Part I, The Lord vs. Satan: SupCtHeaven;

Isn't life on earth hellish? Were we to pile up all the defective products and make a big bonfire out of them, what would be left afterwards? Kleenex? The lone Windows computer which doesn't crash? Your favorite cup? A Barco Lounger? Not much would be left, would it? We make a jet, but it crashes -- why? Because it had the wrong amount of lubricant. The incorrect amount of lubricant caused a plane to crash in the year 2000, destroying 200 people. Lives depended on lubricant, for crying out loud. Makes you wonder, doesn't it, if we aren't just animals, after all? Biology says we are. Strange beings, we: even most animals would not do the stupid things we do. Yet we can fly to the moon? Does that make sense? How is it we can't even get lubricant right, but we can fly to the moon? Have you ever done something so stupid, you later asked yourself, "What the heck did I do that for?" Yet, at other times, you find yourself doing something so brilliant, you shock yourself?

Maybe Dante's Inferno is right down here. What an annoying life we all have. Used to be, man spent a whole day just hunting, catching, skinning, and cooking his ONE meal. It took THAT long. Even now, how much time do we have to spend just keeping body and soul together? Even in our modern age? Clothes need cleaning, the body needs food, the car needs to go to the shop, we've not enough hard drive space, the house always needs fixing, we always need more money. Then, what happens? We no sooner get 'enough' -- and then become too old, too tired, too sick to enjoy it. Or, technology renders whatever we slaved to get, obsolete. Or, we move out of the dream house, because it's now a nightmare. Or, the spouse is now a problem. No wonder we are always frustrated, always living with our nose to the ground. Will there ever be any respite? No wonder we love television, movies, and computers so much. No wonder we love religion so much. They all give us 'escape'. Escape from the mountains of trivial duties which choke our lives. Even in this modern age.

Ahhh, escape. Back to a better time. Or, up to Heaven. Better still, let's try to make heaven out of this hell. Escape! So, life down here is one big propaganda machine: improve, improve, improve. Nirvana is just around the corner. If we can just afford that car, that house, that suit, that jewelry -- things will be better. Self will be fulfilled. Looks are important; feeling is important; thinking is 'too hard'. Let's just 'enjoy'. On the news, we see crime is everywhere; it's always someone else's fault; government should 'do' for us; everything makes us sick. Yeah, let's just enjoy. But wait! The car needs a new tire. The dishes need to be washed. Johnny needs a haircut. The roof is leaking, again.

In short, give up on life, or give in to hell. So, it's nice to hear "Daddy will take care of it"; or, "Daddy's to blame." Of course, "Daddy" is Sugar-Daddy, Uncle Sugar, the one to pay all the bills, who has all the authority. So, whatever is the problem, Daddy's to handle it -- or to blame. Santa Claus, God, Government, the spouse, the neighbor-next-door. Please, someone fix this. Ahhh.

Sounds good, right? Ahhh, but conspiracy theorists warn "they" are pulling the strings, seducing us. "They" are out to control the world. "They" promise us poor, beleaguered folks an escape: to become our Daddies -- by promising us goodies. We are to salivate over the goodies, and thus become enslaved. Then, they can bend us to their evil will, to satisfy their power lusts. George Orwell's 1984 and Huxley's Brave New World. 'Merged, into a "Matrix". The New World Order.

Yeah, well maybe it's not so "new". Yeah, well maybe the "they", are Satan &Co., playing the time-immemorial game of seduce-and-destroy. God, see, has sentenced them to the Lake of Fire for rebelling against Him, and they dispute the verdict. Hence, we exist. If they can prove (via us) that they can rule the better, well -- they can escape that burning Lake.

They get free rein, to prove God wrong. We, like Job, know we're the stadium and players for their appeal. Many a poet, many an author has written about what Satan &Co. do. It's entertaining, of course. Still, most of us consider the idea kooky! Other beings exist who are greater than us? These beings use us for their own gain, to crown themselves? Well, we just gotta laugh that off, right? The whole idea is just too bizarre to contemplate, right?

Never mind that Satan's crowning strategy is succinctly yet wholly revealed in Matthew 4's "Three Temptations":

Body over Bible;

Splashy over Spiritual;

Fantasy over Freedom.

Never mind that the Lord, Who Alone could have instantly fixed the world "by the Word of His Power", has always refused that strategy. Never mind that He is now Seated as Ruler of All -- "waiting", as the Bible says in Hebrews 10:12-14 (and elsewhere), for the Father to make the "enemy", "the footstool of Your Feet."

What are we to think, then? What are we to do? Should we ignore all this conflict, and just go on with our lives? Why are we told about it at all? Clearly something's to be learned, else the Bible would be silent about this unseen conflict, which prompted the Trial, which prompted the creation of the human race to display the arguments of both sides. We don't get to hear those arguments directly -- but we do get enough information to figure out the aims of both sides, and thus the general themes of their arguments.

Scripture outlines the background like this: MorningStar (Haylel ben-Shachar, Satan's real 'name', cf Isaiah 14:12) had rebelled against God the Son; 1/3rd of the other angels allied with Satan. Why? 'On the grounds that God was unfair (beg. Job1 and 2 reveals Satan's basic claim that God is unfair). After some undenominated period, a Trial was held, and Satan's group was sentenced to the Lake of Fire (Matthew 25:41, for example). Satan's appealed the sentence, so we are created to be evidentiary witnesses of the superiority of one side, or the other. ("Satan" is a title, "Adversary/Accuser" -- it's a legal term for "opposing attorney"; the beginning of Job1 and 2 in Hebrew, is legal language -- formal Trial convocation.) Whoever wins the Appeal, though, also gets to rule. That's the deal: the stakes couldn't be higher.

Enough is said about Satan in Scripture for us to know, really, a great deal about this Conflict -- enough for us to see it in our daily lives. Further, from what is said, we can know his 'plan' to aid mankind. Scripture accomplishes full disclosure directly, and obliquely -- so to provide both proper context, and objectivity -- rather than gushiness, or fear.

Satan's plan, after all, is an option for our lives, too. We have the option to pick-and-choose among the elements of either plan: Satan's, or God's. 'The issue? Who's better? Ergo we need the disclosure, so to make informed choices -- with eternal consequences.

So, even though you are always deciding who will be your lord-for-that-moment, the Lord, or Satan -- you alone program yourself with each decision. That's the deal.

Satan's Plan, of course, is intended to prove he does a better job ruling man than the Lord does. To Satan, 'management' is all top-down, a matter of programming man by using his strengths, but also by appeal to his weaknesses. God's philosophy is different. God is all about bottom-up, using nothing of man's at all. God doesn't believe in programming -- not even for man's own good. To God, the person himself matters; to Satan, the human is a pet, to do tricks pleasing his master.

Satan nattily accuses God of having this same motive; of pretending to love man, but instead merely toying with him. So, man was poorly made by God, and as such is but a pet. Ergo his comments at the beginning of Job 1 and Job 2, and his philosophy behind the highest-echelon temptations of Matthew 4.

In short, Satan's contends that God (Son) not only made rational creation improperly, but also that He is hypocritical; the Trial is thus a sham, a kangaroo court. With Courtly manners (sometimes), or irrepressible contempt (sometimes), or genuine hurt (sometimes), and even genuine yearning for reconciliation (on his terms, of course), Satan (&Co.) makes his appeal arguments in the court of Heaven -- but also, to men.

We hear his arguments, loud and clear, and we parrot them. Shouldn't "the rich" (God, and, per militant Islam, the US) be made to pay for "the poor" (creation, or all non-US freedom fighters)? Isn't it so-and-so's (God's, and now, the US') fault problems exist, since he can fix them (God/the US can snap his fingers, as it were, and fix all)? Does so-and-so deserve to BE so influential/powerful (does God deserve to be God) if he doesn't fix things? The "rich" (God/US) oppress the poor (creation/palestinians/whoever-wants-our-money); the poor (creation, etc.) are all victims, can't help themselves. All injustice is the fault of the more-powerful (God), never the fault of the least-powerful (creation). See the top-down logic, here? See the venom against God? See how Satan plays on the greed of those who have (legitimate or not) grievances? See how cleverly a criminal intent is clothed in sheep's wool? Yeah, pulling the wool over our own naive eyes.

Naturally, the unbeliever concludes God does not exist, for if He did exist, the problems would not exist. Name any unfairness, and God is responsible. So, God must not exist, since the unfairness exists, and man must have invented God to comfort himself about death; to lord something over the lesser humans, and thus control them. See how this line of logic makes man think of himself as god? 'Like the Most High? See the stamp of satanic programming?

Satan's 'deal' offers the little human's ego what he wants, in return for slavery. Enslavement, which is of course for man's good! -- is accomplished by dispensing, or withholding, goodies. 'Freedom' is reified to mean solely the possession of goodies. 'Slavery' is reified to mean solely the deprivation of goodies. So such distorted definitions are promulgated as good-and-true; they constitute the driving force behind a God-should-be-Sugar-Daddy definition.

Its variant, Judgmental God, is equally childish and shallow, but is handy for those who want asceticism: self-righteousness 'goodies'. For them, the idea of becoming like the Most High is the ultimate fun in life. 'On par with Him, earning a right before Him. Religion, my friends. "The devil's ace trump", religion, comes in many flavors, including the one we see a lot these days, "taliban". Top-down. Control.

See how crafty Satan is? He dismembers God, and hence our spiritual life, down to the proverbial "Brother Foot." (1 Corinthians 12:14). Never mind that we are of the Head, that is, Christ. Satan, in his unquenchable desire for revenge, wants Christ under his feet, so casts Christ (and the Godhead) as of no more value than a foot. A runner. A "go-fer", a peasant. A person who does only menial tasks. A person who is petty, judgmental. A Hander-Out of goodies. Or, a Withholder of them. Such a despisingly-cheap idea of God naturally filters down to a shoddy spiritual life: do, do, do -- doo-doo.

These two definitions of God, Sugar-Daddy and Petty Judge, are made opposites so that the believer is caught between them, in a spiritual blitzkrieg. Trapped between these two narrow falsehoods, the believer is blinded to the real nature of God. So, for added entrapment, Satan often binds both ideas together as one: you get Sugar-Daddy if you are a good person, but Petty Judge if you are a bad person. All the world's religions tout this model. Mainstream Christianity touts it, too.

So, these are the ideas of God most humans have learned and been Pavlovly-trained to love. So, we make Satan look good, and we enthusiastically proselytize others on his behalf. Good marionettes, we are.

We define everything, including ourselves, including God, by goodies. And why not? How can we avoid it, in a world which constantly needs mending? So, our mantra: a person is only worth what good he does. A person is only worth what good he does for 'me'. So I too am only worth what I 'do' for 'you'. So, what kind of life do we end up praising, or living? Wouldn't a life based on such values entirely revolve around goodies? No matter what lofty name -- say, 'love' -- we give to it? See how Satan has cleverly made believers, even, obsess over "earthly things"? And how can we avoid this obsession, since everything around us is defective? How can we avoid thinking that our trying to fix things down here, should win us something, even from God?

People doing for people as a scorecard of one's worth; people doing for people as a scorecard of the spiritual life; people, people, people. If Satan and Co. can keep us busy enough here, God has no room in our lives, and is merely a designer label, something to 'have' to make self feel sufficient, a status symbol, an award. Busy accumulating points before this 'God', we prove we don't want the Real God; we don't think about how He is, we don't know Him, and we don't want to know Him. We just want to bustle around, feeling 'holy' through rousing rituals or sermons; and most of all, we want to bustle around, feeling we have done something 'worthy'! So we give Him our vegetables, like Cain tried to do.

