The origin of the Primal Will: beginning beyond a first moment

The first thing to emanate from God is that universal reality which the ancient philosophers termed the "First Intellect" and which the people of Baha call the "Primal Will." This emanation, with respect to its action in the world of God, is not limited by either time or place and has neither beginning nor end, for in relation to God the beginning and the end are one and the same.

… Though the First Intellect is without beginning, this does not mean that it shares in the pre-existence of God, for in relation to the existence of God the existence of that universal Reality is mere nothingness--it cannot even be said to exist, let alone to partake of the pre-existence of God.

A sprinkling from the unfathomed deep of His sovereign and all-pervasive Will hath, out of utter nothingness, called into being a creation which is infinite in its range and deathless in its duration. The wonders of His bounty can never cease, and the stream of His merciful grace can never be arrested. The process of His creation hath had no beginning, and can have no end.

Indeed He was a hidden treasure. This is a station that can never be described nor even alluded to. And in the station of 'I did wish to make Myself known', God was, and His creation had ever existed beneath His shelter from the beginning that hath no beginning, apart from its being preceded by a Firstness which cannot be regarded as firstness and originated by a Cause inscrutable even unto all men of learning.

Through pure creativity He hath brought the contingent Will into being from the midst of sheer nothingness, and hath attributed it to Himself as a mark of honor, even as He hath called the Kaaba His House. He hath brought all creation into existence through its existence.

When He willed - and God's Will is His bringing into being, not from anything - He did not beget anything but rather created things through Will, and created Will through itself. Will is the first point mentioned in contingent existence, and it is the First Remembrance whereby God remembered Himself: "Verily I am God, there is no god but I. I was a hidden treasure and I loved to be known, so I created creation that I might be known."

It continues eternally in the highest station as the Creator which was manifested to it at the beginning of its creation as a sign of the appearance of His Self-Subsistence, a mirror reflecting His Countenance of Eternality, and a geometry for the manifestation of His sovereignty. It is the sign for which God has made no beginning except the perpetuity of His grace, and no end except in itself. It has ever drawn from God, by itself and for itself, in all ranks of the unseen and visible realms, and it has no exhaustion.

When God willed a thing, the Will came into being through God, not from anything, and fell prostrate upon its throne before God: "Verily Thou art God, there is no God but Thee, alone with no partner, and I am the first of those who prostrate before God, the Exalted, the Praiseworthy."

He hath brought into being the very Essence of the Primal Will (mashiyyah) for the station of His own "I-ness," the manifestation of His sustaining power, the token of His self-subsistence, and the dawning of the light of His sanctity. Verily, He created it by itself and for itself -- no self preceded it, no remembrance equalled it, no attribute resembled it, no description opposed it. He made its essence identical with its own reality, and its being identical with its own identity. It is the cause of causes in the beginnings of the Command and the ends of its consummation -- He hath indeed established it, in the station of the Will, as the station of His own Self.

This blessed Primal Word hath been called by all names - in one place as the Trumpet, in another as the Bugle, and likewise as the Path, the Balance, and the like. … In one station it cannot be described by any description nor mentioned by any mention, while in another station it is described by the most exalted attributes and mentioned by the most beautiful names. Verily it is the Primal Will which created itself by itself and created through itself all else besides it.

In truth I have created Thee through Thyself, then at My Own behest I have fashioned all things through the creative power of Thy Word. We are All-Powerful. I have appointed Thee to be the Beginning and the End, the Seen and the Hidden.

And since the recognition of the Ancient Invisible Essence has been impossible, and God the Exalted has not commanded it for any - since its possibility in the contingent realm is impossible - He has enjoined upon all things, from the beginning that has no beginning to the end that has no end, to know the Sun of Truth which is the Mirror of His Essence and the Primal Will which is the Throne of His Manifestation.

