3502 Faith merit act of free will.... no gift.... mind research....

July 30, 1945: Book 45

The deepest darkness has to give way to bright light if the soul has a desire for it, on earth as well as in the spiritual kingdom, for the desire for it is always decisive as to how the soul is considered. And thus the human being on earth will also create the degree of light for himself which corresponds to his desire. And indeed, he will be able to mentally accept truth or error but only recognize both as what they are when he strives for truth. But to recognize truth as truth, error as error, means to be fully convinced that he thinks right or wrong. And yet he will have no proof of this that is valid for the world, but he will believe it..... Consequently, faith is acquired through his own merit because he had the will to stand in truth, to recognize truth as such. And thus the human being can believe if he wants to.... and it is not a gift, a grace, to be able to believe because faith always presupposes the will, the desire for truth. This applies to faith which has the right value before God, which God demands of people.... faith in Him as a supremely perfect being full of love, power and wisdom. God only requires this faith because it is the prerequisite for a way of life on earth which corresponds to divine will, and because it results in everything else the soul needs for its ascent development. For anyone who calls this faith his own will always and constantly consult the eternal deity, he will mentally unite with It and consciously strive towards the most perfect being.... in the realization of his own inadequacy he will appeal to God for advice and help, he will gratefully accept the blessings offered to him with love and thus fulfil his purpose of earthly life. But every human being can acquire convinced faith in God as an exceedingly loving, wise and omnipotent being if he begins to think about his purpose of earthly life completely uninfluenced, always with the will to recognize what is right. He need only pay attention to everything that happens around him and follow his own fate in life; then he will always be able to recognize God's love, if he does not use earthly well-being as a standard. Creation will continue to prove God's wisdom and omnipotence to him, always provided that he seeks the truth, that he desires clarification not only with his intellect but with his heart, i.e. that he does not seek to fathom the truth scholastically but that it is his innermost heart's urge to fathom his purpose of earthly life.... For intellectual thinking does not guarantee the pure truth, because God.... the truth Himself.... keeps Himself hidden from those who are not driven by their innermost desire for Him.... For this reason the simple-minded person will also be able to believe more easily than many a person with a keen intellect, because the latter ponders and investigates where a heartfelt questioning thought of the eternal creator is appropriate in order to receive truthful enlightenment. The former seeks to reach the aim alone, but the latter consciously or unconsciously turns to God for enlightenment and will understandably be rightly successful. To be able to believe is not reserved for any human being, and even the keenly thinking intellectual man is able to believe childishly as soon as he does not submit spiritual questions to his intellect for an answer, because they can only be answered by the heart. And even the greatest scientist can face the father of eternity like a child if he allows himself to be impressed by the wonders of creation which his intellect alone cannot fathom but which find their explanation in profound faith in an omnipotent, wise and loving deity. He who is unable to believe exalts himself, for humility of heart enables him to find profound faith; arrogance, however, is an obstacle that does not allow faith to arise. But whether the human being is humble or arrogant depends solely on his will, which can bend or remain in opposition to the being Which created him and thus also wants to be acknowledged by him. And thus faith is also an act of free will, it will never be conveyed to a person as a gift of grace but he has to acquire it himself, which he is also enabled to do by God if he uses the gift of intellect in the right way, if he desires the truth and unresistingly surrenders himself to the thoughts which come to him, as soon as he sincerely desires light....

Amen

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