{ } = word or expression can't be understood
{word} = hard to understand, might be this

...perhaps the simplest way in which I can explain what I have to try to do here. It's -- when I say why I asked our friend to let me speak in different ways, in different -- before different audiences. The -- the Greeks and the ancients had many gods. And they were -- we call them "polytheists" for this reason, forgetting that, of course, when they prayed to their gods, they spoke to them in -- in unison. The Olympic gods are all together. When one is invoked, the other is not omitted. But modern man has dismissed polytheism as something you are -- not concerned. You are far too educated. You go to -- to an American college, where nobody believes anything.

So there is, however -- we have also a way of dismissing the problem of the unity of our life, which is after all the question of our God. We have different milieus. There are -- you speak to your wife in one way, and -- the minister speaks in church in another way, and at the military you speak another way again. And the New York Times has -- their ow- -- its own jargon. And we are all polytheistic, perhaps not. But we have many ears. So probably we are rather asinine.

It is quite a concern from mine -- that I feel the older I grow, that a person -- one person says one thing to one person, and one thing to a hundred persons, and one thing to a million people. And if you would follow this through, you would be surprised how many lies you'll say according to your own judgment. If you are -- speak as an American to the rest of the world, you say one thing. You want -- try to explain why you are in Vietnam; or when you are a hippie in -- in San Francisco, you have quite a -- different jargon -- of speaking about Vietnam. And you must, because you -- people must be told different things about it.

So I think we all have many tongues today. And if -- anything is to be achieved by our talk, I think we would have to try, at least, to simplify one and the other jargon. Perhaps it is possible to speak on Sundays in church, even in the same way in which you speak to your best friend, alone. If two people could speak of God in the same terms as the minister speaks to the whole congregation, there might be some faith and some relevance here. Otherwise I wouldn't believe either one. And that's the whole problem, today, that you cannot believe these jargons--and they are jargons, you see, we--and I can't -- can't get out. I'm -- in the same boat as you are. We all speak about important things to one person quite differently than we speak to all, let alone all the degrees in between.

Probably is the mystery of our faith. And the one thing I would suggest -- we could perhaps admit from the very beginning: our faith is mysterious.

Nobody can speak in such a way of -- of his real faith, that all people can agree, or that there is one language to all. And -- most harm in the 19th century I have -- has been { } of the stone in -- stoning of heretics, and the burning at stake of the heretics has all to do with the -- strange idea that you must speak about the most important things in one language to all people. And I think that's just nonsense, utter nonsense. It's the dogma of this country. But it's a wrong dogma.

And perhaps this may interest you: everybody in this country tells me that he's not dogmatic. I wish he was. It would be much better if you al- -- would allow me to believe in this dogma, that people are dogmatic. That is, they pretend that they have the power to speak the truth to all people in one language, which is utter nonsense. With children, you know it. Nobody can tell the -- the deepest truth to a child, but he -- in -- in -- the same language as he can speak to the adults. And yet he can speak to the child full truth. It's not true that you have to lie to a child, but you cannot -- say it in the same manner as you speak to these strange adults, who have long given up thinking at all.

This is for a man who has to speak--as myself, profes- -- professionally now, for a long life. I began teaching when I was 12, so I don't -- hope my sins can be forgiven me. This is very serious. We all are in a crisis of credibility. The credibility cap -- gap is -- not just with -- President Johnson, but with all of you. You lie just as bad -- as much as the president. Everybody does.

So I thought that if we could go through the experience of -- to -- how -- how to go through the same questions in a small circle, and in a larger circle, it's at least an attempt to break through this self-betrayal, this self-cheating that you think you are able to tell the truth of im- -- on important things in one and the same language to everybody. If you were, you were God Almighty. Only God in His judgments is able to reach, you see, the simple, and the genius, and the highbrow -- in the same language. We are not. Now that's the first point about God Almighty: that He cannot be spoken of in the same language to all people and -- at all times. I -- at least, that's my experience. And if He -- they try--and most people of course are so -- so caught in -- in this catechism: you don't -- you must not lie--they think it is lying if they speak of God in -- to different people in different language. I think when you -- pause to think 10 minutes on this, you will admit that it will be honesty to speak of God in -- differently -- from -- to different people. And it's -- it's not dishonesty which causes this, but diligence, I mean, an attempt to be very honest. So everybody has to be spoken to in a different manner. The boldness of the whole Church to -- to coin the first language of a -- in a unified way --. Who went to the concert two days ago? Who listened to the -- did you? Did you go? Well, you know what they -- sang.

(Bach's Passion.)

It's a miracle of -- of the { }, you see, that it -- by concentrating -- on events, on facts, on the passion of the Lord, you see, that it has reached this unanimity in -- in -- in -- in the -- in the Gospel. The Gospel is that which can reach all people in the same language. It's unique. It could not be enlarged. There came a moment where this history of the Church had to break up, so to speak. You couldn't retain this passion, this unity. And even there are four different Gospels, even. There -- I have written a whole book on this problem: why have there to be four Gospels? For the same humility, you see, which I invite you to -- to respect. We cannot speak -- the more important something is, we say, we have to speak, or we cannot say it in the same manner to all people. And there even have to be four Gospels. {That's} however miraculous, { } it was possible to condense it in four Gospels. If you take philosophy, if you take other teachings, other communications, there have to be many more ways of -- of { }.

