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COMMENTARY: Forel has introduced himself as a monist. For him the world is a continuous whole. This whole can, it is true, be subdivided into stages, forms, classes, species, etc.; but such classifications are intellectual expedients, like the degrees of longitude and latitude on our globe. Thus we may suppose (though we cannot be certain) that human civilization is the highest stage or form of development possible in this universe, and God, Forel writes, is 'nothing but the Essence of the Universe, presumably absolute, but for man absolutely unknowable.' Whether this God, 'the Essence of the Universe', is also an intellectual construct like the lines on the globe, or whether He has a substance and therefore also 'attributes' and possibly even 'purpose', Forel leaves unresolved, his position being that of a 'complete agnostic'. (3:1) Abdul-Baha mentions three types of philosophers: the narrow-minded materialists who expressly reject God, the 'materialistic, accomplished, moderate philosophers' who leave the question of God's existence open, and the deistic philosophers, who believe in God. Abdul-Baha regards the moderate and deistic philosophers as 'worthy of esteem and of the highest praise' for the services they have rendered to mankind (3:2) These attributes and perfections that we recount for that Universal Reality are only in order to deny imperfections, rather than to assert the perfections that the human mind can conceive. Thus we say His attributes are unknowable.' God indeed, as Forel asserted, cannot be comprehended, but, as 'Abdu'l-Baha shows, this does not mean that there is nothing we can truly say of Him.--ED.]
(3:3)
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