Cain slaved to make vegetables. Abel, he didn't work at all. The animals, what work were they? He had to watch them, that's about it. Let those lambs into pasture. Cain's work was a lot harder. Wouldn't God appreciate all of that effort? How could God dare spurn Cain's work? But He did -- so, Cain jealously learned murder from watching Abel's sacrificing the lambs, and thus learned how to murder his brother with the very sacrificial knife Abel had used on the lambs. [John 8:44 and 1 John 3:12, compared. 1 John 3:12 uses one of very many murder words Greek has. That particular word means to slay as an animal sacrifice, i.e., slitting the throat.]

Like Cain, we despise God's scorecard. His scorecard is poor; after all our hard work, all our efforts, He doesn't take away our problems? We get terminally ill? How fair is that? Why do we have 'x' problem? Didn't our work count for anything? His Gifts relative to His Wealth are so small to us, we are insulted. It's no wonder we blame Him so easily for every mishap.

Or, if we are less honest, we deem ourselves holy martyrs under God's harsh hand -- so any criticism against us is obviously a sign of our holiness! We will be resolute! We will be firm! We will be punished! And we will never see the truth.

But wait! aren't we supposed to help people? Wouldn't God want that? Doesn't the Scripture laud "good works"? Hmmm.

Why do people want to have a relationship with one another? Is it to use the other person? To gain something from him? To gain self-esteem? To fulfill some need self has? Many of us painfully remember being victims of such motives. When such motives are the true reasons behind 'good deeds', a lack of reciprocity makes the good-deeder feel cheated: "after all I've done for YOU!" is the mind's reaction. It wasn't reciprocated the way the person felt it ought to have been.

So the need for reciprocation, evening up the scorecard, slowly defeats whatever 'love' there was. Whatever 'love' there was, wears out like an old garment. It has been 'dirtied' too many times by being unrequited. It has been 'laundered' too many times by hurt tears. It has been torn too many times by ripped hopes. So, although we don't mean love to be conditional, we do have a 'price': we love, or help others, only for so long as we get whatever 'scorecard' reciprocation we seek. Is that really loving? 'Helping them? Or, us?

We look at the problems in our world, and we don't see Him solve them the way we think they should be solved -- so we fly planes into buildings in His Name, or otherwise interfere in people's lives. Top-down, baby.

Can't God take care of the people He made? Why do we feel such an urge to do it? Don't we trust Him to do it? If we say "yes" (and we will, stridently), then why don't we wait and first learn if the 'good' we have in mind agrees with the 'good' He has in mind? "But wait!" someone will say reading this, "how can you know, for sure?" Ahhh. Kinda gotta know the PERSON to know his opinion, eh?

"But we do know: Scripture says give to the poor, give here, give there", someone will huffily reply. Hmmm. Scripture also says "the poor you will have with you always", and "he who will not work should not eat" (cf. 2Thess3:10-12), and "these people worship Me with their lips, but their hearts are far from Me", and "dead works", and Lev 26 punishments. So, maybe it is not good to do a 'good deed' in that particular place. Maybe we are being Pharisees, but in our zeal are blind to our real motives, or -- blind to the recipient's real need. God, of course, is not blind. Shouldn't He be consulted for longer than the soundbyte-minute it takes to point to a verse and exclaim, "Aha!" in self-justification?

All the temptations in Matthew 4, are temptations to do good deeds! Speak stones into bread, feed the world (as well as self)! Jump off the Temple, so everyone will instantly believe in You and be saved! "Kneel" to take over the world, so to benefit the world, so to defeat the ruler of it! Yeah, Satan: feed the belly, not the soul. Seduce people into belief, rather than let them freely look at the truth; fix all visible offenses, yet leave the souls as empty as they were before. Yeah, these are good (for nothing!) deeds, allright.

Do we bristle at 'doing nothing'? Do we feel helpless, do we feel it's 'right' to pick the pimples we see (especially in others, mind you)? Do we need to fix things because, in reality -- dare we admit it? -- we are offended that the problem we see exists? Is not our urge to do 'good' rather more an expression of our offense that God Himself is allowing the problem? So we fantasize His 'hiring' us to handle the matter, thus making us good-like-God ('same temptation as Satan made to the woman)?

But wait! Bread feeds, but stones starve! But wait! We should jump with joy! But wait! We should be humble workers for the benefit of the world, no matter what the cost to self! Yeah, Satan: we, not God, do the fixing, right? So we, not God, get the credit, right? So we, not God, are visible, right? Yeah, cut Him out of view! Heh.

That observation should give one pause. Maybe the solution we see (taking the child away, for example) is not God's solution, but Satan's: enslave people so they can't sin -- for their own 'good'. Keep them busy doing what pleases the eye of the beholder.

Yeah, see, God's not doing something to help an innocent child. Maybe He doesn't care. After all, He cared so little for His Son He made His Son fast for 40 whole days, though fasting was never a law in the Law, but merely a popular custom. Fasting was excoriated, even (Zechariah 7), but look how inconsistent: He made His Own Son go hungry, to prove Son's Love for Father? What about Father's Love for Son, huh? Won't even let the Son feed Himself at no cost to the Father? Won't even bother to save the Son if He jumps off the Temple, despite the promise of Psalm 91? Won't even spare His Son the Cross? Well, I'll give Him those Kingdoms so He doesn't have to go to the Cross. I'll spare the Son, allright. I won't abuse Him the way the Father does. I'll be the savior of the Savior. I'll save that innocent child from the drug-crazed mother.

Yeah, Satan: above all, prefer looking down to looking up: see self, rather than the Most Gorgeous Person in the Universe. Preen, instead! Yeah, so 'good'! Heh.

Let's feed bodies -- oh, the poor children. Weep for the poor children. Weep, weep, weep: see how much we CARE? Let's get mad at bodies, too. Like at those no-good hussies who dared to have some fun and got pregnant. Let's call them murderesses cuz WE think that's what the Bible should say. Let's hunt them down, punish them with childbirth! But WE don't take the child and raise it, no! We force those hussies to raise the child. To keep on seeing what bad hussies they are! We want those hussies to SUFFER childrearing! Yea and hallelujah! To give the child the bad thinking which made their mammas get pregnant in the first place, so we can make MORE hussies from the kids! So we can keep on having a SUPPLY of hussies to get mad at, which we LUV to do!

We gonna splash around, too. We gonna sing songs, and bake cakes, and ask everyone to give us money, doing God's Work, we are! We then gonna exorcise all dem nasty demons, and even tempt danger, like go to Afghanistan where missionary work is a crime! Why, we'll write nice tracts in a language they can't read -- so people can see 'God's' love in us. Us, not God.

Yeah, we gonna make lots and lots of laws, too, so we can rool the world. We gonna rool, and we gonna kill sin. So WE gonna do it, not the Cross. We gonna fix it, not God. And God will reward us, yonder, in the good ol' bye and bye.

Yep, we're sure faithful satanic megaphones, huh. We do our father proud, yep we do.

Christians are the choicest hawkers for Satan's message, and throughout history we Christians have long had special grooming by our demonic handlers. Before us, of course, it was Israel who was the top target (not that demons have now abandoned the Jew, since God never will). Before Israel, it was anyone who had a thought (or two) of desiring to be with God -- "just because".

Why are such folks, targets? The ongoing vendetta Satan has against the Lord fuels him. Once, oh too long ago, he romantically loved Him. Thus, he didn't really see the Lord as He is, but rather iconized Him, much like a romancing couple view each other. Puppylove. Attraction. Ahhh, but if puppy love doesn't grow up to mature love, it atrophies into bitterness. Attraction must mature into Compatibility, for the attractions you find in the love-object are not the sole characteristics of that person/thing. So, Attraction motivates one to reciprocate, to subordinate to the object, even with respect to unattractions, so that Compatibility results.

Compatibility, in turn, must mature into Rapport, which is a melding -- the thinking in the two individuals becomes harmoniously joined. The 'attractions' have expanded to become the whole object, because in Compatibility you came to appreciate ALL the characteristics in the object, even the ones which cause you discomfort. You thus come to love the object because it IS, not merely for what 'good' it does you. So your values meld -- it's hard to say where one of you begins, and the other ends, in thinking. So, both you and the object thus become more free, during this stage, of having to be 'worthy' -- evidenced, for example, by a desire to defend/come-to-the-aid of the object, "just because". Just because, you want to. For love, loves.

Finally, this Rapport stage needs to reach Mature Love: the Object of love becomes more important than self. The hallmark characteristic of this Love stage's completion? Self regards what others would call "sacrifice", a joy. No reciprocation from the object is needed at all. Only when the Love stage completes, then, is the relationship completely free, because only then can either party be wholly 'whatever', without fear of loss. Only then, is the energy of Love fully freed to operate, because only then are all inter-object obstacles (due to differentials in characteristics) under the "feet" of Love.

This process occurs item-by-item, and its 'progress' can be due to irrational compatibilities, etc., as well as real ones. So some items of attraction might rapidly progress toward Love, whereas others are 'sticky', so to speak. Thus, a wife might completely disregard her husband's beatings, because the beatings don't interfere with her love's stage-of-development. Yet if he pees on the sidewalk, she might become so disgusted, she ups and leaves him forever. On that item, there was no desire to subordinate at all, and it broke the relationship.

Satan got stuck in the (quite-vulnerable) Compatibility stage. Queer thing, about Love. If you don't grow up fully in it, the point at which you become stuck ruins your life. So, in Satan's case, he'd passed most items in the Attraction stage, so the attraction became permanent. Some attraction items progressed into Compatibility. Some even progressed into the Rapport and Love stages. However, some attractions, as we'll see below, never progressed into Compatibility. So he got stuck. On those items, the need for self to adjust to the object, so to become compatible with it (here, the "object" is the Son), required a level of subordination which -- was so UNattractive to Satan, he just quit. Notice how, because he was indeed IN the Compatibility stage, that it 'stuck', too: he ardently wants to become like the Most High. Yet he also needs to make the Most High do the subordinating, so he can justify his own insubordination, as 'virtue': as something owed him, rather than owed the Most High.

Attraction demands receipt of (its idea of) 'reciprocity' FROM the love-object. This, because Attraction is inherently traumatic, for its goal is to reach Compatibility, which in turn stresses Subordination. The person Attracted has a attraction-based love, so is weak. He needs the love-object to evidence its own subordination to him via some kind of reciprocal attention. Receipt of 'reciprocity' from the love-object is reassurance of that attention, so that self won't fear 'hurt' if it subordinates to the love-object.

Satan came to feel disillusioned, then, because he didn't perceive he got enough reciprocity from the Son to justify overcoming his unattractions. Precisely how he came to that conclusion, we don't fully know, but it's clear he feels 'let down', unloved by the Son. We do know the paradigmal elements of his Fall (a scenario depicting those elements follows in the brown indented paragraphs, below), since of course they form a gestalt we all face -- one God faced first, given the impossible inferiority (compared to Infinite Righteousness) of any creatures being made. [One of the running weaknesses in Parts I and II is the question of how much angels and man knew at their respective creations. I assume here that 1) the human race was going to be created anyway and 2) that this fact was communicated, at least to Satan, before his Fall. Our being part of this Trial, then, constitutes an extra use of our otherwise-purposed existence. Such assumptions don't have to be true, and one can maybe argue that the Bible is relatively silent on these points. Still, the assumptions are used for a different reason: so to illustrate the known data. So also, in Part II, I assume that Adam and the woman didn't know of any Gospel for themselves prior to their Fall. Again, I made the assumption in order to flesh out what IS known. These assumptions will later be corrected as I learn more.]

