The Great Gospel of John
Volume 8
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
The Lord and His adversaries
- Chapter 127 -
The objections of the captain about the guidance of the people.
The captain said: "Yes, Lord and Master, this has become totally clear to me now. So the external bodily man was only given by God to the soul as a support for his self-realization and is for the greater part subjected to the power of God's will, but it is still arranged in such a manner that the soul can make use of it as he likes. If he makes use of it according to Your will, which he can know very well by Your teaching, then it will be very beneficial to him because he can develop himself in the body to the true independent and eternal life, but if he makes use of his body in a manner that is against Your order, then this will certainly and obviously lead necessarily to his ruin. But now we come to a point where I had already for a long time, on well-considered grounds serious criticism in myself concerning this with regard to a wise and certainly almighty God and Creator.
2
Look, how many thousand times thousand of men have come into the deepest night of their soul without their fault and must therefore pine away and go to ruin because perhaps they still will not in a 1.000 years have the luck to hear even one word of Your teaching that is spoken out here. But how many have already certainly since many thousands of years on Earth gone to ruin, who never were able to hear anything of Your teaching? This long time action without light - to the certain ruin of the so numberless many souls - seems very sad to me from the side of God's most kind and most wise providence.
3
People do not lack seriousness to search the truth on a lot of places on this Earth, of which I was able to convince myself, and many a man has already found one of its tracks. But where was the proof for the intellect of men that the track for the truth of life that was found by the zealous seeker and researcher was actually completely correct? They learned to know that track, expressed their approval, but they met also other zealous researchers for the truth of life, and they soon were convinced that they came to totally different tracks, which did absolutely not have any similarity with the first one, but which still contained many valuable things.
4
Yes, I do not know any nation on this Earth - as far as I know them - that did not believe in one or the other deity and was attached to it. But how material are such teachings and imaginations of a supreme and extremely wise godly being? However, the one and certainly only true godly Being seems eternally to be little concerned when whole nations and races are going to ruin in the deepest night of error.
5
And then, as this is now the case with You, the only true and supreme Deity can indeed come and proclaim to the many thousand times thousands the most true light, but the people in general will not accept it anyway, and many will say: 'Were our forefathers who have died a long time ago then also not human beings as we are? What did they do wrong that the only and eternal true Deity has withheld to them the light of life?
6
A true Deity should always take care for a right enlightenment of the people. But if He provably did not do that, while He professes now to have done it, then this is because either He has never been a true Deity or He did not want to because of a certain disregard for the people on this Earth. Maybe because He was not pleased with them because they maybe could only develop themselves as badly as a lot of fruits that a tree starts to let grow after the blossom but cannot feed them because one or the other internal juice of life is lacking, and it throws them off by thousands and leaves them on the ground to be spoiled and trampled down. A very uneconomical business of which an all-seeing and supremely wise Deity should surely know but which He still tolerates and continuously allows.'
7
I for myself do not absolutely want to come to You with such objections, but I know that it has already formed very old and deep roots in men, and we men who still are so much permeated with the truth of Your teaching and of the existence of the true Deity in You, will without special help from You indeed never be able to exterminate all those thousand times thousand of errors with the people. For even if we - weak human beings ourselves - will tell them as truthfully as possible what we have seen and heard ourselves, then who will believe us?
8
Thus, for this we also need continuously special help from You, o Lord and Master, otherwise all our work and effort will be useless and it will, according to me, be better to let the human race go to ruin into their dark delusion for the whole further future, just as they also went to ruin to a full nothing many thousands of years before us. For what does such a world full of people matter to an almighty and eternal God, and what importance is it to God when the people went to ruin and will forever no more exist?
9
If the eternal continuation of the life of the soul of man depends only on the fact to know Your teaching and then to continuously live and act accordingly, then there surely will be few who will be so lucky to live eternally. But if things are different with the continuation of the life of the souls after the always somewhat cruel death of the body, I will take back all my human objections and I gladly want to be brought to other ideas.
10
I have spoken now truthfully and openly and I am also ready to do all what is possible to bring as much as possible people from their night of death to the eternal day of life. But I gladly would like to hear now from Your mouth, o Lord and Master, how things are since the very beginning, and what I should do. I have said."