Number 5: Cognitive Ability

The fifth ability is cognitive ability. What does cognitive ability refer to? Its main emphasis is on a person’s degree of understanding of things themselves. To evaluate a person’s cognitive ability, one must look at their degree of understanding of a thing and the time frame they need to achieve understanding of the thing’s essence. If the time frame they need is very short and their degree of understanding is sufficiently deep, reaching the level of understanding the essence of the thing, they possess cognitive ability. If the time frame a person needs to understand a thing is within normal range, and they can understand the essence of this thing itself, can clearly see the causes and consequences, and the root and essence of the problems within, and then have an understanding of this thing in their heart—and, better still, if they can give a definition and draw a conclusion about this thing—this is called having good caliber. That is, as a normal person who possesses the thinking of normal humanity, regardless of whether you are male or female, whether you have just reached adulthood or have already entered middle or old age, if your understanding of the essence of this thing itself is achieved within the normal time range, then your caliber is considered to be good. If the time frame you need to understand this thing exceeds three or four times that of a normal person—that is, if a person with good caliber needs three days, but you need ten days or even a month—and, by the time you’ve figured out the whole sequence of events of this matter clearly, and the harm and negative consequences caused by this matter have already appeared, only then do you realize the seriousness of this matter and what its root and essence are, then at best your caliber is average. In other words, if this matter has not yet caused serious consequences but some negative consequences have already been continuously emerging, and it is only during this process that you gradually become cognizant of the root and essence of this matter, arriving at a definition and conclusion, then your caliber is considered average. But if only after this matter has resulted in negative or serious consequences do you have a sudden realization and understand what the nature of this matter is, then your caliber is extremely poor. If this matter has already caused negative consequences and you still do not know what the problem with this matter is or what the root of the problem is, and you still cannot draw a conclusion about it, then you have no caliber. Cognitive ability is divided into these four levels. First are people with good caliber. That is, when something has just arisen and requires you to immediately draw a conclusion within a few hours—and this is an urgent situation where, if you do not promptly make a judgment, develop a plan to handle and resolve the matter, or even devise a loss-control plan to stop its further development, there will be negative consequences—if, within this time period, you can become cognizant of the root of this matter, and you can immediately and decisively make an accurate judgment, accurately make a decision and draw a conclusion, and then formulate a reasonable plan for handling it, this means you have good caliber. Suppose, however, that you only feel there is some problem with this matter, but you do not know where the problem lies or what its root is, and within the normal time period for handling this matter, you have no conclusions, verdicts, or plans for handling it. Instead, you merely passively wait and observe its further development, and only through its further development do you try to identify what the essence of this matter actually is and make a judgment that is not very accurate, and following that you continue to wait and observe, and before the matter has fully developed, you may just barely be able to see through to the essence of the problem or just barely come up with a solution, but your handling is still not prompt. If this is the case, then your caliber is very average. If this matter has fully developed and consequences have already appeared, with the essence of the problem having already emerged completely, and only then do you realize that this matter is bad, and see what its underlying root is—or perhaps you cannot even see the root at all but simply passively endure or face the final consequence of this matter—that means your caliber is poor. Another manifestation of people with poor caliber is that if such matters happen again, they still have the same attitude, the same method for handling it, and handle it with the same speed. That is, each time such matters occur, they always handle them in this same way, with this same speed and efficiency. No matter how many things occur, they are not able to discern their essence, nor do they correspondingly change any of their opinions or viewpoints on worldly matters. These are people with poor caliber. Precisely because they are people with poor caliber, they lack the ability to live independently; that is, they have no outlook on survival or on life. This is an indication of having poor caliber. The manifestation of people with no caliber is this: When a matter has already occurred, and consequences may have even appeared, they still don’t know what has happened, as if they are dreaming. This is having no caliber and no cognitive ability. Do you understand? (Yes.) Cognitive ability mainly refers to understanding the essences of various people and events and the roots of their problems; this is what cognitive ability is. It means that when you see the manifestations, revelations, and humanity of a certain type of people, you can know the problems they are facing, what the root of their problems in the environment they live in is, as well as what the essence of the events you are currently observing is and where the root of the problems within them lies. Cognitive ability mainly refers to two aspects: seeing through to the essence of people, events, and things, and seeing through to the root of their problems. What else can you understand about cognitive ability? Does anyone understand it as the ability to understand and learn knowledge? (No.) The cognitive ability we’re talking about primarily involves the ability to view people and events. If the standard by which you view people and events is very low, your understanding is very shallow, or you cannot understand the essence of any people, events, or things, then your cognitive ability is very poor, or even nonexistent. If, regardless of how many obviously incorrect words or wrong viewpoints the people around you express, how many incorrect actions they take, or how much obvious corruption they reveal, you cannot discover the essence of the problem, do not know what type of people they are, whether they are right people, whether they are people who pursue the truth, what their character is like, or what the essence of such people is—if you do not know any of these things—then you have no cognitive ability. When faced with any person or matter, you have no standard for assessment. After the matter has passed, you have no conclusion about the essence of such problems, and even more so you have no understanding of it whatsoever; and, of course, you have no principles for handling such matters or paths of practice for them—this is what it means to have no cognitive ability. Cognitive ability mainly refers to a person’s ability to understand people, events, and things. This concludes our discussion on this ability.

