Editors' note: To the best of our knowledge, this discussion follows the "Economy of Times" lecture 1. The original tape, however, was not part of the four-tape series labeled "Economy of Times." This tape alone was loaned to Mark Huessy by Phil Chamberlain to be copied. It was labeled "Discussion," with no indication of when and where it had occurred. Phil Chamberlain's tape has since been lost. These transcriptions were made from Mark Huessy's copy. The content of the lecture shows that it was given in Santa Barbara, during the Vietnam War, and that it immediately follows a lecture on Jonathan Edwards and the "economy of salvation."

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It will be best if somebody had something to ask or to -- remark on the -- last meeting. And I would be very grateful if --.

({ }. You now, as -- as I came first to this talk, the way in which it was, I was thinking that you were going to talk about Calvinistic point of view on economics. You know, the way of thrift, and so forth, and how we were supposed to -- you know, the basis of the --.)

The -- Max Weber's thesis.

(Yes, yes. Exactly.)

Why should I say { }? No, no, no. It's a bigger thing, Sir. Much bigger. It's really all mankind involved. As you now see very clearly from any headlines in the papers, that we have to face reality of the whole globe. So it isn't done with any merely sentential doctrine of Mr. Calvin. Calvin had the economy in a very profound sense, by the way, the word. Mr. Max Weber doesn't mention this. Calvin speaks of "the economy inside God." There is in his -- the relationship of the Trinity, you see, there is an economy; that is, certain purposes were -- are achieved through the Son, and others through the Spirit, and others through the Father. And he -- calls this, Calvin does, in his theology, this: "the economy within God." That's a very profound remark. But he's richer than the modern interpreters make him. Calvin was really a very great man. And they don't believe this, you see. They think they are the great men. I don't believe it.

And he had this great wisdom--the greatest thing that Calvin -- used to say in his writings, and which is never mentioned, is that he would not, by a mere curiosity of his antagonists, be led beyond the -- the wall, so to speak,

which is open to men. He will not speculate. He would try to -- to know what can be known, but his opponents in the 16th century were the same as -- to do -- these same people who today say that intellectual curiosity is a virtue. Now I don't believe that, you see. And -- although it's on a campus of this caliber here, it's always repeated. But mere curiosity -- go to the movies if you are curious. But curiosity leads you nowhere. And without love, without sympathy, without being rooted in the world of which we try to get -- cognizance, we cannot know anything. By curiosity, knowledge is corrupt, corrupted, and perverse -- perverted, I mean, all the fashions today of the perverts, you see, is simply -- in every generation of course there is curiosity over-boarding. A child can be curious, you see, but you also must admit that a child, when you talk to her -- when it is curious about love doesn't know what love is. And -- you can be curious as long as you have not reached maturity, and ripeness, you see. Let a child be curious, but when the father explains--or the mother usually does in this country--when the mother explains something to the child, she must accept the fact that the child cannot understand it.

You will find for example, that this famous sexual -- enlightenment, when you give it to a 9-year-old child, is perfectly worthless. I mean, they don't understand -- you can say what you like, there, you see. It doesn't make any difference. That something has to be said to them, I agree, you see. But what has to be said to them is perfectly indifferent, because they forget it right away. And that's my experience with all this enlightenment for children, you see, or curious people.

Fairy tales of course also satisfy the curiosity of the poor about the rich, about the king and the princes, you see. Just if you look in the fairy tale, you know that the poor man, the king, had to be much soberer in governing the country, you see. Not as in the -- in the fairy tale.

So the economy of -- of -- of reality, you see, is -- is really limited to serious business. And as I -- can only repeat my conviction, my experience in life; I have been very curious, but this can go with great reverence. I mean, you can be curious about things where you can be curious. I mean, I would like to know how an airplane functions. This we call "curiosity," you see. But to be curious about God, that's impossible. And in -- curious -- to be curious about your parents is impossible. If you are curious about your parents, you have lost your parents.