… All tongues fall short of attaining to its praise, and all hearts confess their impotence to comprehend its description. Such is the creation of the Will, created from nothing by itself for itself, after God cast within it the likeness of its own revelation. Then there appeared from it that which filled the heavens and the earth and all that lies between them.

Inasmuch as at this very moment, the creation of all things was described as a New Creation, it becometh evident that His creation hath always existed and will continue forever to exist. For there hath never been a time when God hath been adored, with no creature to worship Him. God verily hath always been in the sublimity of His sanctity, while all besides Him have been confined to the abyss of their limitation.

… And this statement of the famous author who hath meant by sea the sea of the Will and not that of the Eternal Essence, testifieth unto this same truth: "The Sea is the Sea as it hath existed in eternity, while the phenomena are naught but diverse waves and forms." These are the very shadows manifest in the mirrors which point unto the True Sun, inasmuch as in the station of the world of contingency, that is the realm of the mirrors, naught else is possible.

By the cause is meant the Primal Will, and by what is created through the cause is meant the conditions of that cause until the appearance of the end. When thou desirest something, look not to the means and the cause, but rather look to God Who created all things through the cause and created the cause without a cause.

The Divine Essence has never been joined with anything, and the causation of contingent beings is His handiwork - it is the Will which God created through itself, without being touched by the fire of the Essence. Through it God created all beings, and it ever speaks only of itself and indicates naught but its own identity. God has no sign in creation that points to His Essence, for His Being separates all beings from knowledge of Him, and His Identity prevents all identities from description. The relation of the Will to Him is like the relation of the House to God - it is a relation bestowing honor upon creation, not unto the Essence, for He is sanctified above the mention of allusions, relations, indications, signs, stations, effulgences and fragrances attributed to Him.

Never will the spiders of vain imaginings weave their web upon the branches of the knowledge of the reality of the Almighty, Omniscient One; nor will the flea in the dust circle about the stars of the heavenly spheres. How can the reality of non-existence ever understand the ipseity of being? How can utter annihilation [fana] be informed of the essence of eternity [baqa]? For the subtleties of the realities of essences of Possible Being have been created by a word of His Command and one of His Verses and have come into being through one ray of the effulgences of the Sun of His Will.

As to the station of the Godhead, it is exalted above and sanctified beyond the understanding of all created things, how much more above resolving itself into their realities! His Holiness the Bab (may my life be a sacrifice unto Him) hath stated that the meaning of the verse "The sea hath ever been the sea, and all contingent things its waves and forms" is fulfilled in the Primal Will, not in the Divine Essence.

… Rather is it the Primal Will, which consisteth of the radiance and bounties of that Sun, that causeth the manifestation, appearance, and visibility of all beings.

But in the view of the Prophets it is not so. Rather, through proofs and evidences they established a third realm: the world of Truth [Haqq; also God], the world of Command, and the world of creation. … The world of Command is the station of the Primal Will which is a universal reality that is resolved into infinite forms. This is the reality of existence that is comprehended and understood by the human world. As for the world of creation, it consists of the infinite forms of that sea of Will which is the world of Command.

When you recognize the mystery of creation through what has descended in the hidden indications of these expressions, witness that the philosophers have slipped in the station of recognizing that First Emanation, which is the letter Kaf revolving upon itself, by itself, for itself, from itself - for they are unable to comprehend how God originated the Will by itself, for itself, from itself, without being touched by the fire of His Essence.

He created the Primal Will before all things from nothing through itself, and fashioned it according to the form of its acceptance without any precedent, and ordained for it the law of correspondence in the form of its unity without any condition save its own essence. And He distinguished within its unified whole through the decree of the pair, which is its servitude, and brought forth through it the decree of the sister of the Primal Will without any creation besides it, and established it in the station of its authority in every aspect of its essential nature.

From it all things were fashioned, through it all things were called into being, upon it all things were founded, and within it all things found their establishment. Through it was the Divine Will brought into being before the mention of thingness, and in it was Lordship made manifest and all servitude made firm. It is neither of the eternal East nor of the non-existent West. It came into being through its own essence, not from any creation before it, and was endowed with its identity without any invention to rival it.