We also know Satan's extreme beauty was somehow a material factor in his decision to rebel (Isaiah 14, Ezra 28). Moreover, being "full of wisdom"(ibid), Satan knew the Father's Plan for him and the other angels -- they all knew. So also, he knew the Father's Plan for the Son to become the Messiah for yet-future human race, for he was the Guardian of the Throne, the highest angel of them all. Closest to the Son, walking to and fro among those huge gleaming gems, "the stones of fire".

What a time to be alive. Way back then, "in the beginning", even though every angel knew all from first breath, the knowing-all was just so many libraries in the mind -- how each felt about the information varied considerably. For, with the first breath, came curiosity, and reviewing, comparing ideas and understandings. It was a glorious time, full of every kind of enjoyment. Conversations among the stones of fire were stimulatingly fantastic. Everyone was in love with the Son's gorgeousness, and longed to emulate Him, "just because". Everyone was new. Everything was new. Oh, what a glory, to sit and play with the excellency of the knowledge, all the time!

And as time passed, the knowledge-volition interactions birthed and raised understandings. It became clear that the Plan was beyond angelic ability to execute. But, Righteousness was gorgeous, right? Yet, the daily confrontations with one's own inadequacies, the inability to measure up to those Divine, gorgeous Standards, well -- that was hard to take. Kinda hard to constantly see self falling so short. Kinda hard to have one's failure to measure up constantly staring one in the face! What, He has to pick me up yet again?? When will I ever be able to do this myself? When will I ever be able to give Him something of my own self, rather than something I had to get first FROM Him? The initial love of being associated with Someone So High, atrophied into a constant reminder that self was so inferior.

So too, the Plan for humans was disturbing. It was analogous to the Plan for angels (cf Heb2, esp verses 2 and 16), and it began to bug him (cf his bitter comments in Job 1 and 2, and Matthew 4's Greek, esp. his tone-of-speech). Its tenets didn't fit his romanticized notion of the Most High. Like Isha (Adam's wife) would later do, Satan came to question the Motive of His First Love, because the Plan was pretty disturbing -- and was meant to be disturbing, as he well knew. He well knew that the entire goal was to develop the being beyond his own nature, and that this development could only occur via God's infusion, so to speak, of Divine Attributes: through learning Him. So, the creature never never never has, of himself, any merit at all, because he is too puny. Anything he gets, he gets only from the Most High. Yet he is supposed to obey the standards of the Most High. Or burn. So whatever abilities he does have, he can't use to honor the Most High, because all of his own abilities don't meet the Standards. Such abilities are the creature's own, to have for himself, to enjoy with his fellows. But! To be 'good', he has to reject himself, be a nothing, totally dependent on whatever the Most High chooses to do to/for him, in the name of Love: to supposedly 'grow' him. Forever.

How fair was that, to give finite creatures such an impossible standard of INFINITE Righteousness, a standard which they could never meet, and thus hell would be inevitable, unless they grovel (believe in Christ)? How fair was that, to the Most High Himself, even, to demean Himself so low, paying the foreknown-to-occur sins of the human race? Such a stark choice! Fair, to whom? No way anyone can become 'good enough', so the shortfall forever stares one in the face. God forever foregoes His Standard, yet keeps on insisting it be met -- what for, since loud and clear everyone knows only HE can meet it! Man forever must see how small he is? It's intolerable to live so low, even for angels, how much more for mankind? No sugar coating, no easing, like -- even a little seduction, a little romance, to give the creature a way to earn righteousness via his own limited abilities to do something? So he won't feel utterly hopeless? Granted, God knows the human can't ever measure up -- but why impose that horrific knowledge burden on man?

Really, it's too much to bear. It's like throwing everyone away. Something's wrong with this Plan. Maybe the Most High doesn't love, after all. Maybe it's all a ruse. If God really loved His Creatures, why set up for them a standard of righteousness that they can't possibly meet? Why impose on them the frustration of trying to be as good as the Most High in order to serve Him, when -- over and over, mind you -- the Most High constantly makes it known, "no one is as good as Me"? Wouldn't it be more loving to at least make a substitute method of righteousness they can actually do, one laden with good feelings of accomplishment -- rather than burden them with this nasty, tyrannical 'choice'? Why create them with independent abilities, but say they can't act independently of God and be 'good' toward Him? Isn't that hellish?

Therefore, he became iconoclastic. Neat trick, that. Iconoclasm gives him a way to ease his inferiority complex, by putting him in the driver's seat: he, not God, sets the standards, and it's God, now, who doesn't ever measure up. Defense mechanism of "projection", that. Iconoclasm also gives him the satisfaction of putting down the God(Son) Whom he feels never loved him (the way he wanted to be loved). So, he gets 'even'. So, he makes hell for the God Whom he feels made his life hellish. Gotterdammerung, baby. Oh, what power, what sweetness, to hurt Him! Such sweetness is worth losing one's own life for, even in an eternal Lake of Fire! Yeah, baby, every second I burn YOU'LL KNOW THE PAIN EVEN MORE!!! Every second someone else I bring with me burns, YOU'LL KNOW THEIR PAIN EVEN MORE!!!!! Ahhhh.

Therefore, he's on a vendetta against the Most High. Therefore, anyone whom God favors must be a target for his bitter iconoclastic revenge (i.e., Christians, Jews, anyone with even a glancing interest in the Most High). Someone on a vendetta finds revenge the sweetest when love objects of the vendett-ee are used to produce that revenge. Someone on a vendetta is jealous. Jealousy is the mutation of the old attraction-stage of love -- the attraction never dies. It just turns bitter. Steal them away from Him. Get them to turn on Him. It's like, "Ha! You don't love me, so I'll make them hate YOU!"

Oh, how faithful we are, to hate Him! We superimpose Satan's cheap ideas on God -- saying God wants what WE say should be our works, for example -- and then worship those ideas. Who are we really worshipping? Surely not God -- we don't even bother to know Him. We instead choose our pet taboos, our pet crusades, our pet rituals, our pet 'good deeds' -- and we do pet tricks, preening -- and call it all 'worship' -- even, 'love'. We romanticize our body functions as making our souls worthy of Divine Reciprocity.

Romantic notions are really not love, at all. Like Madame Bovary, the romantic fantasizes someone or something which pleases -- to fill a need, to make self feel good. The need is to receive unconditional love -- but the romantic sets all the conditions. It's quixotic, at best. It's also cheap, for the romantic's idea of 'love' depends entirely on goodies: appearance, wealth, importance, attention, wit, charm, status -- all of which, of course, are directed in favor of moi -- thus moi is wonderful, too. It's egoistic to the extreme. The so-called love object is, really, unknown. Only the object's accoutrements are actually loved. Possessively. Obsessively. And above all, CONDITIONALLY.

Many a marriage fails because the couple can't get past the need to romanticize. Hollywood-style 'love' is demanded, and goes unmet. The dating is glamourous, but after the initial newness of setting up housekeeping together, the drudge of daily life takes its toll. Why? Because the definition of what constitutes a 'good' relationship has been reified into looks and actions of a very particular nature. Tahiti is 'good'. Dullsville is not. Shallowly-defined 'good', shallowly-defined 'love'. Ergo, disillusionment and iconoclasm.

By contrast, God's Love knows all our flaws, and loves in spite of them. Which love, we spurn -- because we, like Satan, can't tolerate the truth: that we are unable to be worthy (Rom8:7-8). The fact that such a truth is the greatest joy of all -- that we need not be or do anything in order to get this love (Phil 3:9) -- alas, such a truth goes unenjoyed. Rather, the unconditional love we crave, we at the same time spurn, because to admit God's unconditional love means to admit our unconditional UNworthiness. You can prove this fact quickly: "to believe in Christ" for salvation requires zero merit, but is instead a simple act of faith in the MERITORIOUS OBJECT (Christ), yet is derided as a totally unfair 'condition'! As if it were us, not Christ, who 'sacrifice', by believing in Him! Or, the flipside, that "to believe" is not enough -- that we must do something, too! Ahh, yeah, baby -- gimme gimme gimme some credit, God.

So, like Satan, we insist on romanticizing ourselves worthy of that unconditional love, and we won't let that fantasy 'go'. For example, the very idea of a 'hell' means, to us, that at least some of us are unworthy -- so maybe moi is, too. Not tolerable! So we invent a god who likes our pet tricks, our goodies -- and then idolize 'him'. We want a god we can appease, not a god who is Absolute, even if that means giving up 'unconditional love', of which only an Absolute God is capable. We want a fantasy god, like Satan does: one who seduces us, and one whom we can seduce in turn. Ahhh, romance with the Sugar Daddy/Petty Judge!

Looks like we're rather involved with this conspiracy, eh? So, what should we learn? Do we care? Whose side do we want to be on, and why? Our life is a movie, playing at every "theatre near you". Our call, as to how we want it to go. Satan's script, or God's.

Then what is God's Script? To understand God's Script for us, we first have to understand what the Trial between God (maybe Father, not Son, is Prosecutor?) and Satan is about. On the human level, three fundamental categories of arguments are at issue:

1. God made Himself obvious via the physical universe, but
2. some folks just reject Him anyway, even though they KNOW, and
3. some other folks really DON'T see Him via the universe, genuinely DON'T know, so don't yet believe because they can't tell He really exists.

The root question in these points? Why should unbeliever folks go to Hell? Regarding believers, Satan's variant root question: why should believers, who also behave like the #2 and #3 people, avoid Hell?

Satan's arguments are just. God's making the same arguments -- made them first, actually. (God had to determine how creation would be, so dealt with these questions first.)

Notice how these three topics coalesce into a Central Trial Issue: what decision does one make about God based upon both what he thinks he knows, and what he thinks he doesn't know?

Now you see why mankind is part of the Trial: man's decisions are Trial Evidence. The fact that 2/3rds of the angels opted not to rebel is not used in the Appeal Trial. Instead, an entire new class of rational creatures are created -- so that Divine Judgement can't be accused of being partial, even by the Defense (Satan). We are the conclusive evidence, and our decisions prove who is correct, of the two sides. Moreover, the degree of cognizance or ignorance we have about God is itself an inherent part of the Central Trial Issue. Not our 'works'. So, what are the contentions of both sides?

Satan argues that failure (i.e., to want God) must mean God made angels and humans DEFECTIVE. Behind this conclusion is the idea that if God is perfect, what He makes should not be capable of failure. Thus, God is UnJust and UnLoving, for:

• How can a creature ever be INDEPENDENT, and thus FREE, if his life forever remains DEPENDENT on God? If 'Freedom' and 'Independence' require the creature to be capable of failure, doesn't he fail solely due to how GOD made him? Did the creature make himself? So, then: the creature can't help himself, so why should he go to the Lake of Fire?

• If God gives the creature free will as God contends He did, including the knowledge-and-power to rebel against God -- why should God punish the creature for the very knowledge-and-power God HIMSELF gave the person? So, then: the creature only rebels because God GAVE him that attribute -- should the creature thus be blamed for what God did to him?

• God holds creatures to the Standard of His OWN Infinite Righteousness. Yet we know God's Own repeated Testimony that only HE is good enough. So, then: how is it fair to impose this impossible Standard on creatures, especially since this Standard is FOREKNOWN to result in inevitable creature failure?

• God disregards the above issues, and instead requires only the Gospel as the standard for salvation. So, then: isn't the Gospel's "believe or burn" standard "arbitrary and capricious"? ["arbitrary and capricious", among other things, is a decision/rule which constitutes a violation of the fiduciary nature of someone who has an office of public trust, e.g., a judge. Satan's making a mortal abuse-of-power accusation, here. Variations of this accusation come up time and time again, in the Bible, i.e., regarding Job -- that God was bribing Job. Satan's language is seething, in parts.]

