The most dangerous and unsure things is to try to live without God. Our function is to receive God’s grace. Inward experience—whether of willed effort or belief itself—is the richest basis of knowledge. The reason we require any kind of government is that some people were born corrupt, yet with a sense of morality. Some of our souls are thus in a state of conflict. Sovereigns exist in order to prevent the disaster which arise from this conflict and to keep order within the state. Many people are not capable of governing themselves, for some cannot spontaneously quell the evil that is in their being; therefore, the power to do so must reside in the hands of a ruler who will be above criticism and have absolute power. God who is the author of sovereignty is also the author of punishment. God is the author of punishment so that the corrupt people may still be redeemed. However, if a person is to be punished, there must be an absolute and unquestioned power to execute the punishment, and that power is God’s. “The Lord slays wicked to bring forth righteous purposes,” reports 1 Nephi 4.13. When we act in confident faith, a supernatural identification with God immediately takes place. In God we live and move and have our being. We see all things in God. We see in the intelligible World of the divine reason not only eternal immutable essences but—in a certain sense and with certain qualifications—created and changing corporeal things as well. #RandolphHarris 1 of 5

Created things are in themselves casually inefficacious and God is the sole true cause of change in the Universe. We are dependent on God. It is God who creates us and conserves us from moment to moment and who alone acts on us and for us. Owing to our existence and actions as well as our knowledge to God, we are truly united with the Lord. The seemingly mystical notion of union with God is presented, both discursively and rigorously, as the deliverance of reason as well as of faith. “Be therefore perfect, even your Father which is in Heaven is perfect,” reports Matthew 5.48. In these words, we are challenged to strive for excellence in all that we do—to develop our talents and abilities—and above all to live in accordance with the Lord’s teachings. The pursuit of excellence should be major work of our lives. Because of confusion in their notions of presence to the mind, many people give little attention to enhancing their lives honestly. Knowledge of the Lord, so to speak, is replaced by external objects that requires representative entities to serve as surrogates. The doctrine of vision in God was offered as the solution to a problem that arises about our knowledge of objects outside of us (hors de nous hors de l’ame). God speaks to us through dreams and visions. “And it shall come to pass afterword, that I will pour out my Spirit on all people; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your antiquated people shall dream dreams, and youth shall see visions,” reports Joel 2.28 #RandolphHarris 2 of 5

Sometimes our dreams challenge us about things in our heart that we leave unattended. Some people believe that the soul leaves the body and walks about in the Heavens to look at the Sun and the Stars; on the contrary, there is of necessity something united with (unie) and present to the mind that exhibits these objects to it, which transmitted through the intervening atmosphere and acted upon by various faculties of the soul, and the sources of ideas. “Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth,” reports John 16.7-8,12-13. It is through the Holy Ghost the members receive the knowledge and witness of the truth. So influenced, they willingly and voluntarily support the cause of the restored gospel. Whatever is required of them, they respond and feel comfortable about it. How else should it be? The price is paid. Unless people have an actual knowledge that the course they are pursuing is according to the will of God they will grow weary in their minds, and faint, for such has been, and always will be, the opposition in the hearts of unbelievers and those that know not God.  For a person to lay down their all requires more than mere belief or supposition that one is doing the will of God; but actual knowledge, realizing that, when these sufferings are ended, one will enter into eternal rest, and be a partaker of the Glory of God. #RandolphHarris 3 of 5

Our Lord reported to be careful only about one thing—our relationship to him. Since we are dependent on God in both action and thought, a question arises about the will and the possibility of freedom of the will. The will’s movement is caused by God toward the good-in-general (le bien en general) and determined in various ways toward particular objects. Movements toward the good-in-general is absolutely invincible, as is evident in the fact that we cannot will to be unhappy or desire something that does not appear to be a good. Determinations of the will, occasioned by sensations and thoughts, are not absolutely invincible. Although we do not initiate particular inclinations, we are immediately away, by sentiment interieur, of our power to refuse consent. And freedom in this sense is manifested even in our acceptance of grace. To recover some concept of humanity, one must again examine what a person does, thereby redefining his or her powers. The image of the rational, detached observer—scientist or philosopher—placed outside the World one observes must therefore give way to the participant who is, as it were, a knot of relations with the World. What can we do best with our lives? Transform into consciousness an experience as broad as possible. And also, the Lord shall have power over his saints, and shall reign in their midst, and shall come down in judgment upon the World. #RandolphHarris 4 of 5

We are still in possession of the inner drive that has structured our World—the need to create a coherent, intelligible image of humanity’s fate that gives significance to each individual life. Hence, the double burden of lucidity and anguish characteristics of our time, hence its temptations. God plants in the hearts of the children the promises made to the fathers, and the hearts of children shall return to their fathers. If it were not so, we would be living in a state of metaphysical distraction and renounce our drive toward lucidity and submit to blind necessity and to natural social conditioning. This would be an intolerable reversion to the demons, that is, to the blind animal instinct within us, and would leave a scar on the planet, and the whole Earth would be utterly wasted at God’s coming. The works, and the designs, and the purpose of God cannot be frustrated, neither can they come to naught. The structures of values whereby each individual within a human society relates to the cosmos, to the community, and to our own actions now exist as pure, humble, and devoted to God. The power to dominate and transcends fate and to create a Universe in some way accessible to all people, who are thereby freed from time, death and blind necessity. The privileged potential image of humankind, therefore, detects as indicative of our present orientation is that human beings are the creator and forger of their own freedom. #RandolphHarris 5 of 5