4. To Need God Is the Human Being’s Highest Perfection
Chapter Four
“A person needs only a little in order to live, and he needs this little only a little while”—this is a magnanimous saying, which is worth being received and understood as it wants to be understood. For it is too earnest to want to be admired as a beautiful expression or as a stylish phrase. At times it is certainly thrown around in this way. One shouts it to the needy person, perhaps in order to comfort him in passing, perhaps only in order to say something as well. One says it to oneself even on a lucky day, for the human heart is very deceitful and therefore only gladly takes magnanimity in vain and is proud of only needing a little—while using much. One says it to oneself on a day of need and, in admiration, hurries ahead to meet oneself at the goal—when one completed something glorious. In doing so, however, one is as little served as the saying is.
“One needs it only a little while.” Yet, just as it sometimes happens that when the days lengthen, winter also strengthens, so is it always the case that the winter of privation and hardship makes the days long even if time and life are short. How much, then, is the little that a person needs? Actually, one cannot at all answer this question in general. And even the one who has experienced it—if not needing little, then nevertheless of having to manage with little—even he will not be able to define in general what that little is. In particular, just as time often brings the grieving one new comfort, the brokenhearted one new satisfaction, the one who lost much new compensation, so is it gentle with the suffering one, even when it continues to take. It seldom takes everything at once but does so little by little, and, in this way, it little by little gets him used to going without, until he himself sees with wonder that he needs even less than what he once considered the least—indeed, needs so little that he would think about having to need so little with dismay (even if he would not express himself with perfect clarity, for truly the dismay does not lie only in needing little) and would almost be provoked by the contradictory notion of having to need it in order to be able to continue needing it, even if he would not entirely understand himself, since the perfection really would not consist in coming to need more.
But how much, then, is the little that a human being needs? Let life answer, and let the discourse do what life’s distress and hardship sometimes do—strip a human being in order to see how little it is that he needs. And now you, my listener, join in or wish to join in as you must in relation to your particular circumstances. For the discourse will not arouse dismay if, on the contrary, it is considering how to find comfort, and it does not intend to deceive you, as when the ice and snow of despair forms the deceptive mountain torrent, according to which the caravan changes its route, goes into the desert, and perishes (Job 6:15–18). It cannot arouse your dismay, if you yourself have experienced it and found comfort. And, if you have not experienced it, then the discourse about this will only dismay you if your strength lies in the thought that such a thing happens but rarely. But who, then, is the most miserable: the one who has experienced it, or the cowardly and soft fool who does not notice that his comfort is a fraud—that his comfort is only of little benefit when misfortune hits, that this is the rare occasion?
So, then, take it away from him: wealth and power and might, and the treasonous servility of false friends, and the submissiveness of desires to the caprice of pleasure, and the triumphs of vanity over pleading admiration, and the flattering attention of the crowd, and all of his appearance’s envied glory—he has lost this and is content with less. Just as the world cannot recognize him because of this immense change, so can he hardly recognize himself—so changed is he that he, who needed so much, now needs so much less. In truth, it is far easier and far more joyful to understand how this change can make him unrecognizable to himself than how that other change can make him unrecognizable to other persons. For is it not foolishness that it is the clothes that make a man unrecognizable, so that one cannot recognize him when he is naked? And is it not sad that it is the clothes that one admires, not the man! But a more godly way of looking easily sees that he is about to be clothed and is being arrayed in festive garb, for the earthly wedding outfit and the heavenly one are exceedingly different.
Nevertheless, a few possessions with contentment is already a great gain indeed. So, then, take that away from him—not the contentment but the last thing that he owned. He does not suffer distress; he does not go to bed hungry. But where is he to get what is necessary? That he does not know, not at night when he falls asleep from worry, not in the morning when he awakens to it. But he still gets it—the little he needs in order to live. So, then, he is poor, and the saying that is so hard to hear he must hear said about himself. He feels it doubly hard, because he himself did not choose this condition, like the one who cast away his possessions in order to test himself and who perhaps submits himself to voluntary poverty more easily, albeit not always better if he merely renounced vanity with the help of a still greater vanity.
“Only needs a little,” as the saying goes. But to know that a person only needs a little without nevertheless knowing at any moment with certainty that one can get the little that one needs—the person who bears this only needs a little. He does not even need—what still amounts to something—to know this little with certainty. A person, then, does not need more, if it is true that he only needs a little…in order to live. For he will find a grave, won’t he? And in the grave every human being needs just a little. Whether the dead man owns the grave in which he lies, perhaps for a hundred years (alas, what a peculiar contradiction!), or he has had to trespass among others, even in death has had to fight his way in order to get a little place—they own equally much and need equally little, and need it only for a little while. But the previous “little while” that the saying speaks about can perhaps become long. For even if the way to the grave was not long—if you perhaps not infrequently saw him wearily make his way out there, in order to conquer with his eyes the little land that he intended to capture as a dead man—could not the way, therefore, become very long in another sense? If, then, he grew despondent at times, if he did not always understand that a human being only needs a little, did you have nothing else to say to him than to repeat that saying? Or did you probably say to him what came quite naturally, so naturally that, in your heart, perhaps even you yourself did not have confidence in the consolation you offered another person: “Let yourself be contented with the grace of God.”
Stop now a moment, lest everything—thought and discourse and language—be confused, lest everything be confused because the relation certainly continues but only like this—that it is reversed in such a way that that man is the one who has consolation, and you are the one who needs it; that that man is the rich one, and you are the needy one, although it was completely turned around until you heard the little incantation that transformed everything. Perhaps you did not even notice it yourself. For many a saying is sidestepped in this way, just as the child does with a momentous saying, without discovering in it the sting of the thought that wounds unto death in order to save life.
To be contented with the grace of God! God’s grace is, indeed, the most glorious of all. Surely we shall not fight about this, because it is basically every human being’s deepest and most blessed certainty. But he very rarely summons the thought about it. And eventually, when he really wants to be honest, then he quietly applies—without, however, being clear about what he is doing—to this idea that old saying: “Everything in moderation.” If he were to think the thought in its eternal validity, then it would immediately take deadly aim at all his worldly thought, poetry, and aspiration. It would turn everything around on him, and he cannot endure this for long. Then he goes back to the nether regions of the worldly, to his customary ways of talking and thinking. And, indeed, the older a person becomes, the more difficult does it become for him to learn a new language, especially one that is so extremely different. He notices this now and then—that the way in which he uses this saying does not hang together properly amid all his worldly discourse. He gets a bad conscience about the saying and obtains no blessing from it. Yet God’s grace is, indeed, the most glorious of all.
