We have dug into the Earth, we have listened to psychics, we have done so of course to get more information about this beautiful experience called life. Although human cognition begins with the knowing of bodily things, human beings can form some intellectual notions and judgments concerning immaterial beings: souls, angels, and God. Seek willingly and listen attentively to the words of the saints; do not be displeased with the sayings of the ancients, for they were not made without purpose. As far as philosophical consideration goes, the Universe might be eternal. Eternity is a type of duration differing from time in two ways: the eternal has neither beginning nor termination, and the eternal has neither beginning nor termination, and the eternal has no succession of instants but exists entirely at once (tota simul). Humans are the highest of God’s creatures; there are other kinds of purely intellectual beings with activities, powers, and natures superior to beings with activities, powers, and natures superior to those of humans. These are angels. Spiritual beings are the highest realm of the Universe.  #RandolphHarris 1 of 16

Philosophical theology, metaphysics, treats divine matters as principles for the explanation of all things, and the theology taught in Scripture, which studies divine things for their own sake. Truth, not eloquence, is to be sought in reading the Holy Scriptures; and every part must be read in the spirit in which it is written. For in the Scriptures we ought to seek profit rather than polished diction. Likewise, we ought to read simple and devout books as willingly as learned ones. We ought not to be swayed by the authority of the writer, whether he or she be a great literary light or an insignificant person, but the love of simple truth. We ought not to ask who is speaking, but mark what is said. The study of literature, law, journalism, and physical science is comparable to the work of a judge in a court of law. One should listen to, and try to evaluate, all important testimony before attempting to formulate one’s own judgment on the problems of life. People pass away, but the truth of the Lord remains forever. God speaks to us in many ways without regard for persons. #RandolphHarris 2 of 16

In regards to justice, peace, or a perfectly good being, a person’s will should be naturally and necessarily attracted to such objects. This natural movement of the will is not free. There are volitional movements toward or away from intellectually known objects that are judged as partly desirable or as partly undesirable. Such movements of will are directed by intellectual judgments evaluating the objects. In this case volition is said to be deliberated (specified by intellectual considerations) and free. It is in the act of decision (arbitrium) that human beings are free. People have free choice or decision (liberum arbitrium). Human, by virtue of one’s intellectual powers, is free in some of their actions. A human being is an animated body in which the psychic principle (anima) is distinctive of the species and determines that the material is human. In other words, a human’s soul is one’s substantial form. Some of human’s activities are obviously very like those of brutes, but the intellectual and volitional functions transcend materiality by virtue of their universal and abstracted character. #RandolphHarris 3 of 16

The immateriality of the human soul, the fact that it can understand universal meanings and make free decisions is because the heart is more strong in the flesh than true to the spirit. The soul is a real part of human and, being both immaterial and real, it is spiritual. From certain other features of human’s higher activities, especially from the unity of conscious experience, the simplicity and integration of a human’s soul: it is not divisible into parts. This makes some believe that the soul is incapable of corruption (disintegration into parts) and thus is immortal. Since the soul incapable of being partitioned, new souls must be created by God in the biological process. Each rational soul is originated by divine creation from nothing. Human parents are not the total cause of their offspring; they share the work of procreation with God. This is why so much stress is placed on the dignity and sanctity of human reproduction, which is more than a biological function. The begetting and raising of children is the primary purpose of married life, and this is not simply in relation of sexual activity, but of a human participation in God’s creative functions. #RandolphHarris 4 of 16

Every being has some intelligible meaning (verum), and every being is in some way desirable (bonum). At the highest level, God is described as Pure Act in the existential order. All activities are directed toward some end or purpose, and an intrinsic perfectionism is in the development of all beings. Beings are trending toward God as Final Cause. This is metaphysical finality in the sense of order to an external end. Since the act of being is common to many existents, there must be one universal cause of all. All beings in our experience are imperfect, not self-moved, and not the source of their actual being, and the reasoning concludes to the existence of a mover completely immobile and most perfect. Gradations of goodness, truth, and nobility in the things of human’s experience to the existence of a being that is most true, most good, and most noble. The universal order points to an existence of an intelligent Orderer of all things, and this is what we call God. It is essential that you give people the opportunity to act on the truth of God. The responsibility must be left with their individual—you cannot act for another person. #RandolphHarris 5 of 16

