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Chapter 3: Higher and Lower Powers

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Navigator’s Note: In the original Big Book, Bill’s Chapter 4 apologia, “We Agnostics,” assured the theological skeptic that there was still room for them in the God-based Program that would follow in their Chapter 5, “How it Works.” In this Sequel we will characterize A.A. more accurately as a Power-based Program, and the movement towards a Knowledge-based solution for alcoholism will be done gradually, along with the reader, as we move through Chapter 4, 5, and 7. So our apologia, “Higher and Lower Powers,” similarly assures the God-Worshippers that there is still room for them in this new, Knowledge-based Program—although they will have to share this room with many others. (As the New Founders reach the limits of their approach, The Cogniventives will successfully integrate Power and Knowledge into a hybrid paradigm where the War-within-Self takes center stage)

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4.1In the preceding chapters you have learned something of alcoholism. We hope we have made clear the distinction between the alcoholic and the nonalcoholic. If, when you honestly want to, you find you cannot quit entirely, or if when drinking, you have little control over the amount you take, you are probably alcoholic. If that be the case, you may be suffering from an illness which only a spiritual experience will conquer.”

4.2 “To one who feels he is an atheist or agnostic such an experience seems impossible, but to continue as he is means disaster, especially if he is an alcoholic of the hopeless variety. To be doomed to an alcoholic death or to live on a spiritual basis are not always easy alternatives to face.”

4.3 “But it isn’t so difficult. About half our original fellowship were of exactly that type.* At first some of us tried to avoid the issue, hoping against hope we were not true alcoholics. But after a while we had to face the fact that we must find a spiritual basis of life – or else. Perhaps it is going to be that way with you. But cheer up, something like half of us thought we were atheists or agnostics. Our experience shows that you need not be disconcerted.”

4.4 “If a mere code of morals or a better philosophy of life were sufficient to overcome alcoholism, many of us..”

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…You should not wish to understand anything about God, for God is beyond all understanding…If you understand anything about him, then he is not in it, and by understanding something of him, you fall into ignorance.

Meister Eckhart, “The Man from whom God hid nothing.”

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(formerly, BEFORE BELIEF and FAITH)

4.1 In this Chapter, we will draw a distinction between a tenuous sobriety rooted in Power—yours or God’s, and an enduring sobriety rooted in the Self-Knowledge. (Power dissipates; Knowledge is forever.) If you have thoroughly followed the Twelve Step Power Path and are still suffering in your sobriety, then you may be afflicted with a Recovery Disorder that only Self-Knowledge will heal.

4.2 To the Believers and the Faithful it may seem that we have removed the heart of the AA. We have not. The heart of AA is not God. The heart of AA is the ongoing transmission of sobriety from one alcoholic to the next unfettered by outside affiliation. Everything else is a choice in application, and this choice is both individual and inclusive—everyone can make the choice for themselves, and everyone must make this choice for themselves. No one needs to be doomed to an alcoholic death or to life on a spiritual basis. Ordinary experience provides everything that a “real” alcoholic, a “true” alcoholic, an alcoholic “of the hopeless variety,” or the “seriously” alcoholic needs for a “joyous, happy, and free” life.

4.3 Whether or not morals or a philosophy of life is sufficient to overcome alcoholism depends on the person’s ability to control Self-Knowledge and move decisively from willing to doing. Given two alcoholics having the same morals and philosophy, the one that controls their Knowledge of Self will have a much better chance of getting sober. (And control of Self-Knowledge increases as we close the gap between who we really are and who we think we are.)

4.4 Let’s not forget that in The Doctor’s Opinion in the Big Book, Silkworth considers it common knowledge among his profession that some form of “moral psychology” was of urgent

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“…would have recovered long ago. But we found that such codes and philosophies did not save us, no matter how much we tried. We could wish to be moral, we could wish to be philosophically comforted, in fact, we could will these things with all our might, but the needed power wasn’t there. Our human resources, as marshalled by the will, were not sufficient; they failed utterly.”

