A young man whose father has died in war can say to himself that God is his Father and that this Fatherhood is eternal; ‘Abdu’l-Bahá offers that consolation without hesitation. He also warns that whole peoples have pictured a god in their minds and bow before a fancy of their own contriving, since whatever the mind comprehends is smaller than the mind. Both are true, and the question of a personal God lives in the tension between them. Personality, He writes, belongs to the Manifestation of the Divinity, not to the Essence, which is remote, limitless, and impersonal; the worship Christ asks for is the worship of His attributes, not of His person. Even the wrath of God is reread as justice, the moment when a fatherly embrace gives way to a businesslike accounting because we have withdrawn. The Qur’an says that nothing is like God and in the same verse that He hears and sees [1], affirming qualities while refusing a likeness. Prayer can stay intimate while its picture of the One addressed remains open to correction. The inquiry leads on to God as immanent and transcendent, to the relationship of the Manifestation to God, and to the unknowability that keeps every image provisional.
This people, all of them, have pictured a god in the realm of the mind, and worship that image which they have made for themselves. … Consider then, how all the peoples of the world are bowing the knee to a fancy of their own contriving, how they have created a creator within their own minds, and they call it the Fashioner of all that is -- whereas in truth it is but an illusion. Thus are the people worshipping only an error of perception.
(‘Abdu’l-Bahá, 1906-May-23, to Kanichi Yamamoto -- AB01117)
02
Thou hast written concerning the Impersonality of the Divinity. Personality is in the Manifestation of the Divinity, not in the Essence of the Divinity.
(‘Abdu’l-Bahá, 1907-Apr or <, to Aseyeh Wellesca Dyar -- AB00448)
03
The Divine Reality is far removed from man. It is absolutely remote and independent in its essence - beyond the comprehension of man - abstract, limitless and impersonal.
(‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Words spoken ca. Oct. 1911 -- ABU0904)
04
The axis around which the consolation of the hearts revolve is the Faith in God. If the father of a youth who believes in God is killed in the war - he will say to himself I have God for my father, whose Fatherhood is eternal. He is the Comforter of the broken-hearted ones. The miraculous power of Faith will cheer them up and heal their wounds.
(‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Words to Ahmad Sohrab, spoken on 1914-Dec-11 -- ABU1099)
05
"The epitome of all worship is the worship of the attributes of Christ, not his personality."
(‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Words to Percy Woodcock in 1909 -- ABU1729)
06
You ask: "What then is the wrath of God?" The wrath of God is the erroneous designation for logic, causality, in brief, the justice of God. If we ignore God, He will ignore us and subject us to His unchangeable laws of nature; if we avoid Him, He will retreat from our lives. He, the Creator, lets His Sun rise over the just (those loving God) and the unjust (those far from God), but the first have the dew of His blessing, the latter shiver under the mildew of His curse! And in what consists this curse? In this, that the Lord God will no longer stand in a personal relationship to us, but in an objective one. We are no longer His heirs, but we have become debtors estranged from our own nature and paradise, who can only expect a businesslike accounting, not a fatherly embrace! Well then, we choose between Gerizim and Ebal (Mount of the blessing, Mount of the curse) - we Baha'is, we have already adopted Gerizim as our place of residence.
(‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Words spoken to Miss St. in Aug 1910 -- ABU2114)
07
In 1909, May and Sutherland Maxwell made a pilgrimage together to the Prison City of 'Akka, to visit 'Abdu'l-Baha. Sutherland was not yet a convinced Baha'i. One day at table, he said to 'Abdu'l-Baha: "The Christians worship God through Christ; my wife worships God through You; but I worship Him direct."
'Abdu'l-Baha smiled and said: "Where is He?" "Why, God is everywhere," replied Sutherland. "Everywhere is nowhere," said 'Abdu'l-Baha. He then went on to demonstrate that such worship was the worship of a figment of the imagination and had no reality; we must worship God through something tangible and real to us, hence the role of the Manifestations.
(‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Words to Sutherland Maxwell in 1909 -- ABU3640)