[291F-LER: p. 236-237]
[P. 236] “If we now turn to miracles, we shall find that they objectify, embody, realize nothing other than the essence of a wish. (…) [P. 237] Wishes are not subject to the barriers of space and time; they are unrestricted, unfettered, as free as a god.” [291F-LER: p. 236-237]
[292F-LER: p. 241]
“ … just as a prince proves he is a true ruler only by his ability to make and unmake laws, so a God can only prove His divinity by His power to abolish laws, or at least to suspend them temporarily when the situation demands. The only proof that He has made the laws is that He also unmakes them. And such proof is provided by miracles.” [292F-LER: p. 241]
[293F-LER: p. 241-242]
[P. 241] “A will that is not manifested as a will, but as [P. 242] an unalterable law is no will at all, it is only a clerical phrase and circumlocution for natural necessity … . A will that always does the same thing is not a will. If we deny that nature has free will it is only for one reason, because it always does the same thing. [293F-LER: p. 241-242]
[294F-LER: p. 246-247]
[P. 246] “ … in order to be sure that a fact cannot have resulted from natural process, we [P. 247] should have to know all about nature and its laws. And since no man has or can have such knowledge, we can never be absolutely certain that a given fact cannot have followed from the natural order of things … .” [294F-LER: p. 246-247]
[295F-LER: p. 248]
“But a Christian – a genuine old Christian, it goes without saying, not a modern one – sacrifices only the desire for wealth, the desire to have children, the desire for health or long life, but not the desire for immortality, divine perfection, and beatitude. He subordinates all these desires, which to his way of thinking are temporal, earthly, and carnal, to the one fundamental and principle desire for eternal bliss … .” [295F-LER: p. 248]
[296F-LER: p. 249]
“The only difference between the wishes without which there is no religion or God and the wishes without which there is no mankind, without which man is not man, is that religion has wishes that can be fulfilled only in the imagination, in faith, whereas man as man, the man who replaces religion with culture, reason, science and replaces heaven by earth, has desires that do not exceed the limits of nature and reason and whose realization lies within the realm of natural possibility.” [296F-LER: p. 249]
