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Aphoristic Writings, Notebook, and Letters to a Friend, by Otto ...

Aphoristic Writings, Notebook, and Letters to a Friend, by Otto ...

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Himself must not suffer at all under the ill <strong>and</strong> the evil of the world, nor could,<br />

because it is only in that place from which He has actively withdrawn, but is with that<br />

indeed also completely there.<br />

Through grace, the temporal necessarily enters in<strong>to</strong> relation with the timeless, the<br />

eternal, the free.<br />

The expression of the state of this relation is, most generally, belief. Yet time is<br />

not explained as meaningless through this relation, but rather retains a meaning: And<br />

it certainly cannot retain a meaning through anything other than <strong>by</strong> relation <strong>to</strong> the<br />

timeless.<br />

The mental expression of this general meaning of time is: courage! It is the direct<br />

effect of grace with respect <strong>to</strong> time (non-setting of all other compulsions), as belief is<br />

the direct effect of grace without respect <strong>to</strong> it.<br />

As in the present, so are space <strong>and</strong> time also separated in eternity. Eternity is the<br />

meaning of the present.<br />

The present is <strong>to</strong> eternity as the origin of things (before the Fall) <strong>to</strong> the end, <strong>to</strong> the<br />

destination (redemption from the Fall).<br />

This is why the child only has the present.<br />

Coherence of age <strong>and</strong> eternity.<br />

The old man has only eternity.<br />

The essence of the gambler.<br />

The old man who is childlike: He has not grasped the meaning of life.<br />

Only man can stride.<br />

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