4.5 “Lack of power; that was our dilemma. We had to find a power by which we could live, and it had to be a Power greater than ourselves. Obviously. But where and how were we to find this Power?”

4.6 “Well, that’s exactly what this book is about. Its main object is to enable you to find a Power greater than yourself which will solve your problem. That means we have written a book which we believe to be spiritual as well as moral. And it means, of course, that we are going to talk about God. Here difficulty arises with agnostics. Many times we talk to a new man and watch his hope rise as we discuss his alcoholic problems and explain our fellowship. But his face falls when we speak of spiritual matters, especially when we mention God, for we have re-opened a subject which our man thought he had neatly evaded or entirely ignored.”

4.7 “We know how he feels. We have shared his honest doubt and prejudice. Some of us have been violently anti-religious. To others, the word “God” brought up a particular idea of Him with which someone had tried to impress them during childhood. Perhaps we rejected this particular conception because it seemed inadequate. With that rejection we imagined we had abandoned the God idea entirely. We were bothered…”

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importance to alcoholics, but that its “application presented difficulties.” We submit that human resources—a “moral psychology”—that cannot be activated by Self-Will can be activated by Self-Knowledge that closes the gap between who we really are, and who we think we are. And without Self-Knowledge, Power can neither be administered wisely nor used judiciously, regardless of its sacred or secular source. We have solved Silkworth’s application problem.

4.5 Our dilemma was not lack of power. Our problem was the instability of Power (that arises from a source). We go to AA meetings to plug into Power, only to feel the charge dwindling away in just a few days. We turned our wills over to God only to “take them back” in a short time. We struggle to maintain conscious contact with God when the connection is always being broken. In any relationship based on a large imbalance of Power, we will always be playing catch-up, always going back to the well, even after it has long gone dry.

4.6 The principles in this Sequel to the Big Book will enable you to make new choices by transmuting Self-Knowledge into a new, more stable Power source. As we close the gap between who we think we are and who we really are, we end the War within Self and bridge the gap between knowing what to do and being able to do it. We no longer look for Power in the wrong place, but instead extract from every situation the Self-Existent Power that is immediately available and permanently transformative.

4.7 As New Founders we are opening a door that has always been closed to the First Founders of AA, a door that their placebo of “choosing your own conception of God” can not open. As a result you now have a choice in whether or not to make AA about a “Higher Power” or not. You can pursue a direct Path to Power that is unstable, moves erratically, and requires constant repetition to maintain. Or you can pursue an indirect Path to Power through Self-Knowledge that is stable, moves consistently, and is self-maintaining. You have a choice.

© 2019 Michael V. Cossette

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“…with the thought that faith and dependence upon a Power beyond ourselves was somewhat weak, even cowardly. We looked upon this world of warring individuals, warring theological systems, and inexplicable calamity, with deep skepticism. We looked askance at many individuals who claimed to be godly. How could a Supreme Being have anything to do with it all? And who could comprehend a Supreme Being anyhow? Yet, in other moments, we found ourselves thinking, when enchanted by a starlit night, “Who, then, made all this?” There was a feeling of awe and wonder, but it was fleeting and soon lost.”

4.8 “Yes, we of agnostic temperament have had these thoughts and experiences. Let us make haste to reassure you. We found that as soon as we were able to lay aside prejudice and express even a willingness to believe in a Power greater than ourselves, we commenced to get results, even though it was impossible for any of us to fully define or comprehend that Power, which is God.”

4.9 “Much to our relief, we discovered we did not need to consider another’s conception of God. Our own conception, however inadequate, was sufficient to make the approach and to effect a contact with Him. As soon as we admitted the possible existence of a Creative Intelligence, a Spirit of the Universe underlying the totality of things, we began to be possessed of a new sense of power and direction, provided we took other simple steps. We found that God does not make too hard terms with those who seek Him. To us, the Realm of Spirit is broad, roomy, all inclusive; never exclusive or forbidding to those who earnestly seek. It is open, we believe, to all men.”