Number 6: The Ability to Make Judgments

The sixth ability is the ability to make judgments. The ability to make judgments is when, upon encountering a matter, you can judge whether it is correct or incorrect, right or wrong, and positive or negative, and then use your judgment to determine the appropriate way to approach and handle it. When a person normally encounters some matter, whether it is something they have seen before or not, experienced before or not, and whether the matter is relatively positive or relatively negative, what kind of attitude should they adopt toward it? Should they reject it or embrace and accept it? If, after you see it clearly, you have your own stance and possess accurate views that align with the truth principles, this proves you have the ability to make judgments. For example, when you hear a person say something, after thinking it over, you can determine what this means, what purpose the speaker wants to achieve, why they speak these words, why they use such wording and tone, and why they have a certain type of look in their eyes when saying it. You can see the underlying intentions, purposes, and motives behind what they say. Regardless of how you handle these underlying intentions and motives afterward, you can perceive some of the underlying problems behind the matter happening on the spot. You know what they want to do, why they want to do it like this, the purpose they want to achieve, the effect they intend their words to have, and the hidden means, schemes, and plots involved. You can see some indications, become aware that the problem here is not an ordinary one, and may even have a sense of alertness in your heart. This proves that you have the ability to make judgments. If you have the ability to make judgments, this means you are a person with good caliber. No matter how pleasant someone’s words sound, how much they align with the truth in terms of doctrine, how upright their attitude appears to others, or how deeply their purpose is hidden, you can still judge the problem through their outward revelations, phenomena, or what they say—this proves that you have good caliber and that you have the ability to make judgments. For example, when encountering some matter, regardless of the extent to which this matter has developed, you can see through to the essence of this matter and the root of the problem by understanding the process of this matter. This is having the ability to make judgments. For instance, in the church, when there are antichrists and evil people disrupting and disturbing, regarding who among these people is the ringleader, who are the followers, who plays the main role in this matter, and who is passive, as well as what kind of influence this matter itself will have on people, and what adverse consequences will arise if this matter develops further, you can, by understanding the basic circumstances of this matter, make a judgment about the whole situation. Even if your judgment at the time has some degree of discrepancy with how the matter eventually turns out, at the very least, you have a viewpoint, an attitude, and accurate principles for handling this matter. This is sufficient to prove that you have the ability to make judgments concerning this matter. That is, you have the ability to judge who the ringleader or instigator of a matter is, or to what extent this matter will develop in the future, and what kind of attitude and principles you should use to approach it and prevent it from leading to adverse consequences. As long as you have the ability to judge, the logic and method of your judgment are correct, and the basis of your judgment is at least in line with humanity, or better yet in line with the truth principles, this proves that you have the ability to make judgments. Even if your judgment has some degree of discrepancy with the matter itself, as long as there is a basis for your judgment, your judgment conforms to the patterns of how the matter itself develops, and aligns with the root and essence of similar or analogous problems—and, furthermore, aligns with the truth principles—it can also be said that you have the ability to make judgments. Having the ability to make judgments proves that you can think about problems. If your judgments align with the root, essence, and all other aspects of the matter itself, then this proves that you are a person with good caliber.

