Number 9: Decision-Making Ability

Now let’s look at the ninth ability, decision-making ability. Decision-making ability greatly tests a person’s caliber; the average person does not possess it. People who truly possess the caliber and ability of decision-making are the ones who are at the decision-making level. So, what does decision-making ability mainly refer to? It refers to how, when various people, events, and things arise and most people can’t see through them, some people can discern and handle various kinds of problems and handle various kinds of people, based on God’s words and the truth. This ability to handle problems is called decision-making ability. Those who have this ability to handle things have decision-making ability; those who do not have this ability to handle things do not have decision-making ability. What does decision-making ability involve? It involves people’s comprehension ability, ability to make judgments, ability to identify things, and ability to respond to things. These are collectively called decision-making ability. Those who have decision-making ability can both judge the essence of problems and identify the attributes of problems. Of course, more importantly, they can grasp the principles and direction for handling various problems. Only those who can do these things are people who have decision-making ability. For example, let’s say that everyone is talking one after another about a whole bunch of phenomena, facts, as well as existing factors, circumstances, conditions, and so on. On the basis of the aforementioned various factors and conditions, those who have decision-making ability ultimately decide how exactly to act, what the means and direction of action should be, what the best achievable level is, and what the minimum acceptable level is—they have a baseline. Then, based on the truth principles they understand, they handle the problems. Those who have this ability are people with decision-making ability, and such people are those with the best caliber. Regardless of which kind of professional skill they are faced with, or which kind of problem they are handling, and regardless of whether the problem discovered is single-faceted or multifaceted, simple or complex, they can use the various pieces of information that emerge from all aspects to judge the essence of the problem, then analyze the root cause of the problem, and finally decide how to act based on the problem and the existing conditions. This decision is primarily made based on what can be achieved under the existing conditions, and the path of action they decide on is the best solution. Those who can handle problems in this way are people with decision-making ability. People with this kind of decision-making ability are those with very good caliber. Only such people are suitable to be leaders and suitable to do a duty in a decision-making group. People with poor caliber or average caliber, when faced with any kind of problem, can only confine themselves to the matter itself and say some surface-level words, and they are completely unable to resolve the problem. Even if they consult others and look into the issue, they ultimately still cannot arrive at a definition and do not know how to act. This is lacking decision-making ability. Regardless of how complex the current situation is or how difficult the problem that currently needs to be handled may be and how great obstruction may be encountered in doing so, people with decision-making ability can handle it properly according to principles, and their handling of it is relatively appropriate and reliable. Such people are those who have decision-making ability. When those with average decision-making ability encounter ordinary situations and some common occurrences in the church, they can handle them. But if they encounter certain special people, events, and things, they become confused, not knowing how to face or handle them. After much consideration, they still cannot make a clear judgment or reach a decision. People with decision-making ability know to seek the truth principles targeting the crux of the problem. People without decision-making ability do not know where the crux of the problem lies, how to seek, or what to seek. This is the difference between them. If, through seeking, one comes to know what to do, this indicates they have average caliber. For people with poor caliber, even if they come to understand some truth principles through seeking and feel at the time that they know how to handle the matter, they still cannot do so when it comes time to handle it. They become perplexed: “Why can’t I apply the truth principles that I just understood? What am I missing?” Once again, they feel confused, and in the end, they still cannot resolve the problem. This is lacking decision-making ability; this is having poor caliber. People with the poorest caliber just do whatever you tell them to. If you don’t tell them what to do, they do not know how to act. When people at the decision-making level authorize and commission or instruct them to carry out a task, they will only be able to do it however they have been told to do. However, as for why exactly the task is to be done that way, what results the task is meant to achieve, or what to do and how to handle it if unexpected situations arise that differ from the original scenario, they do not know any of these things, and they have to ask, and wait for others to help solve the issue. This is lacking decision-making ability. Such people are like robots—they can only be manipulated and controlled by others, and they have no autonomy. Decision-making ability