| 218. 4. Imam Jafar
as-Sadiq (p): The name of God is something other than God Himself.
And everything to which the term is applicable except God Himself
is a creation (by God, the Creator). Since whatever is expressed
by the tongue and whatever is done by the hand is nothing but a
creation. And one’s saying God with his tongue or writing
‘God’ with his hands is an extreme limit among all conceivable
limits to signify Godhead. But the object represented by a symbol
is quite different from the symbol itself. But the symbol can be
expressed by sound or by letter and all that can be expressed or
defined is something created while the Creator of all things including
space, time, abstract concept of how, why, where, and when etc.
cannot be expressed or defined to any extent. God was not brought
into being so that the state of His being could be known through
the works of someone else who brought him into being. And to whatever
extreme limit men may rise in His cognition He shall be other than
that extreme limit.
Summarizing the above sermon on the Unity of God, the Imam (p) concluded:
One who has comprehended this truth can never go astray. This is
the essence of the Unity of God, so by the grace of God, guard it,
do not let the shadow of any untruth fall on it. Remain steadfast
in it and comprehend it by the will of God. He who pretends or assumes
that he knows God through his veils or by forms or by semblance
is a polytheist. Because His veil, form or semblance are different
from Himself. Verily He is the One, the Unique. So how can a person
bear witness to the Unity of God and to His being unique if he thinks
that he has known God through nothing other than God? Verily only
he has known God who has known God through God himself. He who has
not known God through God Himself has not known Him at all. What
he has known is something other than all the things when nothing
existed. He is called by His names but He is other than His names
and His names are other than what He is.
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