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4.8 Now that we have made you aware of that choice, “We Agnostics” among the New Founders (“We Theists” among the New Founders will have much to say later—if we are made in the image of god as truth rather than metaphor, then Knowledge of Self pre-supposes some Knowledge of God) would like to take a moment to dismiss Wilson’s character assassination of us—while pretending to be one of us—in Chapter 4 of Alcoholics Anonymous: (Navigator’s Note 2022: The litany that follows references a few tasty Big Book morsels that you can find highlighted in the parallel text. With so much good work done on this subject at aaagnostica.org, addressing Wilson’s duplicity in this manner seems hardly necessary; however, I have included it in this historical text which has a much larger scope than the tired agnostic vs believer battle that rages under the surface of polite AA.)

“We Agnostics” are not “violently anti-religious” having “neatly evaded or entirely ignored” the God subject.

“We Agnostics” do not automatically characterize “faith & dependence upon a power beyond ourselves” as “somewhat weak, even cowardly.”

“We Agnostics” have not “looked askance at many individuals who claimed to be godly.”

“We Agnostics” do not believe that the need for a personal God is ignorance.

“We Agnostics” do not accept a feeling of a new sense of power & direction as evidence for God.

“We Agnostics” rarely find ourselves “handicapped by obstinacy, sensitiveness, and unreasoning prejudice.”

“We Agnostics” do not have to be “beaten into a state of reasonableness” to change.

“We Agnostics” rarely “bristle with antagonism” at even a “casual reference to spiritual things.”

“We Agnostics” do not vainly “believe that our human intelligence was the last word, the alpha and the omega, the beginning and end of all.”

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4.10 “When, therefore, we speak to you of God, we mean your own conception of God. This applies, too, to other spiritual expressions which you find in this book. Do not let any prejudice you may have against spiritual terms deter you from honestly asking yourself what they mean to you. At the start, this was all we needed to commence spiritual growth, to effect our first conscious relation with God as we understood Him. Afterward, we found ourselves accepting many things which then seemed entirely out of reach. That was growth, but if we wished to grow we had to begin somewhere. So we used our own conception, however limited it was.”

4.11 “We needed to ask ourselves but one short question. “Do I now believe, or am I even willing to believe, that there is a Power greater than myself?” As soon as a man can say that he does believe, or is willing to believe, we emphatically assure him that he is on his way. It has been repeatedly proven among us that upon this simple cornerstone a wonderfully effective spiritual structure can be built.”

4.12 “That was great news to us, for we had assumed we could not make use of spiritual principles unless we accepted many things on faith which seemed difficult to believe. When people presented us with spiritual approaches, how frequently did we all say, “I wish I had what that man has. I’m sure it would work if I could only believe as he believes. But I cannot accept as surely true the many articles of faith which are so plain to him.” So it was comforting to learn that we could commence at a simpler level.”

4.13 “Besides a seeming inability to accept much on faith, …”

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“We Agnostics” prefer not to “read wordy books nor indulge in windy arguments.”

“We Agnostics” have better things to do than “amuse ourselves by cynically dissecting spiritual beliefs.”

“We Agnostics” tend to be quite tolerant, rarely using “the shortcomings of others as a basis of wholesale condemnation.”

“We Agnostics” found beauty in both the forest and the ugliness of some of its trees.

“We Agnostics” are always willing to give the spiritual side of life a fair hearing.

“We Agnostics” are not unreasonably biased about the realm of the spirit.

“We Agnostics” do not cling to “the idea that self-sufficiency would solve our problems.”

“We Agnostics” do not “pledge our faith to the God of reason.”

“We Agnostics” have not “variously worshipped people, sentiment, things, money, and ourselves”

“We Agnostics” did not need to be faced with alcoholic destruction to become open-minded on spiritual matters.

“We Agnostics” do not believe that acceptance of electricity and the acceptance of God are equivalent.

“We Agnostics” never “cynically dissected spiritual beliefs & practices.”

“We Agnostics” are not prejudiced against spiritual terms and do not let anything deter us from asking what they mean to us.