• This Gospel is claimed Righteous on the grounds that creatures, being helplessly inferior to Righteousness, can only BECOME acceptable if they accept the Divine Gift of Salvation, and the post-salvation 'infusion', so to speak, of the Word. However, such believers fail the same ways as unbelievers do. So, then: how can it be said that this 'infusion' properly works, if they keep on failing? Alternatively, if they keep on failing despite this higher provision, why should even one believer NOT go to Hell? [Here, Satan's saying that even if one pretends God's Standard is not arbitrary and capricious, it doesn't work -- which is then further proof that His Standard is phony, to start with.]

• How can a Loving God cast any of His Creatures into the Lake of Fire? ["arbitrary and capricious" argument, again, but this time to show that not only is God UnJust, not only is God abusing His Innate Fiduciary Power, but also God is UnLoving. In short, God has no integrity at all, and has no right whatsoever to rule, by God's Own claimed Standard.]

Therefore: Seduction, Lying, etc. are but good tools to reduce/eradicate these defects. For, Seduction requires good deeds toward the seducee. So, Tyranny is good, if that tyranny is seductively promulgated and seductively imposed. Because Seduction, free will is indeed choosing it. So, the 'tyranny' is actually Freedom. See the top-down logic? See how the world is so infested with it? Most of all, see how they come to embrace the philosophy they have toward themselves, toward life, toward ruling us puny humans? They really know the Truth. They really reject it. The Lie Is Better. And they claim God's using the Lie also -- but, lying, covers the lie with His so-called 'Truth'.

God, by contrast, explains that a rational creature cannot independently exist, be a person, absent free volition. Free will means freedom to will, and to will against. If volition is not wholly free, any 'creature' is nothing more than a super computer. Volition, being free, includes the freedom-to-fail. Absent this freedom to fail, 'free' is a sham. Further, Love cannot exist apart from free will, lest it likewise be just so much programming. wanting is the beginning of love, its root (being "pro" a thing). Further still: Love depends on knowledge; so, knowledge must also be a choosable thing. So, one chooses based on #2, what he knows, and #3, what he doesn't know. To make that choice, one must want the content: here, God. So, if a person wants God, he chooses to know -- whether he sees proof at the moment or not. Also, if a person doesn't want God, he can #2, reject what he knows, and/or #3, choose not to know.

Therefore, the ability to avoid failure must be built into the person by means of his own free will, because if not freely chosen, it is -- again -- imposed programming. This ability must be freely chosen for another reason: love. One avoids failure only if one loves not failing more. That is a choice, a decision. With every decision, one foregoes the rejected option, in favor of the choice made. Thus, a preference is expressed: positive, "for" the choice; negative, "against" the alternative. So, in every decision -- based both on what one knows and what one doesn't (yet) know -- one is also choosing to forego any alternatives. So, in every decision, one "loves" the choice made over and against the choice(s) foregone. LOVE MEDIATES choice.

However, love might love choices which compete. "Compete", because they aren't all compatible with each other. Or, more likely: "compete", because they may need to be mediated into a hierarchy, compartmentalized, so that they all can be achieved. For example, if one is, at the same time, hungry and needing to go to the bathroom, which desire should be satisfied first? If one wants to purchase a thing, but the money available means something else desired can't be purchased, how does one choose between these two "competing" desires?

One thus needs internal strength, integrity -- so to mediate between the competing wants. "Integrity" means the ability to hold together well despite pressure from the "competition". If the integrity is violable, then even if one loves, the love can be violated, worn-out, even killed, by the "competition".

Hence the need for Truth, Righteousness and Justice, so Love has a secure basis for mediation. God is Inviolable because He is Infinite. The Infinity Attribute means, among other things, that all Attributes are in INFINITE homeostasis. Infinity's Integrity is thus totally stable, unchangeable, yet wholly free to fail because the Freedom is infinite, too. Free will is thus infinitely balanced to execution power: the ability to execute choices is in homeostasis with the desire, that is, the choices themselves. So there is no competition, because all desires are subordinated to Righteousness, and all power is balanced to desire. Love is what makes this subordination, this balance, this equilibrium 'stick': so God's Integrity holds together, infinitely stable, against any and all pressure -- even the pressure of Judging His Own Son.

HAPPINESS KEY → Thus, true happiness: the freedom to fail remains inviolate, also, by forever remaining foregone, unused. So, it's a 'glory of the foregone/unused', so to speak. Finity cannot inviolably forego, even if perfect (unless deprived of free will), because it is not big enough. But God's Attributes are 'big enough'. God is Uncreated, so there is no way to 'create' Infinity in Finity and thus make the finite creature 'big enough'. However, God can share Himself, without loss, because He is Uncreated Infinity. So: if God grants this Sharing in response to a finite-but-free volition positive to Him, even finity can "grow" in God's Own Integrity, and thus become, independently, "big enough". That growth, in turn, is alone the way to become "good" by God's Standard.

(Satan nods, here. His central argument is that God didn't make angels and humans 'big' enough.)

For The Truth is, whether angel or human, the person is alive. Hence, has desires. Hence, is expressive. Hence, needs both to give and take, which is a normal part of being a person. Yet, these needs compete, until the needs can be "docked" into a hierarchy, such that ALL of them can be harmoniously achieved. Love, when it grows enough to "bond" with Truth, and therefore Righteousness and Justice, becomes competently mediative, so accomplishes that "docking". Until this happens, one is not happy, but is assailed by warring needs. In short, Integrity is a "Mediator", and makes peace. Thus, happiness.

So Happiness requires love-for-righteousness, to exist. So, angels and humans have free will. Love Must Be Learned, and Learning depends on free will CHOOSING to learn. In short, the person (angel, human) needs to grow bigger than he is, by means of love-choices which are pro-Righteousness. As noted earlier, God's making one initially perfect cannot trespass free will. If it did, then the being wouldn't be free; tyranny of any kind is anathema to God. So, the initially perfect person nonetheless needs to "grow" -- in Love. 'Love for what he already knows about God -- or, love to learn more about Him. So, if either one favors what one already knows about God, or favors the (i.e., further) acquisition of God's thinking, one chooses "for" God -- which results in a growth in Integrity, owing to a growth of Love-for-knowledge-of-God. (Rejection, of course, would mean sin, and the loss of perfection. How God solves that problem is progressively explained here in Parts I-V.)

In short, God grows a person by means of the person wanting (i.e., to know) God. That wanting is a choice; God freely responds to such a free choice by transmitting God's Own Knowledge, the Truth, (for us) Bible Doctrine, which only He can do: this transforms, "grows" one's soul. (cf. Romans 12:1-3, Ephesians 3:15-20, James 1, 2 Peter 3:18. Search also on "enlarge", a Bible keyword for this concept.)

This is how God's Own Integrity gets built into the person -- for the Truth of God is part and parcel of all of His Other Attributes. So, the Knowledge also has the property of Truth, Righteousness; Justice, Love. So, the creature thus being built can develop the ability to avoid failure, by means of Learning to Love Righteousness -- which Love results from the Knowledge of the Truth of Righteousness, if the person is positive to the Knowledge. [John 8:32, Galatians 5:1, etc.] It's not enough to merely know what is right. How does one value what is right? So, even if one didn't know (i.e., God), how does one value getting the knowledge? So, it's not merely the knowing, nor merely the wanting, but both, which make for (or destroy) the ability to avoid failure. Either one comes to love something else more than God, and hence fails, or comes to love God more, and hence succeeds. This is the lesson Satan didn't "complete": the lesson of Love.

So, developing a Love for God is the critical issue, not the creature's own attributes (so, not works). It's the volitional attachment to God's Integrity which justifies the sharing of God's Integrity, and the sharing of God's Integrity produces the inviolable happiness, the inviolable ability to avoid failure. Love is the key to everything, the reason to live. The "bottom" of Love is WANTING a thing, being "pro" a thing. The "top" of Love is giving one's all to a thing. So, "developing a Love" means growing in Love: from the "bottom", to the "top".

See, the "heart" of Integrity is composed of Truth, Righteousness, Justice, and Love (its driver components): +T+R+J+L=I. The first three, absent the last one, make life hellish. What joy is there, if Truth is not Loved? What joy is there in self being right? Yet also, L apart from the R, J, T, is storm-tossed, since Love -- loves. It needs a mediator, a protector. T, R and J do that. Yet also, L husbands T, R and J, for it is through Love that the RJ find fulfillment and happy function. It is through Love that Truth is cherished and thus "in front". (See Psalm 89:14-15 Lord loves Righteousness, Justice verses.)

Here's the irony, though: Love by nature is also 'transitive' -- it goes to an object. Question is, what's to be the object? If the object is not Righteousness, Love self-destructs. Why? Because The Truth is, whatever is not Righteous is harmful. "Righteousness" is not merely "rightness", because there is no glory (Love! enjoyment!) in merely being right. To qualify as "Righteous", it must also be Gorgeous, not merely right -- so Love can love a Desirable Object. So, think of "R" as a concatenation: Right[ness], + [gorg]eousness. So it is Gorgeous Rightness, not merely rightness. So it is Gorgeous Rightness, not merely gorgeousness.

In short, Love needs to be mated to Righteousness. Absent this mating, L is no good -- but also, R is no good, for then Truth is divorced, so 'righteousness' would instead be mated to Lies. So Righteousness ceases to be Righteousness if not espoused to Love. Justice is the expression of Righteousness, the carrier-outer, the executor of Righteousness. So, Truth, Justice, Righteousness, and Love must all be espoused, "one". (Sidenote: The Bible's Hebrew word, "tsedekah", and the Greek word "dikaiosune" mean both Righteousness and Justice -- because the two cannot be divorced. Unhappily, English has no single word to match, so translators must use either "Righteousness" or "Justice", thus divorcing what cannot be divorced.)

Why must they all be espoused? Try imagining R and J 'run' by hatred! Or, just R and J alone: what happens? Life becomes a dry 'diet' of rules and regulations, judging or approving, do's and don'ts. It becomes autonomic, rotelike. Dead, even while living. That's true hell, is it not? Granted, one does need to learn what's right, and live by what's right. But why? Because it's good -- but what IS "good"? Is a thing good if not gorgeous? If gorgeous, then one LOVES it, revels in it -- so only then is 'good', good. R and J alone aren't concerned with the requisite that "good" be enjoyable. Love, though, IS concerned with enjoyment. So, absent Love, there is no enjoyment, however 'right' or 'gorgeous' a thing might be. So, they need to all be 'married', in balance -- or, life is hell.

Worse, R and J alone can only adjudicate -- they can't solve anything. A murderer can be sentenced, but the victim is still just as dead. Two lives die because one murdered another. Sure, it's just for the murderer to also die -- but the loss is never recovered. R and J alone, then, are sterile. They can pronounce blessing, or punishment; they can pronounce rewards or loss. They can't solve any loss, for to solve the loss, requires foregoing -- which means to forego R and J.

Thus, for R and J alone, a hopeless paradox exists: the R and J standards must be met, but cannot really be achieved, because the Standard must be foregone in order for the loss to be recovered. So, R and J alone are unfulfilling. Love, however, is innately foregoing: that is its nature. So, only Love can fulfill R and J, and Love can only do that by means of bonding to, living on, The Truth.

As noted earlier, Love needs an object. Absent R and J, Love alone has no object, either, so is constantly unfulfilled. R and J give Love something worth loving. Absent R and J, love has no protection, so goes to any object -- suicidally. Absent L, R and J are sterile. So Love solves the loss, solves the paradox, by Giving Its All to R and J -- again, by means of bonding to, living on, The Truth. Of course, to be able to forego itself, Love must itself BE Righteous and Just. Which it becomes, if Righteousness/Justice is the Object of Love. For Love bonds/melds when it is complete, whole: not merely Attraction, not merely Compatibility, not merely Rapport, but United. So it is, in God. So, Love's Bonding to R and J makes Love inviolately Righteous and Just -- so it can always retain its "foregoing" nature, yet always Satisfy and Solve. Because, Love first bonds to, lives on, The Truth. (That's how Christ became "The Way, The Truth, the Life".)

