Source: https://www.bertha-dudde.org/en/proclamation/3938

3938 Destiny.... free will....

December 16, 1946: Book 49

Even in the God-distant state the being is not left to itself, only that it is not aware of God's care because it does not desire it. Nevertheless, God's great love and mercy does not let the creature fall, but directs it in such a way that it can reduce the distance at any time. And indeed, in the stage as a human being this guidance of God is destiny, the course of life, which is rich in innumerable events that offer the human being the opportunity to approach God. In the preliminary stages God Himself determines the being's life span as well as its activity, and the being itself cannot change anything about it or oppose God's will.... It is in the stage of bound will and has to subordinate itself to divine natural law, but thereby also reducing the distance from God until it has come so close to Him that in the state of free will as a human being it now has to use it to approach God. Thus, as a human being its will is free but its fate in life is predetermined for it from eternity because God wants to offer it the greatest opportunities to reach the aim of approaching God. For His concern for the fallen spiritual substance is constant and where the spiritual substance itself does not push itself towards God He tries to draw it into His flow of love, yet always with respect for free will. And therefore every individual person's fate in life is suitable to help him attain spiritual maturity if only he makes use of all opportunities and does not resist God's loving guidance. For one's own will can also offer resistance insofar as that it never adapts to God's will, that it is never satisfied with its fate in life and rebels against the creator and sustainer, that it murmurs and complains and thus does not want to recognize God and turns away from Him by using its will for evil actions and thoughts in order to change the fate, which does not suit it, according to its wishes. Then God's love and mercy will have been active in vain, then the human being will escape His guidance and arbitrarily take a different path which will lead far away from the aim.... But his will is free and God never forces him. And He has also taken this unruly will into account and determined its course on earth accordingly since eternity. But even then God will not let the being fall, only that He will use means which sometimes appear unkind and cruel to people who know nothing about His eternal plan of salvation. Yet He seeks to guide back all spiritual substances which have distanced themselves from Him, and even if it takes eternities they will reach their aim one day, for God will not abandon anything to its fate which originated from Him and has distanced itself from Him of its own free will.... until it finds its way back to Him again in free will and can now fulfil its eternal destiny....

Amen

Translated by Doris Boekers