THE HARMONY OF VIRTUE

I. 1. The Harmony of Virtue5them were not capable of receiving higher light.Keshav: Is not God omnipotent?Wilson: A limited God is not God at all.Keshav: Then was it not within his omnipotent power to soguide the world that there would be no necessity for differentdealings with different people?Wilson: It was within his power, but he did not choose.Keshav: Exactly: he did not choose. He of set purpose preferreda method which he knew would lead him to falsehoodand injustice.Wilson: What words you use. The truth is merely that Godset man to develop under certain conditions and suited his methodsto those conditions.Keshav: Oh, then God is practically a scientist making anexperiment; and you demand for him reverence and obediencefrom the creature vivisected. Then I can only see one other explanation.Having created certain conditions he could not receivethe homage of mankind without various and mutually dissentientrevelations of his will. Now imagine a physician with theosophicalpower who for purposes of gain so modified the climaticfeatures of Judea and Arabia that the same disease requiredtwo distinct methods of treatment in the one and the other. Thishe does wilfully and deliberately and with foreknowledge of theresult. As soon as his end is assured our physician goes to Judeaand gives the people a drug which, he tells them, is the sole remedyfor their disease but all others are the property of quacks andwill eventually induce increase of the malady. Five years laterthe same physician goes off to Arabia and here he gives themanother drug of an accurately opposite nature about which heimparts the same instructions. Now if we remember that the climaticconditions which necessitated the deception were the deliberatework of the deceiver, shall we not call that physician aliar and an impostor? Is God a liar? or an impostor?Wilson: We must not measure the Almighty by our poor mortalstandards.Keshav: Pshaw, Broome, if the legislator overrides his ownlaws, how can you hope that others will observe them?