
Kunnumpuram, Kurien, 2011 “Theological Exploration,” Jnanadeepa: Pune Journal of Religious Studies 14/2 (July-Dec 2011)
On God
Part I, Prop. XVIII
Ethics (1677)
Deus est omnium rerum causa immanens, non vero transiens
Kunnumpuram, Kurien, 2011 “Theological Exploration,” Jnanadeepa: Pune Journal of Religious Studies 14/2 (July-Dec 2011)
On God
Letter 21 (73) to Henry Oldenburg , November (1675) http://oll.libertyfund.org/?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle=1711&chapter=144137&layout=html&Itemid=27
Context: My opinion concerning God differs widely from that which is ordinarily defended by modern Christians. For I hold that God is of all things the cause immanent, as the phrase is, not transient. I say that all things are in God and move in God, thus agreeing with Paul, and, perhaps, with all the ancient philosophers, though the phraseology may be different; I will even venture to affirm that I agree with all the ancient Hebrews, in so far as one may judge from their traditions, though these are in many ways corrupted. The supposition of some, that I endeavour to prove in the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus the unity of God and Nature (meaning by the latter a certain mass or corporeal matter), is wholly erroneous.
As regards miracles, I am of opinion that the revelation of God can only be established by the wisdom of the doctrine, not by miracles, or in other words by ignorance.
[2013, From the Divine to the Human, World Wisdom, 127-128, 978-1-936597-32-1]
Miscellaneous, Revelation
Tablet to the First Letter of the Living
The Kitáb-I-Asmá
“All things truly wicked start from an innocence.”
Ch 17; Variant: All things truly wicked start from innocence.
As quoted by R Z Sheppard in review of The Garden of Eden (1986) TIME (26 May 1986)
A Moveable Feast (1964)
XV. Why we give worship to the Gods when they need nothing.
On the Gods and the Cosmos
Context: The divine itself is without needs, and the worship is paid for our own benefit. The providence of the Gods reaches everywhere and needs only some congruity for its reception. All congruity comes about by representation and likeness; for which reason the temples are made in representation of heaven, the altar of earth, the images of life (that is why they are made like living things), the prayers of the element of though, the mystic letters of the unspeakable celestial forces, the herbs and stones of matter, and the sacrificial animals of the irrational life in us.
From all these things the Gods gain nothing; what gain could there be to God? It is we who gain some communion with them.