by Howard Ayno
miles without touching a thing. So you open your eyes and see—nothing. Not black, not white, not grey. Nothing. All around you, every direction possible, clear, empty. You look at your hand and see that you have no hand, no body. With that no hand you reach up and not touch your no eyes—
ME: Not an easy thing to do!
GOD: Nothing of you and nothing beyond you. You can see everything there is and there is nothing to see. You are alone in the Universe. Only there isn’t a Universe. Just you—and nothing.
ME: That sounds lonely!
GOD: Not as if “it” or “they” have been been spirited away and placed somewhere out of your reach, out of your sight because you know you know you know somehow there IS no where out of your sight. You are conscious of Being you is all there is. Being conscious of being is all you are. Being you. Only you.
ME: (Singing) Only you—
GOD: Whatever ‘you’ are. Whatever ‘you’ is. Only you. Which makes you God. No big deal: a God of nothing. So you couldn’t begin, because “beginning” has no meaning because time doesn’t exist, because you haven’t made it yet, because as something called Einstein will one day discover time can’t exist without matter and no matter where you look there is no matter. No matter, YOU exist, though immaterially.
ME: Does that thing itch?
GOD: What?
ME: That toga thing you’re wearing—looks itchy to me. I once had a—
GOD: Itch? No. As I was saying—
ME: I finally got rid of it.
GOD: What?
ME: My itchy shirt—but I interrupted you. Do go on.
GOD: Such knowledge doesn’t daunt you because you know you fleetingly (which for you means eternally) enjoy a freedom no being will ever experience again, not even yourself: a freedom to do whatever you like, become whatever you want, invent anything you wish up to the level of whatever powers you have, which, you rather suspect, may well prove infinite.
ME: My chest was red from scratching—
GOD: Yes, well, certainly appear infinite to whatever you are capable of creating—
ME: Creating! Now you’re on to something!
GOD: So you must create (you must surely create) so carefully, so RESPONSIBLY, meticulously, exhaustively assessing what could result from whatever you—
ME: Create what then? With what people this nothingness?
GOD: But first, creative decisions can flow only from the character of the one making them, so first decide the character you’re composed of. What are you? What do you make of yourself? What will you make of yourself? Your first invention must be you. God must invent God.
ME: God must invent God! Must he? I suppose so.
GOD: What attributes would I give Him? What character would I be?
ME: And you answered yourself—?
GOD: Uncompelled by Time, then, Your first question to yourself is: “What do I possess already? What abilities do I have no need to place in or draw out of myself?”
ME: And you answer yourself—and no doubt yourself agrees—
GOD: —that as your power is the only power existing, you are clearly all-powerful. Omnipotent. Whatever knowledge is possible, that knowledge you and you alone possess. You are Omniscient. Whatever is capable of being seen (admittedly nothing) you alone can see. You are Omnivoyant. Obviously it could be argued that by being bodyless you are nowhere, yet wherever you are is everywhere that is. You are Omnipresent. Can you make somewhere that you cannot be? Surely impossible.
ME: SURELY impossible, but fun to try!
GOD: But great fun to try! You can hardly wait to create, to discover the limits, if any, of whatever you are! You begin to enjoy the prospect of mastering the problems your own existence poses: I am what I am but what am I? I will be what I will be but what will that be?
ME: What in very deed?
GOD: “Supposing—“ you ask yourself, “supposing there is no limit to any of my abilities—supposing that each aspect of me is infinite in scope, in quality, then should I choose anything less than infinite perfection for any aspect of my character?”
ME: Infinite perfection! Oh, you should choose that!
GOD: “Of course not!” your Logic answers. “To be anything less than the best you could be would be unthinkable, unworthy of God being God!” Your innermost Spirit resonates concurrence: “My peace is disturbed at the prospect of anything less.” “Presumeably we are capable of anything?” you ask yourself, yourself replying—“Presumeably.”
ME: Presumeably? Definitely!