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“…we often found ourselves handicapped by obstinacy, sensitiveness, and unreasoning prejudice. Many of us have been so touchy that even casual reference to spiritual things made us bristle with antagonism. This sort of thinking had to be abandoned. Though some of us resisted, we found no great difficulty in casting aside such feelings. Faced with alcoholic destruction, we soon became as open minded on spiritual matters as we had tried to be on other questions. In this respect alcohol was a great persuader. It finally beat us into a state of reasonableness. Sometimes this was a tedious process; we hope no one else will be prejudiced for as long as some of us were.”

4.14 “The reader may still ask why he should believe in a Power greater than himself. We think there are good reasons. Let us have a look at some of them.”

4.15 “The practical individual of today is a stickler for facts and results. Nevertheless, the twentieth century readily accepts theories of all kinds, provided they are firmly grounded in fact. We have numerous theories, for example, about electricity. Everybody believes them without a murmur of doubt. Why this ready acceptance? Simply because it is impossible to explain what we see, feel, direct, and use, without a reasonable assumption as a starting point.”

4.16 “Everybody nowadays, believes in scores of assumptions for which there is good evidence, but no perfect visual proof. And does not science demonstrate that visual proof is the weakest proof? It is being constantly revealed, as mankind studies the material world, that outward appearances are not inward reality at all. To illustrate:”

4.17 “The prosaic steel girder is a mass of electrons whirling…”

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4.9 What “We Agnostics” do maintain:

On the subject of God all human beings are equally ignorant.

Within the exclusive world of Monotheism, to believe in this god means you do not believe in that god. All believers are also disbelievers. And if we find it “impossible for any of us to fully define or comprehend” what god is, then how do we find it possible to maintain that god is?

4.10 Scattered in between Chapter 4’s thinly veiled ad hominem attacks on agnostics, Bill W serves up a steaming pile of begging the question, false causes, false effects, either-or fallacies, evasions, false analogies, rationalizations, assuming the conclusion, reification, false authority, incomplete and incorrect comparison, red herrings, hasty generalizations, straw men, equivocations, non sequiturs, and other logical fallacies—a master class in junk reasoning and lazy theology.

4.11 Given the rich history of arguments for the existence of God given to us by such notables as Origen, Aquinas, and Anselm, one has to wonder why Wilson would offer up a self-serving story that ends in the non-believing protagonist, when confronted with the cheesy challenge “Who are you to say there is no God?”, falling on their knees in a come-to-Jesus moment. (We can just as easily envision a believing protagonist , when confronted with the equally cheesy challenge “Who are you to say there is a God?”, rising up from their knees in a come-to-atheism moment.)

4.12 Bill had a casual relationship with the truth, and often explained his dalliances as “having my fun.” Bill lied. And he lied often. Assuming that every alcoholic is just as dishonest, he designed the Big book to force the reader into a corner where God-Him-Power is waiting. In the distorted world of the Big

© 2019 Michael V. Cossette

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…around each other at incredible speed. These tiny bodies are governed by precise laws, and these laws hold true throughout the material world. Science tells us so. We have no reason to doubt it. When, however, the perfectly logical assumption is suggested that underneath the material world and life as we see it, there is an All Powerful, Guiding, Creative Intelligence, right there our perverse streak comes to the surface and we laboriously set out to convince ourselves it isn’t so. We read wordy books and indulge in windy arguments, thinking we believe this universe needs no God to explain it. Were our contentions true, it would follow that life originated out of nothing, means nothing, and proceeds nowhere.”

4.18 “Instead of regarding ourselves as intelligent agents, spearheads of God’s ever advancing Creation, we agnostics and atheists chose to believe that our human intelligence was the last word, the alpha and the omega, the beginning and end of all. Rather vain of us, wasn’t it?”

4.19 “We, who have traveled this dubious path, beg you to lay aside prejudice, even against organized religion. We have learned that whatever the human frailties of various faiths may be, those faiths have given purpose and direction to millions. People of faith have a logical idea of what life is all about. Actually, we used to have no reasonable conception whatever. We used to amuse ourselves by cynically dissecting spiritual beliefs and practices when we might have observed that many spiritually-minded persons of all races, colors, and creeds were demonstrating a degree of stability, happiness and usefulness which we should have sought ourselves.”

