God and the Absolute, theosophy quote

W.Q. Judge quote, The Theosophical Forum of New York, December 1892, p. 3)

“Theosophy holds God to be One and eternal, – Absoluteness itself. The Bible says that man was made in the image of God. Man we understand to be composed of seven principles, – a union of the three higher, the immortal principles with the four lower, those which disintegrate and go back to the dust. Are not all these principles, or parts, which are found in man, found also in God? I ask because some teach “Nothing is but Spirit.” Matter seems to me to be one aspect of Spirit. It comes from something and goes back to its place, and there is no place outside of God.

I have not the hardihood, as the Editor has, to affirm in one breath that we must not speculate on the Infinite, and in the next to give attributes to the Infinite, such as immanency in all things, separability from us, and the like, and, taking his advice to confine ourselves to common-sense and what we can know, I waive the discussion on the question of the Absolute or an infinite God. It is hopeless. The quotation in the question proceeds in use therein upon the assumption of a God who can be understood and described either directly or by analogy or contrast. This is wholly beyond me. But I am quite willing to repeat that the Teachers whom I follow say that the Absolute exists and cannot be discovered nor known;  that at the dawning of what is commonly called creation and evolution Spirit and Matter appear in space. This I accept, for it fits in with the logic of the rest of the doctrine. They call this the first differentiation. The assertion – made chiefly by the schools of mind-cure – assumes that spirit only is, but cannot explain nor justify the assumption, which is only, indeed, for the purpose of founding other assertions regarding mere bodily ills of no great consequence except to the weak or those devoted to material enjoyments. It is further taught and seemingly with reason that, in all, seven cosmic differentiations take place, and from these the sevenfold constitution of man is derived. His gross body stands for the whole of gross matter, his astral body for another differentiation, his passions for the energy of the heterogeneous cosmos, his life copies another of the seven, and so on until all are complete. But if you postulate a God, you must put man either in him or outside; and if the latter then your God is not infinite, but has in his universe something that is not himself – for the Infinite must be all. It is much safer to construe these Bible verses in the old Theosophical way, which would in the present instance show that man is made in the image of his God, who is his Higher Self. If the other position is adopted, that of postulating a God and giving him any attributes whatever, then your mind can have no possibility of reaching a conclusion save by the arguments and distinctions made by the schoolmen of Europe and the disputing theologians of India, -and that conclusion may temporarily, say for one life, satisfy you, but it will remain false. It belongs to the great number of the illusions of matter which are ever deluding the mind of man.”