The beginning of the existence of the Primal Will--which is the Cause of causes and the ultimate light of the Eternal Morn--was but from nothing, as You manifested unto it through itself, and it was established in its shadow.

You bestowed upon it what it could bear of what it would create through itself.

God, moreover, hath brought forth the Primal Will from nothing, by naught but itself -- as the Imam hath alluded, and his word is the truth -- for every "thing" must needs possess existence: this is the rank of Will in its own realm; and (then) it must have a "quiddity": this is the rank of Volition in its own degree; and the nexus between them is the world of Decree and the secret of possibility in its station.

He hath created all things through the Will which He hath brought into being in the realm of possibility through the essence of possibility itself.

Then another point appeared, and verily it was the Primal Will, through which God created all that was and will be, and all that appeared before and will appear unto the end that hath no end.

There was no cause for Thy creation save Thy bringing it into being, and no reason for Thy invention save Thy origination of it.

72. Then from the seventy-second letter, the letter Ba, is the innermost essence of the Primal Eternity which God created by itself for itself, and made it, in the very essence of multiplicity, a sign of unity, as 'Ali (peace be upon him) indicated in his sermon on Friday and at Ghadir: "And I bear witness that Muhammad is His servant and His Messenger, whom He chose in pre-existence above all nations, distinct from any likeness among humankind or similitude.

When thou hast understood this, bear witness that God hath created the creation of all that is in the Bayan through its Point, and this is the meaning of the true saying "God created all things through the Primal Will and created the Primal Will by itself," for this is manifest where God revealed Himself to the Point of the Bayan through itself, by itself, of itself, and caused it to speak verses which are its proof from its Lord apart from aught else. Then He created through it all who are in the Bayan.

No sign can indicate His presence or His absence; inasmuch as by a word of His command all that are in heaven and on earth have come to exist, and by His wish, which is the Primal Will itself, all have stepped out of utter nothingness into the realm of being, the world of the visible.

Through His world-pervading Will He hath brought into being all created things. … All that is in heaven and all that is in the earth have come to exist at His bidding, and by His Will all have stepped out of utter nothingness into the realm of being. How can, therefore, the creature which the Word of God hath fashioned comprehend the nature of Him Who is the Ancient of Days?

The All-Merciful on the throne is established, and He is God who hath power over all things. Verily God created all things through His power, in truth by truth as a creation, and He is the One who originated the heavens and earth and what lieth between them by His command, in truth from around the fire as an innovation, that people might know that God's Command hath existed in the Mother Book in truth by truth from around the fire.

The entire creation hath been called into being through the Will of God, magnified be His glory, and peerless Adam hath been fashioned through the agency of His all-compelling Word, a Word which is the source, the wellspring, the repository, and the dawning-place of the intellect. From it all creation hath proceeded, and it is the channel of God's primal grace.

… The truth that shineth bright and resplendent as the sun is this, that all have been created through the operation of the Divine Will and have proceeded from the same source, that all are from Him and that unto Him they shall all return.

Ye dwell in one world, and have been created through the operation of one Will.

Having created the world and all that liveth and moveth therein, He, through the direct operation of His unconstrained and sovereign Will, chose to confer upon man the unique distinction and capacity to know Him and to love Him -- a capacity that must needs be regarded as the generating impulse and the primary purpose underlying the whole of creation, as mentioned in the well-known sacred tradition.

Out of the wastes of nothingness, with the clay of My command I made thee to appear, and have ordained for thy training every atom in existence and the essence of all created things.

Praise and thanksgiving be unto Providence that out of all the realities in existence He has chosen the reality of man and has honored it with intellect and wisdom, the two most luminous lights in either world. Through the agency of this great endowment, He has in every epoch cast on the mirror of creation new and wonderful configurations. If we look objectively upon the world of being, it will become apparent that from age to age, the temple of existence has continually been embellished with a fresh grace, and distinguished with an ever-varying splendor, deriving from wisdom and the power of thought.

