tecnh
A
Fragment
1864
Does
man, in his reasoning, separate the soul from the body? I answer, “He
does not in practice - yet he does in theory.” He makes a
distinction, but he makes a distinction without a difference. He
calls the mind the earthly house (or tenement) - for he says when his
house shall be dissolved, he has a house, not made with hands.
Now
his house is his ideas (or belief), and his senses are in the house;
so he reasons the same as a man reasons about a material house. Now
if your house is on fire, and you admit you are in it - then you lose
your life with the house. So your mind, being the house (or body) -
if you admit your soul is in your body, and disease is destroying the
house, you must reason that all must be destroyed; soul and body -
because you admit that you are in your belief (or house).
Now
this is the reasoning of the wisdom of this world. But the wisdom of
God reasons in this way. God is the highest wisdom that belongs to
man; and just as man knows himself, he knows God - and man knows no
God, except that wisdom that governs and directs his acts. We have
been taught to believe that God is a being independent of man. Now
this is as absurd as for a child to believe that he came into
existence without a father or mother. All will see the absurdity of
that belief. So to admit that man and God are separate from each
other is as absurd as to believe that the child is no part of its
parent; yet the child has his identity of matter - and the parent,
his.
teloV