The experience of God runs through all of human history as the overpowering of man by God’s overwhelming superiority. The first experience of God by human awe and reverence is His tremendous might, before which all men’s powers are nothing. God is unattainably high and glorious. Thus the prophets know that no other power can endure beside Him.
- Eberhard Arnold
- Eberhard Arnold, January 1920 From an EssayJustice and love demand that everyone take part in simple practical work with a spade, hatchet, or rake. Everyone should be ready to devote a few hours every day to this practical work; those who have done purely mental work till now will feel its humanizing effect especially. In this way it will be possible for each person’s unique gifts to be kindled. The light that flickers within each heart will then exhibit its once-hidden glow in scholarly research or in music, in expressive words, or in the craftsman’s art in wood, stone, or paint…such work will reveal the joy in life that is in each person. Only death knows idleness and tedium. Where there is life, the mind’s creative will remains alert and comes to expression in the service of the whole.
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As in the whole of nature, God breaks into the history of men in mighty power whenever terrifying horrors shake humanity. Empires and world powers are the instruments of the force of wrath whenever God’s greatness strikes the nations to earth. All nations of the world must be brought to the point where they fall at the feet of the God of all worlds.
- Eberhard Arnold
Faith is confronted by God’s greatness as something so inviolable that man’s petty power cannot possibly touch God. No human power that strives to unite with God can lead to this goal. In a life which is active in public, faith expresses itself in helpful actions of love; this is brought about by God. In this new action of man, it is God who loves and acts.
- Eberhard Arnold