I think it's the most urgent thing that we wake up from this monistic -- dream of the 19th century, that all people can say the -- important things in the same way. I don't -- I don't see it. I mean, the very fact that you are younger than I makes it necessary that I express the same thing differently from you. It's obvious. And I won't believe you if you just repeat what I have said. But pardon me, I will also not believe me if I try simply to beha- -- speak as a hippie. This is impossible. We have to acquiesce in the fact that there will always be people who are older than we, and therefore speak in a more obsolete language than you have the privilege to speak. And perhaps this may give you -- the point that -- to be -- speak later is not to -- to be -- speak -- have more truth. Unfortunately your idea that we know better tomorrow, I doubt it. If you think of important facts, it is very doubtful whether we know more important things later, better, than before.

I think a bride, when the -- she goes to the altar, usually knows better than she knows 30 years later. And fortunately so. Otherwise, no great things would be done. Take any hero in -- who goes to battle. When he says, "I do it," you see, he's better -- more insight, knows much more what he does, what he risks than 30 years later when he says, "What a fool I was to go there, and to conquer the enemy."

So the confusion -- the -- the h”her -- the higher we go in the realm of things to be spoken of, I think the more confusing is the fact that you cannot say it to all people -- or not even to yourself at all times in the same way. So there is a polyglot. That's why the Bible probably is in a polyglot to be { }. Many l„ng- -- languages have to be used to say one and the same thing.

-- I'm -- have to admit, this isn't customary to say. But my whole problem here this week is to make you sure that I do not lie. And if I would say the same

phrases in the small audience, and in a large audience, I would lie. That's so very strange, Sir. But you, as a minister, must know what I mean, that your sermon itself is predicated on this quandary, you see, that you have to preach to a large audience, a large church very differently from -- when you go to a widow to comfort her. You say other things. And you say them in a different language. And you -- both -- times you are right.

So the -- the truth is polyph- -- polyphonic. And it has been my way of rediscovering the old polytheists. We are so down on the Greeks, and on the Romans, and on the Germanic gods, and think they are -- knew nothing. Of course they were pious people; they were religious people. And they were quite naive in -- in allowing their style to { }. And so they couldn't reach other nations, certainly. They couldn't reach other ages. And they couldn't reach -- city people couldn't reach peasants, and peasants couldn't -- reach sailors, and sailors couldn't reach hunters. Does this mean that they didn't know the same things?

That's quite different. The -- the Spirit is universal. And wherever people have tried to speak the truth, they were in the truth. But never di- -- could they say twice the same thing.

You see, the -- the -- we limit ourselves therefore to the use of the word "truth" for all those dead things which are the same. Two and two is four, and you can say it to everybody, and it doesn't -- doesn't get better by this fact, you see. It's a valueless truth. It's worthless. And it's dead. All the things, you see: you can count stones, and the -- you can pay money, and you can count the soldiers -- or you can write -- run statistics. All these are -- you have computers now in this country; you are mad by computers, you see, and you count therefore the dead part of the universe, by the help of computers. And then you think you know something. But obviously you can only know the worst { }, because they are dead. And the proof of the -- of this deadness is that you can say -- in the same way to all people. And anything you can say in the same manner to all people is dead. Because if the person is present, and if you are present, and the spirit of God is present, there will be a new way of expressing this. Can't be helped. That's why children, why loving teachers will always, you see, unders- -- hear new words. The -- same truth will be expressed --. Children make us eloquent. And -- they -- excite us. We love them, and so we want to unite with them. And therefore the originality of a teacher comes from his interest in his students. That's all. He wants to say the same thing. But you can go through the centuries; and any father of the Church, or any minister, you see, will preach in a different century from love for his students, and for his listeners, you see, quite differently. And after 500 years, you will -- wake up, you see, and say, "Is this still Christianity?" or "Is it still the same religion?" It is, but it is a constant renewal, you see. And the later is not worse than the -- the older, and vice versa. It has to be different.

Life means -- it's very strange, you see. All our living -- situations are the same, differently. Anything is alive where every step--eating, sleeping, loving, writing, speaking--have to be expressed every moment anew, totally. We call these things alive in the universe, which have to be revamped, reformulated, restated every day--just as you have to breathe. You cannot live from the breath of yesterday. This is a difference between death and life. It's unknown today. The strange thing is that these schools here, this agricultural school--which raises, I suppose, pigs--has ruined us to a certain extent, because dead things can be -- if once they are stated, the earth is round, then you can repeat this: "The earth is round," you see, time and -- again. But anything important that has to be lived--that man has to be faithful, and that man has to be truthful, or man has to be good, or whatever you have -- or he is to be bad, or he is bad--that has to be rediscovered by the people -- person who says it, from the older generation, and by the person who comes to know it by the younger generation. Before, it isn't -- there.