A person must be led by their own choice to deliberately decide an act, but the evangelical message should always lead that individual to act. Now, all things that are moved must be moved by other things; furthermore, things of an inferior nature are moved by superior beings. The four basic elements are thought to be under dynamic influence of the stars, and lower celestial bodies are considered to be moved about by those at a greater distance from Earth. This process cannot go on to infinity. The only possible explanation of the series of physical motions observed in the Universe requires the acceptance of the existence of a different sort of mover—a being that is not moved by another, in other words, a first mover. This would have to be a real being, of course, and of a quite different nature from bodily things. This first mover existing above all else is what Christians call God. To suppose that the Universe is self-explanatory is like thinking that a bed could be constructed by putting the tools and material together, without any carpenter to use them. This is an important case of the conception of God as a divine craftsman. #RandolphHarris 6 of 16

This suggests briefly that an infinite series of moved movers is an impossibility; the length of the series has nothing to do with its explanatory function, if all its members be finite. Any such series requires a first mover (primary in the sense of causality, not necessarily of chronological priority). This first mover would be a Supreme Being. It is obvious that many of the attributes of God are already implied in the argument for divine existence. Regarding the nature of God, we really do not know much about the Supreme Being. Humans are naturally equipped to understand directly the natures of material things; further, humans are aware of their own psychic functions as they occur but that all human understanding of the nature of their own soul, of immaterial substances such as angels, and of infinite immaterial being (God) is achieved by dint of discursive and indirect reasoning. There is, of course, a wide gap between material and immaterial substances. Yet, both these types of finite beings fall within the same logical genus, as substances, and thus bodies and created spirits have some aspects in common. #RandolphHarris 7 of 16

On the other hand, God is an immaterial being of an entirely different nature from that of bodies or even created spirits. Between God and creatures there is no univocal community: that is to say, God does not fall within the same genus, either real or logical, as any other being. Hence, God’s nature transcends all species and genera. Human’s natural knowledge of God’s nature is therefore very imperfect, achieved by negating various imperfections found in finite beings; thus, God is not in time, not in place, not subject to change, and so on. The circumstances of a saint’s life are ordained of God. In the life of a saint there is no such thing as chance. God by His providence brings you into circumstances that you cannot understand at all, but the Spirit of God understands. God brings you to places, among people, and into certain conditions to accomplish a definite purpose. All your circumstances are in the hands of God. Furthermore, humans may reach some beneficial knowledge of God by way of analogy: thus, God is powerful but not in the finite manner of other beings; He is knowing, willing, and so on. #RandolphHarris 8 of 16

Divine providence is that attribute of God whereby He intelligently orders all things and events in the Universe. God both establishes the plan (ratio) in accord with which all creatures are kept in order and executes this plan through continued governance of the World. Literally, providence means foresight. Divine providence does not exclude chance events from the Universe. In one sense, a chance event occurs apart from the intention of the agent. However, what is intended by one agent may involve another agent who is unaware of this intention of the first. Hence, a plurality of real but imperfect agents sets the stage for chance: God knows this and permits it to occur. I must learn that the purpose of my life belongs to God, not me. God is using me from His great personal perspective, and all He asks of me is that I trust Him. When I stop telling God what I want, He can freely work His will in me without any hindrance. God can crush me, exalt me, or do anything else He chooses. He simply asks me to have absolute faith in Him and His goodness. #RandolphHarris 9 of 16

Place your trust in God. Do what lies in your power and God will assist your good will. Put no trust in your own learning nor in the cunning of any human, but rather in the grace of God Who helps the humble and humbles the proud. DO NOT open your heart to every person, but discuss your affairs with one who is wise and who fears God. Do not keep company with young people and strangers. Seek only the intimacy of God and His angels, and avoid the notice of humans. Evil (both physical and moral) is a privation of goodness, of perfection, in being or in action. This does not deny that fact that evil really occurs but asserts that it is like a wound in being; and like any defect, evil is important by virtue of what is lacking. As to why a perfectly good God will allow evil to occur, the possibility of evil is necessary so that many goods may be possible. If there were no death of other animals, there would not be life for the lion; if there were no persecution from tyrants, there would be no occasion for the heroic suffering of the martyrs. #RandolphHarris 10 of 16

The ultimate enemy of a healthy soul is sin, because the soul cries out for wholeness within the person and between the person and God, others, and creation. Divine foreknowledge is opposed to the exercise of human freedom. In effect, human freedom does not imply absolute indeterminism (action that is uncaused). What a person does freely is caused by oneself, as a knowing and willing agent. God makes humans capable of choosing well or ill, permits people to do so freely, and knows what a human will accomplish. What appears to be necessitated from one point of view may be quite contingent and free from another viewpoint. From God’s vantage point in eternity, human actions are not affairs of past or future, but are events within the all-inclusive present of a divine observer who witnesses these events but does not determine them. If the providential will of God means a hard and difficult time for you, go through it. By going through the trial, you learn to know God better. #RandolpHarris 11 of 16