Therefore, if Love is Righteous and Just itself, it can indeed forego its own Righteousness and Justice, if it can give itself to serve Righteousness and Justice (the Love Object): and thus, solve everything. Dock everything. Without compromise. And of course, it's not Righteous to be vulnerable, is it? Integrity means being able to withstand all offenses/opposition, doesn't it? If a building can be knocked down by something, then the building lacks integrity to that extent, cannot 'hold' against what can knock it down. So, Love Fulfills Righteousness and Justice, and Holds All, Withstands All, makes Integrity 'stick' Against All Opposition. Happily. All this, by means of The Truth.

That is why Integrity isn't Integrity, unless all four attributes are sufficiently-developed, and in balance. For these attributes to develop, there must be sufficient knowledge -- hence, learning -- hence, free will choosing to learn. So, if one hasn't learned Truth and thus Love sufficiently, or rejects Truth, Love, any prior learning of R and J are "deformed", and therefore heinous, destructive. Hence, they all need to be 'married', in balance.

So the "top" of love is to pour oneself out, give one's all. One is willing to forego everything, do whatever it takes, to benefit the love-object. So love's nature requires the mediating "strength" of Integrity. Absent R and J, either love self-destructs, or does something stupid, because -- again -- apart from RJ, Truth is DIVORCED. So then Love would stupidly imagine itself to be doing 'good' for its object, or would stupidly imagine itself doing 'good' for itself. So, absent R and J, Love could not accurately fulfill its pour-out goal. Instead, love would eventuate in madness. It wouldn't know that what it did was no good. Unable to stop trying, though, it would drive the self crazy. Because love, loves. So, absent R and J, love 'thinks' itself "in the Light" (1 John) -- but is not. So goes round and round and round. Insanely. Just like that song in the movie "Please Don't Eat the Daisies", starring David Niven and Doris Day. While rehearsing a play, Doris Day beautifully sang the problems with love: "Some days you're up, some days your down...Love's like a circus! and you're on a trapeze...High, low, anywhere the wind blows..goes love."

SELF-DESTRUCTION KEY → In sum, if one mates his love to anything but Love for God, Who Alone is Infinite +T, +R , +J and +L, such other-mated-love becomes hell itself: 'destroying the lover, and all the lover's love-objects, too.

Since the "top" of love is to pour oneself out, give one's all, what does that mean, in God? God, being Infinite, is Infinite Truth-Knowledge, Infinite Love. So, due to what He Infinitely knows, He accurately and forever chooses to forego His total freedom-to-fail, because He Infinitely Loves R and J. This Love-attitude is His Thinking, and thus His Power. (Omnipotence, like all other attributes, has no purpose, apart from Love.) Therefore, God's Love for creatures is Independent of their worthiness. He doesn't need reciprocation. He doesn't need reciprocation, because Love for Righteousness replaces that need, Substitutes for it. So, Love can accurately pour itself out totally to creatures, inviolably. Forever.

So, God's Thinking (Bible Doctrine), which is the dynamic of His Integrity, when poured (for example) in man, results in this Integrity being built in man, "line upon line, precept on precept". Slowly, easily, a little each day, enjoyably, like food. Like food, this Doctrine needs to be freely chosen, moment-by-moment, lest the person become a pet (God won't force you to "eat"). See? a person can choose to have God "grow" (or remake) him; of course, this choosing means he WANTS God.

For example, the Holy Spirit "grew" Christ's Humanity by means of Truth Deposits (Bible Doctrine), way beyond His Human limitations -- so much so, He could pay for all sins on the Cross. As Parts II-V will show (plus "Nature of God" section, the Home page's "Fixes" link), His Love became so high, each successive laceration with our sins was actually a successively-greater JOY to Him (Greek of Heb5:8-9,Heb12:2, among other cites). How? Because, when Love is high enough, even pain expresses Love. Even pain becomes pleasure, at that level: pain fuses into pleasure. To us, this sounds like masochism. To Christ, the pain meant He was getting what He wanted. It was an outlet, to maximally express, pour out, His Love for His Father, for the Gorgeous Truth (Bible Doctrine), which the Holy Spirit gave Him in advance; and, to pour out His resultant Love for us. For, He kept on shouting parts of Psalm 22 in triumph: "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabacthani! My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me!" He was Happy about it! Celebrating! Like the first Adam, who waited so long for the woman (see Part II), this Last Adam likewise said, in effect: "AT LAST!" He'd trained His Entire Life for this moment. He yearned for it, as He told the disciples at the last Passover. He Got It. And, He's Ecstatic, Fulfilled. ON the Cross.

Please pardon the sexual metaphor (although Paul himself alludes to it in 1 Corinthians 6:16-17), but no other comes close: it was like a long orgasm, with one's totally-beloved spouse. The 'effort' of making love makes the love-act's pleasure intensively increase, even though one is sweating, maybe even tiring. Neither spouse cares, for they are too busy enjoying each other. The intensity climbs to such a level, they climax. That is the closest analogy I can think of to explain what His Joy meant. [Frankly, it's a common analogy, in Scripture's original languages; why translators cover it up I'll never know, for one of the main themes in Scripture is that life with God is designed to be like intimate marriage. Sadly, given all the prissy coverups in translations, the reader misses this most-important message God relays. If this idea bothers you, use 1 John 1:9 and ask Father in Son's Name to help you find the verses which you will recognize illustrate this most-important doctrine. That way you know it's God telling you, not just some brainout writing a webpage. Btw:If you do keep reading these Parts I-V, you will find some of those verses.]

For fallen humans, "salvation" means the Holy Spirit spiritually regenerates the person (John 3, Titus 3:5), so that, post-salvation -- if the individual wants it -- He can spiritually grow him up to have Inviolable Integrity, just like the Most High -- but with the Most High. 'No matter how 'defective' the person might otherwise be or become. So, then and only then is the person "good", because he's been "grown" big enough to independently have the Happiness and Love of God. In short, the person has "grown" big enough, because God poured Himself into the person. Through Love. (Romans 5:5.)

Think about it: what good is it to "be good"? Is "good", good, if not happy? Is "good", good, if alone? To preen in front of a mirror, is that all "good" is worth? To have people praise you for being "good", what benefit is that? Then they control you; they control your happiness. Is "good", good, if dependent on reciprocation? If it has a 'price', or if it only comes from being influenced, manipulated, coerced? God says "no".

'Good' is good-for-nothing, if 'unmarried', on its own. Absent the completion of Integrity, which only comes from learning to love God, 'good' has no purpose. Learning to love God creates a Replacing Reciprocation -- so one doesn't need 'goodies' or even 'good': God is the meaning of 'heaven', and God is 'enough'. Else, 'good' is a Talibanesque tyrant, seeking to salve its loneliness, by mating with pride. Learning to love God, that's the proper 'mate', and true freedom. Such learning is voluntary, so requires wanting God, wanting to get and 'live in' knowledge of God. Then and only then is one free, happy. Then and only then is life, living.

Development of Integrity and Love must therefore also freely work in reverse. For, to reject Truth, is to reject God. To reject God, is to reject Truth, for "God is Truth". So, to reject learning Truth, is to reject God also. So if Truth is rejected, then so is R, J, L. So, anti-Integrity properties REPLACE whatever Integrity properties were there or were being developed.

For, By God's Design, Volition freely programs the soul, and thus the brain's neurons, because the brain is the outlet for the soul, the material interface for it. The brain, in turn, is bi-directional, feeding back TO the soul: a) the stimuli it receives from the environment, b) associated past memories and data, so c) Volition's Prior Programming Commands. Upshot? Whatever choices one makes, make him. "As a man thinks in his soul, so he is" (Prov 23:7, KJV). Choices to reject thus create the impulse of rejection. If volition doesn't override these prior programmings, such programmings are 'approved' again: thus they widen and deepen. So, if the object of the rejection is some truth the person doesn't want, other truths will become infected, too: a vacuum is thus created (Greek: matiotes), and then lies rush in to replace the truth rejected, so stasis can be maintained. Romans 1 explains this sad process in detail, as does Romans 6 and 7.

So, any choices which are anti-God have the innate properties of destruction, death (cf. Romans 7 and 8). So the neurons, thus programmed with a lifetime of rejection, only 'understand' rejection, because such a person's soul has programmed itself and the brain to only send or receive communications of rejection. That is why God forever chooses to forego His eternal freedom-to-fail. That is why He condemns anti-God choices. Condemnation is but the recognition of (and, if one 'awakens' due to hurting, the potential escape from) these deadly properties.

Choices to gain non-God knowledge at the expense of knowledge of God, at the expense of relationship with God produce an anti-integrity: a self-destructive, romanticized love, due to the imbalance: one's righteousness and justice are not balanced by Love-for-God. So, the person becomes unbalanced: since, Truth was Rejected, and thus is absent. This anti-integrity romanticizes (feigns) balance; it counterfeits, as integrity components, obsessive, even masturbating, preoccupations: with self, with works, with 'wrong'. The preoccupation with self, replaces Love; the preoccupation with works, replaces Righteousness; the preoccupation with 'wrong', replaces Justice. So, the person joylessly disintegrates, as he 'ages' in this substitute anti-integrity. To keep going, he must fantasize (substitute for truth). As each fantasy inevitably dies, it is replaced by another. Over and over. So, his unhappiness intensifies. Each successive disappointment calls up the memory of all others, so even a small loss causes the 'sin' of them all to lacerate him. Over and Over. One becomes maddened by the pain's taunting, torturing desolation, desperate for solace. Escape! Run away! Retreat from reality! So, in self-defence, one becomes gradually insane.

Why? This 'unholy trinity' of anti-integrity is a negative orientation to life, rather than a positive one; its negativity derives from rejection of God. No one can withstand prolonged, negative obsession. Hence the person shatters, within; he shrivels, becomes embittered, and -- eventually -- goes insane, unknowingly tormented by fantasized, unfulfillable urges for self-esteem. This happens because Love has no proper object. Its proper object, Righteousness, was substituted. So love becomes suicidal, and the person fragments, disintegrates, and then deadens, within. The affected individual is wholly locked inside a progressively-hypersensitive quest for self-esteem. All other persons become objects, since a prolongation of anti-integrity kills empathy: there becomes no room for any other 'person' BUT the self. So, the insanity insanely 'protects' him, by a constant hallucination that he is "in the light", right, happy. But really, dying, locked inside the self-absorbed dungeon which can't afford any truth to shine inside.

Therefore, fantasized 'happiness' definitions, i.e., preoccupation with "earthly things", goodies -- fill the empty, gloomy dungeon. The substituted definitions of 'happiness' are all illogical, but the person who's rejected God has rejected truth, so is blind to his own insanity. This blindness is abetted by the (usually) large numbers of fellow-beings who share that same blindness, for the hallmark characteristic of arrogance is, more-makes-right. So, the person fantasizes himself 'normal', and never sees how insane he truly is. Moreover, the anti-integrity has its own veneer of stability, to prevent insanity's detection. To use a psychiatrist's quote, the veneer causes the person to "present himself well". He becomes a good actor, in essence. Fooling even himself. (See Anthony Hopkins, as "Corky", in the old movie, "Magic".)

Thus the person who chooses non-God at the expense of rapport with God destroys himself. No matter how 'good' he thinks he is, he is no good, and miserable. Condemnation is the only thing God can justly do for such a person. Why? Because condemnation is the sole means of providing such a person with a link to sanity. Condemnation 'speaks the language' a negatively-oriented person can understand. Even a criminal can understand punishment; it is the one Truth he recognizes. The fear of it can protect him from making further bad decisions. We are all 'criminal', because our negative orientation destroys us. Ergo the need for condemnation -- and, the blessing it affords.

