The Modes of Divine Disclosure

Epilogue: The Circle of Disclosure

Set the four modes in a line, and they look like a hierarchy descending from an unreachable summit to a scatter of clues in the dust. Set them in a circle and their real shape appears. The Absolute discloses itself as Spirit; the Spirit acts as Agent; the Agent leaves Signs; and the Signs return the reader to the Absolute. It is one movement, outward and then home, and it is authored at every point by one God.

This is the safeguard the whole essay has tried to keep. The modes must never be counted as separate powers, for that is the counting the Quran most severely forbids—the apportioning of the One into partners and shares. The Absolute is not a remote high god served by lesser divine functionaries called Spirit and Agent. It is the same He, disclosed at different degrees of nearness to a creature that could not survive Him all at once. The verse that permitted this language guards it as well:

57:3 He is the Alpha and the Omega. He is the Outermost and the Innermost. He is fully aware of all things.

The Inward is the Absolute in His hiddenness; the Outward is the same God in His signs; and between the two there is no seam, because there is only one He.