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Book, we are expected to believe someone who declares that God-sufficiency solves their problems, but to disbelieve someone who declares that self-sufficiency solves their problems. But reality is stubborn. Over and over again we have seen people who rise above their problems with no acknowledgement of god. Over and over again we have seen people thank God as the sink irreversibly into destruction. What we have not seen is a direct link between solving problems, particularly alcoholism, and relying on God or not relying on god. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

4.13 No alcoholic in AA ever again has to face the choice that God is everything or else God is nothing. No alcoholic in AA ever has to face the choice that God is or God isn’t. These are false dichotomies created by ambivalent minds at war with themselves. As New Founders, we do not allow anyone to invent a misleading contest between Reason and Faith, between Thought and Feeling, or between the Material World and the Spiritual World. Bullies of all stripes are quite adept at pushing people into a corner and forcing them to confront an issue that doesn’t exist. AA abounds with such bullies, and many identify themselves as sponsors. Self Knowledge is the ultimate Self-Defense against the willfully ignorant.

4.14 When we move beyond the false choice of a God who either is or who isn’t, we no longer find Believers and Disbelievers, or the Faithful or the Skeptical, or those who have had Spiritual Experiences and those who haven’t. We will find ordinary people who have made sincere choices about what kind of person they want to be, and what kind of world they want to live in.* Some prefer certainty; others, uncertainty. The theist seeks assurances that if they just do the next right thing they will be appreciated and comforted. The non-theist seeks no such assurances and surrenders to the ambiguity of the present moment without reaching out for a hand to hold.

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4.20 “Instead, we looked at the human defects of these people, and sometimes used their shortcomings as a basis of wholesale condemnation. We talked of intolerance, while we were intolerant ourselves. We missed the reality and the beauty of the forest because we were diverted by the ugliness of some of its trees. We never gave the spiritual side of life a fair hearing.

4.21 “In our personal stories you will find a wide variation in the way each teller approaches and conceives of the Power which is greater than himself. Whether we agree with a particular approach or conception seems to make little difference. Experience has taught us that these are matters about which, for our purpose, we need not be worried. They are questions for each individual to settle for himself.”

4.22 On one proposition, however, these men and women are strikingly agreed. Every one of them has gained access to, and believes in, a Power greater than himself. This Power has in each case accomplished the miraculous, the humanly impossible. As a celebrated American statesman put it, “Let’s look at the record.”

4.23 Here are thousands of men and women, worldly indeed. They flatly declare that since they have come to believe in a Power greater than themselves, to take a certain attitude toward that Power, and to do certain simple things, there has been a revolutionary change in their way of living and thinking. In the face of collapse and despair, in the face of the total failure of their human resources, they found that a new power, peace, happiness, and sense of direction flowed into them. This happened soon after they wholeheartedly met a few simple requirements. Once confused

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4.15 Certainty & uncertainty represent two sides of human experience. Difficulty arises when either world-view dominates our thinking to the exclusion of the other. Difficulty arises when either world-viewer chooses the wrong vehicle to travel their path of certainty or uncertainty. Power is an unreliable companion on either path: only Self-Knowledge collapses the Path of Certainty and the Path of Uncertainty into the Path of Probability—an ever-changing road best travelled by an existential amphibian with the decisiveness to choose, the restraint to hold back, and the courage to spin life’s roulette wheel and accept without reservation where the ball lands.

4.16 And on that Path of Probability, the Secular meets the the Sacred. We ask the existential amphibian: “What if life originated out of nothing, means nothing, and proceeds nowhere?” They reply:

“It takes very little courage to live in a world controlled by a benevolent God. There is little nobility in turning your will and your life to a God who is in control. Spiritual Adulthood requires being as at home in a world without god, as in a world with God. A person in fit spiritual condition needs very little outwardly. By our idealistic presence we dare ‘to see a world in a grain of sand and a heaven in a wild flower, infinity in the palm of your hand, eternity in an hour.'”