So this is a great handicap today, when we discuss things, because these two levels--I call them "play" and "seriousness," you see. Intellectual -- curiosity belongs to this playlike attitude which we all have to apply for -- because life is too serious, so to speak. We need this relaxation, and -- and television. You can be curious, I mean. It doesn't matter. But this is not serious. And you never rely

on any information gotten by curiosity, you see. You -- you can't, you see -- this is very different. Vietnam you can't cope with from the Encyclopaedia Britannica. This doesn't help you. So many -- square miles, so many people, there, there. Nothing said about its significance as -- as of this moment.

So this is the one thing. I'm quite glad that you brought this out, because our whole academic world is under this blight of curiosity. It's not enough. It may be a beginning. But the teacher who gets his -- a student to ask him a question, from curiosity, has immediately to inject a note of danger, you see, high voltage. Or the child will not -- will not learn the difference between seriousness and play. And you -- I don't have to tell you in California, I mean, that the -- the greatest temptation of modern man is curiosity, the -- the lack of balance between what is serious and what is play. And some people, you see, it seems to me that these kidnapers both, in the last week, you see, didn't know what they were doing, because they didn't know the distinction between play and seriousness. And there's capital punishment on -- on a kidnaping case. I'm sure these people who were now arrested, you see, didn't know. Other- -- otherwise their -- their surrender is quite unbelievable. They had never thought it out.

Now this has to do with the economy in this sense, that the economy of salvation, and the salvation of economics must have to do something with our power to distinguish serious things and leisure things, or -- things of leisure time that are not serious.

If you take this town of Santa Barbara or Goleta, and you ask, "On what does it live?" you see, you will have to find out what is serious, and what is luxury. You see, what can you -- how you can go without for a year. And you have to strip the community first of these superfluous things, or these supernumerary things, these playlike things. And -- you -- our whole poverty program today, the youth corps, you see, and also the camps, the Peace Corps abroad, is -- is exposed, or is, so to speak, in -- in this predicament to make the participants feel that it is serious and not play. A Peace Corps girl that goes out to Cambodia, you see, because it's so -- so -- cheerful, and interesting, you see, and -- will spoil the whole thing. She must be serious. And how -- poor Mr. Sargent Shriver gets all his people to be serious, I do not know. It must be very difficult. And with -- the same is now true with the poverty program, you see. It is very difficult to get a 16-, or 18-year -- 20-year-old boy in this program to understand that this means business. And -- because they have never known the difference between business and ser- -- and play. And I think -- many of our -- of our areas of blight come from this fact, that the slums are occupied by people who -- who were not taught this distinction between --. For example, dropping out of school, you see, can be play, and can be serious. With most of the children, it is just -- they -- don't know what -- how serious it is to drop out. If you can inject this note of seriousness, we

would be better off.

I have -- I have given much thought to this -- just this problem of the Peace Corps { } in -- at home and abroad. And I think the -- the temptation has been to sell it to the -- to the members of this -- as game, as play, as -- as sport, you see. And I always object to this, because I think this cannot be cured afterwards. Once you have injected this note of play, I don't -- I have no -- not found that you can make the transition. Once the child, the member, the {Peace} Corps soldier, so to speak, is -- is allowed to think that's good, that's play, that's, you see, interesting, it's charming, it's good fun, as they say, you see, then the honor is gone. I mean, to go to Vietnam is not fun, as -- for a soldier. And it shouldn't be fun for a Peace Corps man to go to Cambodia. Or the whole Peace Corps better close up -- shop, you see.

So you have -- you have brought up here a problem which is perhaps the most serious of urbanization. In an urban -- urbanized society, the line between seriousness and fun, you see, is obliterated. On a farm, everybody knows how serious it is to milk the cows. This is the one serious thing. And you have to collect the eggs. That's serious, and cannot be -- even if the -- the farmer is sick, and his wife is sick, the boy of 8 has to go out and collect the eggs. That's serious, and it cannot be omitted. And it is not true that we advance -- that this is -- you must know this, the -- even -- the man has been a principal of a school, God's -- merciful to his soul. But the temptation is to -- to say -- to make it all play, and -- so that the children shall not know that this is -- they are in -- in a -- this is in earnest. I don't believe in this. What is important is to -- to make it appear, the distinction between seriousness and game. I'm a all for playing, you see, but then it has to be play. And you cannot play unless there is also another region of your soul in which you are very serious indeed, or in which you know that your parents are serious. That's usually the -- way in which it begins.

