Omniscience

“ Why I choose this so-called attribute of Omniscience as constituting for the purposes of this argument the primary attribute of the Divine Being, students of philosophy — who remember, for instance, that the Aristotelian God, however his existence was proved, was defined by that thinker principally in terms of the attribute of Omniscience — will easily understand, and you, as members of this Union and readers of my former discussion, will perhaps especially comprehend. ”

“ Divine Metaphysics, as revealed to my understanding, What God is. shows me that all is Mind, and that Mind is God, omnipotence, omnipresence, omniscience, — alias all power, all presence, all Science. Hence all is in reality the manifestation of Mind.
All our merely human theories are destitute of Science. The true understanding of God is eternal. It robs the grave of victory. It takes away sin, and the delusion that there are other gods, other powers, such as disease, sin, and death, superior or contrary to the one omnipotent Good. ”

“ Without stepping beyond the analogy of that which is known, it is easy to people the cosmos with entities, in ascending scale, until we reach something practically indistinguishable from omnipotence, omnipresence and omniscience. ”

“ There comes a spiritual power which, as it is sent out, is adequate for the healing of others the same as in the days of old.”
“Many omniscient men and women will soon walk the earth. Omniscience and Freedom are the goal of all, and in this Great Age of Light many Egos are approaching the blessed omniscience state.” ”

“ Jesus once said of his lessons: “My doctrine is not mine, but His that sent me. If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself.” (John vii. 16, 17.)
The three great verities of Spirit, — omnipotence, omnipresence, omniscience, — Spirit possessing all power, God's allness learned. filling all space, constituting all Science, — these verities contradict forever the belief that matter can be actual. ”

“ Omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence, infinity, immutability, incomprehensibility, and immateriality, are all words which designate properties and powers peculiar to organized beings, with the addition of negations, by which the idea of limitation is excluded. ”

“ Let us accept science, and yield our theories based on the evidence of the senses, give up our false models and illusive forms of sin, sickness, and death, and have but one God, one Mind and that one perfect, bringing out its own model of excellence. Let us see the man and woman of His creating, and see no other; let us feel the divine energy of Life, Truth, and Love bringing us into newness of life, and recognize no human or material power destroying us, but rejoice to be subject only to the spiritual and divine. ”

“ And as we can say, that the omnipotence of God in preserving and supporting the creation, will certainly act suitably to itself, and consistent with that omnipotence which first made things be what they are, and put nature into such a state as it is in; so we can say, that the infinite wisdom of God in giving laws to the world, will act suitably to itself, and consistent with that wisdom which at first made the nature and relations of the rational world be what they are. ”

“ Fix your powerful mind upon the harmony of the moral world, as you have been long accustomed to do upon the order of the physical universe, and you will see the scheme of the eternal intelligence developing itself alike in both. Think of the goodness and mercy of omnipotence, and aid your contemplation by devotional feelings and mental prayer and aspirations to the source of all knowledge, and wait with humility for the light which I doubt not will be so produced in your mind. ”

“ Principle is Soul, Intelligence, the “I am,” but where do we place the “I”; is it Spirit in matter, Soul in body, Life in the flower, or the outside Intelligence and Life, that form these; is it man or the Soul of man, outside of matter? The science of being reveals God not in matter, therefore this “I” not body, nor in body, but Soul outside of matter, the infinite, and not finite, yea, Spirit and not person, and through this reckoning, man gains eternal identity. ”

“ I shall assume that there is a spiritual world, because all our commonest experience, our introspection and consciousness, our observation of what the human mind can do, its operations and its productions, its capacity to originate thought and to send it down the course of ages, its power to recognize and obey a moral law as a divine command, the monuments of every kind which attest that it is something which is not matter or material substance, prove to us that the human mind is essentially a spiritual existence ”

“ Nature, according to my belief, was only another name for God, eternal mind, omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient ruler of the universe. If He were omnipotent, could anything take place contrary to His laws? ”

“ So the unknowable, inscrutable something has being, power, activity, causal energy, and omnipresence. But how are we to grasp these universal, transcendental attributes of the unknowable, with an intelligence incapable of receiving anything but simple, separate, unrelated, broken impressions and manifestations? It takes as much mind to believe in the unknowable, with the attributes of [183] power, activity, being, causal energy, and omnipresence, as to believe in a self-existent God, with the attributes of power, wisdom, justice, truth, and love. ”

“ What is to be said of man’s higher faculties?
A. The faculties and achievements of the highest among mankind—in Art, in Science, in Philosophy, and in Religion—are not explicable as an outcome of a struggle for existence. Something more than mere life is possessed by us—something represented by the words “mind” and “soul” and “spirit.” On one side we are members of the animal kingdom; on another we are associates in a loftier type of existence, and are linked with the Divine. ”

“ Having in a concise manner offered a variety of indisputable reasons to evince the certainty of the being and providence of God, and of his goodness to man through the intervention of the series of nature's operations, which are commonly described by the name of natural causes, we come now more particularly to the consideration of his moral perfections; and though all finite beings fall as much short of an adequate knowledge thereof as they do of perfection itself, nevertheless through the intelligence of our own souls we may have something of a prospective idea of the divine perfections. ”

“ If you and I were omnipotent and had to re-make the Universe, I suppose there is no question but we should make man perfectly good (according to our notions of goodness) and that we should force him to remain good. And if you or I were omnipotent and had to reveal anything to men, we should write it large and clear in the sky, or in the heart, legible to all without effort, so that men should be forced to understand it. ”

