straight at the naked sun. Therefore, my listeners, on these points we
should hold our intellect under obedience to faith.”
[ 4 ] Then he cried out again and said, “What a great mystery our holy
faith is! We believe that God the Father assigns the Son’s justice and sends
the Holy Spirit, who then uses the assigned justice to work the benefits
of justification, which are, briefly, forgiving sins, renewing, regenerating,
and saving. Yet of the Holy Spirit’s inflowing or action we have no more
awareness than did Lot’s wife after she turned into a statue of salt. About
its indwelling or condition we have no more awareness than a fish in the
sea. My friends, a treasure lies in our faith, yet it is so well hidden that
not a particle of it shows. Therefore in this respect also we should hold
our intellect under obedience to faith.”
[ 5 ] After sighing a few times, he cried out once more and said, “What
a great mystery is the process of becoming chosen people! We become
chosen when God assigns the faith to us. He assigns that faith with free
choice and pure grace to whomever he wants whenever he wants to. We
are like a log of wood as he pours it in, but we become like a tree after-
ward. Pieces of fruit, which are good works, do indeed hang from that
tree (which is a symbol for our faith), but they are not integral to it. The
value of the tree is not based on its fruit. My brothers and sisters, because
this sounds like it contradicts our religion yet is a mystical truth, here
again we should hold our intellect under obedience to faith.”
[ 6 ] Then after quite a delay while he stood as if he were drawing
some further point out of his memory, he went on to say, “From a moun-
tain of mysteries I will choose just one more. Spiritually speaking we
don’t have a speck of free choice. As the top hierarchy and leaders of our
order state in their handbooks of theological principles, we are unable to
will, think, or understand anything in the arenas of faith and salvation,
which are specifically labeled as spiritual. We are even incapable of adapt-
ing and applying ourselves to learning about faith and salvation. There-
fore I myself would say that on our own we’re incapable of drawing on
reason to think about faith and salvation, and of drawing on thought to
babble about it, except like a parrot, a magpie, or a raven. Spiritually
speaking we are actually donkeys. Only physically are we human. But,
my colleagues, before your reasoning faculty becomes uncomfortable,
let’s hold the intellect under obedience to faith as we’ve done in relation
to other issues.
“Our theology, you see, is a bottomless pit. If you let your intellect
look into it, you’ll be shipwrecked and swallowed up, and you’ll perish.
singke
(singke)
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