GOD: “Then we must be capable of harm, of wrong, of evil. Should we develop these aspects of character also, and also to an infinite degree?” At which you are shocked at yourself.
ME: So are we all!—shocked at God!—
GOD: “Never! How could I think such! We must use our powers only for good and never for evil—”
ME: Quite right!
GOD: “Such thought shatters my peace!” agrees your innermost spirit. “I speak hypothetically,” Your reason tells you. “Surely we should examine every alternative before irrevocably choosing a character that in embracing its characteristics must necessarily obviate all its opposites— ”
ME: Ah, there IS that—
GOD: “Of course, of course.” “And I agree,” Your innermost spirit concurs. “Then if we agree that principle—what’s wrong with wrong? Surely we can project a future in which a little wrong can cause much less trouble than nothing but right? I foresee the concept ‘suffering.’ I foresee ‘pain’ and ‘misery’—” And before your inner eyes you see thousands of millions of future scenarios of what could be, must be, will be, if.
ME: If what?
GOD: Your imagination creates millions upon millions of enormously varying possible futures according to what you could decide to create and with what properties and levels and ratios of such properties. Like a chess grandmaster you sift all futures through, weed them out, reduce them down to the best thousand, hundred, ten, two. At this (humanly speaking) you pause.
ME: Because You’re worn out?
GOD: Because both look so bad. “It is unthinkable,” You tell yourselves, “unthinkable that God could be anything other than ever and only good, ever anything less than the infinite perfection of perfect goodness—Yet that way lies such suffering, not just for ourselves but such fragile, innocent others. Should we create at all?”
ME: Are there more than one of you or are you just using the royal “we”?
GOD: “How can we be good yet not create, if to create is patently good?” “Do you agree,” you ask your innermost spirit, “that as God we can never choose anything less than perfect goodness, no matter what the consequence?” “We could not choose any lesser course than infinite perfection and remain infinitely perfectly God.” “You see the suffering that entails?” “Of course. It seems to be good invites pain.”
ME: You invite pain all right—
GOD: “Yet think of this,” you instruct your reason: “How can I insist upon my goodness when by doing so I inflict enormous unending injury upon myriads of relatively innocent others?” “Such a course would only be tolerable if,” your reason replies, “you suffer their enormous unending injury yourself. You share their fate.”
ME: Fate being the plural of feet.
GOD: “Would I be willing for this?” you ask your reason. And this expression of your every thought replies: “To turn back from infinite suffering when only that way lies infinite goodness is to reject yourself from being God.
ME: Look at the dust you’ve spread over the floor!
GOD: To sacrifice the highest good by rejecting its pain for peace would declare God no longer worthy to be God. We have no choice, unless we choose to be less than perfect, which choice alone would disqualify our Godhood.”
ME: The cleaners will throw a wobbly!
GOD: “It seems you have no choice,” instructs your innermost spirit. “We must restrict ourselves always to only the highest good or cease to be God.”
&nbs
p; ME: Cease to be God! That’s the best thing you’ve said all night!
GOD: “You realise that means we disbar our own free-will? Once chosen, we will have no choice ever but to do the most perfect of infinitely perfect goodness at each and every moment.
ME: Dust everywhere!
GOD: We will be restricted to a knife-edge, a tight-rope (I speak as a man!) of action every moment of our eternal existence. Though God, we will be limited to that one perfect course one blemish from which would render us immediately imperfect and no longer God.”
ME: You ARE imperfect therefore no longer God—
GOD: “There is already no alternative.” “Very well then, we choose perfection, the infinite perfection of everything good, let the cards fall where they may (I speak as a human), as indeed they must!”
ME: Are you schizophrenic? How many are there of you?
GOD: We are a Trinity, a threeness in a oneness.
ME: Make up your mind: are you three or one? You can’t be both—
GOD: You presume to impose human mathematical limitations on our infinity. To you humans, three finite beings are one plus one plus one. But three infinite persons are one TIMES one TIMES one, which only and ever and always means God is