But, now, if a person owned what is certainly not so glorious—owned all of the earth’s treasures—and you said to him: “Now, let yourself be contented with this”—then he would smile at you, no doubt. If he himself said to you: “I will be contented with this, then,” it would probably shock you. For what more could he need, and what nerve to want to be contented with the most. After all, that which one is contented with must be a little. But to be contented with the most glorious of all seems a peculiar way to talk. And that this consoling suggestion is made by a person who himself does not understand it is again peculiar, as if someone—not without sympathetic concern—gave a little coin to the needy person, admonishing him to be content with it, even as, however, this coin made the recipient into the owner of the whole world. For would it not be peculiar if the giver himself could think so poorly about the gift he offered that he would pair it with an admonishment about being contented! Or would it not be like a man, who, personally invited by a powerful person, went to the place of banquet and met a poor person, to whom he said in order to offer him a kind of consolation: “Let yourself be contented with having a table in the kingdom of heaven!” Or if the poor person himself was eloquent and said: “Alas! I was not invited by the powerful person and, therefore, cannot accept his invitation either, since I am invited elsewhere and must be contented with having a table in the kingdom of heaven.” Would this not be a strange way of talking?
The more one thinks about it, the more peculiar earthly life and human language become. For amid all the earthly and worldly difference, which is jealous enough in itself, the God-difference is thoughtlessly interfered with—indeed, even in such a way that it is basically shut out. To come in the king’s name opens every door for a person, but to come in God’s name is the last thing that a person should attempt. And the one who can be contented with that must be contented with little. If he came to the door of the powerful, if the servant did not even understand from whom he brought greetings, if the powerful person impatiently went out himself and saw the poor man who was to greet him on behalf of God in heaven—perhaps the door would be closed for him.
Still, the discourse does not want to catch you off guard, my listener, or to produce a sudden effect. When the words say, “to be contented with the grace of God,” then the reason is certainly that God’s grace does not express itself like a human being would like to understand it; rather, its speech is more difficult. In other words, as soon as God’s grace gives the human being what he wants and desires, then he is contented not only with grace but is happy with what he receives and, according to his own reckoning, easily understands that God is gracious to him. Now, that this is a misunderstanding, which no one should be in a hurry to denounce, is obvious enough. But that is why one ought not to forget to practice at the opportune time understanding what is more difficult and true. That is to say, if a human being can be assured of God’s grace without needing temporal evidence as a middleman or as an interpreter of what he sees as beneficial changes, then it is indeed certain to him that God’s grace is the most glorious of all. And then he will endeavor to be gladdened by it in such a way that he is not only contented with it; he will endeavor to give thanks for it in such a way that he is not “contented” with grace. He does not grieve over that which was denied, does not grieve over the linguistic difference that was between God’s eternal reliability and his childish little faith, which now, however, no longer exists, since now “his heart is strengthened by grace and not by food” (Heb 13:9).
If a needy person dared to enjoy the friendship of a powerful person, but this powerful man could do nothing for him (this is, after all, the corresponding point to the fact that God’s grace does not allow earthly evidence to materialize)—still, the fact that he had such a friendship was already very much. But here, perhaps, lies the difficulty. For, of course, the needy one could be convinced that such a powerful man was actually incapable of doing anything for him, but, ultimately, how could he be convinced that God cannot? He is, after all, almighty! From this it indeed is shown that the thought of impatience constantly insists, as it were, that God can surely do it. And that is why—because human beings are so impatient—that is why language says: “To be contented with the grace of God.”
In the beginning, when impatience is most vociferous, then it can scarcely understand that it is a praiseworthy contentment. Inasmuch as it is slowed and calmed down in the quiet incorruptibility of the inner human being, then it understands this better and better, until the heart is moved and at least occasionally sees the divine glory that had taken on a lowly form. And if this glory again disappears for the human being, so that he is back to being needy—something he also was while he saw the glory—then it seems to him again that contentment still belongs to being contented with the grace of God. Then, in shame, he himself surely admits that God’s grace is worth being contented with. Yes, it alone is worth coveting; yes, to possess it is the lone blessed thing.
Then, in a beautiful sense, the human heart will gradually become more and more discontented, because God’s grace is never taken with violence. That is to say, in order to know that grace is certain, the heart will gradually become more and more eager, more and more full of longing. And, see, now everything has become new, everything has been changed! In relation to the earthly, it is a matter of needing little, and, to the extent that one needs less, the more perfect one is to that same extent. A pagan—who, indeed, only knew how to talk about the earthly—has said that the deity is blessed, because he needs nothing, and next to him is the wise man, because he needs little. In the human being’s relation to God, it is reversed: the more he needs God, the deeper he understands that he needs God and, the more perfect he is, the more he pushes forward to God in his need. That is why the saying about being contented with God’s grace will not only comfort a person—and then comfort him again every time earthly privation and need make him, in earthly terms, need comfort—but when he has become properly attentive to the saying, then it calls him aside where he no longer hears the earthly mother tongue of the worldly mind. He no longer hears the speech of human beings, the noise of the shopkeepers, but where the words explain themselves to him, they entrust to him the secret of perfection: that to need God is nothing to be ashamed of but is perfection itself, and that it is the saddest thing of all if a human being goes through life without realizing that he needs God.
So, then, we want to clarify for ourselves this upbuilding thought:
To Need God Is the Human Being’s Highest Perfection.
That it is true that needing God is a perfection—on this subject, a circumstance that is well known to all seems to remind everyone with at least a passing admonition. Indeed, in the churches of various lands, the king and the royal house are prayed for after the sermon. That prayers are offered for those who are sick and sorrowful cannot prove that to need God is a perfection, for, after all, these are suffering persons. But the king is a powerful man—yes, the most powerful. And yet, prayers are offered for him in particular, but for the sick and the sorrowful only in general, although the Church hopes and trusts in the fact that God in heaven will understand this prayer particularly—that he thinks of each definite thing in its distinctiveness, while the Church does not even think of any definite thing. And if it is otherwise with God’s understanding, if his cares of governing likewise only allow him to concern himself with the individual in general—yes, then God help us! But, alas, this is the last thing a person says in his misery. Even when he cannot endure this last thought—that God would care for the individual only in general—even then he says: “God help me to endure this thought.” And, in this way, he nevertheless gets God to concern himself with him in particular.
