7612 Spiritual compulsion.... Dogma....

May 31, 1960: Book 80

You shall have full spiritual freedom.... You should not be forced by any side to think, you should not be led or kept away from spiritual material of whatever kind by commandments and prohibitions.... It should be entirely up to you how you relate to the spiritual knowledge you receive, and you should not be prevented from receiving spiritual knowledge either, because it must be up to you whether you relate to it positively or negatively. And thus you must not be taught doctrines of faith as 'dogma' which you therefore have to believe if you don't want to fall into spiritual or earthly punishment. It is wrong to command you to believe something, for you should only believe what is pure truth, and every doctrine of faith must therefore first be tested for its truth.... which, however, is often denied to you and you should therefore accept these teachings under 'spiritual compulsion'. God has given you free will, He has equipped you with the gift of understanding, thus every person must also be free to believe what he wants, even if purest truth is offered to him. For he is only on earth because of his free decision, only his free decision is valued, but not a thinking and acting which was demanded of him under a compulsion of will. Freedom of will marks man as a divine creature, freedom of will is to accomplish the way back to God, man's will is to freely decide for God. Spiritual teachings should now show him the right path to God.... And they will also show the human being the right path if they correspond to truth. However, due to the influence of God's adversary many lies and errors have been brought into the world.... The doctrines of faith are interspersed with error and can now rather be an obstacle to reach the right path to God. And this is something the human being should decide for himself, he should freely choose the spiritual knowledge offered to him, for one day he will also have to answer for his way of life on earth, for his spiritual development. But he can achieve great spiritual progress through right faith, i.e. through the acceptance of truth, and therefore he should make an effort to experience this truth, and this requires free will and serious examination of what is presented to him. But if a doctrine of faith is elevated to a 'dogma', then the human being is, so to speak, forbidden to examine it, he must, as it were, submit himself to a higher authority which, however, is not entitled to curtail the human being's freedom of will. For spiritual coercion is not God's will, and a dogma is spiritual coercion.... Every individual human being must take responsibility for his salvation, thus every individual human being must also be allowed to deal with his thoughts when it concerns spiritual knowledge, teachings which are demanded of him to believe. He must be willing to reach God, and then he will also clearly recognize what has come forth from God, and only then will he accept it as truth. And this examination must not be forbidden to him by church organisations, otherwise the human being will be made unfree in his thinking and acting. Only through the freedom of his will can the human being attain the perfection again which he once also surrendered in free will. And therefore this free will may not be touched during earthly life, which, however, would always mean a 'dogma'. Only what the human being makes his own in free will is decisive for his maturity of soul, for his fate in eternity...._>Amen

This proclamation is not used in any themebook.

Downloads

Offered downloads for book _book
 ePub  
 Kindle  
  More downloads

This proclamation

 download as MP3  
Print view
 Handwritings