Regardless of what people or matters one encounters, only when one has correct thinking, and only on the premise of judging whether a matter is correct or incorrect, right or wrong, or whether it is positive or negative, can they have a subsequent plan for handling and resolving it. If a person does not know how to think about problems—specifically speaking, if they cannot judge problems—then they also cannot handle problems, that is, they lack the ability to handle problems. Anyone handling problems does so on the premise of judging whether a matter is correct or incorrect; otherwise, their plan for resolving the problem and their path of practice will lack a basis. For example, someone reports to you that in a certain church, the church life is not good; most people are negative and indifferent, unwilling to gather or do their duty. How do you judge such a phenomenon? Is this a real-life problem? (Yes.) Since it is a real-life problem, you need to come up with a specific plan of practice to handle and resolve it. Before resolving the problem, don’t you need to judge what the root and essence of this problem are, and which people are causing it? Don’t you need to judge these? (Yes.) Only through thinking can you have judgment, and only after judgment can you identify the root of the problem, and based on the root and essence of the problem, you can then determine appropriate, suitable methods for handling and plans for resolving the problem. If you learned that the church life in a certain church is not good but do not know the reason why, how would you go about judging where the root of the problem lies? (I would first think that this problem is directly related to the church leader. If the church leader does not have spiritual understanding, has believed in God for years but does not understand the truth, cannot handle any problems they encounter, and does not know how to lead God’s chosen people to eat and drink God’s words or fellowship about the truth, then a church with such a false leader is bound to lack good church life.) This is one judgment. Generally, for simple problems, if one judgment is accurate, it may allow you to grasp the root of the problem. However, some problems are complex, and if the information you understand is not complete, it is possible that your single judgment will not allow you to grasp the root of the problem. So, are there also second and third judgments? (Yes.) After having three judgments, it is possible that one of these is the most accurate. What other judgments can you think of, then? (What I can think of is that the people in this church have generally poor caliber and a poor ability to comprehend the truth, and they do not love the truth. That’s why the results of church life there are poor.) Does this conform to the reality of the situation? This is the second judgment. Are there any other judgments? (I’d also think about whether there are evil people disturbing this church.) This is the third judgment. Which of these three judgments is more in line with the real situation and more realistic, and which one is hollow? (I feel like the second judgment is somewhat hollow. In fact, if the church has a suitable person as a leader responsible for the work, the results of church life would be good. Through eating and drinking God’s words and understanding the truth, the brothers and sisters would surely have the drive to do their duties. I feel that the first and third judgments are more realistic.) The second judgment is hollow doctrine. The first and third judgments align with the real situation and are accurate. For one thing, these two judgments employ logical thinking; for another, they are based on some phenomena that are commonly found in real life. If you can grasp common phenomena, it proves that your thinking is correct and conforms to logic. If you cannot grasp the real situation, and your judgment is disconnected from real life, it proves that your thinking lacks logic and has problems, and that you view problems in an unrealistic, non-objective way. The first and third judgments are objective. One situation may be that the church leader does not know how to do the work. They themselves have no path in life entry, so they have even less of a path when it comes to leading the church and the brothers and sisters. As a result, the church life there does not improve. In fact, most people in the church sincerely believe in God and have drive, but the church life doesn’t really bear any fruit. Every gathering follows the same routine: singing, praying, reading God’s words, and then the leader or deacon shares some superficial understandings or doctrines. Few people there can speak about real experiential understanding. On top of that, the church leader has poor caliber and shallow experience, and they are unable to fellowship the truth to resolve problems. The church life thus seems dull and unenjoyable. There have been multiple gatherings but nobody has gained anything from them, so most people feel that attending such gatherings is less beneficial than reading God’s words at home, and they become