But why, now, are prayers offered especially for the king? Is it because he has earthly power and holds the fate of many in his hands? Is it because his well-being determines that of countless others? Is it because every “shadow of adversity” that passes over the king’s house also passes over the whole nation? Is it because his sickness brings the activity of the state to a standstill, his death disrupts its life? Such a purely worldly worry can certainly keep many people occupied, and not in an ungraceful way either. But, still, it will scarcely bring anyone to pray in any other way than with the restraint that is necessary when we pray for worldly goods. For, in that case, a king indeed becomes such an earthly good. In this sense, then, the intercession would also become more and more heartfelt, inasmuch as the personal life of the one praying is connected more and more closely to him, until, at last, the prayer is no more an intercession than the wife’s prayer for her husband is an intercession. But, of course, the Church cannot pray in this way just because it makes an intercessory prayer. Yet, it surely does this because it is convinced that the higher a person stands, the more he needs God.
However, even though prayers are offered in all churches for a king, it admittedly does not follow from this that the king for whom a prayer is offered personally understands that to need God is the human being’s highest perfection. And if the individual in the church tacitly gives his consent to the intercession, and, alas, if the many who do not visit the church nevertheless have no objection to the intercession, it admittedly does not follow from this that these persons understand it in godly fashion—that, indeed, the higher one climbs in earthly power and might, the closer one comes only to intercessory prayer. To take it in vain is, for the mighty, only all too easy; to say it in vain is, for the one praying, only all too easy. On the other hand, what is right for earnestness to want to understand is already not understood earnestly enough, when one will seek this consciousness oneself rather than leave it to God, who knows best how to scare all self-confidence out of a person and to keep him—when he wants to sink into his own nothingness—from maintaining the diver’s connection [Dykkerens Forbindelse] with the earthly itself. What is right for earnestness to want to understand makes life difficult; we do not deny it. Let us just admit it, without thereby becoming so disheartened or cowardly that we want to sleep our way to what others have had to work for. Let us not take it in vain when the believer enthusiastically says that all his suffering is brief and short, that the yoke of self-denial is so easy to bear. But do not let us doubt either that the yoke of self-denial is beneficial, that the cross of suffering ennobles a person in the end, and let us hope to God that, should we come so far one day, we also could speak with enthusiasm. Still, let us not ask for this too early, lest the believer’s enthusiastic talk make us disheartened, because it will not be an immediate success. It often goes like this for a person: he fixes in his memory a particularly powerful saying; now, when suffering comes to his house, then he is reminded of the saying and thinks that he should be immediately victorious in the joy of the words. But even an apostle does not always speak with powerful words. He, too, is weak at times; he, too, is uneasy and thereby makes us understand that powerful words are costly and never possessed in such a way that one can again have an opportunity to make certain how costly they are.
But, now, even if this understanding makes life more difficult—not only for the frivolity of the fortunate person and for the many whose aspiration is to become like him, but also for the unfortunate, since this understanding really does not work like magic, does not work in any externally decisive way—should we therefore questionably puff it up or covet it double-mindedly? And yet, it is certainly a worrying matter that what is offered as consolation in life begins by making it more difficult in order—yes, in order—to make it truly easier. For so it is with every one of truth’s miracles, as it was with that miracle at the wedding in Cana: the truth bestows the poor wine first and saves the best until last, whereas the deceitful world bestows the best wine first.
Just because a person became unhappy (“infinitely unhappy,” as he himself says), it does not at all follow from this that the understanding that conditions the consolation—the understanding that he himself is capable of nothing at all—has matured in him yet. Hence, if he believes that he only lacks the means, then he still believes in himself. If he believes that if he were given this power or the admiration of other persons or the possession of his wish; if he thinks that the complaint contains a justifiable demand for something temporal, which becomes more justifiable the more vehement the complaint becomes—then, humanly speaking, he still has a bitter cup to drink before the comfort comes. It is, therefore, always a difficult matter for one human being to offer another such comfort. For when the worried person turns to him, and then he wants to say: “I certainly know where to find comfort, an indescribable comfort; yes, what’s more, it changes itself little by little in your soul into the highest joy”—then the worried one will listen attentively, won’t he? But when there is added: “However, before this comfort can come, then one must understand that one is nothing at all oneself. Then one must cut off the bridge of probability, which wants to connect desire and impatience and demand and expectation with the object desired, demanded, and expected; then one must forsake the worldly mind’s association with the future; then one must withdraw into oneself, not as into a fortress—which still defies the world, while the withdrawn person really has his most dangerous enemy with him in the fortress, while, in fact, he may have followed the enemy’s advice when he withdrew into himself in this way—but withdraw into oneself, sinking into one’s own nothingness, giving oneself over to grace and disgrace.” Then the worried person would surely go away distressed like that rich young man, who had many possessions. And yet, even if he did not have many possessions, he would resemble him nonetheless, so much so that one could not distinguish them. Or if the worried one had run wild and run fixedly into deliberation so that he was unable to act, because an equal case could be made from both sides, and then another person would say to him: “I know a way out, and you will certainly be victorious. Abandon desire. Act, act in the conviction that, even when the very opposite of your wish takes place, you have still prevailed.” Then there would surely be one who would turn away impatiently, because such a victory would seem like a defeat to him, and because such a way out would seem even more burdensome than the multifaceted unrest of his doubting soul.