When the sun of His name, the Creator, dawneth from the horizon of His mouth, through it are made manifest the arts throughout all ages - this is an indubitable truth.

… Likewise, when the sun of My name, the All-Knowing, dawneth from the horizon of utterance, every thing receiveth from this Name the wondrous knowledge according to its capacity and measure, and there appeareth therefrom in these days by the command of the Mighty, the All-Knowing.

Therefore, a spirit has emanated from the reality of Divinity, and its effulgences have become visible in human entities or realities. … The more the world of humanity develops, the more the effulgences or emanations of Divinity will become revealed, just as the stone, when it becomes polished and pure as a mirror, will reflect in fuller degree the glory and splendor of the sun.

Even so, all phenomena are realized through the divine bounty, and the explanation of true pantheistic statement and principle is that the phenomena of the universe find realization through the one power animating and dominating all things, and all things are but manifestations of its energy and bounty.

The Primal Will operates in the element, in the primal atom, as attraction and repulsion; on the next higher level as organic life; then as animal-vegetative; and finally as spiritual life, which is destined to rise to the super-spiritual. What develops is not the physical substratum (base), which actually exists from the beginning in its different kinds, each of which then develops only within its own kind to higher perfection, but rather does the Cosmic Spirit, the divine Primal Will, unfold within the creature just as the bud of a flower unfolds ever more completely, purely and beautifully, and will finally, in the fully-redeemed, totally purified man, return to the Godhead, to be immersed and fused in the Godhead.

Nothing can don the garment of existence save through choice in genesis and law, for the cause of choice is choice itself.

Happy is the man that hath apprehended the Purpose of God in whatever He hath revealed from the Heaven of His Will that pervadeth all created things.

Thereby have Thy servants, who were created through the word of Thy commandment, and were begotten by Thy will, caviled at me, and so fiercely opposed me that they repudiated Thee, and have rejected Thy signs, and have risen up against Thee.

Neither can the power of the powerful frustrate Thee, nor the ascendancy of the rulers prevail against Thee. Thou doest whatsoever Thou willest by virtue of Thy sovereignty which encompasseth all created things, and ordainest that which Thou pleaseth through the potency of Thy behest which pervadeth the entire creation.

And if I extol Thee as Him Who is the All-Wise, I, likewise, am forced to recognize that the Wellsprings of wisdom have themselves been generated through the operation of Thy Will. And if I proclaim Thee as the Incomparable One, I soon discover that they Who are the inmost Essence of oneness have been sent down by Thee and are but the evidences of Thine handiwork.

Inasmuch as Thou hast ordained that the utmost limit to which they who lift their hearts to Thee can rise is the confession of their powerlessness to enter the realms of Thy holy and transcendent unity, and that the highest station which they who aspire to know Thee can reach is the acknowledgement of their impotence to attain the retreats of Thy sublime knowledge, I, therefore, beseech Thee, by this very powerlessness which is beloved of Thee, and which Thou hast decreed as the goal of them that have reached and attained Thy court, and by the splendours of Thy countenance that have encompassed all things, and by the energies of Thy Will whereby the entire creation hath been generated, not to deprive them that have set their hopes in Thee of the wonders of Thy mercy, nor to withhold from such as have sought Thee the treasures of Thy grace.

God created all things by His Primal Will, and this Primal Will by Itself.

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God created the Will through its own Self, and created all things through the Will.

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He has created Will from nothingness. It is a cause unto itself. This Will cannot be explained or qualified. Subsequently, He created all things as an effect of this Will.

