The Great Gospel of John
Volume 8
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
The Lord and His adversaries
- Chapter 4 -
A scribe refers to God's order.
Another scribe said: "I cannot say that you are wrong and I share your opinion in many aspects, but I actually cannot accept your opinion as a totally settled truth. Because I cannot believe that God as the very wise Creator of Heaven and Earth, who actually continuously maintains the sun, the moon, the stars and the Earth should have created us as perfect works of His wisdom and power only to serve Him as His perishable playing dolls.
2
Man has only a short life to live on this Earth, and the reason of this seems to be that his soul has to develop in the body in a certain way and must acquire a certain and durable solidity, so that he can continue to exist in another world that must be limitless and which corresponds with his being.
3
For if man with his body and soul would only be destined for this material world that, although it is so big, still has its limits, then as a result of the continuous increase of the number of human beings - if they would be immortal as far as their body is concerned - this Earth would soon be too small and too limited for the human beings. Even more so because it consists of much more water than firm habitable land. After a certain time, God would have to make the human beings impotent and also stop their aging process so that they could continue to live forever with a certain normal power and strength and cultivate the ground of the Earth for their livelihood.
4
However, we can believe with certainty that after a certain period of time men would have enough of such a necessary monotonous life, because indeed, the daily experience teaches us that everybody starts to be very bored when he has to live in always the same life conditions and will be languishing for a change. And since after many thousands of years even the most inventive person will still have come at the end of all his favorite changes, he finally would come into the greatest boredom, which by no means he will not be able to chase away.
5
After these thorough observations it surely seems that God's wisdom has created men for another, higher and freer life and not for a world that is limited in everything, which is however good enough to serve men as a first step in development, but can never be intended to give him an eternal happy existence.
6
For this and still a lot of other reasons I believe in the immortality of our souls, because if these would be mortal we have to represent God - whose power and highest wisdom is clearly seen in all His works, just as His goodness and His justice - as unwise or even as completely not existent.
7
No reasonable thinking human being can assert that some blind and dumb power could bring pieces of work like we men are, to an orderly existence. Because what one does not posses he can impossible give to someone else. Give for instance to someone who is very stupid and who is hardly capable to chatter his mother tongue, an assignment as teacher of a foreign language in a school. What will he accomplish? Nothing more than a statue. That is why there must exist a very wise and almighty God, and anyone who can think clearly will have to recognize this as truth.
8
However, if the almighty God is very wise, then He also must be very good and just and He surely must have good intentions with us human beings. And through the mouth of the prophets and other wise men, He also must have announced to other men what kind of intentions He has with us people, and what man should do in order to already on the Earth enjoy a happy pre-existent life, and by means of this pre-existent life make himself as capable and receptive as possible for the next eternal life.
9
However, a God who has done that and still continues to do that, did not create a mosquito, and certainly not us men as pitiful toys for His whims. Or can one perhaps imagine a good man who would take pleasure to see how his poor fellowmen are continuously tormented in the most horrible manner? As far as I have observed the people in every respect, I have always noticed that God in no way is harming people. This is what people are doing to each other and all too often mostly to themselves. Because firstly their never satisfying selfishness and greed drives them to persecute each other as much as possible and by this they harm each other with all kinds of evil things. And because they no more pay attention to the revealed will of God, they catch all kinds of diseases through the most disorderly ways of life, which are highly poisoning this pre-existent life.
10
Question: are God's wisdom and goodness also somehow guilty of this? If this would be the case, then the highly to be honored people who continuously have lived according to the laws of God would have before their passing away from this world also be tormented by such malicious diseases just like those who since their youth have lived a godless life and by this have brought the nature of their being into the greatest disorder. Oh no, I already have convinced myself about it very often that man who lives according to God's order will most of the time also reach a high age of life, and in the end he dies a remarkable soft death.
11
Here and there are also examples of pious and righteous men who finally separated from this world and did not exactly die such a soft death. But by that we always can assume two cases, namely that God will try someone's patience more heavily, so that his soul will receive all the more strength for the life in the beyond. Why? This certainly will be well known by God.
12
In the second case however, the aged person who became pious and righteous could have disturbed the order of his body by the many sins of his youth, and this can have equally as many bitter consequences, which for him will not exactly make his last hours the most pleasant. But we can be absolutely sure that people who since the beginning have lived according to God's order, always will die a very soft death.
13
This is now my opinion of which I myself will stay loyal unto the end of my earthly life. Everyone of you can believe and do what he wants."