What, after all, is a human being? Is he just one more ornament in the string of creation? Or does he have no power? Is he himself capable of nothing? And what, then, is this power? What is the highest that he is able to will? How does the answer to this question go, when the audacity of youth unites itself with the power of adulthood in order to ask it, when this glorious union is willing to sacrifice everything in order fulfill great things, when burning with zeal it says: “Even if no other person in the world has reached it before, I will reach it nonetheless; if millions were corrupted and forgot the task, I will strive nonetheless…but what is the highest?” Well, now, we do not want to defraud the highest of its price; we do not conceal the fact that it is seldom reached in the world. For the highest is this—that a human being is fully convinced that he himself is capable of nothing at all, nothing at all. Oh, what rare might, albeit not rare in the sense that only one individual is born to be king, since everyone is born to it! Oh, what rare wisdom, albeit not in the sense that it is offered only to a few, since it is really offered to all! Oh, what wonderful rarity, which is not degraded by being offered to all and by being able to be held by all! Yes, when the human being wants to turn outward, then it probably seems as if he were capable of doing something more astonishing, something that would satisfy him in an entirely different way, something around which jubilant admiration would flock. For that rare sublimity is no good to admire. It does not tempt the sensual person, since, on the contrary, it judges that the admiring person is a fool, who does not even know what he admires, and orders him to go home. Or it judges that he is a deceitful soul and orders him to think better of what he is doing.
It is true that, according to external consideration, the human being is the most glorious created thing, but all his glory is still only in the external and for the external. For does not the eye aim its arrow outward, every time passion and desire tighten the bowstring? Does not the hand grab outward? Is not the human being’s arm stretched out? Is not his ingenuity conquering? But if he nevertheless does not want to be like an instrument of war in service to inexplicable urges—yes, in service to the world, because the world itself, for which he longs, awakens the urges; if he nevertheless does not want to be like a stringed instrument in the hands of inexplicable moods or, rather, in the hands of the world, because his soul’s movement is in relation to the way that the world plucks the strings; if he does not want to be like a mirror in which he captures the world or, rather, in which the world is reflected; if he does not want this, if he himself—before the eye takes aim at something in order to conquer it—first wants to capture the eye so that it might belong to him and not he to the eye; if he grabs the hand before it grasps after the external, so that it might belong to him and not he to the hand; if he wants this so earnestly that he is not afraid to take out the eye, to cut off the hand, to shut the window of sense, if it should be made necessary—yes, then everything is changed. The power and the glory are taken from him.
He does not struggle with the world but with himself. Observe him now. His powerful figure is held enfolded by another figure, and so firmly are they locked in an embrace that they oppress one another in equally supple and equally strong fashion. Thus the wrestling cannot even begin, because, in that moment, the one figure would overwhelm him. But this other figure is himself. In this way, he is capable of nothing at all. Even the weakest person, who is not tried in this struggle, is capable of far more than he.
And this struggle is not only exhausting but very terrible as well (if it is not really he himself who has ventured out in this on his own idea, and, if that is so, then he is not tried in the struggle about which we are talking) when, by God’s governance, life casts a human being out in order to be strengthened in this annihilation that knows no letdown, permits no evasion, facilitates no self-deception that he would be capable of something more under different circumstances. For when he struggles with himself, circumstances cannot determine the result. This is a human being’s annihilation, and the annihilation is his truth. He shall not slip out of this knowledge, since, after all, he is his own witness, his accuser, his judge. He himself is the only one who is capable of consolation, since he understands the distress of annihilation, and the only one who cannot console, since he himself is indeed the instrument of annihilation. To comprehend this annihilation is the highest that a human being can do. To brood over this understanding because it is a good entrusted to him—namely, from God in heaven, who entrusted it to him as truth’s secret—is the highest and the most difficult thing that a human being can do. For deception and forgery are easily done, so that he himself becomes something at the expense of truth. This is the highest and most difficult thing a human being can do; however, what I am saying is that he cannot even do this. At most, he is capable of wanting to understand that this scorching fire only consumes until the ardor of God’s love ignites the flame in what the scorching fire could not consume.—In this way, the human being is a helpless creature, for every other understanding by which he understands that he can help himself is only a misunderstanding, even if in the eyes of the world he was regarded as brave…by having courage to remain in a misunderstanding, that is, by not having courage to understand the truth.
But in heaven, my listener, there lives the God who can do everything, or, rather, he really lives everywhere, even if human beings do not notice it. “Yes, O Lord, if you were like a powerless, lifeless body that withers like a flower, if you were like a brook that past, if you were like a building that falls in time, then people would pay attention to you, then you would be a suitable object for our base and brutish thoughts.” But, now, it is not like this, and your very greatness renders you invisible. In your wisdom, you are too far away from human thought to be seen, and, in your omnipresence, you are too near to be observed. In your goodness, you hide yourself from human beings, and your omnipotence makes it so that you cannot be seen, since then he himself would become nothing. But God in heaven is capable of everything and the human being nothing at all.
Now, my listener, is it not the case that these two—God and the human being—correspond to one another? Yet, if they correspond to one another, then, of course, there is only the question about whether or not you will be happy about the wonderful fortune that you two correspond to one another or, rather, whether you will be the sort of person who does not at all correspond to God, the sort of person who himself is capable of something—and therefore does not entirely correspond to God. For, after all, you cannot change God, and you really do not want to change God, lest he should be incapable of all things.
To become nothing seems hard—oh, but we speak differently even in human affairs. If misfortune taught two human beings that they corresponded to one another in friendship or in love, how trifling the distress caused by misfortune would really seem in comparison with the joy that misfortune also brought—that these two correspond to one another! And if two persons did not understand until death that they corresponded to one another for all eternity—oh, then, what would death’s brief though bitter moment of separation be in comparison with an eternal understanding!
In this way, the human being is great and at his highest when he corresponds to God by being nothing at all himself. But let us not carelessly admire or take the admiration in vain. Did not Moses go as the Lord’s emissary to a vicious people in order to free them from themselves—their slavish mentality—and from their slavish condition under the yoke of a tyrant? Hence, what is even the greatest deed of a hero in comparison with what one calls the works of Moses? For what is it to level mountains and to fill rivers against letting a darkness fall over all of Egypt? Yet, after all, these were only Moses’s so-called works, for he was capable of nothing at all, and the work was the Lord’s. See the difference here. Moses: he does not come to decisions, does not formulate plans while the council of good sense listens attentively because its leader is the wisest. Moses is capable of nothing at all. If the people would have said to him, “Go to Pharaoh, since your word is powerful, your voice triumphant, your eloquence irresistible,” then he presumably would have answered, “Oh, you fools! I am capable of nothing at all, not even of giving up my life for you, if the Lord does not will it. I am only capable of entrusting everything to the Lord.” Then he appears before Pharaoh, and what is his weapon? It is the weapon of the powerless—prayers. And even when the last word of his prayers has reached heaven, he still does not know what will happen, even if he believes that whatever happens still happens for the best. Then he returns home to the people, but, if they were to praise and to thank him, then he would doubtless answer: “I am capable of nothing.” Or when the people are thirsting in the desert and perhaps turn to Moses and say, “Take your staff and order the rock to give water,” then Moses would likely answer, “What is my staff other than a stick?” And if the people continued, “But in your hand the staff is mighty,” then Moses would have to say, “I am capable of nothing. But since the people are asking for it, and since I myself cannot bear the sight of the misery of this languishing people, I will strike the rock, even if I myself do not believe that water will spring from it”—and the rock would not give water. Therefore: whether the staff he holds in his hand is to be the finger of the Almighty or the stick of Moses, he does not know, not even in the moment when the staff is already touching the rock. He only knows it after the fact, just as he only ever sees the Lord’s back.
