The Damascus Sermon | The Damascus Sermon | 122
(4-135)

If the means and causes in creation had been given an actual effect, they should also have been given universal consciousness, and this would have been opposed to the perfect art in things. However, the excellence of the art in things, from the lowest to the highest and from the smallest to the greatest, is proportionate to the innate stature of each. Thus, some are not close to the True Causer and some far from Him, and some of them are not created through intermediaries and some without. The lack of perfection in man’s voluntary works rejects the ideas of compulsion and proves will.

It is worthy of notice that in respect of order, a city built by men as the work of their intellects through the intervention of their wills is inferior to the bee community in their hive, which is the fruit of inspiration. While the city of cells of the honeycomb, the bees’ exhibition of art, is inferior as regards order to the fruit of the pomegranate and its flower. This means that from whichever pen the general attraction in the universe flows, the miniscule attraction in the most minute indivisible particles are that pen’s points.

Islam says: There is no god but God, and does not accept that causes and intermediaries have an actual effect. It looks on intermediaries as signifying the meaning of one other than themselves. Belief in Divine Unity and the duties of submission to it demand this. However, because it has been corrupted, presentday Christianity considers causes and intermediaries to have an effect, and looks on them as signifying themselves. Their belief in Jesus as the son of God and in the priesthood demands this, and urges it. They look on their saints for their own sakes as though they do not signify another, as

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