THE SECOND PHRASE:  “He is One”

This phrase demonstrates an explicit degree of the affirmation of divine unity. A convincing and comprehensive argument proving it is as follows:

When we open our eyes, when the universe fastens our gaze on its face, the first thing to attract our attention is a universal and perfect order; we see that there is a comprehensive, sensitive equilibrium; everything exists within a precise order and delicate balance and measure.

When we look a little more carefully, a continual ordering and balancing strike our eye. That is to say, someone is changing the order with regularity and renewing the balance with measuredness. Everything is a model and is clothed in a great many orderly balanced forms.

When we study it even more closely, a wisdom and justice appear behind the ordering and balancing. A purpose and benefit are considered, a truth, a usefulness are followed in the motion of everything, even the minutest particles.

When we study it with even greater attention, what strikes the gaze of our consciousness is the demonstration of a power within an extremely wise activity, and the manifestation of a comprehensive knowledge that encompasses all things together with all their attributes.

That is to say, the order and balance in all beings show us plainly a universal ordering and balancing; and the ordering and balancing show us a universal wisdom and justice; and the wisdom and justice in turn show us a power and knowledge. That is, it is apparent that behind these veils is One Powerful over all things who has Knowledge of all things.

Furthermore,  we  look  to  the  beginning  and  end  of  everything,  and  we  see, particularly in animate creatures, that their beginnings, origins, and roots are such that it is as if their seeds contain all the systems and members of those creatures, each in the form of an instruction sheet and timetable. Then their fruits and results are such that the meanings of those animate creatures are filtered and concentrated  in them; they bequeath their life histories to them. It is as if their seeds are collections of the principles according to which they were given existence, and their fruits and results a sort of index of the commands that brought them into existence. Then we look to the outer and inner faces of those animate creatures: the free disposal of an utterly wise power and the fashioning and ordering of an utterly effective will are apparent. That is, a strength and power create; a command and will clothe with form.