Theos-Talk Archives (March 2006 Message tt00074)

Here's some quotes from 'the Key to theosophy' :

Perry

THE FUNDAMENTAL TEACHINGS OF THEOSOPHY

ON GOD AND PRAYER

ENQUIRER. Do you believe in God?

THEOSOPHIST. That depends what you mean by the term.

ENQUIRER. I mean the God of the Christians, the Father of Jesus, and the Creator: the 
Biblical God of Moses, in short.

THEOSOPHIST. 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.

ENQUIRER. State your reasons, if you please.

THEOSOPHIST. 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?

ENQUIRER. I believe he is.

THEOSOPHIST. 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 Kabala rejects such an idea, and therefore, makes of the one and the 
Absolute Deific Principle an infinite Unity called Ain-Soph. 

(1) 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 Kabala) (2) of the Sephiroth.

ENQUIRER. How about those Kabalists, who, while being such, still believe in Jehovah, or 
the Tetragrammaton?

THEOSOPHIST. They are at liberty to believe in what they please, as their belief or disbelief 
can hardly affect a self-evident fact. The Jesuits tell us that two and two are not always 
four to a certainty, since it depends on the will of God to make 2 X 2 = 5. Shall we accept 
their sophistry for all that?

ENQUIRER. Then you are Atheists?

THEOSOPHIST. Not that we know of, and not unless the epithet of "Atheist" is to be applied 
to those who disbelieve in an anthropomorphic God. We believe in a Universal Divine 
Principle, the root of ALL, from which all proceeds, and within which all shall be absorbed 
at the end of the great cycle of Being.

ENQUIRER. This is the old, old claim of Pantheism. If you are Pantheists, you cannot be 
Deists; and if you are not Deists, then you have to answer to the name of Atheists.

THEOSOPHIST. Not necessarily so. The term "Pantheism" is again one of the many abused 
terms, whose real and primitive meaning has been distorted by blind prejudice and a one-
sided view of it. If you accept the Christian etymology of this compound word, and form it 
of pan, "all," and theos, "god," and then imagine and teach that this means that every 
stone and every tree in Nature is a God or the ONE God, then, of course, you will be right, 
and make of Pantheists fetish-worshippers, in addition to their legitimate name. But you 
will hardly be as successful if you etymologise the word Pantheism esoterically, and as we 
do.

ENQUIRER. What is, then, your definition of it?

THEOSOPHIST. Let me ask you a question in my turn. What do you understand by Pan, or 
Nature?

ENQUIRER. Nature is, I suppose, the sum total of things existing around us; the aggregate 
of causes and effects in the world of matter, the creation or universe.

THEOSOPHIST. Hence the personified sum and order of known causes and effects; the total 
of all finite agencies and forces, as utterly disconnected from an intelligent Creator or 
Creators, and perhaps "conceived of as a single and separate force" -- as in your 
cyclopaedias?

ENQUIRER. Yes, I believe so.

THEOSOPHIST. Well, we neither take into consideration this objective and material nature, 
which we call an evanescent illusion, nor do we mean by pan Nature, in the sense of its 
accepted derivation from the Latin Natura (becoming, from nasci, to be born).

 When we speak of the Deity and make it identical, hence coeval, with Nature, the eternal 
and uncreate nature is meant, and not your aggregate of flitting shadows and finite 
unrealities. We leave it to the hymn-makers to call the visible sky or heaven, God's Throne, 
and our earth of mud His footstool. 

Our DEITY is neither in a paradise, nor in a particular tree, building, or mountain: it is 
everywhere, in every atom of the visible as of the invisible Cosmos, in, over, and around 
every invisible atom and divisible molecule; for IT is the mysterious power of evolution and 
involution, the omnipresent, omnipotent, and even omniscient creative potentiality.

ENQUIRER. Stop! Omniscience is the prerogative of something that thinks, and you deny to 
your Absoluteness the power of thought.

THEOSOPHIST. We deny it to the ABSOLUTE, since thought is something limited and 
conditioned. But you evidently forget that in philosophy absolute unconsciousness is also 
absolute consciousness, as otherwise it would not be absolute."


http://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/key/key-5.htm




--- In theos-talk@yahoogroups.com, "Konstantin Zaitzev" <kay_ziatz@...> wrote:
>
> --- In theos-talk@yahoogroups.com, "W.Dallas TenBroeck" 
> <dalval14@> wrote:
> 
> 
> > I wonder:  Just what is a "Personal GOD ?"  
> > In what way is it different from an "Impersonal GOD?"
> 
> Didn't A. Ali explain it? When we cling to our personal self we have 
> to deal with a personal god which is like a counterpart. We have 
> substracted our limited self from a divine whole, and what is left is 
> a personal god. It is a kind of illusion, but no more illusion than 
> our personal self. See also "Personal & impersonal God" by Subba Row.
> 
> Another thing which is an approximation to personal God is logos.
> Our personal self couldn't exist whithout archetupal pattern for it. 
> All personalities have much in common, and it points to some 
> archetype, for as above, so below.
> 
> > I our little world we have : Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, R 
> > Catholicism, Protestantism, and dozens of other sects and creeds
> > embodying aspects and views -- but who does the actual study and
> > analysis of the reasonableness of these ?   
> 
> The Theosophical Society was founded for comparative study of 
> religions, so its Founders thought that there is something worthy in 
> them. Hidden powers of man is another line of work, and the 
> brotherhood is the main.
> Unfortunately these three objects are often substituted by the study 
> of the works of the Founders which were just a specimen of work under 
> three objects, and not more (though a very good specimen).
> 
> > How do people get together to agree on "fundamentals?" 
> 
> The theosophists sometimes agree even less than representatives of 
> abovesaid religions.
>