Nature, as God’s creation, must be unqualifiedly good. To the obvious question of how God can know in advance what has not been destined or causally necessitated, it by means of God’s subtle analysis of time. God has knowledge, not of what we are compelled to do but of what we freely choose to do, because his knowledge is not the kind of advance knowledge that is based on causal processes but is due to the fact that, in the mind of God, we have already made our decisions. All of past future time is spread out in the specious present of the divine mind, so that what, from our limited standpoint, would be prediction of the future is, for God, simply direct awareness of contemporaneous events. Moral concepts of rightness and virtue in terms of individual and social well-being and interpreted moral right and virtue consists of being obedient to divine authority. No mater what the natural consequences of our actions, we are held to account for the state of our soul. It is our motives and not necessarily our actions that count in assessment of our moral responsibility, and the primary motive is our desire for, or our turning away from, God. “No one is like you, O LORD; you are great, and your name is mighty in power. Who should not revere you, O King of nations? This is your due. Among all the wise people of the nations and in all their kingdoms, there is no one like you,” Jeremiah 10.6-7. #RandolphHarris 1 of 7

Responsibility is thus transferred from the consequences of a person’s actions to the state of our soul. The quality of life depends on what we do in the years we are allotted, and on what passes in consciousness during that time. Different activities typically affect the quality of experience in rather predictable ways. If all through life we only do depressing things, it is unlikely that we will end up having lives a very happy life. Usually each activity has both beneficial and negative qualities. When we eat, for instance, we tend to feel a more optimistic affect than usual; a graph of a person’s level of happiness during the day resembles the profile of the Golden Gate Bridge across San Francisco Bay, with the high points corresponding to meal times. At the same time, mental concentration tends to be rather low when a person eats, and one rarely experiences flow. The tendency to self-preservation expresses itself in the quest for social harmony through peace-keeping institutions and practices or, alternatively, in the aggressive drive toward power over one’s fellow people. Every person ought to endeavour to peace as far as one has hope of obtaining it, and the right of nature when one cannot obtain it, one may seek and use all the helps and advantages power. #RandolphHarris 2 of 7

Still, no child is born hostile or aggressive. It becomes so only when he or she desires to be loved and to love are frustrated, that is, when the child’s expected satisfactions are thwarted—and the thwarting of an expected satisfaction is the definition of frustration. When children are young, that is when they need more love and appreciation than ever before, and sometimes they are hard to love because they are not fully developed and do not know how to express themselves nor properly communicate. Childhood is a time of learning, developing, words and music, dancing, expression, dreams, and friends. Praise is necessary, though, and so are material rewards—medals, toys, trophies, and so forth. However, more important than any of these are the approval, support, and encouragement of the people the child considers important. This may be the hardest need for parents to understand and meet. Adults, caught up in their own needs and projects, may often disregard or minimize the seemingly selfish or frivolous activities of their children. #RandolphHarris 3 of 7

Children are intensely sensitive to the people around them, constantly checking out just how much influence or effect they have on people and situations. What may appear to be a strong need for dominance, risk-taking, leadership is actually a need to test out the emerging and growing sense of self. It is impossible to emphasize too strongly the importance of childhood. If the child does not experience enough success and one’s self-concept fails to develop, one may grow into adulthood with gaps in his or her personality. This is called deficiency-motivated, and adults who have this condition are so strongly motivated to fill in the holes, plug up the gaps, that very little time or energy is left over to meet other, ore advanced needs. For example, suppose that, despite all his best efforts, a young man is never able to get any girl to go out with him more than once—let alone date him long enough to develop a close loving relationship. He may grow into adulthood trying so desperately to attract any female that he cannot even see his own good qualities, cannot relax enough to develop into the kind of man who is attractive to girls—not to mention more attractive to himself! #RandolphHarris 4 of 7

Robots are machine-made simulations of people. Robopath describes people whose pathology infirmary entails mechanical-like behaviour and existence. A robopath is a human who has become socially self-contained. Robopaths are people who function in terms of a pseudo-image. They are automatons who may appear turned-on to other people, but who are, in fact, without true compassion. In contrast, a person who has had a healthy childhood, known as a self-actualized person, would have the inner-direction and sense of self to resist a human robopathic action. The ability to love in the true sense would equip this person with a compassion for other people that would deter the kind of atrocious robpathic behaviour discussed. A self-actualizer will ordinarily have been given enough support and love by his parents while he was young so that he is secure, not afraid to try new things. He will have developed a strong sense of autonomy, and he will feel secure enough about his own personality—strengths, weaknesses, and uniqueness—to expand his horizons. In other words, in the main, he will not be burdened by the deficiency-motivation we discussed earlier. #RandolphHarris 5 of 7

Does this mean that every self-actualizing person must have had a perfect childhood? No, not at all, but he must have found ways to overcome deficiencies so that they do not prevent him from concentrating on expanding his abilities, enjoying his life—not always hung-up at some lower level. How? Perhaps through therapy, perhaps through association with other people. What motivates a self-actualizing person? Well, although a we have been describing a male, the same theories apply to women and girls, too. Usually, they know what does not control their behaviour. They are not governed by tradition or by other people’s wishes. This is not to day that he or she scorns tradition and cares nothing about other people’s requirements. It is to say that he or she is not controlled by these things, when one wants to do something different. A self-actualizer tends to be impatient with trivial and nonsensical rules. One will be bound by a rule if it makes sense to him or her. These individuals seek novelty, stimulation, challenge, rather than safety. In their careers, they will not be so much tempted by a larger salary as by a chance to do something well, to experiment. As the self-actualizer get older, they tend to be more and more interested in cognitive (thinking/learning) and esthetic (art, music, literature, philosophy) activities. #RandolphHarris 6 of 7

The mistake more people make is to think that the self-actualized person is a superhuman person with no weaknesses. The truth is that he or she very often is silly, can be extravagant, and is still learning. They can also be determined and sometimes not charming. What we should make clear is that the self-actualized person is an exciting person and not frigidity nor joyless, as many might want to make the individual. This type of person has virtues that are extraordinary, but also has limitations. So as one becomes one’s actualizing potentials, it is important not to seek perfection, but to discover the joy that comes from integration of both strength and weaknesses—to freely skate between all potentials. Most self-actualizers do not tend to be highly competitive. Does that seem like a contradiction for such a competent individual? Meeting their own standards is what counts. (This is called being-motivation or growth-motivation, in contrast to deficiency-motivation.) The self-actualizing person is comfortable with other people—probably in part because one feels no need to compete with or judge them and is not worried about their competing or judging him or her. These individuals realize that human beings come in all varieties—some cruel, hostile, selfish; some victims, sufferers, or outcasts; and still others loving, cooperative, able to see the larger vision. #RandolphHarris 7 of 7