A young man whose father has died in war can say to himself that God is his Father and that this Fatherhood is eternal; ‘Abdu’l-Bahá offers that consolation without hesitation. He also warns that whole peoples have pictured a god in their minds and bow before a fancy of their own contriving, since whatever the mind comprehends is smaller than the mind. Both are true, and the question of a personal God lives in the tension between them. Personality, He writes, belongs to the Manifestation of the Divinity, not to the Essence, which is remote, limitless, and impersonal; the worship Christ asks for is the worship of His attributes, not of His person. Even the wrath of God is reread as justice, the moment when a fatherly embrace gives way to a businesslike accounting because we have withdrawn. The Qur’an says that nothing is like God and in the same verse that He hears and sees [1], affirming qualities while refusing a likeness. Prayer can stay intimate while its picture of the One addressed remains open to correction. The inquiry leads on to God as immanent and transcendent, to the relationship of the Manifestation to God, and to the unknowability that keeps every image provisional.
This people, all of them, have pictured a god in the realm of the mind, and worship that image which they have made for themselves. … Consider then, how all the peoples of the world are bowing the knee to a fancy of their own contriving, how they have created a creator within their own minds, and they call it the Fashioner of all that is -- whereas in truth it is but an illusion. Thus are the people worshipping only an error of perception.
(‘Abdu’l-Bahá, 1906-May-23, to Kanichi Yamamoto -- AB01117)
02
It is written in the Bible: let us create man in our image and likeness. What does this mean? It means that the Reality of Divinity is the universal Collective Center of all the consummate Virtues. Now, the primal Intelligence - God - willed to create man and make him a "particular collective center" of all his own infinite virtues. For example one of the virtues of God is Knowledge. He deposited a sign of this knowledge in the temple of man. Another virtue of God is life. He has conferred upon man a trace of this virtue. One of his virtues is power; he has made man powerful. He is the all-seeing, he has granted man the power of sight. Another virtue of Divinity is will-power, he has created within man a symbol of this all-comprehending power. In short, just as these virtues are infinite in the Reality of Divinity, man must likewise strive to become the embodiment of the signs of these infinite virtues. One of the virtues of God is Love, man must make an effort to make himself the personification of love. Similarly the signs of all the divine attributes of Divinity must become fully revealed in man in order that he may become the perfect representative of the Virtues of God.
(‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Words to Mrs Moore, spoken at Baltimore Hotel on 1913-May-18 -- ABU0303)
03
And now consider this infinite universe. Is it possible that it could have been created without a Creator? Or that the Creator and cause of this infinite congeries of worlds should be without intelligence? Is the idea tenable that the Creator has no comprehension of what is manifested in creation? Man, the creature, has volition and certain virtues. Is it possible that his Creator is deprived of these? A child could not accept this belief and statement. It is perfectly evident that man did not create himself and that he cannot do so. How could man of his own weakness create such a mighty being? Therefore, the Creator of man must be more perfect and powerful than man. If the creative cause of man be simply on the same level with man, then man himself should be able to create, whereas we know very well that we cannot create even our own likeness. Therefore, the Creator of man must be endowed with superlative intelligence and power in all points that creation involves and implies. We are weak; He is mighty, because, were He not mighty, He could not have created us. We are ignorant; He is wise. We are poor; He is rich. Otherwise, He would have been incapable of our creation.
(‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Public address given at Plaza Hotel on 1912-May-02 -- ABU0122)
04
Thou hast written concerning the Impersonality of the Divinity. Personality is in the Manifestation of the Divinity, not in the Essence of the Divinity.
(‘Abdu’l-Bahá, 1907-Apr or <, to Aseyeh Wellesca Dyar -- AB00448)
05
The Divine Reality is far removed from man. It is absolutely remote and independent in its essence - beyond the comprehension of man - abstract, limitless and impersonal.
(‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Words spoken ca. Oct. 1911 -- ABU0904)
06
The freethinkers of all periods and from all peoples want to make of God, the Creator, an impersonal Cause, an unmoving Primal Cause of all existence, an eternal pole in the flight of earthly appearances. This is falsely conceived, God is above all the freely acting, almighty, omnipresent Creator, the eternal pole around which, according to His decree, the ephemeral flight of earthly appearances revolves, comes or vanishes.
(‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Words spoken in the house of Abdu'l-Baha in Feb 1910 -- ABU0226)
07
The axis around which the consolation of the hearts revolve is the Faith in God. If the father of a youth who believes in God is killed in the war - he will say to himself I have God for my father, whose Fatherhood is eternal. He is the Comforter of the broken-hearted ones. The miraculous power of Faith will cheer them up and heal their wounds.
(‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Words to Ahmad Sohrab, spoken on 1914-Dec-11 -- ABU1099)
08
"The epitome of all worship is the worship of the attributes of Christ, not his personality."
(‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Words to Percy Woodcock in 1909 -- ABU1729)
09
You ask: "What then is the wrath of God?" The wrath of God is the erroneous designation for logic, causality, in brief, the justice of God. If we ignore God, He will ignore us and subject us to His unchangeable laws of nature; if we avoid Him, He will retreat from our lives. He, the Creator, lets His Sun rise over the just (those loving God) and the unjust (those far from God), but the first have the dew of His blessing, the latter shiver under the mildew of His curse! And in what consists this curse? In this, that the Lord God will no longer stand in a personal relationship to us, but in an objective one. We are no longer His heirs, but we have become debtors estranged from our own nature and paradise, who can only expect a businesslike accounting, not a fatherly embrace! Well then, we choose between Gerizim and Ebal (Mount of the blessing, Mount of the curse) - we Baha'is, we have already adopted Gerizim as our place of residence.
(‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Words spoken to Miss St. in Aug 1910 -- ABU2114)
10
In 1909, May and Sutherland Maxwell made a pilgrimage together to the Prison City of 'Akka, to visit 'Abdu'l-Baha. Sutherland was not yet a convinced Baha'i. One day at table, he said to 'Abdu'l-Baha: "The Christians worship God through Christ; my wife worships God through You; but I worship Him direct."
'Abdu'l-Baha smiled and said: "Where is He?" "Why, God is everywhere," replied Sutherland. "Everywhere is nowhere," said 'Abdu'l-Baha. He then went on to demonstrate that such worship was the worship of a figment of the imagination and had no reality; we must worship God through something tangible and real to us, hence the role of the Manifestations.
(‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Words to Sutherland Maxwell in 1909 -- ABU3640)