The Household of God
Volume 2
Rise and spiritual prime of the first world empire Hanoch
- Chapter 151 -
THE GREAT WISDOM OF THE STRANGER. MAN IS DESTINED FOR SPIRITUAL INDEPENDENCE. BLIND FAITH AND AUTHORITATIVE FAITH - A JUDGMENT!
The stranger, having heard such a wish on the part of Enoch, looked astonished and thereupon said to him:
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"Dear Enoch, this is wise of you; for, once you have my verdict you will all the more easily pass your own, particularly when in the end it requires nothing beyond a Yes or No.
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"But the question then arises whether anyone will thereby benefit.
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"For in no matter can a man be more easily talked around than precisely in the one he does not understand himself.
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"For in this case he either accepts the verdict out of ignorance or because he believes in the authority of the speaker, and will then never arrive at an opinion of his own.
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"And this means nothing else but to shackle the independence of his own spirit and to become a mechanical spirit of another or set aside his own life in favor of an alien, spurious life.
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"I am telling you this from my own experience so that you may not let yourself be talked around by me, but accept only that which makes sense to you; thus you shall not accept a single syllable which you merely had to believe without having grasped it beforehand firmly in your mind.
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"There is no worse state for a free man than that of a blind faith; for such a faith engenders the true death of the spirit.
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"Whoever believes blindly, is at the same time a spirit under judgment by some ambitious brother.
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"If already a judgment of the living God is deadly, how much more must this be the case with the judgment of a dead man or one who himself possesses only a spurious life.
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"Behold, for this reason a personal opinion - be it ever so poor - is much better than one adopted only through faith, for the veracity of which the spirit which must be free has no guarantee other than the authority of the preacher and the lukewarm complacency of its own foolishness.
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"All of which is surely an abomination before God; for God created man for a free life and not that he might be an indolent mouthpiece of some ambitious preacher who is a selfish judge of the hearts of men who are meant to be free.
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"So, if I do to you what you asked me to do because I want to do you a favor, accept no more of it than what you can after close scrutiny regard as your own opinion.
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"For if someone tells you: 'Do this or that!', and you do it without in the least bothering as to why and to what final purpose, you have already become a tool for another's will, having let yourself come under judgment. If, however, you first probe your brother's intention and, having freely found within you the final purpose and that it is a worthy one because love is its foundation, and you then do what your brother asks you to do, you have acted as a free man and a true child of God, and not as a created being under judgment.
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"For this in my opinion is the mighty difference between the true children of God and the created beings, that the children shall be as spontaneously active as God, their Father, and as perfect in it as He Himself is, because they are His perfect images.
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"Are the animals perchance capable of this? - Oh no, they must always fulfill the will of the Creator; for their nature as such is already a carrier of the Creator's will. But it is not so with humans, who are set to be true children of God.
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To them God's will is revealed so that they might judge the same at first with their own free spirit as the alone just and true, recognize it, then make it their own and act in accordance with it.
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"Whoever accepts the revelation and acts accordingly thinking he had to, is already judged. For he does not act in accordance with the consensus of his own will with the divine will, but like a machine; and he is and remains nevertheless dead because he does not care about the full recognition of what is the divine will and its order, but, recognizing something as the divine will by way of hearing - usually through the mouth of a boaster -, he does so without judging the Why and Wherefore.
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"Look, this is as such sheer idolatry; for man thereby judges himself or rather, lets himself be judged. - and thus killed!
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"And look, this is then also the difference between the free life and the life under coercion. But such a life is not yet a death of sin; for sin means to recognize the roads of divine order, in so far as they are revealed - and then spontaneously act contrary to the good judgment within one.
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"Behold, this then is real death. Why? Because sin is a crass disturbance of the divine order, which is not disturbed by any judgment, but the latter only hinders the freedom of the spirit.
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"Behold, dear Enoch, this is my opinion; but now do declare also yours so that thereby we may arrive at a general verdict through which alone we can be animated to the right action. But only if you wish. Amen."