The Fundamental Teachings of Theosophy. On God and Prayer
Q. Do you believe in God?
A. That depends what you mean by the term.
Q. I mean the God of the Christians, the Father of Jesus, and the Creator: the Biblical God of Moses, in short.
A. In such a God we do not believe. We reject the idea of a personal, or an extra-cosmic and anthropomorphic God, who is but the gigantic shadow of man, and not of man at his best, either. The God of theology, we say-and prove it-is a bundle of contradictions and a logical impossibility. Therefore, we will have nothing to do with him.
Q. State your reasons, if you please.
A. They are many, and cannot all receive attention. But here are a few. This God is called by his devotees infinite and absolute, is he not?
Q. I believe he is.
A.
Then, if infinite-i.e., limitless-and especially if absolute, how can he have a form, and be a creator of anything? Form implies limitation, and a beginning as well as an end; and, in order to create, a Being must think and plan. How can the absolute be supposed to think-i.e., to have any relation whatever to that which is limited, finite, and conditioned? This is a philosophical, and a logical absurdity. Even the Hebrew Cabala rejects such an idea, and therefore, makes of the one and the Absolute Deific
Principle an infinite Unity called Ain-Soph *)
*)Ain-Soph (Greek: toh pan, epeiros), the boundless or limitless, in and of nature, the non-existing that IS, but that is not a Being.
In order to create, the Creator has to become active; and as this is impossible for absoluteness, the infinite principle had to be shown becoming the cause of evolution (not creation) in an indirect way-i.e., through the emanation from itself (another absurdity, due this time to the translators of the Cabala) of the Sephiroth.
How can the non-active eternal principle emanate or emit? The Parabrahman of the Vedantins does nothing of the kind; nor does the Ain-Soph of the Chaldean Cabala. It is an eternal and periodical law which causes an active and creative force (the logos) to emanate from the ever-concealed and incomprehensible one principle at the beginning of every Mah -Manvantara, or new cycle of life.