is out of the question for this kind of person who has no caliber—they are so far removed from the ability of decision-making, they simply fall short of this ability. Decision-making ability only needs to be divided into three levels: high, medium, and low. High, medium, and low correspond to good, average, and poor. It’s not even worth talking about decision-making ability when it comes to people who have no caliber; no matter what they are doing, they cannot make decisions. For example, they don’t know what exactly is appropriate to wear when fall comes and the weather becomes cool, and what is appropriate to wear when winter comes and the weather turns cold—they don’t even possess this most basic common knowledge, so wouldn’t it be a joke to ask them to make decisions on major matters relating to the church’s work? Decision-making ability is out of the question for people who have no caliber. Decision-making ability mainly applies to those at the level of leaders, workers, and supervisors. There are very few people with high decision-making ability. What else does decision-making ability involve? It involves the consequences of the matter that you made a decision on—whether those consequences will be beneficial to people or have a negative effect, and whether they will have a good effect on people understanding the truth or acting according to principles—you must figure this out. It is not the case that simply being able to make decisions, be decisive, and quickly call the shots is the same as having decision-making ability. It also depends on whether the solution and the goal and direction you decided on are correct. If the results achieved are positive, then you truly have decision-making ability. If the results achieved are negative—leading people astray, causing them great harm, or ruining them—then that is not any kind of decision-making ability. And so, people’s belief that all leading figures and prominent figures have decision-making ability, and that all leading figures possess relatively high caliber and relatively high decision-making ability, is not an accurate viewpoint; it is an entirely wrong opinion. Whether the decisions you make are correct also depends on what the principles, goals, and directions behind them are. If the goals and directions are beneficial to mankind, and if they provide positive help to and benefit people’s self-conduct, practice of the truth, attainment of salvation, dispositional change, and fear of God and shunning of evil, then your decision-making ability is truly high. But if you make blind decisions that end up seriously hurting people, causing them great harm, leading them astray, causing them to drift away from God and lose their direction, then this is harming people and you cannot be said to have decision-making ability. That concludes our discussion on decision-making ability.

Number 10: The Ability to Evaluate and Appreciate Things

The next ability is the ability to evaluate and appreciate things. Do you know what this means? This is an uncommon topic. The ability to evaluate and appreciate things means whether, when approaching some person, event, or thing, you can evaluate and appreciate its strengths, merits, and valuable aspects from the information you can observe and grasp, and then apply these to your own life and to your self-conduct and actions. If you cannot evaluate and appreciate something, you will not be able to tell what its merits and shortcomings are, you will not understand the key to it, and you will not be able to gain any benefit from it. This means you do not have the ability to evaluate and appreciate things. However, if you can evaluate and appreciate things, and learn something useful from certain matters and apply it to your real life, and if what you’ve learned can provide a certain amount of assistance to your human life and to your selecting a life path, then this proves that you have a certain ability to evaluate and appreciate things. The higher your ability in this regard, the more it proves that you have good caliber. Let’s take a simple example: viewing a painting. Even if you have not studied art, if you can observe the composition of a painting and perceive the meaning it contains from the perspective of humanity—and your perspective is furthermore very accurate and related to being human—and you can see some concrete things that relate to being human within it and then apply these things to your own life or work, this manifestation proves that you have the ability to evaluate and appreciate things. The scope of the ability to evaluate and appreciate things refers to some relatively concrete things, not abstract things. Abstract things include colors, works of art, and so on. Because these things do not relate to being human, are not concrete enough, and they are far removed from normal human thinking and certain things present in human life, and not closely related to life, we do not categorize them within the scope of the ability to evaluate and appreciate things. For certain things that are relatively close to life, which contain some hidden meanings or which relate to being human, if you are able to assess, discern, and apply them; if you can see their merits as well as their drawbacks, and you have your own thoughts and viewpoints on them, and you can understand the aspects that are beneficial to people’s humanity; and if you can discern any distorted and inflexible elements that go against the truth when they are present; then this is called having the ability to evaluate and appreciate things. If you cannot assess these things and, when you look at a concrete thing, you