76. Искушения со стороны неверов. Опровержение их суемудрых рассуждений

God's mercy be with you! Here you go! No sooner had the first burden passed than another, the subtlest and most dangerous, was already prepared. Who was that ranting at you there?! After all, how much he lied and how much trashy rubbish he threw into your head. He aimed to shake faith and not only reject Christ the Lord, but also make her completely atheist. It was the enemy who sent you such a wise man. You have made a good decision to avoid in every possible way conversations with unbelievers and any meeting with them. Evil conversations corrupt the good moods of the soul. Go and fight afterwards and restore what was upset. But you won’t be safe. These evil creatures are lurking everywhere. Look - he is here. So go ahead and do this: when by chance you hear something contrary to faith, try in every possible way not to let what you hear reach your heart, but to direct it from one ear to the other. At the same time, turning your attention away from the speeches of the unbeliever, take care to occupy your heart with the conviction that our faith is immutably true in all its points and that if there are opponents to it, it is because of a lack of understanding of the matter. You can object to everything, even whether we exist. The conviction restored in the heart at the thought of the narrow-mindedness of the mind and the poor quality of the heart of the speaker will turn your soul into a stone, against which bad speeches will bounce off without leaving a trace. If, despite this, something unkind nevertheless sinks into your soul, turn to prayer immediately, as you did with St. Sergius: call on the Guardian Angel, the Mother of God, and especially on the Lord Savior Himself. And They will dispel the darkness cast by. Afterwards, either discuss your deep-seated bewilderment yourself, or look for a refutation of it in a book, or talk to someone, but be sure to make sure that not a trace remains in your soul. The trace left will continue to trouble the soul and feel like throwing stones at the feet of the walker. Write to me too. You did a good job of writing down everything you heard. Although you had no hesitation and everything that was stuck in your thoughts from those speeches has already moved away, I will nevertheless say a word or two against them. “Upbringing fills faith.” It doesn’t stuff it, but develops it and gives it a certain look. Anyone who is born again enters into a society that has faith. The faith of society becomes its faith, like everything else. But the capacity for faith and its need for the soul is not acquired by society. Everything is the same, as in relation to knowledge: society, through education, transfers to its new member the knowledge he has acquired, but does not give him the ability to know. This ability is an integral part of the soul. Likewise, faith in the existence of God and His omnipotence is an integral part of the spirit, which is revealed with strength in everyone as soon as his abilities develop. Society conveys only the image of its faith, and not the very believing power and need for it. Society instills faith through education. Where did she come into society from?! Whatever enters society comes out of the soul. It is a repository, like a pool, into which everything that comes out of the soul flows. Thus, there is faith in society because it is already present in the soul. She left her soul and settled in society. Faith is older than society and family, and therefore even upbringing itself. Education gives to the newborn what was previously brought into the family and society from the soul. So, if you please, firmly establish in your mind the conviction that education develops only what is in human nature, but does not introduce anything new into it. If it develops faith, it is because it is in human nature. No one could teach to know God and worship Him if this were not an urgent law in the spirit of man. And now we see that in the entire human race there is faith. The wildest ones have it, because without it a person is not a person. If some of the learned do not believe, this does not mean that they have stepped far forward or have waved high into the air, but it means that they have stepped out of human nature, distorted and mutilated themselves, as if someone had gouged out his own eyes or cut off his nose. If everyone has faith, it follows that the norm of human life inevitably contains faith. Consequently, whoever does not have faith deviates from this norm and is a moral monster - all non-believers are of this rank. “A person who has found himself in the circle of animals since childhood becomes the same as them.” This was written in French stories and novels at the end of the last century. Whether anything like this actually happened, I don’t know. Man is man everywhere. Even if he grows up among animals, he will certainly take everything that is his. But let it happen as they say; Take that person who grew up among animals and two of these animals and bring them into your circle. In a week you will see how far people will go from animals. Why? Because it contains the germs of a higher life. And he will have faith. It’s already there, but it’s dark and clogged up. From the very first instructions it will awaken and soon come into force. Animals will all remain animals. Unbelievers who set out from the norm of human nature usually turn to abnormalities to confirm their unbelief. This, in addition to the abnormal upbringing of man among animals that they invented, indicates that they are fools by nature. And what won’t they say at the same time?! There is no God, and there is no soul. Meanwhile, judging sensibly, nothing should be deduced from these cases, because these cases themselves have not yet been explained. Here's how to talk about them. They have a soul just like all people, but it does not have the opportunity to fully express itself: it is connected. Apply this to these actions of God’s Providence. It happens that someone is in danger from intertwined circumstances ahead if he is an actor in them. God sends an illness to him, and while he lies in bed, those circumstances pass without his participation. This is how he escapes from trouble. And if he were healthy, he would certainly get involved in business and get into trouble. Talk the same way about natural fools. Their souls are tied for the entire period of their earthly existence, because if they were to untie them, there would be no harm from them - neither to others, nor to themselves. In another life it will be revealed that this is so. Their souls will go there like the souls of dying babies. Whether such a belief is justified or not, we will see in the next world. But in the next world an objection will arise from this circumstance, if it can be arranged. And nothing can be deduced from this. I am not talking about the other absurdities you have heard. You yourself understood them well. “Be careful how you walk dangerously, not as if you were unwise, but as if you were wise” (Eph. 5:15). You might be interested in: