The conception of evil is ignorance and virtue is knowledge. Just as the power or efficacy of causes was thought to necessitate their effects in a special way in which effects can never be said to necessitate their cases. Indeed, the concepts of power and necessary connection were sometimes treated as they were one and the same. Power, force and necessary connection are sometimes referred to synonymously. Thus, it was thought that a person, in vanquishing his or her foe, makes their enemy die or does something that renders it impossible for that individual to live, that subjecting water to a certain temperature makes it boil, and so on. However, despite the fact such a cause can be certainly inferred from such an effect, given a sufficiently detailed description for the latter, it is never supposed that the effect necessitated such a cause. The Sun might shine upon a stone and thus make it become warmer, but in a sense in which it could not be said that the stone, in becoming warmer, makes the Sun shine upon it. It is in the sense illustrated by these examples that causes generally were thought to necessitate their effects in some way which it would be absurd to speak of effect necessitating their causes. #RandolphHarris 1 of 9

However, many recent philosophers have pointed out that if there is any necessary connection between causes and their effects, that connection has no more direction from cause to effect than from effect to cause, that the states of anything at any given time determine its past states in the same way that they determine its future states, or, in epistemological terms, that the same principles of inference that enable one to predict its future states also enable one to retrodict its past states. This is a question that has not been satisfactorily resolved in philosophy, for while it is certainly true that, according to any customary interpretation of necessitation, the present state of anything necessitates or determines its past states no less than its future ones, the application of this principle results in paradoxical assertions. It permits us to say, for example, that a given may, by dying at a certain time and place and in a certain way, determines or compels another man to have vanquished him, in the same sense that one can plausibly say that a man, in vanquishing another, compels that other to die or that a stone, in becoming warmer in just the way it does, makes the Sun shine upon it, in the same way the Sun, in shinning upon it, makes the stone become warmer. #RandolphHarris 2 of 9

With that being said, God is the transcendent one, a simple unity, the ultimate first principle and cause of all things. The categories of logic cannot be applied to him. Nor are any parts to be ascribed to him, for the one is indivisible. God cannot properly be named. The good names we give him are supports to our minds to stop us from erring. Taken separately, these names do not say what God is like, but together they show his power. While God cannot be known, the Son, or the Logos, is wisdom, knowledge, and truth. He unites himself the powers. The Son is not simply one thing as one thing nor many things as parts, but one thins as all things. All things come from him. For he is the circle of all the powers rolled into one and united. Within this unity of the Son the individual believer is saved. Faith is union in him, while disbelief is separation, estrangement, and division. We should not divide the supreme God from the Creator of the World, making two Gods instead of one. We must not put our trust in any person. We must put our trust in God first. We must trust absolutely in what God’s grace can do for us and others. #RandolpHarris 3 of 9

If I put my trust in human beings first, the end result will be my despair and hopelessness toward everyone. I will become bitter because I have insisted that people be what no person can ever be—absolutely perfect and right. Never trust anything in yourself or in anyone else, except the grace of God. God’s goodness is perfect and unique. Can a sinner be turned into a saint? Can a twisted life be made right? Do I really believe that God will do in me what I cannot do? If a person is ever going to worthwhile, there will be times when one must risk everything by a leap in the dark, something you do without being certain what will happen as a result. God does not prevent evil and suffering from taking place, but when they do, he turns them to good account. He may use suffering as a form of correction for sinners. God demands that we risk have faith in his Scriptures. Once one obeys, we will immediately find what God says is as solidly consistent as common sense. After death, imperfect souls may be sanctified by intelligent nonmaterial fire. The complex goodness of humans is always assimilation to God—growing like him by participation in his goodness. All people receive the image of God at their birth and all may then, as they choose, become assimilated to him and receive his likeness.  #RandolphHarris 4 of 9

Be patient and of good understanding, and you will rule over every wicked work, and you will work all righteousness. For if you be patient, the Holy Spirit that dwells in you will be pure. He will not be darkened by any evil spirit, but dwelling in a broad region, he will rejoice and be glad; and with the vessel in which he dwells he will serve God in gladness, having great peace within himself. However, if any outburst of anger take pace, forthwith the Holy Spirit, who is tender, is straitened, not having a pure place, and He seeks to depart. For he is choked by the vile spirit, and cannot attend on the Lord as he wishes, for anger pollutes him. For the Lord dwells in long-suffering, but the devil in anger. The two spirits, then, when dwelling in the same habitation, are at discord with each other, and are troublesome to the individual in whom they dwell. For if an exceedingly small piece of wormwood be taken and put into a jar of honey, is not the honey entirely destroyed, and does not the exceedingly small piece of wormwood entirely take away the sweetness of the honey, so that it no longer affords any gratification to its owner, but has become bitter, and lost it use?  #RandolphHarris 5 of 9

However, if the wormwood be not put into the honey, then they honey remains sweet, and is of use to its owner. You see, then, that patience is sweeter than honey, and useful to God and the Lord dwells in it. However, anger is bitter and useless. Now, if anger be mingled with patients, the patience is polluted, and its prayer is not then useful to God. I should like, sir, to know the power of anger, that I may guard myself against it. And if you do not guard yourself against it, you and your house lose all hope of salvation. Guard yourself, therefore, against it. For God is with you, and all will depart from it who repent with their whole heart. God will be with you and save us all. For all are justified by the most holy angel. Virtue comes through discipline and the pursuit of goodness, without thought of ulterior gain. The harmony of the soul is assisted by the harmony of the body. Virtue is the fulfillment of human’s function and the achievement of one’s end. This fulfillment is found in pursuing the mean between extremes and in possessing right reason. #RandolphHarris 6 of 9

There is a class of things intermediate between good and evil. One should recognize the things which are in one’s power and the things which are not, and avoid being dominated by one’s irrational passions. Patience is great, and mighty, and strong, and calm in the midst of great enlargement, joyful, rejoicing, free from care, glorifying God at all times, having no bitterness, and abiding continually meek and quiet. Now this patience dwells in those who have compete faith. However, anger is foolish, and fickle, and senseless. Now, of folly is begotten bitterness, and of bitterness anger, and of anger frenzy. This frenzy, the product of so many evils, ends in great and incurable sin. For when all these spirits dwell in one vessel in which the Holy Spirit also dwells, the vessel cannot contain them, but overflows. The tender Spirit, then, not being accustomed to dwell with the wicked spirit, nor with hardness, withdraws from such a person, and seeks to dwell with meekness and peacefulness. Then, when he withdraws from the individual whom he dwelt, the individual is emptied of the righteous Spirit; and being henceforward filled with evil spirits, one is in a state of anarchy in every action, being dragged hither and thither by the evil spirits. #RandolphHarris 7 of 9

Who will save your soul after all the lies you told? When the evil spirits take over a person, there is a complete darkness in one’s mind as to everything good. This, then, is what happens to all the angry. Wherefore do you depart from that most wicked spirit anger, and put on patience, and resist anger, and bitterness, and you will be found in company with the purity which is loved by the Lord. Take care, then that you neglect not by any chance this commandment, you will be able to keep all the other commandments. Be strong, in these commandments, and put on power, and let all put on power, as many as wish to walk in them. The simple elements of Christianity are true, and heresy is to be rejected as false. Truth is one and unique, powerful, and strong in delivering people from error. It comes from God and is preserved within the tradition of the church. The truth is whole composed of many parts. It is one body from which each philosophical sects has torn a limb, or part, falsely imagining it to be the whole truth. The many parts must be brought together, so that the perfect Logos, the truth, may be known.  #RandolphHarris 8 of 9

Who will save your souls if you will not save you own? Believe that there is one God who created and finished all things, and made all things out of nothing. He alone is able to contain the while, but God cannot be contained. Have faith therefore in God, and fear God; and fearing God, exercise self-control. Faith is an act not a process. Faith is the acceptance from God of an indemonstrable first principle from which all other truth may be deduced. It is a judgment of the soul. Knowledge is both logical and spiritual, joining things together either by rational reasoning or by spiritual vision. Spiritual knowledge is growth in Christ, awareness of God’s universal presence, and union with him in love. Symbolism reveals hidden connections and points to unity. Knowledge is always a complex unity. God is ineffable being, and the divine reason implanted in humans. Keep these commands, and you will cast away from you all wickedness, and put on the strength of righteousness, and live to God, if you keep this commandment. #RandolphHarris 9 of 9