And of course this is the whole question of the economy, Sir. I mean, the -- .

I had a very interesting letter from a friend in Holland. I may bring this in, because it has immediately to do with the modern economy of salvation. And the fact that in -- a worker can be saved, and an employee cannot be saved easily in a modern -- in a modern office, -- which is why it is more difficult for an office worker to treat his economics rightly than -- compared to a worker, who is in a -- working in a -- on a steel furnace.

This friend of mine works on a computer. And he wrote to me that it was still quite unexplored, the fact that all the workers in a -- in his furnace, steel furnace--biggest -- on- -- only steel furnace, as a matter of fact, in Holland, and

it's a big works, and 20,000 people working there. And the he says, "My fellow workers in front of the furnace, they are serious. They risk their health. When they come home, they must play. We, here at the computer, we play. When I come home, I must be serious. You must create something which is serious for my leisure time, because this is not serious. No risk, you see, of life and limb involved, and it is all a game." That's why it is so terrible, this computer business, you see.

So I hope I go through life without having destroyed anyone. I -- it always itches me to do --. Because it causes people to live a jocose life. That's not serious for a human being to work on a computer. And he means it, by the way. His last letter is: he's leaving.

Now since I have used these very highfalutin wor- -- terms, "the sal-" -- "salvation of economics," and the "economics of salvation," I must tell you that I'm very concerned with the impotence of modern man to discriminate between seriousness and play. And you see it in our treatment of the military, of the war problem, I mean. These students in Berkeley who march: I respect their opinion. But they have never thought that this might be very serious, their marching. That is not a good joke. Most of them say it's -- it's great fun. It's not a good reason to demonstrate because it's good fun, and because you are good fellows, I mean. Of course, any 2,000 people who march together have a -- wonderful time, you see. But that's a very small time compared to the great moment during which they march. And this -- there again, you have the feeling--I at least have it--that 1999 of these demonstrators have never learned to distinguish between seriousness and -- and fun.

And of course, it is very difficult to talk at all about this, because in this country the sports are very serious. Even Mr. Paterson is taken seriously. And I can't. I'm spoiled for this, you see. Football and -- and baseball, I cannot take it seriously. And therefore, it is -- I understand that I am retarded in my development. But -- any country will perish where -- where, as in Rome, you see -- where the games are more important than death, and -- and -- and truth. And the prognostication is very poor for any country in which the games carry the day.

Anything I -- I should -- ranting, pardon me. May I have one other question?

(Yes. May I ask -- in Europe, do you know if so much emphasis is placed upon that word "leisure," as we do here? Because, for instance, New Horizons, just to pick anything, where you have leisure time, for -- for people over, say, 45 or 50, and just in your general life, everything that we see is -- pointed toward us as -- for leisure. Your leisure is made the whole thing. Now in Europe, is that --

are -- is that taking place, too?)

Yes, America is contagious.

(Yes, I was going to say.)

You are right, I mean, the -- but there is already a feeling --.

(But we are bombarded with this. I mean, we're just -- so that -- well, how many -- when did it start? Around the -- before the First World War, that this change took place in which the parents became children and that sort of thing? Because there was a difference.)

Yes. In the next meet -- at the next meeting, I'll try to say more about this. You are absolutely right. It is, I think, the very bad conscience of the -- of the industry, and that by simply shortening the working hour, they buy off this drudgery, or this meaningless existence. I think that is no solution.

I have an experience -- a little experience on this. I talked -- I had to give a broadcast, and I went to the station. And --.

(Excuse me.)

Welcome. And they -- I tried to explain exactly your problem, you see, that the worker was not helped with free days off: Saturday and Sunday. In Germany, for example, the -- we work twice. They have a second job. You -- I don't know how much -- how far this is done here, too. Because they can't stand it, the leisure, you see. And so I propose that every six years, there should be a sabbatical year for the worker in which he could learn something: a new trade, or -- perfect himself in his old trade.

And the funny result of this was that the technician who handles the machinery of my broadcast, came up to me right after it, and "That's wonderful. I don't know what to do with my Saturdays and Sundays. If we only could compound them all, you see, into one year, how wonderful this would be."

