Source: https://www.bertha-dudde.org/en/proclamation/5764

5764 Ignorant and misguided people's attitude regarding truth....

September 8, 1953: Book 63

It is difficult to enlighten people as long as they are convinced that they know the truth. A completely uninformed person will gladly accept knowledge offered to him, and if it appears to enlighten him it will make him happy. It is difficult to convince someone that he is thinking incorrectly if he believes himself already to know the truth, and it is even more difficult to convey different spiritual information to him, because he holds on to the former and is only receptive for other knowledge when he begins to doubt. And thus, you can always identify amongst you fellow human beings those who are completely without faith and live a purely earthly life, and those who deem themselves religious, who even eagerly support their faith and yet are defending something that is far from the truth.

The former are in the majority and, due to their total unbelief, in dire straights because they don’t look for contact with the world which is their home as well as their goal, whereas the believers still occupy themselves with spiritual issues despite wrong teachings and misguided views which only need to be rectified, and they will often be offered the opportunity for this on earth as well as in the beyond, yet the direction of their thoughts is always determined by their free will. But complete unbelievers should be offered spiritual information, they should be motivated to reflect on it, the reality of the spiritual world should first be made plausible to them, and they can also be won over if the spiritual knowledge is presented to them intelligently.

The more a person has distanced himself from ecclesiastical belief, the more difficult it is to introduce him to church doctrines, even if they correspond to the truth.... Yet somehow every person can be approached, it just requires extensive knowledge to win such people, which in the end nevertheless leads to where God can be found .... These people must learn to believe by way of deliberation, and then they will attain a profound, living faith if they seriously want the truth. For their unbelief need not always demonstrate their complete remoteness from God.... They might have been pushed into unbelief on account of misguided teachings which their intellect refused to accept and which resulted in their rejection of everything.... And these people must be helped again by their intellect to recognise the truth, then they will become convinced supporters of the truth themselves and remain firm in their conviction....

Heart and intellect must be able to accept spiritual concepts, for the truth, which originates from God, can also stand up to all intellectual scrutiny and does not just demand blind faith.... whereas misguided spiritual concepts, misguided religious doctrines, will not withstand a serious examination by the intellect and therefore blind faith is demanded for these teachings, which is never God’s will.... It is much easier for the sceptic to arrive at the truth than for those people who don’t want the truth because they believe they already possess it.... who do not use their intellect but accept everything without investigating its origin....

Amen

Translated by Heidi Hanna