6671 Free will must be recognized....

October 16, 1956: Book 71

You can only be given what you desire or are willing to accept when it is offered to you, because your free will is always taken into account and a gift contrary to your desire would therefore impair this free will. And thus the effect of any spiritual gift is always dependent on your willingness to accept it.... God in His infinite love is always willing to give, and His gift of love would truly suffice to lead people to perfection, so that everything fallen would already be completely redeemed.... But this contradicts the law of divine order, it contradicts the principle of freedom and thus also the plan of deification of what God has created. The blessedness of all created things consists in the perfection attained in freedom of will, and no matter how much free will is denied.... It is the basic principle and also again the cause of the innumerable cases of human failure on earth.... But it will eternally remain with the being which embodies itself on earth for the purpose of this deification, it will again and again be put to the test and have to decide for God, in that the human being freely desires divine gifts out of himself or is willing to accept them.... yet without these gifts he will never be able to reach perfection either. God, however, constantly offers His gifts.... He does not force them upon a person but He makes sure that they are brought to the person, that his will is stimulated to accept or reject them.... And He will not cease to change the will despite frequent rejections, but He will not exert coercion.... He respects free will, which is the sign of divine beings and which also once substantiated the apostasy from God but which can just as well strive towards the highest height as it once strived towards the depth. He who disputes free will is also still in complete bondage because he is subject to the one who holds him in bondage. But he has also not yet made the attempt to become free from him, otherwise he would be conscious of his free will. He who disputes a free will feels himself bound, even if he is not clear who or what holds him bound. But the admission of having no free will is the surest sign of his being bound, whereas the person who recognizes and acknowledges a free will already feels himself free.... And this person has already detached himself from God's adversary, and he appeals to Him Who can remedy all deficiencies, for he also recognizes himself as deficient despite his free will and therefore 'desires'.... And abundantly can be supplied to Him, nor will it remain ineffective, for now God's will also comes into effect because the human being's will has turned towards Him.... Turning towards God is free will, for God's adversary, who keeps the being bound, would never direct its will towards God if it were not free. However, earthly life is precisely about this decision of will, which.... because free.... can and must take place if the being wants to reach perfection. And an unfree will would let the whole earth life be purposeless, and no reason whatsoever would be found for the human being's earthly course as well as for the emergence of creation, which is to bring the bound spiritual to maturity so that it can regain free will again to reach the final aim as a human being. The human being can receive unmeasured gifts if he only desires God's gifts, precisely because he is in possession of free will.... But therefore God cannot bestow gifts against the human being's will either, and therefore they remain ineffective as long as the human being resists them, because he is never forced to deify himself but this always has to happen of his own free will....

Amen

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