The -- the living truth is of -- of a character as breathing. If you don't breathe now, you choke. It's a very strange secret. And it's never mentioned. Nobody tells you that living truth consists in the act of recovering it, of reinstating it, of doing it now again, because it is -- alive. Dead things, you can -- you see, you can allow to -- to be there, so to speak, and nothing happens.

I have never found in biology--is he -- have we a man in biology here, somebody who is specialist -- majoring in biology?--I hope you aren't all dead, because this is a difference between bio- -- geology, or mineralogy, or chemistry, and -- and biology. And it is -- is a -- significant of the last hundred years that this distinction is omitted. People think that they are in the natural sciences when you are either a chemist or a biology -- biologist. But it never stinks that much in biology as it does in chemistry. And -- because chemistry is still dead. But living knowledge must be re-conquered, in praesentia, in the presence of this part of the living of which we are talking. It has to live now. You can prove the life of a cell not by photographing it, and -- but you have to enter the process. It is now living. It's changing. That's life, which has to be reconquered over millions of years. The once-created life has to come to the fore again and be breathed in, breathed out, lived -- you see, the meta- -- -tabolism is endless.

And this is, I think the -- the new dev- -- you -- you will have to distribute the science of life and the science of the dead things in this manner. You -- you can -- you can say to a person, "You only will know of life if you enter this living process yourself." You have to breathe yourself in order to know what breathing is. You don't have to -- to do this -- about dead things. It is not necessary for us to -- to become iron in order to speak of iron, you see. But you have to have something of the -- some participation of the living process yourself, before it makes any

sense that you speak of life.

I have -- always feel that there runs the line of -- between life and death. And that's -- totally lost. We say with our scientific arrogance that you can speak in any -- of -- living and dead things in the same style. I don't believe this. Anybody who doesn't breathe cannot describe what life is. Anybody who doesn't love cannot describe what love is. It's -- perfectly fatal to try it. Don't -- don't try it. You get a divorce.

And this is, I think, the greatest harm done today by these college education -- this college education, that you have the idea that you can speak of all the things which you learn in the same style. I assure you, of -- living processes, you can only speak by participation. And of dead things, you can speak by -- reading books. It's very different.

Now this has to do with my topic here. And you can see why I was -- was tempted to -- to speak on the new fashions of atheism. The fashions of atheism in this century has been to speak of living processes as though they were dead. The Lord was always in the grave, Resurrection or no Resurrection. It was in a history book. So He was never risen -- it couldn't happen anyway, because nothing ever rose in this scientific pragmatism, or positivism, or however you call it, you see. You describe things, and things don't -- they don't -- compel you to breathe with them, to live with them, to -- to share with them the life. You could understand things without having shared them. And that's what many people today still think. That's called "monism," you see. You can also call it "mania."

The modern fashions in the last hundred years have all consisted in this one-and-the-same attempt to say that man is outside that which he learns, which he knows, which he judges, which he describes, which he discovers; and thereby saying that man could step outside his own life, and speak of life as though it wasn't his, it wasn't -- he -- involved. That's why the word "involvement" all of a sudden is now so very fashionable, because people resent now that they shouldn't be involved. And we say people shouldn't get involved before they say they can know anything. That's really the whole question today. And you will admit it isn't -- so important that you are involved in stones, and in -- in water--although washing is a very necessary process, that's true--and shaving. But the important thing of this modern fashion word "involvement" is that you have then to draw the line between the things you can -- and must be -- get involved, and the same you can put -- treat as dust, and as surface things, and as indifferent things, you see. All the things we don't have to get involved in, but still can know, would be on the side of death, and all the things you can only know as long as you stay involved, you see. Are the living things.

And I see -- even in -- on this campus, the fashion is to get involved, isn't it? Wie?

(Yes, I think so.)

Keep it that way, I mean. It's very important. The living things, you must -- in order to know them at all, we must get involved. Before, we don't know them.

So you will perhaps not be so surprised to -- understand my thesis that there are fashions of atheism. The word "atheism" was out of fashion. You just were "scientific," you see. That's atheism. But because it means that you are not ex- -- don't get -- get excited. "You are not" -- "you don't have to breathe to know what breath is." You have to breathe in order -- before you can know what breath is. And I assure you, you have to love before you can know what love is. It is no description in any dictionary, you see, about the organs with which love is performed. No sexuality will teach you anything, including Mr. Freud.

You -- because that's all bygone love. And so the remnants of love are not the beginnings of love, and are not the middle of love. And they certainly are quite unimportant. But it is hard to believe that people ever could think this was great truth. It's very funny. I have never understood -- pardon me. I'm so old that I'm a contemporary of Mr. Freud. But that anybody could take this seriously, I didn't understand. And I -- I'm too stupid for this. I wou- -- will admit that I must even know what Mr. Freud thinks of love, but I must also know what my -- my -- my cook thinks of love. That's equally important. And he doesn't -- Mr. -- Mr. Freud doesn't know anything more than anybody who -- who loves. This is the expert knowledge that we have. But it's a living knowledge. The other knowledge, that's erroneous.