So this man, you see, was himself a victim of this -- system, and felt that there should be a way out. You should really compress this time again to a -- to a unity. So I think this is simply --. Most stupidities are done, as you know, from bad conscience. I mean, conscience money and so on. You know what it does; it's just wasted. And the unions, you see, being organized on the lowest common denominator--because they want to have everybody in it--had no way out. They could not start with the elite and say, "You want to -- to have a sabbatical." And

untrained worker wouldn't be -- wouldn't be stimulated or attracted by such a program.

So I think we have now, after some security has been given to all, we may be able now to be more specific, you see, and -- and give people what they really want. This is today the problem, I mean, you see. Just -- Communism and capitalism are no longer issues, you see. They are -- it's over with. The Russians are fed up with Com- -- Communism, and we are fed up with -- I don't know.

[tape interruption]

But I mean, it's not of any -- these problems are no longer antagonistic, you see. I have found my whole life I have stood between the fronts. I have always been rejected by the -- the old order and by the new order -- so-called new order. Because I know that these people do not say what they really feel and think. It's -- it's all -- in the air, to attract masses. You have to be very stupid to attract all the members of the Birch Society. And you feel very stupid to attract all the members of the union. So both cannot speak the truth. It's impossible.

This minority group which shall always start any new invention, any new order of { }, you see, can by our -- through our modern mass media, you can't reach them. It's impossible to talk at the same time, to reason to 20 million people. It seems to me impossible. And we are not treated as reasonable people on the -- over the television. I have for this first time in my life now in my motel, you see, a television set. I am sick. I have tried it twice. And I can't sleep afterwards, because of the advertising that goes in between, you see. Only idiots can do this, I mean. I'm not an idiot. And --.

Let me -- may I go on, now? I -- is this satisfactory? So please, there is one point where you can really help yourself and others, by insisting that the leisure problem is not for all the classes of our people the same. That for a worker who sweats, who may fall sick from -- from cold and -- and -- and heat, the relation of work and leisure is still genuine. For an employee, the opposite is not genuine. Because what he is aching for is something serious, where he can put his teeth in, you see, when he comes home, because it isn't serious to do these -- these formal things.

I always wonder what a -- what a man at -- behind the desk at the Post Office -- does when he goes home, after having sold stamps all day long.

(He watches television.)

Wie?

(He watches television. He watches television.)

Does he watch -- he has television.

(Yeah, but I say, he watches it, for the most part, unfortunately.)

Do you think --?

(Oh yes, I mean, our -- we're just inundated. When you talk with just -- just pick out anyone, but not on a campus. But it's -- you're getting just a small sample of that, and you see it's just moving in on them. So with more leisure time, he would look at more television. Unless there is going to be some type of program. And how does that start to lead people, because they are being led?)

I have a good topic for the next time. First I would like to hear -- yes, something on your mind. Ja?

(You talked about curiosity, and you said there is -- a greater amount of it now than perhaps there was. I think you're asking sort of a young person's trait than an older person's trait. Eve was curious, and she ate the apple. And had she been -- 20 years older than she was, she probably wouldn't have tried the apple. But why do you say that you can't be curious about God? What is this relationship of man to God -- you know? It's a very complicated thing, of course. But why can't you be curious about God? Why can't you ask questions?)

Well, certainly, one fool can ask more questions than a hundred wise men can answer. That's an old story. But as soon as somebody asks you curious questions about God, the only -- the only {danger} is not to answer. { } ask a question, Sir. { } Gyges learned that in a -- curious way, it is a question -- isn't worth to be answered. If the child finds that a great injustice has been done in the world, and the child says, "How is it possible that the merciful God allows this to happen?" you have to answer. But that's from a real fright, from a real shock this child has received. He -- she suddenly sees that God is not so simply, you see, explained as a good uncle. That's serious. But even the child must have been offended by something in the order of the world, you see, which it cannot understand. Then it is no longer a question of curiosity, but a painful search, you see, for better understanding. At this very moment, you can enter -- on a conversation. Don't you see the difference?

