Grant me, O Lord, a sunny mind, thy windy will to bear! When humans reflect on their freedom, they experience it as a gift; many dimly knows that one does not stand alone. That gift, in turn, points vaguely to an ultimate horizon as its source and foundation. Awareness of transcendence also originates in the consciousness of our finitude: through our boundaries we recognize the infinite possibilities within us. In general, the World itself points to a region beyond. Transcendence is thus experiences as the intimation of a power by virtue of which humans themselves exists. Confronted with these clues, humans are free to pursue or to ignore them. Eternal life can already be present in the center of Earthly and temporal life when, through grace, the soul is encompassed to God, its ultimate foundation. Everything asses, only God does not change. “My flesh and my heart diminish; but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever,” reports Psalm 73.26. The term encompassing (das Umgreifende) designates the ultimate and indefinite limits of being as we experience it in all its fullness and richness, limits which surround, envelop, and suffuse all thee is. It is the ultimate experienceable horizon. Being-as-such means the encompassing or the totality of being as it is thought, conceived or conceptualized, while transcendence means a person’s personal, devoted, and committed effort to each the encompassing. #RandolphHarris 1 of 9

God is encompassing. A miracle is produced only by the effectiveness of redemption, not by impressive speech, nor by wooing and persuading, but only by the sheer unassisted power of God. We must fill our minds with the thought that God is there. The encompassing manifests itself in at least three modes: the total encompassing of the World, the encompassing that is the empirical World of ordinary and scientific experience, and the encompassing that is the empirical World of ordinary and scientific experience, and the encompassing that is one’s own self. God besets us behind and before and has laid his hand on us is the crowning glory, as it is also the perpetual mystery, of human life. In the light of this truth nothing seems small or negligible. Every incident and every association of our lot takes on a new meaning. The stars have a fresh message for us; the flowers look up to us with intelligent faces; God walks in his garden still, and his voice calls for our recognition. Nothing becomes impossible for us; our strength is sufficient for our day, and new ideals press upon us for acceptance as soon as we have faithfully doe the work of the immediate present. Although we are at a loss to describe its essence, we an say of the encompassing that it is. In a sense, I and the World are identical with the encompassing. In it, the severance between the subject and object disappears, since both are the manifestations of the same encompassing. #RandolphHarris 2 of 9

Having the vision of God is the source of enlightenment because it gives us God’s true and proper inspiration. A person who have the vision of God is not devoted to a cause or to any particular issue—he or she is devoted to God. Therefore, God, the unthinkable (das Undenkbare), becomes wholly other. I cannot grasp conceptually the encompassing that I am; similarly, the World is not exactly an illusion, since it is the only language through which the encompassing can reach me. The ultimate encompassing envelops both the I-pole and the object-pole of experience. The view we have before us is simply one microscopic snapshot—part of an infinitely vast forest of fascinating knowledge. Humans can search for transcendence by various means. We can explore the World, as science does. In that way one achieves a World view. Or one can search for it by examining the relations between oneself and the World, as we find it in epistemology, ethics, and psychology. One thereby achieves illumination of Existenz. We can also search for God, in which case we deal directly with the problem of penetrating being itself. However, we must never succumb to the error of identifying the encompassing with a particular substance or substratum of the World. We are here, not as immature Angels, but as men and women, to do the work of this World. And we are to do it with an infinitely greater power to withstand the struggle because we have been born from above. #RandolphHarris 3 of 9

The encompassing manifests itself through the footsteps of God, through analogical predication, through symbols, through ciphers (Chiffren). So much becomes clear from the vantage point of the encompassing as it is like the horizon that is the perennial goal of the sailor: it always shows itself and yet is forever inaccessible. The major purpose of metaphysics is the disclosure of the ciphers that manifest encompassing, but in the end, metaphysical elucidation of the ciphers is a highly personal undertaking. Ciphers may appear suddenly and spontaneously in the presence of empirical facts, for example, and overwhelming mountain. They may appear in art forms, in religious myth and doctrines, and in theological disputations; they may become manifest in the symbolism of history of philosophy and its metaphysical systems; and finally, they may appear through reflection on the mystery of being as well as on the death that, at this point, awaits every human being. The gospel of Christ encompasses not only the truth of what was and what is but also the truth of what can and will be. It is the most practical of all truths. It teaches the way of the disciple—a path that can take ordinary, flawed mortals and transform them into glorious, immortal, and limitless beings whose divine potential is beyond our present capacity to imagine. Now, that is practical truth. It is priceless beyond imagination. It is the truth of the highest order. #RandolphHarris 4 of 9

