“You choose to lead me around in a circle”

"According to the Koran, God did not call for blind subservience on the part of man but rather appealed to his intellect; He did not stand apart from man's destiny but was nearer to you than the vein in your neck; He did not draw any dividing line between faith and social behaviour; and, what was perhaps most important, He did not start from the axiom that all life was burdened with a conflict between matter and spirit and that the way toward the Light demanded a freeing of the soul from the shackles of the flesh. Every form of life-denial and self-mortification had been condemned by the Prophet in sayings like Behold, asceticism is not for us, and There is no world-renunciation in Islam. The human will to live was not only recognized as a positive, fruitful instinct but was endowed with the sanctity of an ethical postulate as well. Man was taught, in effect: You not only may utilize your life to the full, but you are obliged to do so."

On his way to the Near East, he got acquainted with a Christian scholar and priest, Father Felix, who was with him in the same ship. Weiss often spent time with him on the deck discussing and arguing faith-related issues while enjoying the beauty of the ocean. One day, he asked Father Felix,

“I feel – and this is the feeling of many people of my generation – I feel that there is something wrong in making a distinction between the “essential” and the “non-essential” in the structure of man, and in separating spirit and flesh .. in short, I cannot agree with your denying all righteousness to physical urges, to the flesh, to earthbound destiny. My desire goes elsewhere: I dream of a form of life – though I must confess I do not see it clearly yet – in which the entire man, spirit and flesh, would strive after a deeper and deeper fulfillment of his Self – in which the spirit and the senses would not be enemies to one another, and in which man could achieve unity within himself and with the meaning of his destiny, so that on the summit of his days he could say, I am my destiny’ "

“That was the Hellenic dream,” replied Father Felix, “and where did it lead? First to the Orphic and Dionysian mysteries, then to Plato and Plotinus, and so, again, to the inevitable realization that spirit and flesh are opposed to one another ... To make the spirit free from the domination of the flesh: this is the meaning of Christian salvation, the meaning of our belief in the Lord’s self-sacrifice on the Cross ...”

Here he interrupted himself and turned to me with a twinkle: “Oh, I am not always a missionary … pardon me if I speak to you of my faith, which is not yours ..."

“But I have none,” I assured him.

“Yes,” said Father Felix, “I know; the lack of faith, or rather the inability to believe, is the central illness of our time. You, like so many others, are living in an illusion which is thousands of years old: the illusion that intellect alone can give a direction to man’s striving. But the intellect cannot reach spiritual knowledge by itself because it is too much absorbed in the achievement of material goals; it is faith, and faith alone, that can release us from such an absorption.”

“Faith …?” I asked. “You again bring in this word. There is one thing I can’t understand: you say it is impossible to attain through intellect alone knowledge and to a righteous life; faith is needed, you say. I agree with you entirely. But how does one achieve faith if one has none? Is there a way to it – I mean, a way open to our will?”

“My dear friend – will alone is not enough. The way is only opened by God’s grace. But it is always opened to him who prays from the innermost of his heart for enlightenment.”

“To pray! But when one is able to do this, Father Felix, one already has faith. You choose to lead me around in a circle – for if a man prays, he must already be convinced of the existence of Him to whom he prays. How did he come to this conviction? Through his intellect? Would not this amount to admitting that faith can be found through the intellect? And apart from that, can “grace” mean anything to somebody who has never had an experience of this kind?”