Martinus: Livets Bog, vol. 4, sect. 1264

1264. It may perhaps be claimed here that Providence ought to have protected the being, or that the law of karma ought to have been so perfect that such mistakes could never have been made. In this way an eternal, permanent happiness for all living beings would have been created, since "wrong causes" could never ever have been manifested. So the beings would eternally experience all the effects they aimed at.
But in such a case, how would the beings be able to "aim at anything"? If the reactions of the substances were not bound by law, if "sugar" did not exist by virtue of its fixed ability to react as "sugar", and "salt" was similarly not always bound to react as "salt", and the reactions of all other substances or forms of energy were not firmly bound by law what then could have developed the individual's ability to "reason" and thereby to "wish"? When an individual "reasons", it is of course the same as saying that it recalls in its consciousness experiences that enable it to consider a new problem. It thus searches its memory to find knowledge that will enable it to exercise its will in contact with any new situation that emerges. But of what use would it be to remember how "salt" reacts, or how "sugar" reacts, or how the particular energies of other substances react if their reaction were not a law-bound, fixed reality, were not everlasting, but diffuse like the clouds in the sky? There would be no point in one being able to remember today how the clouds in the sky looked yesterday. This would not enable us to know how the clouds in the sky will look today or tomorrow. If "salt", "sugar" and all the other chemicals, forms of energy or causes of effects were just as diffuse as the clouds, there would of course never ever be any guarantee that the reactions of these chemicals or causes of effects would work in the same way tomorrow as they do today. This would thus depend totally on what one was able to wish. But how exactly could "salt" come to react as "salt", and "sugar" as "sugar", if the basis for this reaction were the result of a wish? Who would be able to wish for the "sugar reaction" or the "salt reaction", if they had never previously experienced them? Something that we have never experienced and know nothing about is of course the same as something that has never cast a thought or light into our brain or consciousness. But thoughts that are not in our brain cannot possibly give rise to any wish. This thus means that if the reactions of all substances or kinds of energy were based only on the beings' wishes, these reactions could never have come into existence, for who could have wished for these at a point in time when they had as yet not cast a thought or reaction into the consciousness of any being? No being could thus be the first to "wish" for these reactions, for what or who could have given them this ability? One cannot wish for something that one has neither knowledge of nor any inkling about, and which likewise lies totally outside the consciousness or thought of every other being.