If we criticize it, we should not say it is a simple contradiction between God’s causality and human freedom – that’s too easy – because the levels are different, and there is no possible contradiction on different levels. If you want a contradiction, you can have it only on the same level. If you therefore have two levels, namely the Divine action which is mysterious because it doesn’t fit our categories; and the human action in which freedom and destiny are mixed – then you have the real picture. Don’t think of the Reformers, or of all great theologians, in a one-leveled thinking. Then you come to all these impossible statements which not only contradict each other – and, with a heroic attempt of your mind to destroy itself you say that this is a contra diction which we must accept; but think in terms of two levels, whereby enough mystery is still left, but not a simple logical contradiction, which simply means you use words without meaning. And this should not be done even if you emphasize the paradox: don’t make it into a speaking of words without meaning. You can think in terms of two levels; for example, you can say, “I cannot escape the category of causality when I speak of God’s action, and when I do so I derive everything from God, including my eternal destiny.” This sounds like a mechanical determinism. But this is not what they mean. The two levels, of which the one uses the term “causality” properly, and then posits against it finite freedom – the human level; then the Divine level, where causality is used symbolically, and where everything which brings us to God is derived from God. These two statements must be made. And if you divide them up into two levels, they are not logical contradictions, i.e., meaningless sentences. But never demand of anybody to destroy his own logos, I. e., the Image of God, and to make meaningless statements.
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