Oh, humanly speaking, the weakest person in Israel is capable of more than Moses, for, after all, this means that there is something he can do. But Moses is capable of nothing at all. In one moment, as it were, to be stronger than the strongest, than all human beings, than the whole world, insofar as the miracle occurs by his hand; in the next moment—yes, in the same moment—to be weaker than the weakest, insofar as this one still constantly thinks that there is something he can do. Such greatness will not experience the craving of vanity, insofar as it gives itself time to understand what constitutes greatness. Otherwise, in its disgusting cowardice, it would immediately be ready to wish to be in Moses’s place.
But if this view—that to need God is the human being’s highest perfection—makes life more difficult, then it only does so because it wants to look at the human being according to his perfection and to bring him to look at himself in this way. For, in and by this consideration, the human being learns to know himself. And the person who does not know himself, his life is indeed a fraud in a deeper sense. Yet, such a fraud is seldom due to a person not discovering which abilities have been entrusted to him, not seeking to develop these abilities as much as possible in accordance with the life circumstances that have been given to him. Then he rightly puts deep roots into existence. He does not behave carelessly like the fortunately talented child, who does not understand how much has really been entrusted to him, like the careless rich youth, who does not understand the significance of gold—and so it is, after all, that we also speak of a person’s self just like the value of money. And the one who knows himself, he knows down to the least how much he is worth and knows how to invest himself so that he gets full value out of it. If he does not do this, then he does not know himself, and he is cheated.
What the sensible person will be sure to say to him—and say to him step by step as life goes forward—is that he is not delighted by life in the springtime of today, that he is not asserting himself for what he actually is, that he does not know that people take a person for what he purports himself to be, that he has not known how to make himself important and thereby to give life meaning for himself. Alas, but even if a person knew himself ever so well in this sense, even if he knew ever so well how to get himself exposed to profit in life as advantageously as possible, I wonder if he would therefore know himself? But if he did not know himself, then, in a deeper sense, his life would indeed be a fraud. Now, would it then be rare that, in these sagacious times, a human being be responsible for such a fraud? That is to say, what would that sagacious self-knowledge be other than this—that he knew himself in relation to something else, but did not know himself in relation to himself. In other words, all his self-knowledge was downright vague, despite its apparently reliability, since it only concerned the relation between a doubtful self and a doubtful other. For this other could be changed so that another became the strongest, the most beautiful, the richest, and this self could be changed so that he himself became poor, became ugly, became powerless. And this change could set in at any moment. Only now this other is taken away, so he is cheated after all, and, if this something is such that it can be taken away, he is indeed cheated even if it is not taken away, because his entire life’s meaning was grounded in something else. It is, namely, no fraud if that which can cheat does cheat but, rather, a fraud when it stops doing so.
Such self-knowledge is, then, imperfect and far from considering the human being according to his perfection. For, after all, it would be an odd perfection about which one must finally say, perhaps after having praised it in the strongest terms: “Is it a fraud as well?” Along this road, one does not come to consider the human being according to his perfection, and, in order to begin on this, one must begin by tearing oneself away from any such consideration, which is just as difficult as tearing oneself away from a dream, so that one does not make a mistake and continue the dream: dreaming that one is awake. In a certain sense, this is sure to be drawn out, because a human being’s actual self seems to him to lie so far away that the whole world lies much closer to him; this is sure to be terrible, because deeper self-knowledge begins with what the one who does not want to understand it has to call the alarming deception: to receive himself instead of the whole world; to become the one in need instead of the master; to be capable of nothing at all instead of being capable of everything. Alas, how difficult that here one does not fall into dreams again and dreams that one does this by his own power.
When, then, the human being turns toward himself in order to understand himself, he steps in the way of that first self, as it were, halts that which was turned outward in craving for and hankering after the surrounding world—which is its object—and calls it back from the external. In order to move the first self to this withdrawal, the deeper self lets the surrounding world become what it is—become doubtful. It is, indeed, like this too. The world around us is unstable and, at every moment, can be changed into the opposite. And not one person can be found who, by his power or by his wish’s incantation, can force this exchange. The deeper self now shapes the deceitful flexibility of the surrounding world in such a way that it is no longer desirable to that first self. The first self, then, either must look to kill the deeper self—to have it forgotten, whereby the whole thing is dropped—or it must concede that the deeper self is right. For to want to predicate constancy about that which constantly changes is indeed a contradiction, and, as soon as one confesses that it changes, it admittedly can change in that same moment. However much that first self shrinks from this, there has never been found any chatterbox so clever or thought-forger so cunning that he can invalidate the deeper self’s eternal claim. Only one way out is given: to bring the deeper self to silence by letting the roar of inconstancy drown it out.
Now, what has happened? The first self is halted and cannot move at all. Alas, in real life, the surrounding world can be so favorable, so tangibly trustworthy, so apparently unswerving, that everyone will vouch for fortunate progress if one just begins. This does not help. The person who is a witness to that struggle in his heart [Indre] must admit that the deeper self is right: this very minute everything can be changed, and the one who does not discover this constantly runs into the dark. Never in the world has there been a tongue so quick that it could enchant the deeper self as soon as it was allowed to speak. Ah, it is a painful situation: the first self sits and looks at all the beckoning fruits, and it is indeed so clear that, if only one jumps at the chance, everything will succeed. Every person will admit that. But the deeper self sits there earnestly, thoughtfully, like the doctor at the sick person’s bedside, albeit with transfigured gentleness as well, because it knows that this sickness is not unto death but unto life. The first self really has a specific craving. It is conscious that it is in possession of the conditions. As it understands it, the surrounding world is as favorable as possible; they are just waiting for one another, as it were: the happy self and the favors of fortune—ah, what a pleasant life! But the deeper self does not yield; it does not bargain, does not give its consent, does not reconcile. It only says: “Still, this very moment everything can certainly be changed.” Nevertheless, people help that first self with an explanation. They call to him; they explain that it goes like this in life—that there are some persons who are fortunate, and they are to take pleasure in life, and he is one of them. Then the heart throbs; he wants to take off….
