Like Adam and Eve, many professed Christians and others, whose CHOSEN priortities are "surfaces", have CHOSEN the lie that "this is Satan's world", inferring that they (and God, Himself) are "helpless" in the face of it.
The CENTRAL ("whole") Truth is that this is God's world, and the forces of evil can go no further than God allows. God endowed man with free-will and honors our decisions. He allows us to suffer the consequences of our own "choices" for good or for evil. The choice for "surfaces", and thus the "fall from innocence", goes all the way back to Eden...." ~ Gagdad Bob
Magnificent, Matchett-PI!
How I do admire Dr. Robert Godwin, a/k/a "Gagdad Bob."
Thank you so much for this treasure from him!
Very true! Good stuff!Thank you for posting this ,dear friend
You might like the following from Saint Aquinas...
That all Things are ordained to one End, which is God
The sovereign good, which is God, is the cause of goodness in all good things. He is therefore also the cause of every end being an end, since whatever is an end is such inasmuch as it is good. But that whereby another thing has an attribute, has more of that attribute itself.* Therefore God above all things is the end of all.
4. In every series of ends the last end must be the end of all the ends preceding. But we find all things arranged in various grades of goodness under our sovereign good, which is the cause of all goodness; and thereby, since good bears the character of an end, all things are ordered under God as ends preceding under their last end.
5. Private good is subordinated to the end of the common good: for the being of a part is for the sake of the being of the whole: hence the good of the race is more godlike than the good of the individual man. But the sovereign good, which is God, is the common good, since the good of the whole community depends on Him: while the goodness which marks any given thing is its own private good, and also the good of other things which depend upon it. All things therefore are subordinate to the end of one good, which is God.
7. The last end of every producer, in so far as he is a producer, is himself: for the things produced by us we use for ourselves; and if ever a man makes anything for another man, that is referred to his own good, -- his utility, his pleasure, or his honour. But God is the productive cause of all things, either immediately or mediately. And therefore He is the end of all.
Hence it is said: God hath wrought all things for himself (Prov. xvi, 4): and, I am alpha and omega, the first and the last (Apoc. xxii, 13).