can only discern its strengths and drawbacks in terms of doctrine but cannot see exactly which aspects of humanity it relates to in daily life, then your ability to evaluate and appreciate things is average. If you look at a work of art and, after examining it repeatedly, you still do not know what it is trying to express, or why the creator made it this way, and regardless of whether the work of art relates to humanity or not, you cannot see what essential things it contains, and you cannot see the key to it, then this means you lack the ability to evaluate and appreciate things. Lacking the ability to evaluate and appreciate things means that you have no viewpoints on anything and are easily misled by social trends or certain negative things advocated by people—that is, you may regard something that is inherently negative as if it were positive and accept it. The consequence of this is that you will be poisoned by it, and if this thing remains in you for a long time and becomes deeply rooted in you, it will hinder and interfere with your acceptance of the truth. Let’s provide another example concerning the ability to evaluate and appreciate things. For example, say that the raw footage of a film amounts to three hours, and after editing, the movie’s runtime is two hours and forty minutes. Is this the conventional length for a movie? (No.) What does this indicate? (It indicates that the filmmakers lack the ability to evaluate and appreciate things.) What does lacking the ability to evaluate and appreciate things specifically mean for a film? (It means they cannot select the better footage, and cannot make accurate judgments about which footage should be kept and which should be discarded.) They do not know what theme the film aims to convey or which scenes are closely related to the theme. As a result, they cannot decide what to keep and what to discard. That is, they do not know which scenes or plot points are dispensable, and are only tangentially related to the theme and can be removed, and which scenes or plot points are most tied with the theme and need to be retained. Because they lack the ability to evaluate and appreciate things, during editing they “show mercy,” feeling that this cannot be cut and that cannot be cut. In the end, after considerable effort, they only remove scenes with obvious issues or poorly shot footage. As for content that is not closely related to the theme, they leave it all in. This is lacking the ability to evaluate and appreciate things. They have an unclear understanding of the definition of a film; as for the specific forms and expressive techniques of film and the relationship between each scene, as well as which scenes are truly the scenes of a film, they don’t understand any of this. This is lacking the ability to evaluate and appreciate things. And so, during filming, they are full of confidence; during editing, distress is painted across their faces; and when it comes to review, they are worried to death. After the review, they feel very sure about how to proceed because, through the guidance of the Above, they have learned which scenes to discard, and then boldly cut them. How much do they cut the film down in the end? They cut it down to a runtime of one hour and forty minutes. The cameramen feel quite upset: “Isn’t this a waste of the fruits of our labor? We spent six months arduously shooting so much footage, but you’ve been merciless, having this and that cut—is this even still a movie?” My response is that cutting so much is exactly right—this is what a movie should be like. What you had wasn’t a movie; at best, it was a TV drama. The truth is beyond people with a poor ability to evaluate and appreciate things—fellowshipping the truth with them won’t achieve any results. When it comes to any things or any ideas and viewpoints, they cannot evaluate which align with the needs and standards of normal humanity, which go against normal humanity, which are real and practical, which are hollow and imagined, which accord with God’s requirements, and which go against God’s intentions. When it comes to a film, which scenes play a supporting role to the theme, get straight to the point and directly convey the theme, and are essential to expressing the core of the theme, and which are extraneous or unnecessary—they cannot make these things out, and do not understand any of them. When it comes to editing, they always “show mercy” and are reluctant to cut footage. This is lacking the ability to evaluate and appreciate things. If, after shooting the material, through considering the ideas the film is intended to convey and the direction it’s intended to communicate, you know which scenes should not be included, which scenes lack sufficient impact, and which scenes are backup shots that were never intended for use but were prepared as a backup in case special circumstances arose—if in your heart you have given consideration to these matters, and have plans for handling them and solutions, this is called having the ability to evaluate and appreciate things. If you can’t do any of these things, and the perspectives and methods you use to consider and view problems lack a basis, and you cannot draw a correct conclusion in the end, this means you lack the ability to evaluate and appreciate things. Of course, most people in the church lack the ability to evaluate and appreciate things. The ability to evaluate and appreciate things is not only about how much you can see through a piece of creative work, an artistic creation, or something that serves as spiritual sustenance or a philosophical theory about people’s humanity—the key is