That a child who has a strong father must stay at home—one must put up with that. For, after all, the father is the strongest. But surely the first self is no child, and that deeper self is indeed himself. And yet, it seems stricter than the strictest father. One cannot curry favor with him in the least. Either he will speak with candor, or he will not speak at all. Then there is danger. Both the first self and the deeper self notice it. And then the latter one sits worried like an experienced pilot, while a secret council is held about whether it would not be best to cast the pilot overboard, since he is causing a headwind. That, however, does not happen, but what is the result? The first self cannot move from the spot, and yet…yet it is clear that the moment of joy hurries, that fortune already is in flight. For, indeed, persons say that when one does not immediately take advantage of the moment, then it is soon too late. And who, then, is guilty in this? Who else but that deeper self? But even this outcry does not help.
Really, what kind of unnatural condition is this? What does it all mean? When such a thing goes on in a person’s soul, does this not mean that his mind is beginning to grow feeble? Alas, no, it means something entirely different. It means that the child has to be weaned. For, of course, one can be thirty years old and more, forty years old and still but a child—yes, one can die as an old child. But to be a child is so delightful! So one sleeps at the breast of temporality in the cradle of finitude, and probability sits by the cradle and sings for the child. If the wish does not come true, and the child becomes restless, then probability calms the child and says: “Now, just lie still and sleep, so I can go out and buy something for you, and next time it will be your turn.” Then the child falls back asleep, and the pain is forgotten, and the child glows again in the dream of new wishes, although he believed that it would be impossible to forget the pain. Now, obviously, if he had not been a child, he surely would not have forgotten the pain so easily, and it would have become apparent it was not probability who had sat by his cradle, but the deeper self who had sat with him at the deathbed in self-denial’s hour of death, when it itself rose up to an eternity.
When, then, the first self succumbs to the deeper self, then they are reconciled and go on together. Then, I suppose, the deeper self says: “In our great struggle, it is true that I had nearly forgotten what it was now that you so fervently wished. I do not believe at this time that there is anything to hinder the fulfillment of your wish, if only you do not forget the little secret we two have with one another. Now, you see, now you can be gratified, can’t you?” Perhaps the first self answers: “Well, now I do not care about it in that way. No, I will never be as joyful as before—oh, as the time when my soul craved it, and you actually do not understand me.” “I do not believe so either, nor would it be desirable, I suppose, that I understand you in such a way that I craved just as much as you. Still, have you lost something by not caring about it in that way? Consider the other side. What if the surrounding world really had deceived you? You know that it indeed could have. More I did not say. I only said that it is possible, whereby I, rightly enough, also said that what you regarded as a certainty was actually only a possibility. What then? Then you would have despaired, and you would not have had me to rely on. For you recall well enough that the ship’s council was almost of a mind to cast me overboard. Now, would you not be better off having lost some of that burning desire and won the fact that life cannot deceive you? To lose in this way, is it not to win?”
“That little secret we two have with one another”—the deeper self spoke in this way. What do you suppose this secret is, my listener? What else but that a human being is capable of nothing at all in relation to the external. If he wants to seize upon the external immediately, then it can be changed in the same moment, and he can be deceived. On the other hand, he can take it with the consciousness that it also could be changed, and he is not deceived, even if it is changed. For he has the consent of the deeper self. If he wants to act immediately in the external, to do something, then everything can become nothing in the same moment. On the other hand, he can act with this consciousness, and even if it came to nothing, he is not deceived, because he has the consent of the deeper self.
Still, even if the first self and the deeper self are reconciled in this way, and even if the common mind is turned away from the external, then this is indeed only the condition for coming to know oneself. But if he actually is to know himself, there are new struggles and new dangers. Do not let the struggling person simply be terrified and deterred by the thought, as if needing were an imperfection, when the discourse is about needing God; as if needing were a shameful secret that one preferably would hide, when the discourse is, after all, about needing God; as if needing were a sad necessity that one would seek to compel to a more gentle side by enunciating it oneself, when the discourse is still about needing God. By a deeper self-knowledge, one learns precisely that one needs God. Yet, at first glance, the depressing thing in this would deter one from beginning, if one would not be aware of and be enthusiastic about the thought that this is just the perfection, since it is far more imperfect and only a misunderstanding that one should not need God.
Even if a person had accomplished the most glorious feats, if he nevertheless thought that it was all by his own power, if by overcoming his mind he became greater than one who captured a city, if he still thought that it was done by his own power, then his perfection was essentially only a misunderstanding. Yet, after all, such a perfection would not be very praiseworthy. On the contrary, the one who realized that he was not capable of the least thing without God, not even to be joyful over the most joyful event: he is closer to perfection. And the one who understood this and found absolutely no pain in it but only an overflow of bliss; the one who hid no secret wish that still would rather be joyful on one’s own; the one who felt no shame that people noticed that he himself was capable of nothing at all; the one who put no conditions on God, not even that his weakness should be kept hidden from others, but in whose heart joy constantly prevailed by, so to speak, jubilantly casting himself into God’s arms in inexpressible wonder over God, who is, after all, capable of all things—yes, he was the perfect one that the Apostle Paul describes better and more concisely: he “boasts of his infirmities” and has not even had so many and ambiguous experiences that he knows how to express himself with more detail. Of course, people say that not knowing oneself is a deception and an imperfection, but they often do not want to understand that the one who actually knows himself precisely comprehends that he is capable of nothing.
