[546] (they are not acts of obedience to commandments, but acts which come out of the totality of our being and drive us to DO what we are ASKED to do)---as long as these powers (which I also like to call "New BEING^a," to avoid the words "grace" or "Spirit," which have so many difficult connotations today), this New Being is not ONLY in those who are Christians or religious, but

it is a healing power which makes reality possible generally and universally. And the decisive thing here is that the power of acting according to the moral imperative is something which PRECEDES the law^b, and if it is actualized, overcomes the law and fulfills it by overcoming it. The law can only be fulfilled in acts which come out of love, out of the reunion with our true being, out of the reunion with ourselves and the others, and where the question "Shall I or shall I not?", "Can I or can I not?" is not actual any more. Now there are many situations in which you all have experienced this, and if you have experienced this, it is that which the theologian calls "common grace^c." This common grace makes people grace-ful, and you would NOT call somebody grace-ful (full of χάρις, or gratia) who always [acts] against his own will, obeys a law which stands against him; but you would call someone grace-ful who asks out of the depths of his being and fulfills voluntarily what he ought to fulfill.

Now this is the ethics of BEING^d, over against the ethics of OUGHT-TO-BE.^e And I believe that autonomous ethics are NOT able to point to the ethics of being over against the ethics of ought-to-be.