Intelligent performance of actions is divided into ethics, economics (treating problems of domestic life), and politics. In all three areas, the thinking is teleological; finality, purposiveness and the means—end relation all are aspects. Rationally controlled activities must be directed to some goal; they are judged good or bad in terms of their attainment of that goal and in terms of the means by which they attain (or fail to attain) that end. Moral theology, viewing moral good and evil in terms of accord or discord with divine law, which is revealed in Scripture and developed and interpreted in Christian tradition. Think what faith in Jesus Christ claims and provides—He can present us faultless before the throne of God, inexpressibly pure, absolutely righteous, and profoundly justified. We must continually focus and firmly place our faith in Jesus Christ. Our faith must be in the One from whom our salvation springs. We can never experience Jesus Christ or selfishly bind Him in the confines of our own hearts. Our faith must be built strong, determined confidence in Him. #RandolphHarris 12 of 16

Ethics consists of a study of good and evil in human conduct, from the point of view of human’s achievement of ultimate happiness. Not all the actions in which human beings are involved are truly human, but only those accomplished under the control of human’s intellect and will. The primary characteristic of human conduct is not so much as voluntariness. Voluntary activity is a development of discovering divine design. Several factors are required for a voluntary action. There must be sufficient knowledge on the part of a moral agent that a given action is within one’s power; one cannot be entirely ignorant of the kind of action that one is performing or the means, circumstances, and end of one’s actions. Violence, under certain conditions, modifies the voluntariness of one’s actions—as do certain kinds of uncontrollable feelings. Furthermore, there are two opposites to what is voluntary. The involuntary is a contrary: it represents a diminution of voluntariness. #RandolphHarris 13 of 16

Thus, an action that is partly involuntary is also partly voluntary and is, to a greater or lesser extent, imputable to the agent. On the other hand, the not-voluntary is the contradiction of what is voluntary, and an agent who is not voluntary is not morally responsible for one’s action. I feel myself almost a spirit when I gaze upon the stars. It is believed that Satan and the Angels were created before the Earth and that Adam and Eve lived on the Earth for 130 years and then Satan became jealous of the fellowship that Adam and Eve enjoyed with God. Satan did not fall until over 100 years after the creation. The fall could not have been in the original creation because he was still the bearer of light in the Garden of Eden. The soul does not measure time by seconds, nor yet by heart-beats, but by modifications in its own quality and character. The watches of the World may stop; the planets may cease to measure flight of time; the body may retain its pristine vigor—but in an hour, a moment almost, the heart may grow old, the human may be transformed. #RandolphHarris 14 of 16

What you focus on, you magnify. If you stay focused on your problem or what you do not have and how it will never work out, all you are doing is making it bigger than it really is. When you magnify something, you do not change the size of the object; you only change your perception of it. Magnify the Lord with me. Let us not make problems bigger, but learn instead to make God bigger. I am not focusing on how big my problems are. I am focusing on how big my God is. Get a new perspective. Do not be intimidated. You are full of the Spirit of God—the same power that raised Christ from the dead lives inside of you. What challenges are you facing that God wants to use to your advantage? All our difficulties are only platforms for the manifestation of God’s grace, power, and love. If anyone would tell you the shortest, surest way to happiness, one must tell you to make it a rule to yourself to thank and praise God for everything that happens to you. For it is certain that whatever seeming calamity happens to you, if you thank and praise God for it, you turn it into a blessing. #RandolphHarris 15 of 16

You may have a reason to feel sorry for yourself, but you do not have a right. God promised to give you beauty for those ashes. God said he would pay you back double for the wrong, but you have to do your part. If we are born of God, we will see His guiding hands and give Him the credit. We can all see God in exceptional things, but it requires the growth of spiritual discipline to see God in every detail. Never believe that the so-called random events of life are anything less than God’s appointed order. Be ready to discover God’s divine designs anywhere and everywhere. God will not permit any troubles to come upon us, unless He has a specific plan by which great blessing can come out of the difficulty. God will restore me, give me new opportunities, new relationships, and new perspectives. If you cry about a nickel, you will die about a dime. God is going to make the rest of your life even better than you could have imagined. #RandolphHarris 16 of 16