that you also must have an accurate view on these things. In one respect, your view must align with the facts and with the needs of humanity. In another respect, what you understand or comprehend must align with positive things and the laws of all things; it must not be hollow or distorted, and ultimately, it comes down to conforming to the truth principles. If you not only can see what ideas and viewpoints are being conveyed, if you don’t just get stuck at that level, but can also see whether these ideas and viewpoints are actually correct, whether they actually align with the needs of humanity, whether they are actually pure, and whether they actually conform to the truth—if you can do all these things—then you are someone with a good ability to evaluate and appreciate things. People with a good ability to evaluate and appreciate things are those with good caliber. If you cannot achieve all these things or can only achieve them to an average degree, then your ability to evaluate and appreciate things is merely average. If you fundamentally cannot figure out these matters—for example, if you cannot understand any audio-visual works, literary and artistic works, artwork, and so on, whether they be abstract or concrete, and you find them to be entirely incomprehensible, like a foreign language, and you lack the capacity within your humanity to evaluate and appreciate such things, then you do not have the ability to evaluate and appreciate things; you are a person with no caliber. If, through observing the demeanor or the psychological state and the overall expression of the mental state of a character within a scene with certain colors, certain lighting, and a certain environment, you can tell the impact that this scene will have on a viewer’s mind, then you possess the ability to evaluate and appreciate things. However, people without the ability to evaluate and appreciate things cannot see this. They say, “What does it matter if the lighting is dim or not, or if the colors are beautiful or not? Isn’t the character still the same? How can you tell what their mental state is? Why can’t I see it?” This is lacking the ability to evaluate and appreciate things. No matter how you explain it to them, they may claim they understand, but actually, in their hearts they still don’t get it. This field will always remain foreign to them. People who lack the ability to evaluate and appreciate things, no matter what kind of work they do or what kind of literary or artistic works they view, are unable to express their own thoughts and viewpoints. Especially for work or creations that require expressing deep meaning, expressing a theme, or providing spiritual guidance, they cannot do it well and cannot be competent for such tasks. If you possess the ability to evaluate and appreciate things and, in addition to that, you also understand the truth, then for the work of God’s house related to film, literature, and art, which involve the ability to evaluate and appreciate things, you can do it well, be competent for it, and fulfill this kind of duty. If you lack the ability to evaluate and appreciate things, then you have poor caliber and cannot be competent for this type of work. Some people say, “I have listened to the truth for so many years and understand the truth principles. Does that mean I can be competent for this type of work?” That still won’t do. Even if you understand some truth, without the ability to evaluate and appreciate things as a complement, you can only perform work such as preaching the gospel or watering the church. However, for work involving the ability to evaluate and appreciate things, you will not be competent for it. Therefore, if some people have been mistakenly chosen for this type of work and now realize that they have no potential in this area and are inherently without the ability to evaluate and appreciate things, they should promptly resign, saying, “I cannot do this work. My humanity does not possess the ability to evaluate and appreciate things.” Of course, whether or not you possess the ability to evaluate and appreciate things, it is one standard for evaluating a person’s caliber. Although it is not a primary standard, for certain special work, the ability to evaluate and appreciate things is also necessary. This concludes our fellowship on the ability to evaluate and appreciate things. There’s one more ability, innovative ability, which we will fellowship on next time.

Does fellowshipping like this make things clearer for you? (Yes.) If I only spoke in general terms, saying, “The caliber of a person is evaluated by their efficiency and effectiveness in doing things,” you would only be able to recite this doctrine, but you would still not be clear on what specific aspects caliber refers to. Later, I thought it would be better to fellowship more specifically; when you gain clarity on this topic, you will be able to accurately evaluate and clearly understand your own caliber. This will help you to know your proper place and not overestimate your abilities. Viewing clearly and understanding your own abilities, determining whether your caliber is good, average, poor, or non-existent, and identifying which group you belong to—finding your proper place like this, enables you to act and conduct yourself in a well-behaved manner. For one thing, it enables you to have an accurate understanding of yourself. For another, in terms of resolving your corrupt dispositions, it also provides a certain amount of assistance for transforming your arrogant disposition. Isn’t that right? (Yes.) Let’s end the fellowship here for today. Goodbye!

November 4, 2023