If this is so, and -- perhaps you'll accept it at -- at face value as my -- my experience, and I have -- stand pat on this, that living processes can only be known or understood by those who practice, who are alive, who are involved, who are breathing with these processes, because we only know of their existence, thanks to our quality of breathing, act- -- acting, reacting, responding. There is no other way.

Ja?

(Can -- can I know about plant life? Can I have some understanding of plant life, even though I don't know what it is to photosynthesize, for instance? -- Can I -- is -- is it just a matter that I'm alive, and it's alive in a biological sense that allows me -- or makes it possible for me to understand these processes?)

What is your problem? I -- I don't see any difficulty.

(Do I actually have to undergo the same processes as what I'm seeking to understand?)

Well, "the same" is, of course, ambiguous, I mean. You are not the plant, so you cannot have shared. But still you can breathe, and the rain and the sunshine can hit you. And in as far as you smile at the sun, and the -- sun smiles at you, and smiled at the violet, you and the violet are sisters, as St. Francis very eloquently, in his hymn to the sun, has proclaimed. You see: "My -- my brother the sun, and my sister the moon," you see. Have you ever heard -- read St. Francis of Assisi? Well, do it. It's a great -- first great statement outside the church Mau- -- walls, so to speak, of this reality, that God created a living universe. And all the attempts of the Greek philosophers to prove that He created a dead universe has proved that the man is dead, you see, but hasn't proved that the violet is dead, or that God is dead.

(Well, how is this essentially different from the fact that the sun, and the rainfall on the rock, say, also --.)

Well, that we all suffer; the sun suffers, too: frustration.

Well, for all paths of this creation, there are hindrances. There are walls. This is -- I mean, they are not { } joking. You mustn't take this -- it's too serious.

(No, my -- my question is -- is: why is -- is a knowledge of a plant a living knowledge, whereas you seem to want to say that the knowledge of a rock is not?)

Well, I don't think you can breathe as the rock, perhaps. If you can, then -- then take it to her -- your bosom, I mean. I have no objection to -- that you should become a brother of the stone, of the rock, or the granite, I mean. But only to the extent that you can identify your life and this rock's existence, would you be -- successful, you see. And your knowledge of the equality of -- the granite and yourself is of a different nature, has a different -- putting on the scale the -- the density, or the corpus- -- corpuscles of the -- the atoms of the rock. The -- it's a -- quite a different -- relation. One is by identity, and the other is by observation. Is that the same? It isn't.

(You mentioned just before -- I think you were saying that { }.)

Pardon me?

(I think you were precise when you say that Freud was erroneous, when you spoke about love. And you said that your -- to give an example, a person that makes love, that in the actual situation of doing it, is the only one -- or knows it better than one that talks about it as an object. But I think that you also said that it was erroneous. I think that you also said that Freud, his position about love, was erroneous. So my question would be this: is your thesis about knowledge, a kind of { } thesis, where there is only actual knowledge, knowledge of participation, and is no more reflection about what we do? Because I assume that your spok- -- your speech here is a discursive approach to a subject that is not this speech in itself. Even the subject of your speech is the speech itself.)

Is the --?

(Your -- the subject of your speech is an object of your speech. You are talking about the subject of your speech.)

Sir, that' -- we will talk 24 more hours, if you want me to -- now to define "object."

(No, no, no. My question is -- is precise. My question is, you see, if you devaluate any discursive approach about human actions, that are not just reactions in themselves. For example, I can talk about love, if I have done love --.)

Pardon me, I have difficulty understanding you.

(I can speak about love. Yes? Suppose I have done yesterday night, and today I write a thesis about love. And this thesis is not love, but it is a thesis. An academic, scholarly approach.)

A destructive thing, yes.

(Not destructive. Even destructive. I can say --.)

It is destructive. I assure you. It ends the story.

(Well, I assume, because any knowledge is destructive, in the sense that it breaks a kind of unity. But it exists; we cannot distract its existence. It is there.)

Well, I have no objections. You destroy your love? Poor man. I mean, that's not { }.

(-- I was confronted with the problem of the sophists, now, that in order to communicate me this problem, that you are communicating, you must destroy it. Because you are using a discursive level now to me. And I -- I was -- identifying with what you say. But I said I felt this same speech must be also a kind of destruction of this speech.)

Ja. But Sir, this is true. Just as you have to burn wood in order to heat your -- the -- the furnace...

(Well, I think this is -- was Freud's position.)

...there is -- there is a -- a part of our doing that is -- that is -- you can call it "analysis," you can call it "destruction," you can call it "deliverance," but -- "emancipation." But half of our life consists in taking masks off, unveil- -- unveiling something, and thereby the story ends. That's the end of it. And "end" means death. This -- it's finished. You can -- it can rise again from the ashes.