unwilling to attend. Some people, after believing in God for one or two years and understanding some truth, want to do duties. However, some church leaders do not know which people are suitable for which duty or what kind of work they are suitable for. They are unable to reasonably arrange people or use people, nor can they use their own experiences to support people and help them fulfill their duties. This can lead to some people becoming negative and unwilling to do their duties. In fact, most people who are willing to do their duty can do their duty well; they just lack support and help. If church leaders and deacons can support and help people according to God’s words, the number of people in the church willing to do their duty will increase, and they will be able to do their duty normally. It is because church leaders and deacons do not know how to do the work that church life yields poor results and some problems remain unresolved for a long time, and after a while, many people become negative and no longer have any drive; this affects God’s chosen people in doing their duty. If the results of church life are poor, this is mainly because church leaders and deacons do not know how to do church work. This is one situation. Another situation is when antichrists and evil people hold power and cause disturbances in the church, and this happens from time to time. When church leaders do not know how to do the work, and there are also antichrists and evil people holding power, constantly forming cliques, establishing independent kingdoms, and tormenting and suppressing others, this leads to some brothers and sisters who sincerely believe in God and are willing to do their duty being suppressed, tormented, and excluded. They want to do their duty but have no opportunity, leaving them negative and weak. These people who sincerely believe in God have no enjoyment when gathering with antichrists and their cohort. Antichrists always want to hold power and establish themselves. When those who sincerely believe in God join gatherings, they want to understand more of the truth and share their experiences, but the antichrists suppress them and do not give them the opportunity. As a result, the church life becomes disordered; people fragment into disarray and gatherings are no longer enjoyable. The little enthusiasm and love people had is lost, and they are no longer willing to do their duty. The poor results of church life may be due to either of these reasons. This is what you can think of and judge. If the conclusion you reach through judgment is related to the real situation, even if it is only partially related or merely identifies a possible problem, this is still a manifestation of having the ability to make judgments. At the very least, the conclusion and opinion you reach through judgment are related to the real situation, and not doctrine, hollow, or something that never exists. This proves that you have the ability to make judgments. If the conclusions you draw about every matter do not align with the normal patterns of how things develop or with how any matter in real life turns out, and are purely imagined, hollow, unrealistic, and untrue, and have no relation to the real situations, then this means you have no ability to make judgments or frequently make errors in judgment. Then what about the second judgment you mentioned earlier, that the poor results of the church life are due to the people in this church having poor caliber and not loving the truth—what kind of judgment is this? (It is an error in judgment.) This is called making an error in judgment. If you cannot fully grasp the situations that frequently occur with such matters—that is, the few most likely situations to occur—and you only come up with one situation through judgment, or you can think of possible situations but also think of impossible situations, what does this prove? It proves that your ability to make judgments is average. A person with average ability to make judgments has some thoughts about a matter but cannot be certain. In such cases, the judgment they make is inaccurate. If a person’s judgments are sometimes correct and sometimes incorrect, and some align with the real situation while others do not, but the inaccurate ones are relatively more frequent, this indicates that their ability to make judgments is poor. Suppose that the conclusions they reach through judgment are entirely hollow, do not conform at all to the patterns of how things develop, and even more so do not align with common or frequently occurring phenomena, being completely unrelated to the facts. Their judgments are nothing but fantasies, they have no connection whatsoever to the patterns of how things develop or to humanity essence itself, and are entirely incompatible with the real-life context and the surrounding environment. That is, suppose that their judgments are disconnected from reality—what they come up with through judgment could never happen in real life, and what they speak of is not at all the essence of the problem. If this is the case, then this person has no ability to make judgments.