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God, verily, created the Will from nothing through itself, then He created through it all that to which the name "thing" can be applied. The cause of its existence, in truth, is its own self and naught else. Those who believe that the Essence is the cause of creation have made themselves partners with Him, as He cannot be known. He, verily, abideth in a state accessible only to Himself. Nothing is connected to Him, and in Him not a trace of the existence belonging to created things can be found. It is established in philosophy that cause and effect are alike. Therefore, the Imam hath declared: "The cause of things is His fashioning, but He is not its cause." … To establish God's knowledge of His creatures can only lead to falsehood, since from time immemorial God's knowledge hath been the same as Himself without another object of knowledge within Him. No one can understand the state of His Being except Himself.

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Verily God hath intended by these exalted words to sanctify His Essence utterly from any attribute of causation, refuting the views of those who have considered the Essence to be the Cause of all causes. For, verily, that Cause is His Handiwork, and that Handiwork is not preceded by any cause, to such an extent that the tongue of His favoured ones repeatedly addressed this absence of causation by the Essence. Had it been the Essence that was also the Cause, this would have required association and resemblance. … He hath fashioned the Will from nothingness, through Itself, and ordained It to be the Cause of all that is other than It, with no descent of anything from His Essence unto the Will.

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The statement of the philosophers that the cause of the created beings is the Essence is erroneous because of the lack of association [between cause and effect], the utter impossibility of change, and the precondition of the resemblance of the cause and the effect. The truth is that the Cause of beings is God's Handiwork, created by God Himself for Himself, and ordained to be the Cause of all His creation.

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Know thou, of a certainty, that the Pre-existence of the Eternal Essence hath ever been Himself, and His Eternity is naught but His Essence. Nothing existeth besides Him, much less that it could be capable of explaining His Pre-existence.... Therefore, any praise made by is creation, and any description comprehended by His servants, is the outcome of their limited creation and the attributes that their minds may invent within the created realm.... Verily, the Source of the originated is the Primal Creation, which God hath created for Itself, by Itself; no other mention can ever be made besides It....

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He, the invisible, the lofty and the incomprehensible, is preceded by no cause but rather is the Originator of the cause of causes.

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For the motion of the hand of the writer is not the source of the writing itself, but only the cause of its coming into being. But the writing is composed from the ink and the form of the ink.... The recipient of the action (al-maf'ul) is not composed from the action but existentiated by the action and composed from matter and form.

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...we must lay down that there is one intellect, unchangeably the same, without any sort of decline, imitating the Father as far as is possible to it.

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How did it come to be then...? It must be a radiation from it while it remains unchanged, like the bright light of the sun which, so to speak, runs round it, springing from it continually while it remains unchanged.

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...even if we have not discovered any time that existed before wisdom (since wisdom was first of all created things, and precedes the creation of time), nevertheless it follows that before wisdom is the eternity of its Creator, from whom wisdom took her beginning when she was made--not her beginning in time, for as yet there was no time, but the beginning of her creation.

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...no God is there save Him, Who hath created the universe and fashioned all things by the agency of his Primal Will, the cause of all that hath been and shall be.

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...the Primal Will, by means of which God created all who are in the heavens and on the earth and what is between them.

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Everything thou beholdest hath been called into being through the operation of His Will.

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The relation which exists between the Primal Will and the universe is as intimate and indissoluble as that which exits between fire and heat.

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...every object is deeply stirred by the vibrating influence emanating from Thine invincible Will. Thou art nearer unto all things than all things.

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The beginning of all things is the knowledge (irfan) of God, and the end of all things is strict observance of whatsoever hath been sent down from the empyrean of the Divine Will that pervadeth all that is in the heavens and all that is on the earth.

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The Writings of the Bab, like those of Baha'u'llah, confirm that God is the divine Object of mystic devotion, while asserting that the realm of the unknowable Essence is above traditional conceptions of God. The traditional conception of God has always referred to the Primal Will, the Manifestations of God.... Therefore, a true mystic orientation must be accompanied by a clear consciousness of the limits of human experience and mystic attainment, recognizing that the summit of the human spiritual journey is the recognition of the Manifestation of God in each age.

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