I -- I have seen cases myself--probably, can't help -- everybody -- will have, where the only answer is, "You are too young for this, or this is -- don't be stupid." And I -- I -- I'm sorry that this isn't often enough said. There are questions that must not be answered. And the -- the -- the injustice lies in the fact that

people try to answer what should not be answered.

(Doctor, how then would you explain our relationship with { }? Would that based on -- more on love rather than on -- a { } theology of humankind?)

Well, probably, you have -- you come around to the point I tried to make last time, with -- that theology is a -- an attempt, really a desperate attempt in this sense; it has some significance -- to put the image of God before us, as though He could chart His course as a -- like a map of Africa, you can have a system of the divine. Unfortunately, at this very moment, where you try to get God in focus, He no longer is there.

In the -- Old Testament, and in old Egypt, the people had a very profound insight into the divine. They said, "God is here, in back of us. He leads us; He pushes us forward." The idea that God is made in your image, so that you can see Him like a human being or a tree is ridiculous, and is blasphemous. The one thing that God is: not to be seen. When Moses in the desert, you see, stands there, "God is only to be seen from in back." And the Bible says, "Nobody can see Him." All the attempts to see God, you see, had led all the nations of antiquity so much astray that Jesus had come to life, because -- in His human figure, we are allowed to see the divine. It is a way out. That's why the Lord came down on earth. And all the things of the incarnation, you see, are literally true. The meaning being that man cannot see the mil- -- thousands of years. He cannot see the creative process of God Almighty, who is -- the Lord of the eons, the Lord of centuries. How can you see a century? How can you see a thousand years? You see, from -- before God, a thousand years are as one day.

So the Lord came down, and in the three days from Good Friday and Easter Sunday, He bec- -- made visible in the sufferings of the human heart what we call the divinity. The creative power of weakness, of {death}, He came like a -- became like a child. He became a germ, so to speak. He became the seed of the Church. He be- -- gave birth to the Church. All these words are literally true. And -- the only way in which God has become visible is in a human being.

All the theologians, therefore, you see--pardon me for saying this very frankly--are, I think, overstepping the limitations of human thinking. They are not allowed to do this. That's why I speak of theonomics. While I -- say "theonomics," I know that God is present.

And as in the -- there's a wonderful monument in Chicago, of the god of the Egyptians, who also were pious people; you mustn't think they were godless, or unreligious. And the great falcon--the imperial bird, you see--has his wings on the shoulders of the pharaoh. Many of you must have seen a copy of this. It's

very famous. The -- the -- Mr. Breasted brought this to Chicago; it's the -- the gem of the collection there. Horus, you see, has his wings around the shoulders and the neck of the pharaoh. And therefore he's inspired.

This is literally true. Never think that God can be seen. He cannot be seen. We say always that He -- only most people -- I mean, forfeit their privilege, so to speak, of being God's children. The child is led in front. The Old Testament -- there are several -- several places in the Old Testament where this is clearly expressed. I don't -- I think God says to Abraham, "Go -- I will go behind you." It must be in the second -- in the -- no, in Genesis, it must be. You can find it in the Concordance under the -- "behind."

This is quite important, you see. Early man has had the insight that what the -- we speak of the divine because it cannot be seen. This is the reason why we have been -- know there is something in the world, you see, which doesn't fall under the category of chairs, and walls, and stones, and trees, because it cannot be seen. Otherwise we wouldn't have to speak of -- of the divine at all.

Anything more? Be- -- of course, I would make use of this -- to tell you something which I couldn't say in too much -- in the first lecture, but which I would like to round out now. Are there any more questions?

You may not -- you may have been surprised by the -- by my stress laid on this great New England divine, Jonathan Edwards. And yet he is the only man, I think, who has contributed something lastingly to organize our thinking through the times, and to be quite emphatic about the distinction between the times before Christ and the days after Christ. And the economy of salvation, of which Jonathan Edwards speaks, is based on the very simple assumption. That much I said last time -- . Go and come down. I won't -- I won't disappoint you. It's better not to write on, but to go on here.

He says the incredible story of our knowledge of God is -- consists in this simple fact: that there are first 6,000 years; then there is one human life, the life of Christ; one generation, not even one full generation, very short, half a generation; and then, from then on, history, as we know it -- the first thousand years, you see, and the second thousand years, and now we hope even to reach a third millennium.