To evaluate whether a person has the ability to make judgments, the main thing is to see whether their judgments on various types of people and various types of things are accurate. For example, let’s say you see a person crying and you don’t know why. You can see that he is crying very aggrievedly and very sadly, and he is also praying and reading God’s words from time to time, and he does not respond to anyone who speaks to him. You are asked to judge what is going on with this person, and you say, “He might be homesick. His mother fell ill some time ago, so he wants to go home.” Is this judgment accurate? Some people say, “He might be feeling negative. Most of the time when people cry it’s because their feelings have been hurt. For instance, people cry when they get bullied or duped. When he’s faced with some issue and has been treated unfairly, he always cries, and is unwilling to speak to or interact with others. This is a manifestation of feeling negative.” Some others make this judgment: “He used to often preach the gospel and do his duty outside, but now he has been doing his duty indoors for a long time, and he might not be accustomed to it and feel stifled.” Are there any other possibilities? Some people say, “Maybe he didn’t get to eat meat yesterday, which made him upset and so he’s crying.” Others say, “Yesterday he came to talk to me. I thought he was just passing by, so I glanced at him and didn’t say anything. Could that have made him angry? Could he be crying because of this?” How should this matter be judged in a way that aligns with the actual situation? Is this easy to judge? (I can make some judgments. The few reasons mentioned just now—homesickness, hurt feelings, or a gloomy, stifled mood—these states can all possibly cause a person to cry. However, small things like not getting to eat meat or being ignored when speaking to someone shouldn’t be enough to make a person cry.) What are the reasons that can make a person cry hard? Grievances, sadness, missing someone or something, a sense of indebtedness. So, you should ask him, “Why is it that you’re crying? Are you crying because you’ve been treated unfairly and feel sad, or because you are reflecting on yourself and feel that you owe God so much?” By having a heartfelt conversation like this with him, you will know why he’s crying. In short, it is not possible that he’s crying because he didn’t eat well or couldn’t eat meat, nor is it possible that he’s crying because others ignored him or rolled their eyes at him. Of course, under typical circumstances, suffering a little hardship would not make a person cry, and occasionally being in a not-so-good mood would also not make them cry. The things that can make a person cry are usually just those few aforementioned situations. You can judge the reason why he is crying based on those usual situations, and you can then make a judgment on the basis of his usual, consistent manifestations—such as the fact that he generally does not cry unless he encounters something sad or something that touches a sore spot, that he does not shed tears easily, and that he only cries when speaking of particularly upsetting matters and things that especially touch his soul, or when he has done something wrong or committed a grave mistake and feels that he’s indebted to God—by judging based on this context, you can more or less figure out why he is crying. One situation is that he would cry if a family member became seriously ill or passed away, another is if he himself suffered from a serious illness and felt anguished. Alternatively, he might cry because he did something wrong and thus committed a transgression, and felt that he was indebted to God, wanting to do his utmost to reverse course but still having weaknesses and being unable to overcome them; these complex emotions mixed together would lead to him crying. These judgments are relatively consistent with the actual situation. By judging based on his consistent manifestations and the characteristics of his personality, you can figure out the root cause of why he is crying now. This way, the judgment will be relatively more accurate. By understanding, in one respect, the stature of such people and some of the problems they are currently experiencing, and in another respect, the defects of their humanity itself, as well as some of the corruption and weaknesses they frequently reveal, you can basically narrow down the scope, and judge what the root cause of this person’s problem is within this scope. Making a judgment in this way will be relatively accurate.

We’ve now finished fellowshipping about the manifestations of people with good caliber, average caliber, and poor caliber in terms of their ability to make judgments, haven’t we? (Yes.) There is also the category of people with the worst caliber. No matter what happens or what they see someone do, such people do not know how to make a judgment. Why not? Because their caliber is very poor, they have no ability to make judgments, and they do not know how to judge things. For example, suppose that they hear someone say something negative. When it comes to what the essence and nature of this negative statement are, they do not know what to base their judgment on, they have no clue. This is not knowing how to think about problems and not knowing how to judge things. When they see someone do something, they cannot judge what the nature of this matter is, or what this person’s character is like based on the essence of the matter; they do not know how to judge these things based on their experience conducting themselves, and even less based on God’s words. Therefore, they do not have the ability to make judgments. What is the root cause of not being able to judge things? It is that this type of person does not know how to think about problems, and when it comes to viewing people and things, they do not know which aspect of them to look at, how to view them, or on what basis to view them. And, they do not know what conclusions to draw afterward, how to draw conclusions, or how to approach and handle this type of person or matter once they have reached a conclusion. Their minds are either blank or foggy. This is lacking the ability to make judgments. The main problem of people who