Near to the Wild Heart

by Clarice Lispector

the more evolved the man, the more he tries to summarize, evaluate and establish principles and laws for his life, how could God—in any sense, even the conscious God of the religions—not have absolute laws as a result of his own perfection? A God endowed with free will is lesser than a God of one law. The same way a concept is so much truer the more it is one only and doesn’t need to transform with each particular instance. God’s perfection is proven more by the impossibility of miracles than by their possibility. To work miracles, for a humanized God of the religions, is to be unfair—thousands of people need miracles equally and at the same time—or to recognize an error, correcting it—which, more than kindness or “proof of character,” means an error was made.—Neither understanding or volition are part of God’s nature, says Spinoza. This makes me happier and freer. Because the idea of the existence of a conscious God is horribly dissatisfying.