The Matter Necessitating Divine Unity

This is the fact that in unity are an ease and facility which render it necessary, while in associating partners with God are difficulties to the point of its being impossible. This truth has been explained and demonstrated with brilliant and decisive proofs in many of the treatises of what Imam ‘Ali (May God be pleased with him) called The Illuminating Lamp, especially in the Twentieth Letter, in detail, and in the Fourth Point of the Thirtieth Flash, briefly. It has been demonstrated with most powerful proofs that if all things are attributed to one single Being, the creation and regulation of the universe are as easy as the creation and regulation of a tree; and the creation and making of a tree are as easy as the creation and making of a fruit; and the origination and management of the spring are as easy as the origination and management of a flower; and the admininstration and raising of a species containing numerous members are as free of trouble as the administration and raising of a single individual.
Whereas if, on the way of associating partners with God, all things are ascribed to causes and nature, the creation of a single individual is as difficult as that of a species, indeed, of many species; and the creation and decking out of a single living flower as difficult as the creation and decking out of the spring, or many springs; and the creation, making, raising to life, administering, nurturing, directing, and regulation of a tree as difficult as those of the universe, or even more difficult.
Since the reality of the matter has been thus proved in The Illuminating Lamp, and since as we see plainly before us, together with the very highest degree of art and the greatest value there is a superabundance of beings; and together with being wondrous machines with numerous miraculous components and members, all living creatures come into existence in absolute profusion infinitely easily with extraordinary speed just like striking a match; it demonstrates necessarily and self-evidently that the profusion and ease arise from unity and from their being the works of a single Being. Otherwise, it would not be cheapness, abundance, speed, ease, and value; a fruit that is now obtained for five para would not have been obtainable for five hundred lira 12 or would have been so rare as to have been unobtainable. And the creation of living beings, which resemble regular machines that work like setting a clock or turning on an electric switch, would have been so difficult as to have been impossible, and some animals who come into existence together with all their bodily systems and vital conditions in a day, or an hour, or a minute, would not have come into existence in a year, or a century, or perhaps ever at all.
It is proved in a hundred places in The Illuminating Lamp, so decisively as to silence the most obdurate denier, that if all things are ascribed to the Single One of Unity, they are as easy, swift, and cheap as a single thing. Whereas if causes and nature are given a share as well, the creation of a single thing becomes as difficult, slow, unimportant, and expensive as all things. If you want to see the proofs of this truth, you may refer to the Twentieth and Thirty-Third Letters, the Twenty-Second and Thirty-Second Words, the Twenty-Third Flash, which is about nature, and the Thirtieth Flash, which is about the Greatest Name, particularly its Fourth and Sixth Points which are about the Names of Single and Self-Subsistent respectively. There you will see that it has been proved with the certainty of two plus two equalling four. Here, only one of those hundreds of proofs will be alluded to, as follows:
The creation of things is either from non-existence, or from the elements and other beings in the form of composition. If attributed to a single Being, that Being is bound to have all-encompassing knowledge and power that prevails over all things. In this way, the giving of external existence to things whose forms are present in His knowledge or who exist as knowledge, and bringing them out of apparent non-existence, is as easy and simple as striking a match or spreading a special liquid over invisible writing in order to reveal it, or transposing an image from photographic film to paper…