lack the ability to make judgments is that they do not understand or get any of the principles, and they even lack experience conducting themselves. Therefore, when they interact with various types of people, they do not know which kinds of people are worth associating with and which kinds are not; they don’t know which people are those who are relatively kind and who also have some strong points that they can learn from to make up for their shortcomings and who can help and benefit them; which kinds of people can be tolerated and gotten along with begrudgingly; and which kinds of people have such incredibly evil humanity that associating with them could easily invite trouble or disputes, and thus should be kept at a distance—they are ignorant about all of this. In short, these people who lack the ability to make judgments know nothing and cannot judge any person or matter. But they also have their own approach, a fixed rule they follow. They say, “No matter who I’m handling things with or speaking to, I just fob them off by joking around. I don’t hold enmity toward anyone. Whether they are a good person or a bad person, whether they genuinely believe in God or don’t believe, whether they love the truth or are averse to it—I get along with them, and I don’t offend anyone. When I see evil people, I avoid them; when I see docile people, I bully them.” This is precisely their devilish logic. They do not know which kinds of people they should associate with, which kinds of people they should keep at a distance, and which kinds of people they should never associate with or have dealings with. They do not apply the slightest discernment and they regard everyone as the same, treating all people uniformly. No matter who it is, as long as they do not have a favorable opinion of that person, they will regard them as an outsider or an enemy. No matter how good a person is, as long as they do not offer them any benefit, that person will be treated by them with guardedness. They do not open their hearts to anyone and they take a guarded approach with everyone. Are such people of good caliber or poor caliber? (Poor caliber.) Since they have poor caliber, how can they still have such thoughts? Such people are just small-minded. What is the difference between people without caliber and those who are mentally disabled? People without caliber are mentally deficient and idiotic. Apart from keeping themselves fed and clothed, maintaining face, and harboring some calculations for taking advantage and not suffering any losses, they have no caliber whatsoever. Mentally disabled people, on the other hand, do not even have any calculations for protecting their own interests or taking advantage—they simply have no thoughts at all. Mentally deficient and idiotic people, apart from having some calculations, possess absolutely no survival ability, no caliber, and no ability to make judgments. Therefore, there are no principles to how they treat any person; they just go by their feelings. As long as they feel that you are not good to them, they will avoid you, feel resistant toward you and hate you in their hearts, and reject you. No matter how much goodwill you have for them or how you help them, as long as they cannot clearly perceive it, they will not feel that you are friendly toward them or that you are not harmful to them at all. They cannot identify whether people, events, and things are correct or incorrect, right or wrong, positive or negative—they cannot judge these things. They only possess some calculations. When they’ve taken advantage, they feel happy; when they have not taken advantage, they feel that they have suffered a loss, been treated unfairly, and been laughed at by others, and they resolve that next time they will not let others take advantage, or allow others to show off or gain the upper hand in front of them—they will not give others any opportunities. Tell Me, does just having these calculations in their minds count as having caliber? It is only slightly better than being mentally disabled, but when it comes to abilities, they have none—they don’t have any of the different abilities for handling various types of affairs. They are simply idiotic and mentally deficient. Such people have no caliber. Do you understand? (Yes.) The only thing those people have that mentally disabled people don’t is these calculations; mentally disabled people do not even have those. When such people hear this, they are not convinced; they say, “You claim I have no ability to make judgments? Put some US dollars and gold together, and see if I can’t recognize them. I can distinguish them! Gold is yellow, and US dollars are paper money! Put platinum and silver together, and see if I can’t make a judgment! Platinum and silver are different shades of white—I can tell that!” Isn’t this foolish? This is quite foolish. They are only able to differentiate between these things, and yet they want to show off about it and prove that they are not foolish. They’ve done so many foolish things, so many things that demonstrate a lack of caliber—why don’t they talk about and try to understand those? It is precisely because they lack caliber, because their caliber is so poor, and they cannot identify or differentiate these things, that they bring up one or two things that mentally disabled people cannot do to prove they are not mentally disabled, to prove they have some wits and caliber. Isn’t this foolish? This further proves their foolishness. Our fellowship on the manifestations of people who have no caliber is also complete now. What is the primary measure of whether someone has the ability to make judgments? It is whether they have the thinking of normal humanity. If you don’t have the thinking of normal humanity, you will not be able to judge anything. If you have the thinking of normal humanity, your judgments may still be off, but at the very least, it shows that you have the ability to make judgments and possess the thinking ability of normal humanity. The judgments you make are not speculation, not assumption, not hypothetical, nor are they inference. Rather, they are the different conclusions and opinions arrived at through considering all aspects of a matter. This is what is called the ability to make judgments.