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"The fact that God could create
free beings vis-a-vis of Himself is the cross which philosophy could not carry, but
remained hanging therefrom." (Auden, 1966, 29)
"The
human race ceased to fear God. Then came its punishment; it began to fear itself, began to
cultivate the fantastic, and now it trembles before this creature of its own
imagination." "I love a father and a mother
differently, and every distinct sort of love has its distinct expression, but there is
also a love by which I love God, and there is only one word in the language which
expresses it... it is repentance. When I do not love Him thus, I do not love Him
absolutely, do not love Him with my inmost being, and every other sort of love for the
absolute is a misunderstanding for when thought clings to the absolute with all its love,
it is not the absolute I love, I do not love absolutely, for I love necessarily; as soon
as I love freely and love God I repent. And if there might be any reason why the
expression for my love of God is repentance, it would be because He has loved me
first." "For if
God does not exist it would of course be impossible to prove it; and if He does exist it
would be folly to attempt it." "Perfect love means
to love the one through whom one became unhappy. But no man has the right to demand to be
thus loved. God can demand it; that is infinite majesty. And it is true of the man of
religion, in the strictest sense of the word, that in loving God he is loving him through
whom he became unhappy, humanly speaking, for this life-although blessed. PRAYER " Thou who art unchangeable, whom nothing changes! Thou who art unchangeable in love, precisely for our welfare not submitting to any change: may we too will our welfare, submitting ourselves to the discipline of Thy unchangeableness, so that we may, in unconditional obedience, find our rest and remain at rest in thy unchangeableness. Thou art not like a man; if he is to preserve only some degree of constancy he must not permit himself too much to be moved, nor by too many things. Thou on the contrary art moved, and moved in infinite love, by all things. Even that which we human beings call an insignificant trifle, and pass by unmoved, the need of a sparrow, even this moves Thee, O Infinite Love! But nothing changes Thee, O Thou who art unchangeable! O Thou who is infinite love dost submit to be moved, may this our prayer also move Thee to add Thy blessing, in order that there may be wrought such a change in him who prays as to bring him into comformity with Thy unchangeable will, Thou who art unchangeable!" (Ibid, 224-225)
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