In the external, he was capable of nothing. But is he not capable of anything in the internal either? If an ability is actually to be such, then admittedly it must have opposition, because if it has no opposition, then it is either omnipotent or a fantasy. Yet, if he is supposed to have opposition, where shall this come from? After all, in the internal, the opposition can only come from himself. So, then, he struggles with himself internally, not as before, when the deeper self struggled with the first self in order to prevent it from worrying about the external. If a person does not discover this struggle, then he is in a misunderstanding, and his life is therefore imperfect. Yet, if he does discover it, then he will again understand that he himself is capable of nothing at all.
It seems curious that this is what a person is to learn from himself. Why, then, praise self-knowledge? And yet, this is how it is, and a person cannot learn from the whole world that he is capable of nothing at all. Even if the whole world united to crush and to annihilate the weakest, he could still constantly hold onto a quite faint conception that he himself would be capable of something under other circumstances, when the superior force was not as great. He can only discover by himself that he is capable of nothing at all. And whether he is victorious over the whole world or whether he stumbles over a straw, it is still the case that, by himself, he knows or can know that he himself is capable of nothing. If someone wants to explain it differently, then, of course, he has nothing to do with the others but only with himself, and every excuse is seen through. People think that it is so difficult to know oneself, especially when one is very gifted and has multiple aptitudes and abilities and now is to know about all these. Oh, the self-knowledge that we are talking about is not really detailed, and every time one rightly comprehends this brief and pithy truth—that one is capable of nothing at all—then one has recognized oneself.
But can one, then, not overcome oneself by oneself? That is certainly said at times, but I wonder if the one who says that has tested and understood himself in what is said. How can I be stronger than myself? I can be stronger than the weakest, and perhaps a person lives or has lived about whom one had to say that he was stronger than all others. But no one was ever stronger than himself. When, then, one talks about overcoming oneself on one’s own, one is actually thinking of the external; in this way, the struggle is not equal. Hence, when the one who is tempted by worldly honor overcomes himself in such a way that he no longer stretches his arm out after it; when the one who feared life’s dangers chases fear to such an extent that he does not flee the dangers; when the one who had lost free-spiritedness overcomes himself to the point that he remains still and does not fall back from the place of decision: then we do not want to degrade this; on the contrary, we praise him. But if he will take care not to save his soul in a new vanity and to drive out the devil with the devil’s help, then he will simply confess that he is not capable of overcoming himself in his innermost being. By no means, however, does he think this as if the evil one had gotten power over him once and for all. No, but he is only capable of so much and this—that he can resist himself, which, after all, is not to overcome himself—only by extreme exertion. In his innermost being, he fashions temptations of honor and temptations of fear and temptations of despondency and temptations of pride and of defiance and of pleasure greater than the ones that meet him in the external world, and precisely for that reason he struggles with himself. Otherwise, he struggles with an occasional degree of temptation, and the victory proves nothing with respect to what he would be capable of in a greater temptation. If he is victorious in the temptation that his surroundings put before him, then this does not prove that he would be victorious when the temptation appeared as terrible as he can imagine it. But only when it seems too great, only then does he actually come to know himself. Just now it appears so very great to him in his inner being, and therefore he knows in himself what he perhaps did not get to know in the world—that he is capable of nothing at all.
Surely, my listener, you do not believe that these are the gloomy thoughts of a “heavy-blooded” [tungblodet] person. Do you not ever thank God that you are not plagued by such depression [Tungsindighed]? If it were depression, is this the way one ought to love God and human beings? That one thanks God for preferential love, which, of course, is to deceive him and to give him to understand that, if something more onerous happened, then one could not believe in his love (for, with this confession, it is indeed something entirely different to thank God that one was not tried in the most severe strife)? That one shuns the depressed person, as you call him; that one does not wish to know that, after all, he is a human being as well, and you dare not say that he is a criminal—therefore, that he is an unhappy person, therefore a person who needed your very sympathy, which you show him by asking him to wander out among the graves like a leper, while you do not dare acknowledge him as a fellow human being? But if someone regarded talking about such a self-understanding as the dark thoughts of a heavy-blooded person, then surely it would have to be regarded as a folly inseparable from his depression—that he thought this perspective considered the human being according to his perfection and an even greater folly that he would rejoice in his perfection.
And, really, why should he not be glad? For, after all, a person is always made happy by the perfect, and his joy did not consist in a thoughtless agreement with God’s preferential love for one individual, and his joy did not flee from the sight of the sorrowful one. On the contrary, he would love every sorrowful person. And truly this is the way it is, and you, my listener, surely would not call him depressed. Far from it, since he alone is the happy person. For the one who is happy in and about God rejoices, and, again I say, he rejoices. For what reason, I wonder, does the Apostle Paul—who has given this beautiful injunction: “Rejoice, and, again I say, rejoice”—for what reason, I wonder, does he pause? For what reason, I wonder, does he stop before he bids the believer to be glad a second time? Because, in that space, he has given himself time, as it were, to hear everything terrible that may be said—the terrible thought that a human being is capable of nothing at all—in order to let the joy be totally victorious: “Again I say, rejoice.”
The view that to need God is the human being’s highest perfection certainly makes life more difficult, but it also considers life according to what is perfect. And, in this view, the human being comes to learn to know God by the piecemeal experience that is the right understanding with God.
Insofar as a human being does not know himself in such a way that he knows that he himself is capable of nothing, he actually does not notice in a deeper sense that God exists. Even if one mentions his name at times, calls on him occasionally, perhaps thinks to see him in major decisions, is moved, since it is indeed an impossibility to catch even a glimpse of God without being moved, one is nevertheless somewhat piously deceived, if one therefore believes that it is evident that God exists or that God’s existence should not have another distinctness in earthly life, whose meaning is, after all, constantly confused if God is not inferred. We say that it is a pious deception; we call it as beautiful a name as possible. We do not intend to rush in with heated speech against it, even though we wish for everyone that it would become evident to him that God exists with an otherwise decisive certitude.
The person who himself is capable of nothing at all cannot do the least thing without God’s help—therefore cannot do the least thing without noticing that there is a God. At times one talks about coming to know God from the history of past ages; one gets out the chronicles and reads and reads. Well, now, that may succeed. But how much time is lost, and how doubtful is often the benefit, how near the misunderstanding that is the sensual person’s wonder over what is ingenious!
