That is to say, it is extraordinary ignorance and foolishness not to recognize or to deny the  All-Wise Maker, the Agent with Choice, whom the universe and all its beings necessitate and demonstrate through their infinite order and the instances of wisdom they contain. Yes,  if  there is anything astonishing in the world, it is such denial. For the endless aspects of order and instances of wisdom in the beings in the universe testify to His existence and unity, so that even the most profoundly ignorant can understand what blindness and ignorance it is not to see or not to recognize Him. I might even say that among the people of unbelief, the Sophists, who are supposed to be stupid because they denied the universe’s existence, are the most intelligent. For since on accepting its existence, it was not possible not to believe in  God and its Creator, they started to deny the universe’s existence. They denied themselves  as well. Saying, “There is nothing,” they abdicated their intelligences, and being saved from  the boundless  unreasonableness –  under  the  guise of reason –  of the other deniers, they in one sense drew close to reason.

FOURTH MATTER

As is indicated in the Tenth Word, for a Wise Maker, a most wise master builder, to  follow carefully hundreds of instances of wisdom in each stone of a palace, then not to construct the palace’s roof so it falls into ruin and all the innumerable purposes and instances  of wisdom  are lost, is something no  conscious being could accept. Similarly, it is in no way possible that having followed out of his perfect wisdom tons of benefits, aims, and purposes in a tiny seed, a possessor of absolute wisdom should go to the great expense of the mighty tree as tall as a mountain so it should produce a single benefit, a single small aim, a single fruit worth virtually nothing, and so to be wastefully prodigal in a way entirely opposed and contrary to his wisdom.

In just the  same way,  the All-Wise Maker attaches hundreds of instances of wisdom to each of the beings in the palace of the universe and equips them to perform hundreds of duties, and to all trees bestows instances of wisdom to the number of its fruits and gives duties to the number of its flowers. For Him not to bring about the resurrection  of  the  dead  and  the  Great  Gathering  and  for  all  those  incalculable numbers of purposes and instances of wisdom and infinite duties to be meaningless, futile, pointless, and without purpose or benefit, would impute absolute impotence to that Absolutely Powerful One’s perfect power, just as it  would impute futility and purposelessness to that Absolutely Wise One’s perfect wisdom, and utter ugliness to the beauty of that Absolutely Compassionate One’s mercy, and boundless tyranny to that Absolutely Just One’s perfect justice. It would be quite simply to deny the wisdom, mercy, and justice in the universe, which may be seen by everyone.  It   would   be  an  extraordinary  impossibility  comprising  innumerable absurdities.  Let  the  people  of  misguidance  come  and  see  just  what  a  terrifying darkness, obscurity, there is in their misguidance, just as there is in their graves; and how they are the nests of scorpions. They should know that belief in the hereafter is a way as beautiful and luminous as Paradise, and should embrace  belief.