The kingdom of God is the realization of God’s law among the people to the extent that it is revealed to them.
What would happen to poverty if everyone were to seek above all God’s kingdom and his truth? That is, if, voluntarily submitting to God’s law, everyone began striving towards a conscientious fulfillment of the duties imposed by this law?
Poverty is the daughter of injustice, covetousness and a criminal contempt for the sacred duties of humankind—a violation of them that is so widespread and constant that we, as a consequence of a terrible clouding of our conscience, have grown accustomed to considering it a necessary condition of the order of life. So, let your kingdom come, Lord; let let your law be the law of the renewal of the world; let nakedness not be the lot of three fourths of the human race; let the world not be a dwelling place for bitter enemies intent on harming each other, but a dwelling place for brothers striving to help one another. Multiplying daily, let the sons of God unite to destroy evil, to dismantle the temple of Satan and to build your temple from its ruins.
— Lamennais
One will only be able to truly say that the kingdom of God has come when the necessity of the transition of church faith to a universal rational religion is openly accepted. The complete realization of this heavenly kingdom may be infinitely removed from us, but the establishment of a universal rational religion in place of church faiths, like a germ that first develops and then multiplies, already contains everything necessary to enlighten and take over the world.
A thousand years in the life of the world are like a day. We must patiently work on its realization and wait for it.
— Kant
The kingdom of God on earth is humankind’s final goal and wish (“May your Kingdom come”). Christ has brought this kingdom closer to us, but the people did not understand him and have erected a kingdom of priests, not a kingdom of God.
— Kant
A time is coming when the ritualized, verbal worship, which attracts people with its poetry and splendor, and the social order founded on violence, which considers itself a necessary condition of life, will be ousted by a rational understanding of human life! A time of the kingdom of heaven is coming, the kingdom of God on earth, when our lives will be filled with a conscious fulfillment of God’s law.
One important thing is needed, which is to understand religion in its true sense: not in the sense of the sorcery and the fooling of the people, but in the sense of a true science, in the sense of reasoning about human life. We must understand it such that the concept of worship no longer means something mysterious and supernatural, something that is impossible to do without a priest, but instead see it as a love for God and one’s neighbor, a service to one’s neighbor, a work for the benefit of one’s neighbor and the common good—the concept of worship must be understood as doing good.
— Buka
The kingdom of God is within us. And therefore, seek the kingdom of God in yourselves, and everything else will happen according to your wishes.
