Source: https://www.bertha-dudde.org/en/proclamation/2908

2908 Will to the truth....

October 4, 1943: Book 37

Only the will for truth allows a person to recognize error. So many people walk along in error because they thoughtlessly accept what is offered to them as truth and therefore they are also unable to distinguish truth from error. And this is a danger which cannot be warned of enough, because only the truth can bring people to the maturity of their souls. It must be pointed out again and again that only the desire for truth can bring it to a person. For even if it is offered to him, he will not recognize it as truth as long as he does not desire it out of his innermost drive. The slightest will to know the truth will bring him to realization, for his thoughts will now repeatedly come across error, he will not reject these thoughts but pursue them; the truth will also come to him mentally, and by weighing both against each other it will become increasingly clearer in him, because the truth makes him happy but error repels him.... And this reflection must first begin before a person becomes certain, before he can accept and advocate the truth with conviction. Erroneous teachings will not satisfy him, he will take offense at them.... But the desire to stand in the truth must always be a prerequisite, otherwise his willpower is too weak, i.e. it is held under the spell of the prince of lies who campaigns against the truth. People are mostly indifferent and have no capacity for judgment of their own because they are indifferent. They hold on to what they have accepted without examining the extent to which it has come to them unadulterated; and this indifference has serious consequences. For the time of earthly life passes by uselessly, because only pure truth brings spiritual progress if the human being is not exceptionally active in love, whereby his thinking is brought closer to the truth. Nevertheless, his own will has to awaken to reject everything that is wrong, he has to seriously consider the religious doctrines imparted to him if they are to benefit him, i.e. if they are to be of value for the soul's higher development, otherwise imparting them would be of no value whatsoever. He should be able to benefit his soul, and therefore they also require an examination, an opinion, so that they now stimulate the soul to life, to activity, without which a spiritual higher development is unthinkable. And this serious examination must be connected with a desire for truth, thus the human being must hunger for true knowledge and inwardly resist error. Because he seeks God, he must only want to acknowledge the divine, and he must therefore also completely abandon himself to Him, Who is the truth Himself and therefore also the giver of pure truth. And then he can abandon himself to the spiritual influences without worry.... he will be correctly guided in his thinking, he will be able to distinguish truth from error, which God Himself now offers him....

amen

Translated by Doris Boekers