, reach the one that created him.
Suppose that an individual must travel a road of infinite length; an infinite length, weigh that expression carefully. There you have the position of man with respect to God, considered as his objective. However little we walk, you will say, the sum of the years and centuries in the march will allow us to reach the end. It is a mistake! Whatever you do in one year, one century, in one million centuries will always be a finite quantity; another similar stretch and we can only add a finite quantity, and so forth. Now, for the most novice mathematician, the sum of finite quantities will never be an infinite quantity. The contrary would be absurd because in such a case the infinite could be measured, and this would lead to infinity losing its property of infinite. Man will always and incessantly progress but always in a finite quantity; the sum of his progress will only be a finite perfection, that could not reach God, the infinite in everything. There isn’t, therefore, an injustice from the part of God because His creatures can never equal Him. The nature of God is an unsurpassable obstacle to such an objective of the Spirit; His justice could not allow it for that fact that if a given Spirit was equal to God that Spirit would be God Himself. If there are two Spirits with the same infinite power in all senses and one is identical to the other, they will combine into only one and there will be only one God. One of them, therefore, should lose their individuality, and that would be a more evident injustice than that of not being able to achieve an end that is infinitely distant, approaching it constantly. God knows well what He does, and man is too small to allow himself to question His decisions.
Moki
Observation: If there is an unfathomable mystery to man, that is the principle and the end of all things. The vision of infinity gives him vertigo. To understand it there is the need of knowledge, intellectual and moral development that he is still far from having, despite the pride that makes him believe that he has gotten to the top of human scale. Regarding certain ideas, he is in the position of a child that wanted to do differential and integral calculus, before knowing the four operation. As he advances towards perfection, his eyes will open to light, dissipating the fog that has them covered. By working his betterment in the present, he will arrive earlier than if getting lost in conjectures.
Answer: Man is a singular creature! Always finds his horizon very limited. Wants to understand everything, grasp everything, and know everything! Wants to penetrate the unfathomable, neglecting the study of what is of immediate reach; wants to understand God, judge His actions, making Him fair or unfair; says how he wants God to be, unsuspecting that God is all that and much more!... But, miserable worm, have you ever understood absolutely what surrounds you? Do you know the law that has the flower colored and perfumed by the vivifying kisses of the sun? Do you know how you are born, how you live and why your body dies?... You see facts but the causes remain surrounded by a veil that is impenetrable to you, and you wanted to judge the principle of all things, the primary cause, and finally God! There are many other studies much more necessary to the development of your being, that deserve all your attention!...
When you solve a problem of algebra you go from the known to the unknown, and to understand God, this insoluble problem of so many centuries, you want to address Him directly! Do you have all the necessary elements to establish the equation? Aren’t you lacking a document to judge your Creator in the last instance? Will you ever believe that the universe is limited to this little grain of sand lost in the immensity of spaces, where you move more imperceptible than the tiniest infusoria where the universe is a drop of water? However, let us reason and see why, according to your current knowledge, God would be unfair by not allowing himself to be ever achieved by His creature.
In all sciences there are axioms or irrefutable truths, that are admitted as fundamental basis. The mathematical sciences, and all sciences in general, are based on the axiom that the part can never equal the whole. Man, a creature of God, according to this principle, can therefore never, according to this principle, reach the one that created him.
Suppose that an individual must travel a road of infinite length; an infinite length, weigh that expression carefully. There you have the position of man with respect to God, considered as his objective. However little we walk, you will say, the sum of the years and centuries in the march will allow us to reach the end. It is a mistake! Whatever you do in one year, one century, in one million centuries will always be a finite quantity; another similar stretch and we can only add a finite quantity, and so forth. Now, for the most novice mathematician, the sum of finite quantities will never be an infinite quantity. The contrary would be absurd because in such a case the infinite could be measured, and this would lead to infinity losing its property of infinite. Man will always and incessantly progress but always in a finite quantity; the sum of his progress will only be a finite perfection, that could not reach God, the infinite in everything. There isn’t, therefore, an injustice from the part of God because His creatures can never equal Him. The nature of God is an unsurpassable obstacle to such an objective of the Spirit; His justice could not allow it for that fact that if a given Spirit was equal to God that Spirit would be God Himself. If there are two Spirits with the same infinite power in all senses and one is identical to the other, they will combine into only one and there will be only one God. One of them, therefore, should lose their individuality, and that would be a more evident injustice than that of not being able to achieve an end that is infinitely distant, approaching it constantly. God knows well what He does, and man is too small to allow himself to question His decisions.
Moki
Observation: If there is an unfathomable mystery to man, that is the principle and the end of all things. The vision of infinity gives him vertigo. To understand it there is the need of knowledge, intellectual and moral development that he is still far from having, despite the pride that makes him believe that he has gotten to the top of human scale. Regarding certain ideas, he is in the position of a child that wanted to do differential and integral calculus, before knowing the four operation. As he advances towards perfection, his eyes will open to light, dissipating the fog that has them covered. By working his betterment in the present, he will arrive earlier than if getting lost in conjectures.