But you see, the -- one of these features of the 19th century, from which

we all stem now -- or the last -- hundred years. I mean, I'm so old-fas- -- so old that -- for me the 19th century is already bygone, and you -- so my chronology is a little different, I suppose. The -- this breathing in and this breathing out, this destructive process, and this syntheticizing process, they are both there. Life and death, we are in the midst of them. And you cannot do anything except promoting life, or promoting analysis, and thereby promoting ends. This -- it can't be helped. More, I have not said. But I want you to know that when you analyze, and what you do when you analyze, and when you only know from the outside by saying, "This is this," you see. And when you feel, "I'm responsible for this, I must make sure that it is there." I mean, you have this problem now with the whole nature of the United States, with the oceans and so; are you responsible that there is still real, fresh water? You are, you see. It isn't -- doesn't help you to say, "This is A" --how do you say this in English? H2O. What does this? H2- -- H2O. Wie?

(Yes.)

You see. As soon as you only say "H20" you are -- become irresponsible. You are not responsible for the existence of water. You only know it. That's not good enough. Anybody who knows what water is, is responsible that there is water, that it is not good enough to say, "This is -- are H20." but he has to go out and kill all the people who -- who make the -- the water stinky.

(I -- I would explain you why I an- -- asked you this question.)

Please.

(I -- I should explain you?)

Ja.

(I felt that you were talking to positivists. Like I was a -- I don't feel myself a positivist. Or a scientificist. I knew speech was right. But suddenly I felt there was a devaluation in the discursive process, in the reflective analyses of things. Buber, for example, he assumed that well, there is another objective approach. There is a "I-it" relationship where things go on. These are not the only things, and these are never true. And I accept this. But if someone says to me that -- not Freud, because I'm not a Freudian, but any approach about love is erroneous, I feel surprised.

(So now you clarify it better, I know now better that --.)

It's not erroneous, but in the phase of -- of ending, and not of creating.

(It is partial, you would say, yes? I mean -- I understood that what you meant now is that it is partial. It is not the true thing.)

(You -- you said you would read Freud, but you would also talk to your cook about love. In other words, the problem is -- is not seeing these -- these discursive approaches which tend to kill things, but the problem is when we begin to recognize them as being the answer, so that we think we know about something, when all we actually know is this -- this outside.)

I think we are -- we understand each other. If you feel that we should go on like this -- I don't want to -- to escape into -- into my own thesis. This is not the main point. My point is the application to our relation to the religious truth, you see. Since it is impossible in one situation to certain people, you see, to tell the whole truth, the -- our speech -- of the gods must become different from what it is now. Nobody can only in church be- -- believe in God. It is better that he does not go to church, if he doesn't speak to other people, or to non- -- nontheologically minded people, to non- -- sealed-in--denominationally--people of God, he will not speak sufficiently well of it.

This is quite serious. I don't have to tell you how practical this -- this whole question of the necessity of speaking on all--how do you say? auf allen Stufen--on all steps, or all degrees -- in all degrees, you see, of the divine. I will not believe a man who's only a minister, Sir. Pardon me for saying this.

(Thank you.)

That's not good -- not enough.

(I stand with you.)

Good. I know. And -- and therefore, I felt, coming here, and -- intending to speak of -- religious truths, I had -- should try to find a mi- -- different audiences, you see. I feel it is more true if I can -- we can speak together, and I can speak in a larger audience to -- for a wider public. This isn't -- not -- no safeguard, really, I mean. I can still say two lies, just as well as I can speak one lie. But it is a little more difficult. And the -- the -- you can at least check the fact that a different audience is needed I think is very mysterious, and very hopeful. If mankind is -- is one--and this is a very serious and practical question today for us, you see--is it one? With all our telephoning, and air- -- aircraft, and -- and television. It's terribly burning: what -- how much do we have to say, that you can understand a Hindu, and a Hindu can understand you? It seems very doubtful, you see. We certainly don't seem to understand in this country each other very well. And how about the others? And this pretense, the great tones on

Sunday morning, that all people are one, doesn't convince me at all. And -- the white people in the South find out to their dismay, that it hasn't helped them that they pray in the Sunday morning to a -- the God who has created all men. If the other days of the week they do not act accordingly, it obviously is not true. And every one of us is, of course, in the same boat.

So this is the reason why I think the -- if we would learn to have different audiences, of different constitution, you see, the truth would progress. We would be more careful. We could not repeat the liturgy, and the prayers, and the formulas from the classroom, or from the church, or from the newspaper editorial in our party, you see, in -- in the same uncontrolled and unchecked way. We today lie by dividing the things we speak of to different audiences. We don't speak of the same things to different audiences, but we have for every kind of truth our audience. In the academic world, we speak of the unimportant things, you see. In the church, we speak of the important things. In -- in politics, we speak of the -- profitable things--for our -- for own promotion, I mean. And they -- we never get together. Man is more divided today than he ever was, because he carries the debate on these various things, you see, only always to certain circles, and never meets the people who are quite different, you see, in -- in the -- in -- into the same -- bring -- doesn't bring them in the same room together. I mean, all these -- if you would really be honest, all our gatherings would have to be penetrated by -- by a mixture -- admixture of somebody who has never heard any such expression meaningfully said to him, you see.

