Martinus: Livets Bog, vol. 4, sect. 1498

1498. The sun's or Nature's principle of manifestation is thus completely devoid of "favouritism". This principle of manifestation can therefore be neither "loving" nor "just". Here one will perhaps raise the objection that the good in life ought to be "rewarded", while the "evil" ought to be "punished". And here it must be said that at a certain step in evolution this is perfectly true. The conduct of terrestrial mankind's life or its general maintenance of itself is based, so to speak, exclusively on "favouritism" and "punishment". One "rewards" and "honours", just as one "degrades" and "punishes". But does this way of living or method of living make terrestrial mankind happy? Has "favouring" one's fellow beings and "punishing" them led to a perfect, unassailable state of culture or civilisation, where the individuals live in a state of mutual, all-pervading paradisiacal bliss, a blessed state or the very highest happiness? Is it not, indeed, common knowledge that the people of the Earth live in war, discord and intolerance? Civilisation after civilisation has perished. People have risen up against people, ultimately manifesting the "day of judgment" prophesied by the religious traditions. Enormous areas of previously mighty states are today reduced to rubble. Great cities lie in ruins, millions of people have been killed, and millions more have become mentally or physically mutilated and now hobble around looking for a home and food in the ruins. Thus, the modern cultural ideal of "punishing" and "rewarding" can neither create "world peace" nor be the aim or purpose determined by Providence or the Godhead for all the many great epochs of evolution to which the living beings have been subject. Is it conceivable that Providence allowed the living beings to go through millions of years of evolution in the plant kingdom and millions of years of evolution in the animal kingdom in order to create a being that can only "punish" and "reward"? And is it conceivable that life's very highest solution is nothing but "favouritism" and "hatred"?