4.15 And on that Path of Probability, the Sacred meets the Secular. We ask the existential amphibian: “What if life originated from a loving god and gains meaning by spiraling back towards re-unification with that divinity?” They reply:

“It takes very little intelligence to reject God when life is so ‘nasty, brutish, and short.’ There is little nobility in giving up the search for meaning and purpose when there is no concrete reward or punishment to motivate. Secular Adulthood requires

© 2019 Michael V. Cossette

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“…and baffled by the seeming futility of existence, they show the underlying reasons why they were making heavy going of life. Leaving aside the drink question, they tell why living was so unsatisfactory. They show how the change came over them. When many hundreds of people are able to say that the consciousness of the Presence of God is today the most important fact of their lives, they present a powerful reason why one should have faith.”

4.24 “This world of ours has made more material progress in the last century than in all the millenniums which went before. Almost everyone knows the reason. Students of ancient history tell us that the intellect of men in those days was equal to the best of today. Yet in ancient times material progress was painfully slow. The spirit of modern scientific inquiry, research and invention was almost unknown. In the realm of the material, men’s minds were fettered by superstition, tradition, and all sorts of fixed ideas. Some of the contemporaries of Columbus thought a round earth preposterous. Others came near putting Galileo to death for his astronomical heresies.”

4.25 “We asked ourselves this: Are not some of us just as biased and unreasonable about the realm of the spirit as were the ancients about the realm of the material? Even in the present century, American newspapers were afraid to print an account of the Wright brothers’ first successful flight at Kitty Hawk. Had not all efforts at flight failed before? Did not Professor Langley’s flying machine go to the bottom of the Potomac River? Was it not true that the best mathematical minds had proved man could never fly? Had not people said God had reserved this privilege to the…”

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being just as at home in a world with God, as in a world without god. A person in fit secular condition needs very little inwardly. By our pragmatic presence we give the world meaning that it may or may not have on its own.”

4.16 The conceptual contest between a world with god and a world without god distracts us from the underlying tension between certainty and uncertainty. By embracing uncertainty, a theist evolves. By making room for certainty, a non-theist evolves. Each should each evolve together, lest both devolve apart. The uncertainty of what we know and the certainty what we don’t know will humble anyone living equally in the dual worlds of ever transcendent symbols and perpetually grounded reality.End of UNRESTRICTED ACCESS

RESTRICTED ACCESS or CONFIDENTIAL Text may be Available on Request

Increasing Connection →

BELIEF    →     FAITH     →    EXPERIENCE    →    ADAPTATION

← Increasing Separation

© 2019 Michael V. Cossette

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“…birds? Only thirty years later the conquest of the air was almost an old story and airplane travel was in full swing.”

4.26 “But in most fields our generation has witnessed complete liberation of our thinking. Show any longshoreman a Sunday supplement describing a proposal to explore the moon by means of a rocket and he will say “I bet they do it – maybe not so long either.” Is not our age characterized by the ease with which we discard old ideas for new, by the complete readiness with which we throw away the theory or gadget which does not work for something new which does?”

4.27 “We had to ask ourselves why we shouldn’t apply to our human problems this same readiness to change our point of view. We were having trouble with personal relationships, we couldn’t control our emotional natures, we were a prey to misery and depression, we couldn’t make a living, we had a feeling of uselessness, we were full of fear, we were unhappy, we couldn’t seem to be of real help to other people – was not a basic solution of these bedevilments more important than whether we should see newsreels of lunar flight? Of course it was.”

4.28 “When we saw others solve their problems by a simple reliance upon the Spirit of the Universe, we had to stop doubting the power of God. Our ideas did not work. But the God idea did.”

4.29 “The Wright brothers’ almost childish faith that they could build a machine which would fly was the main- spring of their accomplishment. Without that, nothing could have happened. We agnostics and atheists were sticking to the idea that self-sufficiency would solve our problems. When others showed us that ‘God-sufficiency’…”

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