people I had seen before as sea turtles and more recently as insane people
being thrown out of their former communities and gathered together in
one place.
At that point I felt an urge to talk to those people. I went to the place
where they were staying, greeted them, and said, “Are you the people who
see our inner and our outer levels as being disconnected; who see the Holy
Spirit’s operation on us within the realm of faith as being disconnected
from the Holy Spirit’s cooperation with us outside the realm of faith; and
who therefore see God as being disconnected from us? In that case you
have not only taken goodwill and its works away from faith, as many
other professors among the clergy have done, but you have also done
away with faith itself in the sense that [without goodwill and good works]
people have no way to demonstrate their faith to God.
[ 7 ] “Let me ask: would you like me to address this issue with you on
the basis of reason or on the basis of Sacred Scripture?”
“Start with reason,” they said.
So I said, “How can the inner and outer selves in people be discon-
nected? Surely everyone sees based on general awareness (or is at least
able to see) that all the things inside us extend and are continued to the
outer parts of us, even into the outermost parts, in order to have their
effect and do their work. What is on the outside of us exists for the sake
of what is on the inside of us, to give it a place of termination and some-
thing to rest on in order to have continued existence, much the way a
base supports a column.
“If there were no continuity and connection, the outermost things
would fall apart and burst like bubbles in the air. God carries out mil-
lions of processes in us that we know nothing about. How would it help
us to know about them? All we need is to pay attention to the outermost
areas where we and our thinking and willing are together with God.
[ 8 ] “I will illustrate this with an example: Do we know the inner
functions involved in our speaking? Do we know, for example, how the
lungs pull in air and fill the air sacs, bronchial tubes, and lobes with air?
Do we know how the lungs expel that air into the trachea and there turn
it into sound? Do we know how that sound is modified in our glottis
with the help of our larynx? Do we know how the tongue then articulates
the sound and the lips complete the articulation so that speaking occurs?
All those inner functions, about which we know nothing, exist for the
sake of one outer function: enabling us to speak. Break the continuity
singke
(singke)
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