as their center. What were all those things before the sun took shape?
Could they have continued to exist for one moment? What would all
those things do without the sun? Could they have come into being?
Continuing to exist is the same as perpetually coming into being. Since
the continued existence of all things in nature depends on the sun, it fol-
lows that their original coming into being also depended on the sun.
Everyone sees this and acknowledges it from personal observation. [ 9 ] As
something subsequent comes into existence from something prior, so it
also continues to exist from that something prior. If the outer surface
came first and the center came later, something prior would be depend-
ent on something subsequent for its continued existence. But that is
against the laws of the divine design. How can things that come later
produce things that come first? How can outer things produce inner
things? How can denser things produce purer things? How then can the
superficial things that make up the expanse produce the center? This is
against the laws of nature, as anyone can see. We have presented these
arguments from rational analysis in order to convince you that the
expanse comes into existence from the center, and not the reverse,
although anyone who thinks well sees this without these arguments.
“You said that the expanse of its own accord flowed together into the
center. Was it just by accident, then, that it fell into such a miraculous
and astounding design that one thing exists for the next, and they all
exist for the sake of humankind and our eternal life? Is nature capable of
drawing on some love and using some wisdom to find a purpose, make
means available, and accomplish results so that things may come into
existence in their own design? Can nature turn people into angels, make
a heaven out of them, and provide that this heaven’s inhabitants will live
to eternity? Give enough thought to these questions and you will let go
of your idea that nature created nature.”
[ 10 ] After that we asked him what his past and current thinking was
about point three: on the center and the expanse of nature and of life.We
asked whether he believed that the center and the expanse of life was the
same as the center and the expanse of nature. He said that he was now
stuck. He had thought before that the inner energy in nature was life, that
the love and the wisdom that essentially constituted human life came from
nature, and that the sun’s fire produced our life through the heat and light
conveyed to us by the atmospheres. But now, from these points about
human life after death, he was becoming uncertain. The uncertainty was
singke
(singke)
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