The pursuit, discovery, and application of truth are what we are on this Earth to discover. The gospel of Christ encompasses all truth, and it also specializes in the knowledge that will be of greatest worth to us in this life and throughout the eternities to come. Religious prescription is called a philosophic faith (philosophische Glaube). It consists of the convictions that humans are open to transcendence and consequently wills infinity; that there is in fact a transcendence to the ordinary World; that personal freedom is to be maintained and respected; that humans, as one finds oneself, is inadequate; that one can reply on help from the transcendence; and that the World is grounded and supported. “We believe that all that God has revealed, all that he does now reveal, and we believe that God will reveal many great and important things pertaining to the Kingdom of God,” reports The Articles of Faith 1.9. As a result, we are humble about the truth we have. We understand our knowledge is a work in progress. To reject faith means to hold that the immediate World is all there is, that human’s destiny is fully determined, that humans are perfectible and alone, and that the World is self-supporting. Because of all the confusion in the World, knowing where to find the truth is vital when we have questions. “I know that God loves his children; nevertheless, I do not know the meaning of all things,” 1 Nephi 11.17. #RandolphHarris 5 of 9

It seems wise to accept, in deepest humility and with an aim towards a validating spiritual perfection at the onset. The Bible is a highly suggestive instrument for our philosophical faith, especially through its ciphers of one God and its emphasis on love, on choosing between good and evil, on the eternal in humans, on the ordered and yet contingent Universe, and on the image of God as the refuge. God loves all his children—his sons and his daughters alike. And the truth of his love is absolute. It is the truth upon which everything else is founded. The truth that holds the Universe together. Once we realise that God is in control we will feel peace. God expects us to trust him. In all of our truth-seeking, we have to remember who the source of all truth is. And we have to recognize that while we are deliberating over a single piece of the puzzle, God holds the pieces we cannot see. God sees the big picture—the biggest picture. And someday we will see it, too. We can sometimes be very slow to learn to draw on God’s grace through prayer, but wherever God sends us, he will guard our lives. “They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the Earth shall be full of knowledge of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea,” Isaiah 11.9. Sometimes the answers we seek are simple and somethings finding answers takes a journey. We must never give up on our quest to follow God’s truth. The Heavenly Father is with us every step of the way. #RandolphHarris 6 of 9

In order to describe the empowering force of the divine influence the individual must have the proper outlook as the evidence of the deeply rooted belief in its energetic center is the overshadowing of God’s personal deliverance. The human mind is to be thought as being placed within a re-enchanted nature, which is giving reasons for seeing nature correctly. There is a wider or richer nature beyond the narrowness of seeing only the laws of nature and ignoring the values of nature, meaning the richer realm of the Universe. What is needed in order to become receptive to the stimulating power of the reasons working in the re-enchanted wider nature is the development of a second nature in which humans acquire in their reasonable ethical upbringing the model that explains that humans are living in two realms. Humans’ first nature is their terrestrial endowment, biologically seen, and open to become the object of sciences. Humans’ second nature is their openness to the space of reasons, the richer nature, and a part that is element grasped by the sciences. And there is nothing against bringing the richer reality under the rubric of nature too. The natural sciences do not have exclusive rights in that notion; and the added richness comes into view, not through the operations of some mysteriously extra-natural power, but because human beings come to possess a second nature. #RandolphHarris 7 of 9

Of course, trust, reliability, and the capability of one’s own principles to enable one to lead a life worth living, play an important if not central role in reality. God will reach to the very limits of the Universe to help us take the right road. Every God-given vision will become real as long as we will only have patience. It is the entirety of social bindings, obligations, and commitments, the norms and rules for life, the knowledge of relevant facts of the realities that is getting us to the point where God can trust us with the reality of the vision. God is getting us into the shape of the goal he has for us and this path is committed to the reality of life that has changed in a certain sense because of the inferences the believer has made in acting, in doing something in the World. If we seek for honour and every virtue, and long for noting more then the entire union of soul with God—then our love is noble. Yet, we are not to live with our feelings only, we have duties to perform, and to honour the many relations, in which we find ourselves. We pray about this reality with our soul turned toward our final definitive destiny, which gives meaning to the circumstances of our daily lives. Let us revive the joyous sentiment of the communion of saints and allow ourselves to be drawn by them to the goal of our existence: the face-to-face encounter with God. #RandolphHarris 8 of 9

Law is made ridiculous when it is prostituted to the fashions of the hour. For example, “The Obscenity of today will be the propriety of tomorrow. It is impossible to estimate the social damage with has been done by the outworn taboos of obscenity. Today, if any harm is caused it is more likely to come from the news media and crudely exaggerated films of vice, presented by virtuous propagandists of social hygiene, which are to cause a painful shock to the virginal mind, just as the tender skin of the infant is injured by a hot bath of a temperature wholesomely stimulating to the adult. A revaluation of obscenity is very far from meaning a justification of the things that most reasonable people find ugly and unpleasant. However, it means a different attitude toward their suppression in practice. We know the results of the attitude which have prevailed in the past. We have all been victims of it. A premium is put on things that are dirty and worthless. It is our duty to protect the young from the awful dangers that threaten them in news, books, and cinemas. It would be wrong to believe that all the foul deeds in this World are caused by corruption, as if human baseness operated automatically with the insertion of a coin. “But charity is the pure love of Christ, and it endures forever; and whoso is found possessed of it at the last day, it shall be well with one,” reports Moroni 7.47. #RandolphHarris 9 of 9