Very strange how we have managed to live in watertight compartments, ever -- always under the headline, "All men." Always with the wonderful way, "All men who go to Lutheran churches," you see, "meet here," you see. And "All men who are," you see, "interested in anatomy meet there." And so we all are totally split. I have never seen a more divided man- -- humanity than today. Just because we are so close together geographically, and by telephone, and radio. We are more divided than mankind has ever been, because formerly it was obvious that a man and his cook had the same religion. Today obviously this is not true, because you have to have your -- your -- your food cooked by people who have a different color, and therefore are not allowed to -- to live with you.

So I think that mankind is in process of dissolving, because of the closeness. And it's very strange. This is -- obviously goes together, the -- the danger and the -- and the dissent.

What I today would like to add -- I had to tell you this as a preliminary, because -- to explain the method today, which everybo- -- honest man has to follow today is: he must correct his own style, his own way of saying things, you see, by beca- -- being aware that he must say things differently to different

people, when he wants to say the same thing.

I must say to you things differently from what I would say to a theological group, strictly, you see. And -- and that's very strange. I think mankind has never been faced with this quite, so far, as I -- know it, at least. You could -- try to say all these things in one language. You wouldn't perhaps touch on the -- on so many points. But what you said would mean all people in the same -- with the same directness, the pope and the rabbi. But now it is quite different. What they call "dialogue" is certainly the opposite from what I have admired, you see. Because it had to be rediscovered that the -- for 3,000 years, there has been no dialogue between Jews and Christians.

And to me, I mean -- I offer you this as a helpful formula which -- with which you can equip s- -- your inner living room, I think; and this is that the more important a -- a truth is, through -- the more -- many--how would you say in English?--through -- through so much more versions has it to go -- be -- has it to go. The truth demands transcription, "translation," we say. It's not an accident that the Bible had to be translated in 1,042 languages, so far, which is quite something already. It's very serious. It is only an example of our own situation, that here we are, 20 people--how many? 25?--and -- you know how many we are.

(Between 15 and 20, I think.)

Ja. All right, these vital statistics. And -- if we then know that's the same thing that has to be -- can be told to 20 people has to be told to a thousand people in a different manner, and to 2 million again in a different manner, we have learned something of the divinity of which we all so glibl- -- glibly speak. People are so naive that they speak now as though it was over a loudspeaker, over a computer of God. They treat it as an ant, as an insect, as something -- you either know of or you don't know. You can say, "There is no God," or "There is a God," but you speak with the same proliferation of your language, as though it was all the same. I assure you, it isn't the case. You have to discover what to say about God Almighty each evening and each morning in a new tone, knowing to whom you try to speak, and whom yoursel- -- inside yourself you try to reach. And then He will come to life, and you, too. And otherwise, not.

And this is a very serious business, because this speech of -- on God, of God, to God is dying. And -- any nation, and any group in the nation, in -- in a -- in the people of -- on this earth, who loses this power, is dead, is doomed. You can see it now with -- Vietnam. Americans -- it's coming to life, because this language of what, in the face of God, should be said about Vietnam, is waking up. It's a great -- a great experience, I must -- have been going through.

I -- the most -- precious document in this respect is -- an ad was in the -- ad in the paper the other day where 50 soldiers--privates, corporals, sergeants--at their own expense, you see, described what they had experienced in Vietnam. So their -- and what they could vocalize, so to speak, you see, this discrepancy between -- that this was a civil war between natives, you see, and it was not at all a war for the -- against Communism or something like that. They -- they woke up to this linguistic -- it seems only a linguistic problem, but that God is in the Word. In the beginning was the Word. And if you can say it, you transform the world. The -- the war in Vietnam was to these soldiers not a war. It was a police action, or whatever you call it--I don't care at this moment, to finding the final expression. But they had woken up from their naive, uniform, you see, patriotism, that it was an event in the political history of the United States, which it isn't.

And I was very proud of these people. And there was no officer involved, and no college graduate, obviously. And that's very hopeful, if the people can think rightly, I -- despite the colleges. Because in the colleges you are told that you can know without participation. And there's our problem again, you see. You cannot.

Now -- therefore I have always had an axe to grind with the theologians, you see, because -- atheism is the attempt to treat God as a thing, in His absence. And you cannot speak of God in His absence, because the first thing which we still say of God Almighty is that He is present. If He isn't present, we don't have to talk of Him, because then He doesn't exist, and this is of no importance. And it is still a business of the educated people, when they get together, that they omit -- they don't speak of God. It's unspeakable. They drink cocktails, instead. And the whole social cult, which we have--even among theologians, Sir--is that we speak about Him, as though He wasn't present, and He wasn't listening in. And if you can speak of God as though He wasn't listening in, you don't believe in Him. And that's -- has been my problem all my life, that I have not -- still to find the theologians who know that when they speak of God, they speak in His presence.

And I have been -- I have suffered from this. And I -- what I say is -- is all based on this mere experience that most people I meet take it for granted that you can speak of God in His absence. And I've always been handicapped by the

fact that as -- I would -- think I was a fool if I tried to. This is a contradiction in terms. Yet I know so many -- people yet--you know them too, your very venerable colleagues--who are able to speak of God in His absence. And you would not -- believe that -- that they don't understand them, what they are doing. But God is killed by theologians every day.

Now the word "atheism" I have therefore chosen in order to -- to force the issue. Nietzsche was the -- the last, so to speak, announced and proclaimed atheist--Friedrich Nietzsche in Germany. And -- for the poor man, a weak man--his father had been a minister and it was obviously too much for him. And -- and he said, "How can there be a God in -- in the Gospel? It is -- we are told that God perspires when He went to the Cross. There's a proof that the -- He can't have been God."

Of course, the greatest proof was the He was, is in this very human act that He really became a mortal for our sake, you see, and did tremble, and did sweat. Funny, I mean. When I read this, I was a boy perhaps of -- almost younger than you, 17. This proved -- that Nietzsche was wrong. He hadn't understood the greatest proof of the incarnation story, you see, that to be fully man, you must fear death. Death is fearful. And it's natural, of course, that if He was fully man, that He should have trembled and perspired. And a -- very funny that a clever man, an able man, being so well educated that he could -- have known Latin and Greek, you see, like German, that he should have said such nonsense. But you can get away with -- nonsense on this college -- here -- campus, too, I mean. The whole academic world lives on such bons mots. That's the highest they can say it -- to these problems.

This is the reason why I think it is -- it is necessary to re-establish the word "atheism" to its honor. The world will only become believing if we treat atheism as -- just as much as we treat a cold. People fall sick. And they will be atheists. They will not have the power to stand, to face, to discuss, to admit the divine. It's -- it makes you tremble. It makes you sweat. And death is one way in which we tremble. Any soldier -- he may be as brave as he li- -- as you like, you see; when the danger of death arises, feels of course his mortality, and knows that there is something greater that wants to last. In all of us, this -- there is a knowledge that by -- with our death, not everything can be extinguished in us. Something that remains. We would like to know what. So we call it the "soul," or we call it "our immortality," or whatever you are, or "resurrection." But without this hope, nobody could go to battle, and nobody -- no -- no woman could give birth to a baby. The -- both men and women can only live by risking their coming to grief. And this death of danger is always talked away now. You have all these wonderful techniques so that nothing happens. But if nothing happens, you don't live.

The -- neither the women--we have all these wonderful organizations now to prevent people, you see, from -- from living.

The word "atheism" I think is expressing in a very sober and, you may say, even uninteresting manner--to deny that the divine is always challenging us to be alive, to take the -- to pay the expenses of life. If you only go to the -- take the Pill, it's rather uninteresting, I must say. The whole thing becomes interesting only if something can happen, and has consequences. Why it should interest anybody to take the Pill so that nothing happens, I don't understand. The -- they may be -- frontiers, of course, of life. I know also that man is not always of the same -- of the same power, and of the same presence, but it -- it is obvious that the great process of re-creation, and procreation is not settled by the Pill. You can try to eliminate 350 ba- -- million babies in -- born in India every year, by distributing 350 million Pills. But then you have only excluded the Indians from participation in the great process of creation, that's all. And from the point of view of theology, I would say God has been deprived of His creation.

I don't understand the way you treat these -- these things, here in this country. We -- and -- the people who allegedly have this done in their own interest, they should protest. You girls should -- should say, "Don't talk in this silly manner about the most difficult, dangerous, and -- and problematic thing. Leave this to me."

Well -- but this is what -- not what I -- I only use this as an example, you must understand, that I do hope that as soon as any minister, any bishop, any cardinal, any theologian--any historian, by the way, too--knows that the same thing he treats here in -- in one context turns up in other contexts--with other people, you see, too--the world will become a better place, will more -- become more livable, because we will learn to express these things in more than one language. So the polyglot of the Bible that had to translated in 1,022 languages, you see, is still true. Only it is now the -- whole book that has to be written -- has to be translated, you see, but every great truth in this book has to be translated into these -- all -- into these various idioms. But you can speak about the problem of pregnancy, and the problem of -- of -- of living together, I think, to any human being if you must. I mean, on all stages, the secret is a great -- is great, and it's very sublime, and very difficult, and very painful. But the pain and the bliss are always together. There is no such life -- thing where you can have the bliss without the pain. I would like to know. Perhaps when I have my third dentures, then I can hope that this is so.

If you look at the word "atheism," it's a very strange word and brings up the other--perhaps one more--aspect which I would like to -- to speak today about. How much time I -- have I spent. Too much?

(I don't have a watch, I don't know.)

(About an hour you have spoken, Sir.)

Well, isn't that enough?

(Not as far as we're concerned. but perhaps { }.)

Well, I just don't know. Freya, what shall I do?

(Oh, just go on a little.)

