Proof of Angelic Intelligence for Atheists to Ponder Video. Please see film for credits. Behind the disobedient choice of our first parents lurks a More

Proof of Angelic Intelligence for Atheists to Ponder Video. Please see film for credits. Behind the disobedient choice of our first parents lurks a seductive voice, opposed to God, which makes them fall into death out of envy. Scripture and the Church's Tradition see in this being a fallen angel, called "Satan" or the "devil". The Church teaches that Satan was at first a good angel, made by God: "The devil and the other demons were indeed created naturally good by God, but they became evil by their own doing." Scripture speaks of a sin of these angels. This "fall" consists in the free choice of these created spirits, who radically and irrevocably rejected God and his reign. We find a reflection of that rebellion in the tempter's words to our first parents: "You will be like God." The devil "has sinned from the beginning"; he is "a liar and the father of lies". It is the irrevocable character of their choice, and not a defect in the infinite divine mercy, that makes the angels' sin unforgivable. "There is no repentance for the angels after their fall, just as there is no repentance for men after death." Scripture witnesses to the disastrous influence of the one Jesus calls "a murderer from the beginning", who would even try to divert Jesus from the mission received from his Father. "The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil." In its consequences the gravest of these works was the mendacious seduction that led man to disobey God. The power of Satan is, nonetheless, not infinite. He is only a creature, powerful from the fact that he is pure spirit, but still a creature. He cannot prevent the building up of God's reign. Although Satan may act in the world out of hatred for God and his kingdom in Christ Jesus, and although his action may cause grave injuries - of a spiritual nature and, indirectly, even of a physical nature- to each man and to society, the action is permitted by divine providence which with strength and gentleness guides human and cosmic history. It is a great mystery that providence should permit diabolical activity, but "we know that in everything God works for good with those who love him." If the angel sins, his sin is necessarily mortal, because, seeing end and means with one and the same intuitive glance, he cannot be disordered venially, i. e.: in regard to means, without previous mortal disorder in regard to his last end. Again, the sin of the angel is irrevocable, and hence irremissible. In other words, since the angel chooses with perfect knowledge after consideration, not abstract, discursive, successive, but intuitive and simultaneous, of all that is involved in his choice, he can no longer see any reason for reversal of his choice. Hence arises the demon's fixed obstinacy in evil. Nothing was unforeseen in his choice. If we were to say to him: "You did not foresee this," he would answer, "Surely I foresaw it." With fullest knowledge he refused obedience, and refuses it forever in unending pride. Similarly the choice of the good angel is irrevocable and participates in the immutability of God's free act of choice. St. Thomas cites approvingly the common expression: Before choice the free will of the angel is flexible, but not after choice. There is one lesson that we need to learn in life it is that our stay here on earth is a probation. We commonly speak of the trials of life. We should say that our life on earth is a trial. It is a test. It is God's way of enabling us to prove our loyalty to Him. That is what life, or we correctly say, is - a valley of tears. It is an opportunity to prove our fidelity to the God from whom we came and the condition for our eternity with the God for whom we were made. This then is the focus of our present meditation, mainly, that we are to learn from the angels, and like them, we too must prove our loyalty to the God who created us, in we wish to avoid the hell to which some angels were sent, and reach the heaven to which we aspire. Please see film for credits.
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Sins of the Father - Addison is shaken by her father's arrival in Los Angeles; after he refuses to cooperate in a case involving a longtime More

Sins of the Father - Addison is shaken by her father's arrival in Los Angeles; after he refuses to cooperate in a case involving a longtime patient, Cooper is arrested; Pete fights to keep a terminally ill patient alive long enough for him to meet his new daughter Thursday November 19th 10:01/9:01c
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