will discharge them, but to a higher state. That is to say, He raises elements to the level of minerals; minerals to plant life; plants to the level of animal life by means of sustenance; and animals to the high level of human life, which is conscious.
It may be understood then just how important are the sacred meanings and divine dominicality arising from the constant activity and dominical creativity which, on the demise of their external existences, cause all animate creatures to leave behind them multiple existences taken from them, like their spirits, essences, identities, forms, existences in the Worlds of Similitudes, Knowledge, and the Unseen, the sheaths of their spirits, and astral bodies, all of which are charged with duties in their places. This is explained in the Twenty-Fourth Letter.
A Decisive Answer to an Important Question
One group of the people of misguidance says that the being who changes and transforms the universe with this constant activity must himself be subject to change and alteration.
T h e A n s w e r : God forbid! A hundred thousand times, God forbid! The fact that mirrors on the ground change demonstrates not that the sun in the sky changes, but on the contrary that its manifestations are being renewed. Moreover, change and alteration are impossible in the Most Pure and Holy Essence, who is pre-eternal, post-eternal, sempiternal, in every respect absolutely perfect and absolutely self-sufficient, totally free of, detached from, and beyond matter, space, restriction, and contingency. Change in the universe points to his lack of change and alteration, not to His changing. For one who causes constant change and causes numerous things to move must himself be unchanging and not move.
For example, if you spin a large number of globes and balls which have each been tied to a piece of string and cause them all to move unceasingly within an order, you have to remain in one place and not change or move, for if you did, it would spoil the order. It is clear that one who causes objects to move within an order must himself not move, and one who causes objects to change ceaselessly must himself be unchanging so that these actions may continue in an orderly fashion.
Secondly: Change and alteration arise from createdness, from being renewed in order to be perfected, from need, materiality, and contingency. Since the Most Pure and Holy Essence is both eternal, and in every respect absolutely perfect and absolutely self-sufficient, and totally detached from matter, and necessarily existent, most certainly His changing and altering is not possible; it is impossible.