“ Eyes, ears, taste, smell, motion, resistance, appetite, and organs of reproduction that take hold on eternity,—all find room to consist in the small creature. So do we put our life into every act. The true doctrine of12 omnipresence is that God reappears with all his parts in every moss and cobweb. The value of the universe contrives to throw itself into every point. If the good is there, so is the evil; if the affinity, so the repulsion; if the force, so the limitation. ¶ Thus is the universe alive. All things are moral. That soul which within us is a sentiment, outside of us is a law. ”

“ As a primary basis, the new religion teaches, that all human life is sacred. That it is the highest expression on this planet, of an Omniscient purpose. Conscious life, or the capacity to become conscious of anything, is a Deific attribute. All knowledge comes to the mind through the avenue of the senses, or from sensations produced by contact with existing things in the domain of Nature. The domain of Nature, is the domain of the Omniscient! All real knowledge, acquired from this domain by right methods, which is in harmony with natural evolution, is Truth. ”

“ Such is the true Science of Being. Any other theory of Life, or God, is delusive and mythological.
Mind is not the author of matter, and the Creator of ideas is not the creator of illusions. Either there is no omnipotence, or omnipotence is All-in-all. The Infinite never began, and will never end. ”

“ Omnipotence, boundless choice of means and ends, illimitable wisdom, a benevolence that can not fail and can not err, are the conceded attributes of the being who is supposed to preside over the universe; and, however difficult it may be for us to express a conception of infinite power and infinite wisdom, as it is to describe infinite space and duration, we know what we mean to assume when we speak or think of faculties that are without limit, and of moral qualities that are subject to no imperfection. ”

“ Where no dead lie buried, where no resurrection will be, Omnipotence speaks to me this through His works, and thus I understand the doctrine of the omnipresence of God.
IDEA.
All spirits are attracted by perfection. There may be deviations, but there is no exception to this, for all strive after the condition of the highest and freest exercise of their powers; all possess the common instinct of extending their sphere of action; of drawing all, and centring all in themselves; of appropriating all that is good, all that is acknowledged as charming and excellent. ”

“ Little as we know of the intrinsic nature of this Omnipresent Power, which, in our poor human talk, we call God, we do at least know, by daily and hourly experience, what is the character of its working. The whole experience of our lives teaches us that this Power works after a method which, in our scholastic expression, we call the method of cause and effect, or the method of natural law. ”

“ Science, Religion and Philosophy have clasped hands. Divinity revealed in Humanity is triumphant over Death. “There is a Natural (physical) body and there is a Spiritual body,” and the Individual Intelligence is ONE in each, or in both; viz.: The Human-Divine Soul.
To recognize the Modulus and intelligently to apprehend the Theorem is the foundation and the first step in the scientific solution of the problem of life, and the progressive and continuous evolution of the human soul. ”

“ The great central fact in human life is the coming into a conscious vital realization of our oneness with this Infinite Life, and the opening of ourselves fully to this divine inflow. In just the degree that we come into a conscious realization of our oneness with the Infinite Life, and open ourselves to this divine inflow, do we actualize in ourselves the qualities and powers of the Infinite Life, do we make ourselves channels through which the Infinite Intelligence and Power can work. ”

“ The universe of Spirit reflects the creative power of its Principle, or Life, which reproduces the multitudinous Propagation. forms of Mind, and governs the multiplication of ideas. The tree or herb does not yield fruit because of any propagating principle of its own, but because it reflects the Mind which includes all. The material world reflects mortal mind, even as the spiritual creation reflects immortal Mind.
Infinite Mind governs all ideas, from the molecule to infinity. The divine Principle of all expresses Science Molecular universe. ”

“ And by this higher spiritual chemicalization of life thus set into operation the very thought forces of his mind became charged with a living, mighty, and omnipotent power, so as to effect a mastery over all exterior conditions: hence the numerous things called miracles by those who witnessed and who had not entered into a knowledge of the higher laws that can triumph over and master the lower, but which are just as real and as natural on their plane as the lower, and even more real and more natural, because higher and therefore more enduring. ”

“ Now regarding the question whether the faculties of the mind and the human soul are one and the same. These faculties are but the inherent properties of the soul, such as the power of imagination, of thought, of understanding; powers that are the essential requisites of the reality of man, even as the solar ray is the inherent property of the sun. ”

“ Yet when this spiritual light shall have revealed the law of more earthly natures,—when he has learned to worship the soul, and to see that the natural philosophy that now is, is only the first gropings of its gigantic hand,—he shall look forward to an ever-expanding knowledge as to a becoming creator. ”

“ Thus then, seen in the light of this our result, the human tasks that we sketched in our ethical discussion find their place in the objective world. Now, and in fact for the first time, we can see what we were really trying to accomplish through our ideal. We were trying in a practical way to realize what we now perceive to be the fullness of the life of God. So that the one highest activity, in which all human activities were to join, is known to us now as the progressive realization by men of the eternal life of an Infinite Spirit. ”

“ But the Absolute Experience and Will form, as we have asserted, one Unity of consciousness, one moment or instant of fulfilled life, over against which there is no external Other wherewith this whole could be contrasted. If I know myself by contrast with my neighbour or with my distant ideal, how can the Absolute, who has no neighbours, and no unfulfilled ideals, know such a contrast between himself and somebody else? In this sense, one would say, the Absolute must simply transcend self-consciousness. ”

“ But when, he continues, we consider not a created but a Divine Mind, the case is altered; for the idea of a Divine Mind includes omnipotence; and the idea of omnipotence does contain the idea of being able to move bodies. ”