So: based both on what we know and what we don't, we choose to either keep the knowledge we have, or choose to get more. Conversely, we can choose to reject what we know, and/or choose not to know (or choose not to know more). That is the heart of the issue: what/who do we want to know (or know more)? Our choices end up being our love objects, because accepted knowledge begets love. So, what we keep choosing to know, we come to prefer , and eventually -- love. So: we are voting. Do we vote to learn anti-integrity, and thus come to love insane, masturbating, negativity? Or, do we vote to learn God, and thus gain true Integrity -- from loving Him, which likewise produces a free, positive orientation to life? (cf. Ephesians 3:19's "and to come to know the love for Christ" -- corrected translation, for the ingressive aorist of yinosko, "know".)

Satan, of course, prefers the windblown "circus" idea of Love, and is giving his all to it. By contrast, he deems God's "Love" His tragic flaw, His core weakness. "Give oneself away for someone else? Pour oneself into someone else? Without reciprocation? Is He kidding? Where's the so-called 'balance' in that? Ahhh God rationalizes away His faulty ability to create. He's lying, isn't He? Pretends to love us, so sells us on giving ourselves to Him, when all along -- heh, he wants to be served! Aha! Just as I thought!"

So Satan feels that God somehow 'lucked out' in creating Satan, making by accident a creature who is actually superior to God. God has the superior power, this Satan does not dispute. God, however, has a faulty Righteousness, Justice, Love. In short, God is brute force with faulty thinking, at best. God is really stupid, carried away by his own lust: being in love with Love. So Satan intends to parlay God's tragic flaw into Satan's victory. Then, that same Love will be Satan's pawn. Forever.

So, Satan's using the Trial to trick God into some kind of failure. If God fails to deliver on even one of His promised covenants, for example, then God proves Himself to be less-than-advertised, and should relinquish His Authority, in favor of the more-able to rule (Satan&Co). Or, if Satan proves that he can make man happier than God can do, Satan has proved himself the more able ruler. If Satan can pull off either of these two goals, God will abdicate. That's the deal.

Satan's also using the Trial to create Gotterdammerung. You know, Richard Wagner's fiery end: If I can't win, then you don't get to win, either. So, burn up even Valhalla. Satan's not stupid: he knows by now he's very unlikely to win. Still, it's better to go down, taking as many of the people Christ paid for with him, so to 'get even' with the Son. Even back in Matthew 4 (Third Temptation) he proved how he hates the human race, for failing him. After all, only unbelievers can be demon-possessed, and look how they get treated? 'Thrown into fires, made to gash themselves, made to drool, made dumb or deaf or otherwise-goofy. Or, made sooooo very smart, building soooo many 'good' things, only to become totally bitter in the end (e.g., Herod the Great). Believers, too: Satan &Co. love their bitter endings (viz., Ananais in Acts 5, Judas Iscariot, the apostle who betrayed the Lord -- see Matthew 10).

So Satan &Co. love to satirize us. One of their favorite ways to ridicule humans is religion: oh yeah, they do want you to believe in God! But not by His Real Name. See, God loves. Won't seduce or mislead. So, will ONLY answer to His Real Name (cf 2 Chronicles 7:14 and Isaiah 44~45). So, Satan &Co. delight the most in getting folks to buy religious tripe: "all religions are the same" (yeah, they are all sadistic, tyrannical, me-be-godlike, but clothed in such seductive language!); or, "any form of worship, if sincere, is okay" -- yeah, because they are being worshipped, not God! Oh, how they laugh themselves silly at these puny humans who can possibly think that their intellectualizing, their moneygiving, their avoiding cowmeat buys them something with God. So, Satan &Co. invent the wildest forms of observances and taboos, and we puny humans just eat up the Yucky-Gertrude-Cheese definitions of God. "Y" for "Yahweh", "G" for "God", "C" for "Christ". Yeah, let's change haShem, "The Name". Satirize Deuteronomy 6:4!

Again, believers and Jews are the top targets, for those folks actually have the Word -- at least, in their living rooms. Believers can't be demon-possessed, but they can be toyed with mentally, and (to a lesser extent) physically. So, Satan &Co. opt for getting such folks to be enthralled with flashy ceremonies, miracles, powers, or other magic. You know: ponderous robes and incantations, with that wonderful music which makes you feel so close to 'god'! Or, power stuff, like tongues; "healing"/casting out demons, either of which is really one demon telling another demon, "Okay, leave now" -- so the stupid Christian thinks he did it. Satan &Co. just love a good joke, you see. More mundanely, they opt for getting Christians and Jews to overvalue their works. This is a much richer revenge, for such folks get certain protection from God, and thus Satan &Co. can leverage the protection for their own purposes: to build a nice world which needs no God. In sum, they aim to get as many folks as possible to join them in the Lake of Fire. 'Especially, nice people. Moral people. Preferring-self's-good-to-God people. So they can torment them forever. After all, Christ paid for all humans, so every human is therefore a love-object. By putting down humans, they are putting down Christ.

The upshot: Satan's stuck on 'wrong', but God's 'stuck' on Love. Satan's stuck on putting down, and God's 'stuck' on putting UP: putting up Truth above His Own Person (Psalm 138:2b), putting up the serpent in the wilderness so that all can be healed; putting up His Own Son, making a shameful public display of Him, so to put Him above all powers; putting us up IN Him forever, putting up with our inanities so that we might learn Christ. (Old Testament and Gospel brazen serpent passages, Colossians 2:14-15, 1:25-27, Hebrews 1 and 2, Philippians 2:5ff, 1 Timothy 3:16, Galatians 3~5 especially 3:19.)

BIGGEST INTERPRETATION KEY → Notice how both God and Satan look at, and talk about, the same data, but from two opposite perspectives: Love, or Hatred. SAME FACTS. Opposite premises, opposite conclusions, because the NATURE of the person viewing the facts is 'opposite' in orientation!

So, what does the 'middle', the fact database, add up to? Did God create a "believe or burn" Gospel because He's a sadistic son-of-Belial, or did He create a Totally Free Way to have a relationship with Himself, out of Totally Unencumbered Love? A negative orientation puts down the Gospel, just as it is in the habit of rejecting/putting down everyone and everything else in life. A positive orientation puts up the Gospel (and puts up with the Gospel, so to speak, because God is trusted to have a good reason for creating it so) -- which, with sufficient spiritual growth, eventuates in putting up everyone and everything in life, even its 'crosses'.

Look: when we accuse God of being unfair to make (say) such a Gospel, we interpret the Gospel's "Believe or Burn" message to mean God's motive for such a requirement is egotistical. Therefore the God of the Gospel can't be God, or the Gospel can't be the Gospel. But wait a minute: are we really looking at the Gospel? What does it say? "Believe or Burn". One of two "B's". Very stark choice, that. So: we can look at BURN and not BELIEVE, to justify an offensive conclusion as to what the Gospel means. Or, we can look at BELIEVE and not BURN to justify a happy conclusion as to what the Gospel means. God says both things. He looks at both. Now, do we look at how easy is the upside, merely believing? Or do we obsess over the downside, the burning? Does God get any benefit-of-the-doubt that, since He'd be having to look at burning people forever, He'd not allow such an alternative -- unless all other alternatives were all worse? More importantly -- unless this alternative wasn't wholly a glorious, pure-profit "best" for all parties, and all other alternatives were not only unprofitable, unglorious, but even more hellish?

A child doesn't understand, when Daddy or Mommy spank him, that the spanking benefits him. It seems like Daddy or Mommy is mean, egotistically asserting power and bigness. The child might never come to understand that the spanking, is love. Then again, if he grows up -- he'll come to see that the highest expression of his parents' love was in their being willing to hurt the one they loved in order to benefit him. After all, if you stub your toe, you'll forget the pain, but Omniscient God forever knows that pain -- Omniscience 'can't' forget and stay omniscient. So your pain is pain to God, too. Bigger pain, for Him than you, because HE is bigger.

See, it depends on your orientation to God, how you conclude the meaning of the Gospel. If you're negative to God, you'll be negative to the Gospel. If positive to God, you'll be positive to the Gospel. The Gospel is not to blame. The people from whom the Gospel seems to 'come' are not to blame. In all events, the issue is God, and God alone. God is really 'whoever' God really is. Our view of Him may or might not match the reality of God's True Nature.

So: arguments that the brown man's god is worse/better/same as the white man's god, and similar excuses, are just as much nonsensical put-downs as looking at "Burn", but ignoring "Believe". What, does man own God? What, is a culture or race superior because it just happens to have a correct belief? What, is this some kind of competition, 'my god is better than your god', with the result that the god isn't honored at all, but rather the ones claiming to have the correct belief? Conversely: what, God must accept any ol' definition of Him you want to make, but you get the right to be upset if someone misstates your name and nature? Over and over again? If your name is "Clyde", but someone insists, "No! You are Yucky Gertrude Cheese!" -- are you unfair to turn away? Of course not. So why is God branded as unfair? 'Especially since, if He answers, He's in effect LYING to the person who calls Him by the wrong name? 'Especially since He wrote a whole Book, a Will, even, to disclose Himself and His Decisions?

Such put-down 'reasoning' is a handy way to chop God into Brother Foot meniality, and Satan loves it. Man's relative superiority or inferiority has nothing whatsoever to do with what the Truth of GOD is, right? Right. God is whoever He is. What, is a thing true because you or I say it is, or is it true because IT -- repeat, IT -- is? What, does the fact that person "A" knows a truth make him something over Person "B", who doesn't know? Of course not. And, of course, it doesn't benefit God that you 'give' him your belief, either, no matter how correct that belief is. If your belief is in the real God, that benefits you. No matter your background.

We all know someone who delights in putting down. Whatever that person does, is good -- and God help anyone for whom that person does a favor! The recipient will never be allowed to forget it! Makes no difference if the recipient didn't want the 'favor' in the first place! The one delighting in putting down, does the favor to put himself up: "I did this! After all I've done for you!" See? Even more tragically, such a person puts himself down, too, with his god-complex: I must do this I must do that, do do do doo-doo. Nothing but misery there. Tragically, all too many believers use the Gospel as an ego-salve. Pity them, but don't fall into the trap of rejecting God's Plan for your life because they are idiots. They use the Gospel to put unbelievers down; God uses it to put everyone UP.

By contrast, we all also know someone who delights in putting up. No matter what the problem, 'no problem' is this person's attitude. "How can he be so happy?" is our reaction. He looks at the same facts as we do; he suffers (say) more than we do -- so much more, even we are taken out of our own self-preoccupations enough to gaze AT him. How can he be happy, hurting that much? How can Christ actually want the Cross? Enjoy it, even (Hebrews 12:2, Psalm 22)? Well, that person sees an advantage in putting up, just as the negative person thinks he sees an advantage in putting down.

So, in the 'middle', both sides (God's and Satan's) often appear identical, which is another reason why one can think himself to be "in the Light". Why? Because Satan didn't finish growing up in Love. He grew some, so shares SOME of the same perspective as God. But not enough. Had he finished growing up, his perspective would be God's -- just as God(Father) intended in the Decree. [The Decree (Heb:dabar, Greek:logon) is essentially a covenant/contract between the Members of the Godhead with respect to Creation: it's a Love Contract. For example, Son did all the creating, but the design choice was the Father's -- Son gifts the creation to the Father. Spirit performs what can be termed a mother-like role. Cf. Genesis 1~3, Hebrews 1~2, Colossians 1:16-18 (well, all of Colossians 1 & 2 are on this topic), 1 Corinthians 2~5, Ephesians 5, John 1:1-10, inter alia; also "Footstool" verses. Or, just read Romans, Ephesians, Colossians and especially Hebrews as whole books. The 1970's NIV is best for whole-book reading, in English.]

