T-19-IV The Obstacles to Peace.

8-27-2025

D  The fourth obstacle: The Fear of God. (Para 10-21).

“The obstacles seem to be not so much a series of separate obstacles but a single system of nested obstacles. You desire to get rid of the peace that entered your relationship (first obstacle) because you fear it would ask you to give up the body and its offerings, which you value (second obstacle). You value the body and its offerings because doing so generates guilt, which makes you attracted to punishing your body –even to the point of death, thus serving your attraction to death (third obstacle). And you desire death because God will then seem to be the Author of death, and this will support your fear of Him (fourth obstacle). Each obstacle, then, seems to be a protection for the one following it, which means that all of them exist to protect the final obstacle, the fear of God.” Ch.19, footnote 52.