That is to say, the whole -- well, theonomic approach to life tries to make you see the importance of time spans. Everything--what we call "modern," what we call "scientific," what we call "worldly," what we call "secular"--has to do with space, with things in space. And -- you will all -- or you all know that the -- the law of relativity of Mr. Einstein, now the satellites which we use, all these things

are based on man's secular power to -- subdivide space and to enlarge space. The distances which now we can fly are infinitely larger than anything covered before. Thirty thousand miles, you see; 50,000 miles they mention; 100,000 miles. It is the achievement of the -- last thousand years that we have enlarged and made smaller the units of space, of things. And that we call "scientific." Wherever science is at work, it decomposes unities, you see, and syntheticsizes units. And this is all things in space. From bigger and bigger, from smaller and smaller. The electronics business, you see, is smaller and smaller. Bacteria: smaller and smaller. And on the other hand, the -- galaxy is not -- no longer the limit, you see. The -- they want to conquer Mars and Venus.

The -- the religious story of mankind is the opposite one -- or not the opposite; it's correlated, perhaps, to it. Because it had to achieve for mortal man who is like a -- like an ephemeral gnat, like a -- like a fly, goes and comes, achieve -- put him safely into one, huge eternity; an endless time. For you it is no longer frightening to say that God is eternal. You sing it even, with emphasis. This had to be done, my -- gentlemen. Nobody in the days of Moses or Abraham or Adam knew anything of eternity.

The greatness of Jonathan Edwards consists in this fact, that he said, "This enlarging of time, this being sure that I am not just as of this moment, that through my relatives, through my works I can make a name for myself, or at least I can leave behind good works which will bear fruit long after I have lived."

Everybody who has children, everybody who teaches, everybody who does anything in this world which he thinks is worthwhile is in a -- some way confident that it will bear fruit, that it will have effect, far beyond his own existence. And we -- the -- the less we can know about this effectiveness, the more efficacious it usually is. The people who are so vain that they have to build their monument in their own lifetime, you see, are not -- cannot expect that they are of any effect. But the people who do not want to know what's is going to happen to their good deeds, they are able to concentrate on the good deed, and on the goodness of the deed so much that they really reach posterity.

Which is all new, gentlemen. And it is -- formerly, if you had no carnal children, of your own flesh and blood, you disappeared. Because the chi- -- a man who died without his own kin, you see, was hopelessly sunk. Think of the days where there was no printing; think of the days where there was no writing; think of the days where people just -- nomads went to the land. Do you think they were different from us? They had the same desire, but they had no certainty that there was one eternity into which their deeds would be received, and their words would be engraved into the hearts of men forever and forever.

Now naively as we may be today with regard to the great religious truth--every one of us is, I think, incompetent to embrace them completely--but this certainty we have: that we have some yardstick for time. This is the significance of the life of Christ in the four Gospels. The infinitely small, just one human life, there has become the yardstick for whole eternity. What you do with millimeters, today, and foot, and mile in measuring space, you see, Christ has done for the computation of eternity, for what can -- what significance one single life can acquire for the whole history of mankind, which is the whole content of the doctrine, you see, about the Son.

This is a -- only, you see, there is a fabulous talent, you see, in all the professionals to hide the truth. It is very simple. It is just as discovering the yardstick for -- of millimeters and foot, in measurement in space which Jesus has performed. He made sure that the divine can appear in one life. Before, it had only appeared in dynasties, you see, of thousands of years: in the building of the pyramids, in human sacrifices. If 10,000 people were sacrificed, they thought it was more divine than if you only sacrificed 5,000, you see. And a thousand sac- -- as you know, sac- -- was the sacr- -- hundred -- hundred oxen. Who -- who slaughtered a hundred oxen? The hecatomb, because he had discovered the -- after all, the Pythagorean problem. Don't you know? You should know.

Well, all the sacrifices of antiquity, you see, were meant to affect the future. They were wrong means for a proper end, you see. Until our Lord came into this world, the people were desperate: how to measure time, how to impress the future, how to force upon the future, the -- the grandchildren, that we had lived, that we had left something behind us? There is this tremendous peace that is hoher -- higher than all reason today, since the Cross, that the humiliation, you see, the criminal, punishment can lead to -- to -- fruit, if you accept it upon yourself.

