Source: https://www.bertha-dudde.org/en/proclamation/5546

5546 Spiritual compulsion.... Doctrines.... Truth....

December 2, 1952: Book 61

Spiritual freedom must be maintained, the human being may not be forced to think in this or that direction, he must remain at liberty to join any school of thought, only then will My will be complied with, for it concerns the free decision of will, which every person must make by himself without having been influenced in a compelling way. For this reason I will never ever sanction compulsory faith which expresses itself through dogma, which inhibits people's thinking and denies them any possibility of testing and of choosing.... Thereby the human being is impelled to think in a specific way and comes to completely wrong conclusions if the preconditions are wrong.... He can hardly find the truth which is only gained by a person who seriously desires it. The truth is made accessible to a person in earthly life because he is capable of thinking and only his will makes the decision as to whether he thinks correctly. He might well think correctly but he must always be active himself, that is, he must form his own opinion about everything that is presented to him from outside, and that requires his own intellectual activity and, even more importantly, his desire for truth, i.e. the will only to accept the right information. This will is absolutely respected by Me, it is always complied with because I, being Truth Itself, also want to make Myself accessible to My living creations. But I can never convey the truth to a person who does not want it, who only ever accepts what he receives from external sources. Every person must examine for himself, for error might just as well have been presented to him as truth, and the person is responsible for what he decides to accept. It is a mistaken objection to say that the majority of people are incapable of scrutiny.... The intellect alone is not decisive but the will to think correctly certainly is, in which case the person's intellect will also form a positive or negative opinion, because I Myself will intervene if he desires to know the truth. By comparison, highly developed intellectual thinking can easily fall prey to error if only the intellect is inclined towards the pure truth without involving the heart and will....

Consequently, it is wrong to accept knowledge without examining it, to acknowledge teachings and to decide on a spiritual direction without scrutiny.... which already follows from the fact that not only one school of thought exists, but that ever new offshoots verify that an examination must take place as to which school of thought the truth can be found in. For every advocate of his school of thought has used his intellect to choose it but has no guarantee that it is the truth if he does not seriously deliberate on it and calls upon Me for support through My spirit.... Anyone who chooses this path can be certain that the pure truth will be conveyed to him, and he will also be able to endorse it as such with inner conviction. However, every individual soul is responsible for its decision, and the result will be according to its will.... But as long as people are pushed into a specific direction of thought, as long as individuals deem themselves called to present knowledge to their fellow human beings which they want to be accepted as truth but which they would reject themselves were they seriously to examine it.... so long people will be in a dreadful state, for only truth helps the souls to mature fully, they can only find their way to Me through truth and only through truth can they be released from sin and its consequences, for the truth comes from Me and leads back to Me again. But that which is not from Me, that which can be recognised as error with proper scrutiny, comes from My adversary, and he will really not help you to gain beatitude, he will not guide you to Me, he will try to push you aside, to darken your spirit and to make you dependent on him.... Only truth will make you happy, and you will only receive the truth if you appeal to Me Myself for it, if you are serious about receiving the truth from Me.... But this always presupposes your own action and no-one can bear the responsibility for you, no-one can relieve you of the decision which you must make yourselves for the sake for your soul's salvation....

Amen

Translated by Heidi Hanna