Satan, during his spiritual growth process, hit a snag which to him was so great, he spiritually arrested, and then permanently rebelled, before "finish[ing] the course" (2 Timothy 4:17). His snag was apparently romanticism, the tendency to iconize. (That's a normal obstacle in childhood through early adulthood, which a stark Gospel helps obviate.) So Satan, thus arrested, sees the 'middle' as justifying his own desires -- but is blind to his own gerrymandering of the interpretation of the data. To him, the interpretation is 'true'. And he's willing to live in hell forever for it. That's his way of putting the 'truth' above his own person.

Because his love for God remained stuck in romanticization, he didn't grow enough to cross the inviolability threshold. He grew quite a lot, but when faced with the 'competition' of his own abilities, would no longer accept the idea that God has to do all the giving. To Satan, that would be demeaning. Satan had come to associate giving more with power than with love, for he loved the power of God more than the Righteousness of God. 'Good' is a status, a power label, to Satan. So 'good' has nothing to do with the object, but with the SUBJECT. Doing 'good' for others is a way of proving the superiority of self. Love is not in the 'doing good', at all. Rather, it's a form of putting-down: hatred. So 'doing good' toward the object is an unpleasant necessity, nothing more. Pleasure can only be derived by preening over self's accomplishment in withstanding the unpleasantness of 'doing good'. (← 'heart' of all religion!)

Thus, Satan is deeply and truly offended by all God is, by all Christ is. Back before his Fall, he came to need Their Love as a compliment to him -- which the you-can't-earn-My-Love message erased. He wanted to believe that his own WORTHINESS was the catalyst for Their Love. To finally realize that God's Love is not predicated on creature worthiness is, for Satan, to forever condemn himself to inferiority. He sees such "Love", thus, as an insult. "The demand syndrome", as my pastor calls it, is the hallmark characteristic of hatred. All, of course, in the name of "good"! DEMANDING "good". Demanding -- because, the self is weak and needs that demand met. So, any love message which is unconditional -- is insulting.

So, he rejects that Love. So, his rejection mutates his prior love into hatred. Love putrefied, therefore, into jealous revenge. So Satan's thoughts, ideas, and plans all reflect incomplete and MUTATED Righteousness, Justice, Love. Because 'incomplete, 'the most evil. Nearly-white. Nearly-Light. Anti-Christ. It's the nearness which beguiles Satan into thinking he's more right than God. Counterfeit good is the worst evil there can be. Incomplete development leads to counterfeit good. So, the one beguiled by the counterfeit can't see the counterfeit. So, the one thus beguiled can't see that his enjoyment is progressively weaker and vulnerable: any "competition" destroys it. Any enjoyment due to 'success' is but a breeze, a vapor trail in the sky: it takes progressively-more effort to get a progressively-weaker 'thrill'. So one becomes ever-more-adamant, ever more "hard" (Bible term); one is addicted to the drug of arrogance: demanding, demanding, demanding! It's obvious, it's pathetic, and the one in it becomes even more blind, by the day. The more friends try to help such a one, the more that one hardens in his addiction. There comes a point where the kindest thing friends can do, is separate from him.

So, what does God do? He won't coerce. So, He gives Satan &Co. grace. Ergo, He grants the Appeal Trial -- so, ideally, they can yet come to see their own blindness for themselves. Formally, it is held to prove who's right in his contentions: God (the Son), or Satan. If Satan is right, then he's the one fit to rule the universe; if God is right, then He's the one fit to rule.

See how tender is God's Love for Satan? 'For us? God, knowing in advance all of Satan's (and our) thoughts, made him (us) anyway. God, knowing in advance what would bollix Satan (us), in essence gives him his own world to rule his way -- so he can come to learn that his (our) idea of what's right, is in fact hellish. 'For him, for the fallen angels, for those ruled. In short, human history is an illustration of hell, a foretaste of what living apart from God is like. The potential lesson from human history is, essentially: life with God is innately sublime, and life apart from Him is innately burning pain.

Further still, God's root contention is that any method of making rational creatures results in some type of "hell", so the only alternative to "hell" is not to create anyone. Had God made rational creatures so that they couldn't go to hell, as Satan contends God should have done, one of the following "hells" would result:

a) Say God made angels/humans without free will (i.e., with no souls). He thus prevents sin, so no Lake of Fire, but then the rational creatures are like computers, Stepford wives. Isn't that hellish? They can't love, since love requires free will; enjoyments are but programmed instructions, so no integrity. In fact, such beings would not even be persons! They would be pets, at very best. Isn't that hellish? So, to prevent a Lake-of-Fire future, POWER given them would have to be less, not more; KNOWLEDGE would have to be less, not more.

b) Say God made angels/humans with limited free will. There are two variations of this b): First, "Free will" would only be free to the extent it can choose among non-sin options. There would be no "tree of the KNOWLEDGE of good and evil", for example. So there would be no awareness of sin (awareness is an essential component of free will), and no ability to reject God in any way.

Second variation: to make them with sin-terminable souls. Here, free will is still limited, because the moment the person chooses against God, he obliterates. There is no grace. The moment one sins, one obliterates. How pleasant is life with God, in such a case? Isn't such a life evil, hellish? (Notice how, if one posits that one's soul obliterates due to never believing in Christ, one is claiming God makes free will limited, which goes against His Very Being -- so one is unintentionally calling God 'evil'.)

In either variation, rational creatures are super-computers, super-Stepford wives. They have a wider range of options, more like a Brave New World set of beings (oh, roof!) -- isn't that hellish? Still there is no true love, for there is no true ability to go-against. Hence, no freedom, and 'free will' is but a sham, a spin. The greater POWER is still less than needed for free will; same, for KNOWLEDGE.

This scenario would be the same as b), because the creatures weren't given the option of rejecting the knowledge; Because they weren't given the option, their 'love' is but programming (based on foisted knowledge), so there is no true enjoyment; their 'integrity' (power-to-hold-together) is likewise fake. They are, in essence, seduced into obedience, made helplessly addicted to the knowledge, made helplessly addicted to God. Is that Love?

Worse, these creatures would be aware that they did not choose their lot, and instead are but marionettes, tugged into the 'right' way due to God's programming, because they do have free will, POWER, and KNOWLEDGE -- but NOT sufficient power to SIN (the Knowledge would prohibit it). So, yeah, they avoid the Lake-of-Fire, but are in hell anyway, forever manipulated by attributes God gave them absent their consent; absent any power to reject those attributes, yet aware of their addiction. So, 'a life of torture, forever 'Run' by their Knowledge And Power, rather than by their own free will.

So, had God made angels/humans with free will, but UNBALANCED POWER and KNOWLEDGE, He'd be subjecting them to tyranny of the worst kind: awareness of being manipulated, with no way out of it.

Moreover, the person is denied knowledge he wants. Free will is always enabled to choose what it wants to know. If it rejects knowing more about God, it accepts knowing more about non-God. So, by forcing the person to Heaven, the person's choice to eternally know non-God knowledge is likewise tyrannically cut off.

Power goes with the type of knowledge, so the power to sin increases with the added non-God knowledge, and the power to reject sin increases with the added God-knowledge. The increase in the power to sin is due to the individual wanting it (evidenced by the conquering desire for non-God knowledge). Again, this power to sin, which free will had freely chosen, is tyrannically denied -- by forcing that person to live in Heaven. Worse still, since that power was chosen, not the power to avoid sin, the power to avoid sin does not exist. So, the power he had, was denied, due to being forced to live in Heaven; worse, the person has no replacement power in his forced-Heavenly status. He is thus in effect paralytic, forever. Isn't that hellish?

Why can't God give the person a replacement power? 'Because power depends on knowledge. To want something non-God instead of ("anti") God, is to reject knowledge of God -- the non-God knowledge is deemed preferable. To make this rejection requires the person to want something else more than God, based on both what he knows, and what he doesn't know. So the choice is "pure". The individual programs himself. His free choices "beat a path", as time passes, making himself more and more addicted to his 'loves'. So, although he technically retains free will, his accumulated decisions have a self-programmed momentum. The choices he rejected become more and more hateful to him. So, in effect, he builds walls around the rejected choices, and eventually renders himself 'impregnable'. The Bible calls this "hardness of heart". (Bible doctrine in the soul, circulating, has the opposite momentum, but is never addictive, since God is Free.)

The individual who has thus programmed himself to forever reject God remains free to choose Him, though, because God made free will inviolate: which after all, is the only fair thing, the only loving thing, to do. So God can't justly give the person a replacement power, to make Heaven tolerable, since the person never wanted the God-knowledge he needed to get the replacement power.

What's left, then? Well, a) through d) above all result in "hells" God would have Himself caused, so He elected none of them. Instead:

e) God makes angels/humans like d) above, But They Receive The Full And Free CONSEQUENCES of their own decisions. Choosing-God 'consequences' are God's empowering responses; choosing-against-God consequences are native to their own natures. 'Eternally. Ergo salvation, so that one can learn God, be with God, despite sin's destruction. In short, one receives from God the freedom to make mistakes -- and to recover from them, by means of grace, by means of God remaking the person. In a word, by means of Love.

Of course, the flip side of salvation, is eternal condemnation -- but, unlike all other versions of hell, this one is totally avoidable, Even While In Hell -- the person can CHOOSE to get out of it, because free will remains inviolate. Just one little choice, faith in Christ. No effort is required, no works are required. Just one little choice. To have that eternal option is only fair, only loving -- after all, it is God's 'fault' he gave the person free will, just as Satan says. However, now that the creature has inviolate free will, it becomes the CREATURE's choice -- i.e., fault -- if he keeps on choosing to reject God. Of course, the only reason why any creature would reject God -- especially throughout his life -- is that he, like Satan, keeps on concluding pride more attractive than God.

Because Satan didn't finish growing up in Love, he is obsessed with his own abilities, and with creature abilities, period. He is likewise obsessed over his idea of right and wrong. He projects his ideas and his problems onto God, adducing them to God. So, it's God, not Satan, Who's bad, wrong. So it's God, not Satan, Who's evil. So, Satan thinks God is out to sadistically seduce, hypocritically claiming to 'grow' the person in 'Love' -- if the person first chooses God with no idea whether God will be faithful. This 'giving', as Satan sees it, is a sham, because if God thinks imposition-by-seduction is unfair, how can the Lake of Fire sentence be fair? Is that not an imposition, too? In short, God's Explanations fall on deaf ears. Whatever valid points God makes, Satan 'hears' them as evidence proving Satan is in the right. He's too obsessed to hear reason. So, his attitudes, policies, motivations are love-hate, contradictory, and traumatizing. His bitterness and desire for revenge so totally fuel him, he will never want to change his mind. Even though he will always be able. For, he has learned to 'love' his anti-integrity.

Satan thus genuinely believes there is no value whatsoever to living with God. Satan also genuinely believes that pleasant, seductive appeals to creature ability to do 'good' -- i.e., by dispensing or withholding goodies -- is the way God should have chosen to 'educate' man. So, Satan keeps trying different ways to manipulate humans to prove which levels of imposition are superior to God's way-of-creation.

Therefore, mankind reflects the 'success' of Satan's mindset, since he really is the ruler of the world. Therefore, any Christians and Jews are special targets, because they are recipients of God's promises -- which Satan must discredit at all costs. That's why in Talibanesque Islam, for example (apparently precedented by Mohammed in 632AD), it is a virtue to kill the (especially Christian or Jewish) "infidel": one inherits wide-eyed houris and paradise automatically, even if one commits suicide to accomplish the killing, for such an instance of suicide is, instead, martyrdom.

