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Let us go at the matter the other way round. If we attribute to our Lord a natural birth, we come at once to the dilemma of having to admit that he was merely an individual human person, in an unsurpassed relationship with God, it is true, but still a human person. That doctrine makes Christ historical, some one to go back to, instead of the ever-present, preexistent Son of God and mankind.
But in brahmanical philosophy, pantheism is nothing else than the inability to pass beyond the initial idea of infinite preexistent, unconditioned, Deity. To the pantheist, let us remember, there is Deity, but there are no real deities; there is a Godhead, but there are no real persons in the Godhead.
Above all, she had a deep consciousness of her own dignity which made others respect her; I know of no more excellent thing in a wife. I must stop, captain; no one can describe the woman he loves save very imperfectly, preexistent mysteries which defy analysis lie between them. "I very soon took my old friend into my confidence.
And so Paul came to know Jesus Christ as preexistent and omnipresent, as Redeemer of the whole world, Gentile as well as Jew; and Christ's Cross became the embodiment and symbol of God's amazing sorrow for human sin, and of his sacrifice for its cure. All Paul's later conclusions were developments and expressions of his initial knowledge of Christ.
Briefly, in the Holy Manifestations the Preexistent Bounty is like the light, the individuality is represented by the glass globe, and the human body is like the niche: if the niche is destroyed, the lamp continues to burn. The Divine Manifestations are so many different mirrors because They have a special individuality, but that which is reflected in the mirrors is one sun.
In this case, the existence of things is the consequence of their reality: how could it be that this existence, which is an accident among accidents, and necessitates another essence upon which it depends, should be the Preexistent Essence, the Author of all things?
This appearance through manifestation would be for God, the Most High, simple imperfection; and this is quite impossible, for the implication would be that the Absolute Preexistent is qualified with phenomenal attributes. But if this were so, pure independence would become mere poverty, and true existence would become nonexistence, and this is impossible.
This latter method seems to ignore the relation of Scripture to Christ, and to proceed in its investigations as if there were no preexistent Christ to furnish its principle. It insists upon treating Scripture as it would treat any unreligious or heathen literature, and with no relation to its divine authorship.
But the affirmation of the Súfís requires that the Independent Wealth should descend to the degree of poverty, that the Preexistent should confine itself to phenomenal forms, and that Pure Power should be restricted to the state of weakness, according to the limitations of contingent beings. And this is an evident error.
Our author is himself a devout believer in a preexistent Christ, and he recognizes some rays of Christ's light in Buddha and in Confucius. This faith has led him to sever his connection with the Cambridge Brotherhood of late, and to connect himself with the school of Rabindranath Tagore, whom the British Government has recently knighted for his poetical gifts and for his political loyalty.
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