[536] a silent voice, but a voice which we can hear, if we listen. And this listening is the first work of love^a, the listening to the absolutely concrete, to the unique which cannot be repeated. The law^b is UNable to listen, because it must, by its very nature, remain abstract. But love is not only able to listen, but it is the very NATURE of love to listen, because it unites itself AS a concrete WITH concrete, as this unique bearer of love with this unique object of love. From this point of view the freedom of love^c follows, the freedom of love from the law^d. The law puts into servitude. Love makes free because it listens to the demand of the situation. And this demand of the situation is not something strange but is the fulfillment of the striving of every being to be reunited with that to which it belongs and from which it is

separated---the other one, and the world-as-a-whole with everything concrete which we encounter. So we now have the third level. But I want to say here something about the possibility of this, or this listening and this uniting on the BASIS of listening. I want to use here a Christian theological concept, namely the concept of the Spirit^e (with a capital "S"), the Divine or Holy Spirit. This word, which needs much explanation, in theological terms, must be used here in a much more universal way. The word Spirit has the same function as what I just called love. And in the greatest chapter about the Spirit, we also have the greatest chapter about love, namely I Corinthians 13, which is started by Paul's saying that "I will show you higher way of love, of the Spirit, more than any knowledge and ecstasies and prophecies, namely the way of love." In other words, only where there is a power which overcomes the separation of the separated, there love can be active.

Therefore we must ask a question, to which I will come instantly: Out of what does the power to FULFILL the moral imperative^f follow, if the moral imperative is not determined by law but by love? But I stop here for a moment and come now to the second level. Between the first level, the level of love^g, and the third level, the level of the kairos, the moment here and now^h, there is the level of wisdomⁱ, as I called it. This level of wisdom has the character of law, but if we call it