The -- this is the only theologian -- theol- -- Jonathan Edwards, who has seen that the life of Christ, or the Gospel truth, is adding to the nightmare of man, that he is lost in -- in endless time, and means: nothing in it, in this stream of time, you see, has added this clarity: it's not true. You mean something. To mean exactly the amount of sacrifice you sacrifice into your love, you see, will come back on you, and more.

I don't know if I make myself clear. It is as simple as the relation of time and space. If -- if you have a yardstick, you can read the inches, you see. If you have the life of Christ, and eternity, or the history of mankind, you have the yardstick, the inch, so to speak, the meter by which you can measure the fruitfulness of human life. That was lacking before. There was no such thing, you see. All the nations tried to prove that -- that -- that the -- that the -- you see, that, for

example, the Davidic -- kingdom, you see, came down now, centuries. In 930, we assume David has lived. I think that's is the -- by and large the {figure}, or -- no, it's a little earlier, 950. And that still will -- the Davidic {see}, you see, held together the prophecy given to the Jews, you see. Christ comes. And although they prove that He comes from the Davidic -- family, it doesn't matter. I mean, this is not the reason why He is important, you see. He limits Him -- His effectiveness to this one short life. Three years perhaps He had this open service in the country, you see. And yet, ever since, every human action is measured by this yardstick.

As soon as a man doesn't measure his own actions and his enemy's actions by this yardstick, he has ceased to be a Christian. And therefore of course, there are very -- people who are Christians who go to the church.

I just received yesterday a letter by which he -- a man told us that they had a monument in Germany made by a sculptor, which read from the "Our Father": "...and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive our trespasses," and then the dates of the two world wars. And the town had ordered the monument -- turned it down. That was too much for them. You see, you can pray this on Sunday at 11, but you cannot possibly have this as a monument, that you really pray, you see, for forgiveness. And the town did not establish this monument, although you must admit, it's highly orthodox. And you would have turned against it, too, in your vote in the town assembly. Because how can -- why should your town confess, you see, that you have sinned? You can personally confess. It's much easier than to say that this good city of Santa Barbara has sinned. Nobody wants to say that.

So it's very acute, this -- but still the rumbling of these presence make itself felt. The sculptor tried it on them, you see. They have of course the right to defeat him. But they will go down in history either as the town that turned this down, you see, or they will not be mentioned. So take your choice. You can be there as the evil-doer, you see, in history. And yet you enter history by this one -- by this one resolution.

It is very strange. Any real relation to the Lord makes history. His- -- Hitler is only interesting because of his anti-religious warfare, you see. The rest: mankind has always been so dirty, I mean. Whether you are in the Congo or in Germany, Germany was on the level of the Congo in the year of Hitler. But with regard of his religious hatred, you see, he is made -- so to speak, immortal. From this point on, we have to know about it, so that others will not fall into his -- into his trap. It's quite interesting there -- for my friends, the secular historians, it's very hard going, you see, that they should admit that even under our noses, religious history has -- has been happening. But Hitler is totally uninteresting { }, except for this reason, that he defied God. And he did.

So what I have tried to say is--and I think my time is up--the only man who, probably in this wilderness of New England, being all alone, having no newspapers, having no libraries, even, you see--had to reduce the truth to the minimum, is this man, Jonathan Edwards, by saying that the great thing of Revelation---what we call Revelation--is the condensation of God's efficaciousness in one life, that all the stories told about God are -- of a larger nature of -- an expanse through time, "of centuries" we speak of, we speak of the Middle Ages, of the Renaissance, we say "antiquity," you see, we see -- say "Jewish history." We have now "American history" as far as it goes, you see. And yet we may miss a kernel, because it isn't the length of the American history that makes it important, you see. The Declaration of Inde- -- Independence and Lincoln's Gettysburg Address is imp- -- important, regardless of the length of the time through -- in which America has a story of its -- a history of its own.