On the other hand, the one who himself knows that he is capable of nothing at all, he has the desired and indisputable opportunity to experience every day and every moment that God lives. If he does not experience it often enough, then he knows well why that is—namely, that he is in a misunderstanding and believes that he himself is capable of something. When, then, he goes into the Lord’s house, he surely knows that God is not there, but he knows as well that he himself is capable of nothing at all, not even of inducing prayer. Therefore, if he is actually moved, God must be there after all.
Alas, there are many who remain otherwise unconcerned about God but who still do not neglect to come into the Lord’s house. What a peculiar contradiction: there gather the ones who say, “God is not here, for he does not dwell in a house built by human hands.” Then they go home, but God is not at home whatsoever. In contrast, the one who knows himself in the way mentioned knows well that God does not dwell in temples, though he also knows that God is with him at night, when sleep refreshes and when he wakes up in an anxious dream; in the day of need, when, to no avail, he is on the lookout for comfort; in the noise of thoughts, when he listens in vain for a salvific word; in mortal danger, when the world does not help; in anxiety, when he is afraid of himself; in the moment of despair, when he is working out his soul’s salvation in fear and trembling. He knows that God is with him in the moment when anxiety, with its lightning-quick swiftness, rushes at him when it already seems too late, and there is no time left to go up to the Lord’s house. Then God is with him, faster than the light that pierces the darkness, faster than the thought that drives away the fog, present—ah, yes, present as quickly as only one can be who, indeed, was already present. And if it were not this way, where would the express messenger actually be found, who would go to the worry quickly enough to fetch the Lord? Yet, before he came, more time again would pass! But this is not the case. Only the one who believes that he is capable of something thinks that way.
It is surely true that one can come to know God on the day of joy in exactly the same way, if one otherwise understands that one is capable of nothing at all. But to hold fast to this on the day of joy is just so difficult. When one is most happy, the thought is suddenly tempting: would it not be even more glorious if one were capable of everything oneself? Then the joy takes a false turn, so that it does not work itself up to God but away from him and then…then it is a sign that one needs more practice. Hence, when everything is reeling again, when thought is confused, when memory wants to terminate its service, when what has been experienced approaches one only disturbingly in the form of terror, when even the most honest thought becomes dishonest to oneself through the treachery of anxiety, then one understands again that one is capable of nothing at all. Yet, in and with this understanding, God is immediately present as well. He rules over the confusion and remembers everything that was entrusted to him, for the person being tried has surely done this. In the whirl of spiritual trial, whose outcome seems to be more terrible than death, he has confided in God with the greatest haste what lay especially on his mind—what would eternally annihilate him and transform his life’s content into a frightful disappointment, if he himself would forget it and if God in heaven would forget it as well. He has surely entrusted it to God, until, through God, he fought through the terrors again, resigned himself, and won calmness in trusting God.
If a person whose life was tried in some critical difficulty has a friend, and now, at a later juncture, he cannot manage to retain the past clearly; if anxiety gives rise to confusion; if accusing thoughts work against him with all their might, while he fights back; then he would probably go to his friend and say, “My soul is sick, so that nothing will become clear to me, but I entrusted everything to you; you remember it, so explain the past to me again.” Yet, if a person has no friend, then surely he goes to God, provided that he has entrusted something to him, provided that he called God to witness in the hour of decision, since no one else understood him. And, at times, the one who went to his friend was perhaps not understood, perhaps he was what is even more oppressive—disgusted with himself by discovering that the one to whom he had confided his distress had not understood him at all. Even though he had listened to him, he did not sense what was making him anxious but, with mere curiosity, concerned himself with his strange collision with life.
This would never happen with God. Who would dare to venture to think this about God, even if he, because he dares not think it about God, is cowardly enough to prefer to forget God—until he stands before the judge, who condemns him but not the one who truly has God as a witness. For where God is the judge, there is, after all, no judge when God is the witness.
Nevertheless, because a human being comes to know God in this way, it by no means follows that his life becomes easy. On the contrary, it can become very hard and, as stated, become more difficult than the despicable ease of sensual human life. Yet, in this difficulty, his life also acquires ever deeper and deeper meaning. Or should it perhaps have no significance for him that he constantly has God before his eyes? That, while he himself is capable of nothing, he is capable of ever more and more through God—that he is capable of overcoming himself? For, after all, he is capable of this by God’s help! Should it have no meaning for him that, ever more and more, he learns to die to the world? That, less and less, he learns to consider the external—what life gives and takes, what is granted to him to accomplish in the external—but to trouble himself over the internal all the more, over an understanding with God, over having to remain in it and, in that, over having to come to know God as one who lets everything serve the good for a person when he loves God? And should this not even have meaning for him by making life’s hardship lighter, since, indeed, it is always true that the one who has something to think about and, in turn, is prevented from being occupied with sorrow finds it lighter? Finally, should it not have meaning for him and be a blessed reward that, quite vividly and convincingly, he understood that God is love, that God’s goodness surpasses all understanding, and that he is not content with the testimony of others or with a view of the order of the world and of the course of history? For this is probably much greater, but the question is also how one understands it in such a way that one truly benefits from it.
We are not saying that to know God like this—or a kind of sinking into a dreaming admiration and a visionary contemplation of God—should be the only glorious thing. God does not let himself be taken in vain in this way. Just as knowing oneself in one’s own nothingness is the condition for knowing God, so is knowing God in this way the condition for a human being to be sanctified by God’s assistance and according to his determination. Where God is in truth, there he is always creating. He does not will that, in spiritual softness, a person shall bask in the contemplation of his glory, but, in becoming known by the human being, he wants to create in him a new human being.
Now, if it were the case—let us assume it—that a human being could be improved and developed just as much by himself without knowing God, then I will ask you, my listener, on this assumption: would knowing God not, in and of itself, have the highest meaning? And if a choice could be conceived—that a human being could go just as far by himself as by knowing God—what would you choose? Even in human terms, you would probably choose the latter. For if you could be developed just as much in solitariness, if that were possible, as by coming to know a human being to whom you were drawn by your whole soul, then the fact that you came to know him would, indeed, have the most beautiful meaning in and of itself.
The most beautiful meaning? Alas, no, you surely know that it is otherwise, at least when we talk about God. For to know God is the decisive thing, and, without this knowledge, a human being would become nothing at all, yes, perhaps would scarcely be able to comprehend the first mystery of truth—that he himself is nothing at all, and then, even less, that to need God is his highest perfection.