This is a question everyone must ask. Certainly peace seems to be
impossible. Yet the Word of God promises other things that seem
impossible, as well as this. His Word has promised peace. It has also
promised that there is no death; that resurrection must occur, and that
rebirth is man’s inheritance. The world you see cannot be the world God
loves, and yet His Word assures us that He loves the world. God’s Word
has promised us that peace is possible here, and what He promises can
hardly be impossible. But it is true that the world must be looked at
differently, if His promises are to be accepted. What the world is, is
but a fact. You cannot choose what this should be. But you can choose how
you would see it. Indeed, you must choose this.

Again we come to the question of judgement. This time, ask yourself
whether your judgement or the Word of God is more likely to be true. For
they say different things about the world, and things so opposite that
it is pointless to reconcile them. God offers the world salvation; your
judgement would condemn it. God says there is no death; your judgement
sees but death as the inevitable end of life. God’s Word assures you
that He loves the world; your judgement says it is unlovable. Who is
right? For one of you is wrong. It must be so.

The text explains that the Holy Spirit is the Answer to all problems you
have made. These problems are not true, but that is meaningless to those
who believe in them. And everyone believes in what he made, for it was
made by his believing it. Into this strange and paradoxical situation, –
one without meaning and devoid of sense, yet out of which no way seems
possible, – God has sent His Judgement to answer yours. Gently His
Judgement substitutes for yours. And through this substitution is the
ununderstandable made understandable. How is peace possible in this
world? In your judgement it is not possible and can never be possible.
But in the Judgement of God what is reflected here is only peace.

Peace is impossible to those who look on war. Peace is inevitable to
those who offer peace. How easily, then, is your judgement of the world
escaped! It is not the world that makes peace
seem impossible. It is the world you see that is impossible. Yet has
God’s Judgement on this distorted world redeemed it, and made it fit to
welcome peace. And peace descends on it in joyous answer. Peace now
belongs here because a Thought of God has entered. What else but a
Thought of God turns hell to Heaven merely by being what It is? The
earth bows down before Its gracious Presence, and It leans down in
answer to raise it up again. Now is the question different. It is no
longer,“Can peace be possible in this world?” But instead,“Is it not
impossible that peace be absent here?”