Reflections on God and Religion

REFLECTIONS.

From before original: "Van voor". Referring again to a priori knowledge—reasoning from cause to effect. Since God is the first cause, there is no "before" to study. there is no chance here; the wisest man respects the majesty of the uncreated being, and crawls in the dust along the earth.
but from his works.

One must then prove from below, through God’s handiwork, this highest, all-wise, all-good, and almighty Being, who is without limit: an incomprehensibility, the cause of all things. And although one can never penetrate into the heart of His nature—and no human wit, however sharply it is whetted, can ever fully grasp this as required—nevertheless, it is the natural duty of everyone to fear God, who shines His essence upon you through all that is created. Just as the clear sun, though enclosed in a cloud, is known to all people by the daylight it produces, so too are humans accustomed to knowing one another in two ways: through signs, speech, and writing; through images and reflections; or even in a dark mist, in night and shadows, by the light of a torch or a lamp. Created things are God’s images, His letters, His tongue, and His marks. The light of reason reveals the Master in His works so clearly that no one may consider themselves innocent if they deny this sun in the middle of the day.

The motion of things testifies that there is a single mover.

Whatever is moved, is moved by something from the outside. The sun, in its course, confirms to our eyes that something is being moved, and this movement points to a mover who either stands still himself, or does not. If he stands still, then it is evident through these principles that this Unmoved One turns so many starry spheres original: "gestarnde ronden". Reference to the concentric celestial spheres of the Ptolemaic system which were believed to carry the stars and planets around the Earth.. This immobility is rightly considered to be God. If this mover were to move himself, then he would be moved by a higher power, and one would have to climb upwards infinitely to find the mover who does not move. But reason does not allow one to proceed infinitely A reference to the philosophical rejection of regressus ad infinitum (infinite regression). Logic dictates there must be a starting point.; thus, one must stop before the power of the All-Mover, who was never moved himself. For in the revolving of things, no second mover can move anything else...