All right. Well, I only -- the economy of this is, I thought today only draw your attention to the fact that you cannot speak on living processes, you see, without saying that all the people who share this process must be reached. And the same thing must be said in a different manner to all the people. And there is no formula with which you can {lift} and wrap up all these people. There is no question -- no different language for educated and uneducated, for academicians and non-academicians. And anything important in life -- and anything living, in which we can only breathe in life by allowing it to share our lives, or allowing us to enter upon their lives, when we have this spiritual democracy, you see, that -- for every member of this great body of human souls, there is a different way of saying it. And these languages must all reach everybody.

All human beings, by the way, practice this. Don't be afraid that I'll say something that hasn't been done by any laborer, by any coachman, by any teacher, even, and -- sometimes even by the pope. It is -- what we call "religion" is something infinitely practical. It says, "Every one of us has to be tied to it." Religion, {religare}, you see, you must never consi- -- always consider from the point of view of the abstract religion. But what happens in religion is that this living soul too, is rel- -- is bound back to this -- to this stem of life, you see. You, too. This is the -- an attempt to have you -- make you have religion, that you are bound to it, that you are related to it. And this is only when it is said to you in the language which is adequate to your kind of -- experience, maturity, or -- or -- education, or whatever you call it, I mean. The preliminaries of course are in you, to find the style in which this has to be conveyed to you.

And I think that's the -- the reason why today the -- the -- what they call the -- the -- this strange utterance, the death of God -- theology.

You see, I received two days ago a -- a letter in which a man said to me that now we had had the death-of-God theology -- and this we were through now. Now we had the hope-in-God philosophy, you see. It goes so very fast, it's

very hard to keep up with the Joneses. And what he didn't understand is that this is a -- very positive thing, you see, that if I know that most people do not believe in God outside their formal existence in -- in groups, in clubs, in churches, in denominations, in -- in gatherings of this formalized kind, He'll never -- we'll never get at Him. So the death-of-God philosophy obviously is only the confession of my own weakness, or sin, or stupidity, or agnosticism, that I cannot say more -- myself, you see. And I have to hope that this will fall like scales from my eyes, one day. This -- this Saturday -- Great Saturday Evening ignorance, you see, is of course an omni-Christian experience and goes through the centuries, you see. On -- on the -- the lights were extinguished on the altar of the old churches on Great Saturday. Man ignored God at that moment, you see. It was a very -- they went very -- were very profound. If you study the liturgy of the Easter Week, all our problems of today are already solved there. They have been only forgotten, that's all. Everybody knows that we can -- not every one of us can know God all the time. It's obvious. How can we? But the Church as a whole can provide the means of being -- for -- for you and me to be led into it again, on our own -- at our own time, and in our own way, and our own manner.

But you pardon me for saying this, Sir, but theologians are today completely immune against the wisdom of the teachings of the Church for the last 2,000 years. The Church has always known that man cannot know God all the time. It's impossible.

And the problem of the Church is that there is always still a new way to be discovered, how to say it; and in this moment, where the next path is opened, you see, the older paths come to life again. Does it make sense? Do you understand what I mean? Because you discover the next path, which, before it was discovered, blocked the understanding, you see. As soon as you get the next chief in, all the former chiefs, you see, can -- can breathe again, can know again, can hear again, can participate.

By the way, that's an old -- an old dogma, you see, that the -- the one next convert, you see, is needed so that any life in the Church -- can be perpetuated. If the -- only the old membership remain, it is -- dead.

So the so-called progress, you see, in this country, you see, has been made -- a pagan idol. I mean, America will only recover from its prostitution if you give up the word "progress." The Christian progress means that the old values will be re-conquered only if the next step is taken. That's progress. And that's already a -- a certainty. A contemporary disciple of St. Augustine's wrote a book, you see, on progress, and was a wonderful man. Vincenz of Lerinum. If you lived in -- wrote this -- treaty in 432 of our era, and he knew that the Americans would be invented one day, you see, and would think they could have progress without

regress. That's impossible. You do -- can only go forward as long as you keep still direction. And since nobody in this country at this moment seems to know what -- in what the progress can -- could exist, you see, you go permanently backward.

Americans have completely lost the relationship between progress and this -- the history that has gone on before. You have just to look at the -- at the South, and the -- your behavior of the -- of the South in -- in the Negro question to know that there has been, for a hundred years, no progress. You see -- still you say it's a progressive country. It has only been regressing. How do you explain this? It is only when you think that progress is guaranteed that you can -- say such fabulous things -- say such fabulous nonsense.

And -- the whole -- whole Christian tradition is of course is that progress is conditioned on this continuation, you see. And that's why in Christianity, the word "progress" never was used in the plural. You could not say, "The progresses," you see, the --. It had to be the singular. With only one -- the next step, that's progress. Fifty steps, no progress.

And the -- this country is half-mad, half-wise, you see. And of course you never know what's -- what is -- will win out. Most people think anything discovered in the realm of any field is progress. But it isn't. And you move in circles. As soon as you keep to the old, Augustinian truth that progress is the necessary next step, you see, you can't go wrong, because you keep the -- all your things you have conquered before.

[tape interruption; end]