Fourth truth: The gate of Generosity and Beauty, the manifestation of the Names the Generous and the Beautiful. Would unlimited generosity and liberality, inexhaustible riches and treasures, unequalled eternal beauty and grace, as well as everlasting perfection, not demand the existence of grateful supplicants, along with amazed and yearning onlookers, destined to dwell permanently in an abode of blissful repose? The world is adorned with so many beautiful objects, the sun and moon serve as its lamps, the planet’s surface teems with the finest varieties of sustenance—an overflowing feast of plenty, trees bearing fruit like so many dishes and renewed several times each season. All of this shows the existence of unlimited generosity and liberality.

Such inexhaustible treasures of Mercy require an everlasting abode of blissful repose that contains all desirable objects. They also require that those who enjoy it should dwell there eternally, without suffering the pain of cessation and separation. The end of pain is a sort of pleasure, and the end of pleasure is a sort of pain. As unlimited generosity cannot allow such a thing, Paradise must be eternal and its inhabitants must live therein eternally. Unlimited generosity and liberality desire to bestow infinite bounty and kindness, which require infinite gratitude. Thus, those who are to receive and give continual thanks for this ongoing bestowal of bounty must live forever. A slight contentment, spoiled by its brevity or cessation, is incompatible with unlimited generosity and liberality.

Reflect upon the world’s different regions, how each exhibits God’s handiwork and proclaims His being Lord in the diversity of all plants and animals.[1]·Listen to the Prophets and saints who proclaim His Lordship’s beauties. They point to the Majestic Maker’s flawless perfections and demonstrate His miraculous arts, thereby inviting our admiration.

The Maker of this world wishes to make His most important, amazing, and hidden perfections known via His miraculous arts. Hidden perfection longs to be known by those who will gaze upon it with admiration and appreciation. Eternal perfection requires eternal manifestation, which in turn requires the eternal existence of those who will appreciate and admire it. The value of perfection diminishes in the view of its admirer if the latter is not eternal.[2]

The brilliant adornment and beautiful handiwork of all Earth’s creatures testify to the dimensions of an unequaled transcendent Grace and point to the subtle aspects of a hidden Beauty, just as sunlight testifies to the sun’s existence.[3]·Every manifestation of that transcendent Beauty, that holy Grace, points to the existence of innumerable unseen treasures in each of God’s Names. So exalted, peerless, and hidden a beauty wills to behold itself in a mirror, to see its degrees and measures reflected in animate beings, and to become manifest so that it may look upon itself through the eyes of others.

In short, beauty and grace will to see and be seen and thus require the existence of yearning witnesses and dazzled admirers. Since Divine Beauty is eternal and everlasting, its witnesses and admirers also must be eternal, for Eternal Beauty can never be content with transient admirers. The love of an admirer condemned to permanent separation will turn to hatred once the thought of separation takes hold. Admiration yields to an ill opinion, and respect yields to contempt. Just as obstinate people may be enemies of what they do not know, they are opposed to what lies beyond their reach. A finite love responds to a beauty that deserves infinite admiration with tacit hostility, hatred, and rejection. This is a profound reason for why unbelievers hate God.

[1] A brilliantly shaped, a dazzlingly domed flower, a most artfully wrought jewel-like fruit on a twig as fine as wire and attached to a tree’s rigid bough—such things proclaim the fine artistry of a most skilled, wise, and miraculous fashioner to all animate beings. The same is true of the animal and vegetable realms.

[2] A celebrated beauty once rejected a common man who had become infatuated with her. To console himself, the man said: “How ugly she is!” and so denied her beauty. A bear once stood beneath a vine trellis and longed to eat the grapes upon it. Unable to reach the grapes or to climb the trellis, he said to himself, by way of consolation: “The grapes must be sour,” and went on his way growling.

[3] While all beings that act as mirrors for Divine Beauty continually depart and disappear, others succeed them, manifesting in their forms and features the same Beauty. This shows that such Beauty does not belong to them; rather, the visible instances of beauty are the signs and indications of a transcendent, holy Beauty.

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