Both, you only have to read them--take their cue from the Gospel. They have learned it. That's the language of mankind which they had lear- -- learned to speak there, and of which they had an adapt- -- an application, {so to speak}. With Lincoln, it became obvious. You just have to study his vocabulary; it's a strictly biblical vocabulary. And I always think the Second Inaugural is still better than the Gettysburg Address for this very reason, because it is -- that is sublime, that appeals to what we know of man, you see, specifically. It doesn't begin "Three -- three scores and ten," but -- but -- how does it begin with? Does anybody know? The Second Inaugural? To me, that is the greatest piece in American prose I know. For this reason, that he quite naively puts himself in line with the -- with this language of the New Testament and -- and, so to speak, goes on from there, continues it, when he says, you see: we do not yet know if we -- are not to be -- if we have to give back every ounce which we have gained from the sweat of the slaves.

And as you know, the -- the bill is only presented at this moment. A hundred years the -- the country has not made peace between South and North. We are still at war. Don't be betrayed. Don't be -- the same is true in Europe. The -- we speak of Cold War; you try to forget this war, because you try to be against Russia. But Russia and America defeated Germany and Ja- -- Japan. And I assure you that this is the unrest. There hasn't been made any peace. It has nothing to do with Communism. Because that's -- as I said, that's as do- -- as dead as a dodo.

Again, as soon as you leave the paths of the Bible and of the Christian tradition, you lose all power to go beyond your day, your 24 hours of the Barbara Times or the Los Angeles Times. You see it. Most people have today a daily program of life, and so therefore they don't live at all, because you cannot live 24 hours. And if you try to -- to put together one 24 hours after another, after another--you can add hundreds--you lose your life. Your life begins only if today and

the day after tomorrow, you see, have a connection.

And -- and that doesn't matter. I mean, if a man from Japan and -- came to this country, he must have memories from old, and he must combine them with his life here, and he's a human being in as -- so far as he is able to do that. In -- in so far as he lives, you see, this tin-can life of mass media, he is -- himself not alive. He is dragged on, you see, as a tin can.

And the -- everyone -- there comes my, you see, fury against seriousness and -- and --. All play, you see, is of the moment. Now { } all seriousness is in the dark. You cannot talk to any young man of his real future -- dreams of his own future, or you will destroy them. Let him play, but don't forget that while he is playing, something is growing in him, you see. And one day he will throw off the shackles of his -- the eggshells of his play, of his baseball, of his football, or his rowing, or his sailing, you see. And he'll be somebody in his own right. And that takes time. And play gives us the time to outgrow the day. And this is the function of play. We must play so that the people cannot know what they are really -- what to do. This is our secret that is preserved in this manner. The more you play, you see, the less people know who you really are. At least it could be. I hope it will be in your case.

My whole point today--pardon me for delaying you as long--is this practical one. What I tried to say about the economy of salvation is an economy of times. The economy of salvation means that the centuries, the ages are interconnected, and that we bear fruit in centuries to come and are the fruit of centuries that have gone by. And the more we are aware of this simple fact that you are the heir of 5,000 years, Lady, excuse me, the more you live. And the less you admit this, the more you want to wear the fashions of the day, the more oldfashioned you are. Because it is the old-fashioned who thinks he can live his own life outside this time-measurement. And every one of you, by the way, if -- you have christened your child, or sent your child to school, or advise anybody about -- in his own -- in an illness, tries to treat him as a -- a member of the eter- -- eternity. You can't give a good -- advice without this notion, you see, that you must distinguish between appearances and the real thing. And you must sometimes give an advice: do this, although it doesn't seem -- look good, you see. It has just to say, "You have to do it just the same." Not everything that is eter- -- of eternal value looks good as of the moment. And I think every one of us has to make this speech every day, that you cannot always please the marketplace. And it isn't how it looks on State Street that is important, you see -- oh, we are in Goleta, so what's your main street here?

(Hollister.)

Wie? Hollister, ja. I think Hollister is misleading. I read these -- signs, and very difficult to come to this university, where you -- you always are pushed into Hollister Avenue. And that's the same relation between seriousness and play.

Any more questions for this? Please. If you would begin to keep this in mind, that we need for the time exactly the same yardstick as you all use for space, we would wake up to the fact that time, our no- -- our living in time is itself the greatest human creation. It doesn't exist by itself.