Just to put forward a view that has not yet been touched upon. The idea that 'God is One' brings up all manner of problems. Without wishing to be semantic how exactly are we defining the word 'One'?
Let us consider the writings of The Great Beast himself, come on Crowley had to pop up in this...In the book 'revealed' to him by Aiwass/Eihwaz the messenger of Harpocrates, it states...
"The Perfect and the Perfect are one Perfect and not two; nay, are none! Nothing is a secret key of this law. Sixty-one the Jews call it; I call it eight, eighty, four hundred & eighteen. But they have the half; unite by thine art so that all disappear. My prophet is a fool with his one, one, one; are not they the Ox and none by the Book?" Liber al vel Legis 1:45-48
Here Crowley is cleary drawing reference to the qabbalistic concept of Ain, Nothing, by gematria 61. But the veils around creation do not stop here as will be delineated. Truly one, aleph as the Ox if you will, is not The One of monotheism.
Now in truth the One is not one as we define it as say we may quantify one cup as opposed to two, in Arabic Wahid, rather Al - Wahid, having a meaning of The Unique, and in Al-Ikhlas he is 'Allah the one'. By the quabbalah, there are three veils that surround our universe. First one discovers a nothing, which becomes a limitless, and then an illuminating light which blinds, surely the light of the God is brighter than any physical light we have seen, may we bathe in the light of The God, The Absolute, and Infinite, and may it cleanse the shadows upon our souls. When one considers the mundane light of the sun at the centre of our stellar system, can we even seperate that into parts, can we divide it into three for instance? If we cannot then who dares to assign division or partners with The God in his realm? A Muslim brother has written a whole thread on the names/attributes of Allah so I will just post a link to his thread...
http://www.religiousforums.com/forum/showthread.php?p=280555&highlight=Allah#post280555
the whole thread is interesting, but his dealing with Al-Wahid lends weight to my argument, and thus the link. As the Quran states...
Bismillah Ar Rahman Ar Raheem
"Say: He is Allah, the One and Only; Allah, the Eternal, Absolute; He begetteth not, nor is He begotten; And there is none like unto Him."
Sura 112 Al Ikhlas (The Purity)
Returning to the concept of Nothing, this has long been a paradox within mystic schools be they Qabbalah, Sufic, Zen, Taoist etc.
Ain, Ain Soph, and Ain Soph Aur are three qabbalistic veils that surround space, the first heaven if you will, creation. Its is then as if around our creation (i.e. that creation we live within.) there was a veil drawn covering the literal 'unseen'. When one considers that which lies beyond creation first one intellectually sees a void, Ain, nothing if you will. This then becomes limitless, a sea of possibility, one might even say a 'field' in physics speak. Then if one stares deep into the darkness one might 'see the light', Ain Soph Aur, the limitless light. Thus, 0, 00, 000. Now we come to a semantic paradox. An atheist says 'beyond the universe there is nothing, a believer on the other hand says 'beyond the universe is veiled from me...it appears to me as nothing. Let us consider things, a cup is a thing, we have created it for a purpose, we have named it, we control it, we may measure it's dimensions and its volume, moreover its characteristics we decide on its inception and subsequent creation, it is a thing because we can comprehend it.' The God on the other hand does not fall into this category, he is as will be and as he was, in his true reality beyond our perceptions. If there are 'more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of' then surely the supporting origin of creation, the supreme architect of our creation is beyond quantification, and thus is not a thing. So here then is the semantic, the atheist says 'nothing' while the believer says 'no thing', Ain Soph as it were.
Any student of the oral tradition will know that this paradox manifests in mystical thought of which there are two distinct schools. There is the school, atheist if you will that says the progression goes 0, 00, 000 whereupon the light breaks out in kether descending as a flaming sword down the tree to Malkuth. Then there is the position of the believer, that the progression goes 000, 00, 0, 1, where the light descends to a spark at kether, a big bang if you will, and the tree of life, the universe itself, comes into being as a plan of the supreme architect.
To return from whence I departed I will again quote Crowley...
"The sceptic will applaud our labours, for that the very catholicity of the symbols denies them any objective validity, since, in so many contradictions, something must be false; while the mystic will rejoice equally that the self-same catholicity allembracing proves that very validity, since after all something must be true. Fortunately we have learnt to combine these ideas, not in the mutual toleration of subcontraries, but in the affirmation of contraries, that transcending of the laws of intellect which is madness in the ordinary man, genius in the Overman who hath arrived to strike off more fetters from our understanding. The savage who cannot conceive of the number six, the orthodox mathematician who cannot conceive of the fourth dimension, the philosopher who cannot conceive of the Absolute."
Aleister Crowley, 777, Prolegomena Symbolica ad Systemam Sceptico-MystiCÆ viæ explicandæ fundamentum hieroglyphicum sanctissimorum.
Myself, I realise that there are things beyond my understanding, the absolute beyond creation certainly being one of them.
Bismillah Ar Rahman Ar Raheem
Say: "If the ocean were ink (wherewith to write out) the words of my Lord, sooner would the ocean be exhausted than would the words of my Lord, even if we added another ocean like it, for its aid."
Sura 18:109, Al Kahf - The Cave.
In regard to Iblis, the adversary of God and subsequently man, he has limited power. His only power is to decieve us as to the true nature of Al Wahid, to place stumbling blocks before us. It is not God who makes belief and religious knowledge complicated, it is naught but that naughty Jinn jealous of the bounty bestowed upon the sons of Adam. The angels do not fall other than by a command of The God. Having been raised a Christian and having attended religious schools, I often think of what the teachings of Christ have become. I think of Saul on the road to Damascus, and the spreading of Jeheshuah's word to the Goyem. Unfortunately Paul, as he became, decided upon a syncretism with the beliefs of Rome, the rite of Sol Invinctus at the very least. Surely tho' he may have considered himself guided, I have no doubt that Iblis whispered into his heart and mind.
Rant off.
