Choose a topic from Part 1:
1. God is the source of being, bodily and spiritual, substantial and accidental. God is therefore the Creator of bodies as well as of spirits. And while some bodies can propagate and reproduce their kind, God had to give first beginnings and the power to propagate; God must also support the process of propagating in its being and effectiveness. Scripture says (Ps.145) that God is the Creator "who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all things that are in them."
2. The entire universe, bodily and spiritual, is the work of God's goodness. All creatures manifest the divine goodness and tend to it as to their goal or final cause.
3. The theory that God made the angels, and then the angels made the bodily world, cannot stand. For, as we have seen elsewhere, only God can create. No secondary cause (that is, no creature) can produce anything without having something to work on. But creation is total production of a thing from nothing.
4. A body is made of primal matter and substantial form. Some have said that the substantial forms of bodies were taken from the angels. This is false doctrine. Bodies come in first instance from God the Creator; no bodily element is supplied by angels or other creatures.
"Those who love God are always happy, because their whole happiness is to fulfill, even in adversity, the will of God."
St Alphonsus de Liguori
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"Men should often renew their good resolutions, and not lose heart because they are tempted against them."
St Philip Neri
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"It is better to be burdened and in company with the strong than to be unburdened and with the weak. When you are burdened you are close to God, your strength, who abides with the afflicted. When you are relieved of the burden you are close to yourself, your own weakness; for virtue and strength of soul grow and are confirmed in the trials of patience."
St John of the Cross, OCD - Doctor of the Church
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