Of course, unbelievers with even a remote interest in God are targeted, too. After all, any unbeliever can become "Christian" by faith in Christ; just as (in the Old Testament, Trib., Millennium) any Gentile could become "Jewish" by faith in Adonai Elohenu, Adonai Echad. So, the unbelievers must be 'protected' from God: and also used as weapons against Christians, Jews. Further still, the Christians and Jews must be likewise sold into the same seductive plan as the unbeliever is 'taught', so to bludgeon God with rejection. There is no limit to which Satan will not go, here. Whatever you most love, he'll want to give you. Whatever you most hate, he'll want to withhold -- unless you need later 'correction', of course. Because, it's not about you, at all: it's about beating God.

Thus, Satan primarily sponsors 'good'; he only sponsors (what we call) 'sin' and 'evil' to motivate people to want 'good', to seductively manipulate them to want it. In short, Satan's saying that the meaning of happiness, of even life itself, is to be a 'user' (American slang); that the value of having relationships with others is what one gets from them. Satan thinks "relationship" ought to mean everyone using each other to get 'goodies'.

God disagrees. First, even if relationships were only for getting goodies, 'using' people, no amount of imposition is worthwhile: once you start to tinker, you must keep tinkering. But of course the value of having relationships, is instead the Free Association. Opposite of being a 'user'. So that no differential in characteristics mars the enjoying the relationship. Giving is for the benefit of the recipient to freely accept, or reject. Not imposition, not tinkering, because Free Association is what makes relationship enjoyable. It's the Person-To-Person Love which God stresses, not the person's 'goodies.' God thinks "relationship" ought to mean Unencumbered Love. No matter what worthiness in the object. No matter, the 'goodies'. Any 'goodies' are condimental, at best.

Granted, His Authority requires him to order punishment or blessing, which are types of 'goodies', so to speak, related to the person. However, hitting someone over the head with some punishment doesn't impose; it gives the person an opportunity to learn from the hardship -- learn God, or learn good/sin/evil. This, to remind the person that the objective is to CHOOSE to grow bigger, even beyond one's nature, so to become able to enjoy God, if he desires: enduring learning (e.g., punishment) leads to endearing; and endearing, to enduring enjoyment. Heh: to Love. 'Or, the opposite, if the person desires. So,

The Three Trial Issues:
1. God reveals Himself -- but not so much as to manipulate free will;
2. some folks (angels, humans) reject Him based on what they KNOW;
3. some folks genuinely DON'T yet know, so reject Him (so far) because they DON'T know.

In either case, the issue remains, does one want God, or not? Based on what he knows, and based on what he doesn't know?

Because, it's not about creature abilities or failure, it's about wanting God. After all, if creature failure wasn't provided for all along, would God have gone to the trouble to make creation and reveal Himself? Why not rather just make a bunch of pets, and spare Himself Forever Knowing The Total Suffering of the Lake of Fire? After all, it's not as though God isn't Omniscient.

It is, though, about Love: God foregoes His Rights to full obedience in favor of free will choosing to obey -- only Love can be the motive for such foregoing. That is why Righteousness would require a Cross, so that Love remains inviolate, even though foregoing. Christ, Who had Full Rights, really owed the Father nothing (Son is God Himself also, and in His Humanity never sinned). Christ, the Perfect Inviolate Human, voluntarily forewent His Rights, to pay for our sins Due To Love: as a GIFT to the Father (Atonement). So the Father can offer permanent salvation, due to Love, not due to rights: Genesis 15:6, Romans 5:8-9, 2 Corinthians 5:21.

TRUE INDEPENDENCE KEY → Most importantly: Christ, Because God-Man, Alone Has True Ability In Himself To Meet Divine Standards. Satan's big upset started because he had to depend on 'Daddy', so to speak. He couldn't really do anything of himself. So, whatever 'Daddy' gave him became successively associated with a negative connotation, in Satan's mind: a reminder that he was inferior. That's why he was so flummoxed that Christ would actually turn down his offers in Matthew 4 [More on this follows in Part III-Appendix.] Satan well knew Christ alone had, in His Humanity, a power Satan did not have -- despite being merely human! All the Matthew 4 Temptations are temptations to Christ to USE that power!

For Jesus could have called upon His Deity to make His Humanity fulfill the Standards. But He did not. Instead, He relied on the Holy Spirit (John 1, etc.), because He loved the Standard more than His Own Divine Ability to meet it. He loved the Father more than He loved His Own Righteousness. That's the key difference.

Of course, He also thus avoids a charge of cheating. Satan would cry "Foul!" if the Christ had tapped into His Own Deity, for such use of power would prove a creature couldn't obey God's Righteous Standard, thus God shouldn't impose such a Standard, thus no one should go to Hell. More importantly, the Christ proves that God's method of conveying "Integrity Properties", successfully works. Even if a measly human is ordered to do the truly impossible: paying for sins on the Cross. Not even any angel was held to that standard. So yes, God is right; so, yes, a Loving God can sentence those who never want Him to the Lake of Fire. So, yes, that sentence has nothing whatsoever to do with creature merit, but the creature who prefers his own merit, can't 'earn' what Christ paid.

For, only God is "good enough", and even Christ used the Power of God to execute the Love of God, rather than the Power of His Own Deity to execute His Own Worthiness.

And that Love never shuts off, either (owing to Omniscience) -- even in the Lake of Fire. Satan &Co., and their allied humans, will end up preferring the Lake of Fire to Heaven. Does Love abandon them there? Oh no -- God doesn't shut off His Knowledge, doesn't shut off His Love for them. He's right there with them, Infinitely. They reject Him -- but He never, never rejects them. His Love is so very deep, He'll even live forever in Hell with them, and in fact has done so forever, owing to Omniscience always having that pain-knowledge in full. For, "love never fails" (1 Corinthians 13). He keeps on waiting for them to change their minds, even though He knows they will never choose to change their minds. In short, Love forever loves: for Better, or for Worse.

Satan will forever Refuse Love. Will we? We humans echo Satan's view, most of the time. We want a 'love' we can 'win'. We want a 'love' which makes us important, worthy, feel-good. We don't want a 'love' which is 'tough'. We don't want a 'love' which permits pain, even though the pain is used to bless us. Oh no. We want the movie-love, the huggy love, the soundbyte love. We want to say we are worthy, see. Because we are sons of Abraham, or because we know someone important. Like, Daddy. After all, back when we were kids, we felt better than we do now. So, in politics, in the workplace, at home, in IRC, everywhere, we debate what 'love' ought to 'do'. Never what Love ought to BE. All our 'be's', are 'do's'. Just like we were taught, as kids.

Problem is, we're now adults. So, our egos are bigger -- but not necessarily our souls. We've big bodies, but still retain little souls. That's why the huggy-i-love-you's feel so good: just like we got when we were kids. So, we're kinda sensitive to the idea that Love is a being, not a doing. We're kinda sensitive to our smallness, so we look for something to do to make us feel worthy, special, loved. So, things like inequality bug us even more than they did back when we were kids. Back then, it was okay for Daddy to be 'better', but not now. We're all grown up, now. 'Just like Daddy. So, inequality is no longer 'okay'. So, we adults argue: Freedom, or equality -- which is more beneficial to man? Folks reflect the satanic idea, 'equality=freedom', not realizing that to obtain equality requires manipulation which cannot stop. Until we are all pets, we can't be equal. And of course, as George Orwell had the pigs explain in Animal Farm, "some -- are more equal than others." Heh.

Satan's 'love' plan aims at these childish ideas. Technically, his plan is a hybrid of the c) and d) "hells" (above), in order to fashion a mankind which 'does good'. Satan is saying Love ought to be 'learned' via seduction: so, should be predicated on man's works. So, man needs to be influenced in this direction, for his own good -- constantly. Tyrannically. By means of seduction and enticement, man will come to love such a state, because man is more innately suited to being a child, and God should cater to that nature -- if God was fair, of course. Moreover, actions and behaviors based on 'do good' thinking create a viable world which needs no God -- hence, no such person deserves a Lake of Fire for not wanting God. In short, God unjustly sentences those who do not love Him -- solely for that reason -- thus is Himself flawed. After all, if even mere man can be good without God, how can God justify condemning him? God thus is condemning good, which is inconsistent -- and even, hypocritical.

We humans echo Satan's argument, again. Oh yeah, baby: 'doing good'='love'! Turn on any television, look at any newspaper, listen to any conversation. Do-good is the be-all and end-all of life. Like Satan, we are blind to how this insistence on doing 'good', actually makes 'good' wholly repulsive, robbing 'good' of the sheer free joy of doing it "for nothing". So, who's being hypocritical? We are. Just like Satan &Co.

Let's look deeply at how this hypocrisy uses the defense mechanism called "rationalization". Here's how our thoughts go: how can we, who are so very nice to each other, be 'bad', simply because we reject the Bible's demand that IT be followed, versus some other course? What does it matter, the method we choose to worship? Why can't our vegetables, like Cain's, be accepted by Him? Why do we have to believe in the Son to be saved? In thinking these things (and we all do, no exceptions), we show we don't believe that anyone nice can really be so bad. We can only agree (well, somewhat) that folks like serial murderers, etc. should go to the Lake of Fire.

In short, we presume that how folks treat us, is how they treat God, too. Yet how is it, that one rejects a so-easy salvation? Shall God not be Righteous? If He is, then would not sin have to be paid for? Can we pay for it? Would it be right of God to make us pay the unpayable? 'Of course not, on both counts. So, if we reject the payment, the free gift He had made, what are we? In other words, how deep is our niceness?

After all, what are we saying, when we reject this Gift? We are saying God is unfair. We presume that any different ideas of God solely exist because they don't 'know' the Gospel, as if God couldn't manage (thank you very much) to communicate in ways we ourselves can't fathom. Or, we say that God shouldn't be so mean not to excuse them. It's just not possible that the person is mean. Only God can be mean.

We are saying, thus, that we, not God, are the omniscient ones. We are saying, thus, that we, not God, have the right to arbitrate what is fair. We are saying, thus, that we, not God, should dictate what forms of honor should be acceptable to Him: Sincerity, cultural-ritual, bribes, the-dog-ate-my-homework. Oh: and He should answer to "Yucky Gertrude Cheese" if we say so, even if his personal name is "Clyde" -- because WE say that is 'love'. We say it's not important that we properly identify Him or know Him. He's just supposed to 'understand', and be our genie.

"And so it goes", as Kurt Vonnegut likes to write. Over and over and over, we thus say God has lower rights than we do. We tell God His Rights, and we set our own. Ok, where is the love, in us? Should love be a matter of rights? If 'yes', then 'love' has strings, and is no love at all. So if we say God is unfair, and has lower rights, how is it we won't view our fellow man that way? So, is our niceness real and deep, or hypocritical, shallow? Are we nice to get something from each other, since we are viewing the issue with God based on rights, rather than based on a love-gift?

Notice how it doesn't matter if we are overtly hostile, or whether we pick a different view of God as the 'right' one. Either way, we are rejecting the Love-Gift of the Cross, and self-responsibility to choose. 'Just like Satan &Co., we really want that gift to be deserved. So we can feel good about ourselves. Pride, not love. God's 'gift' is supposed to honor us. Us, not God. If He's lucky, we might remember to nod at Him on Sunday -- if He plays His cards right!

Most Christians grasp that the unbeliever has rejected God. Yet believers who childishly react to that rejection, by demonizing unbelievers, by vilifying Satan and his cohorts, mimic the same rejection. They rationalize their reaction as a 'witness': to cover up their own offense, they claim themselves 'holy', to denounce. In reality, they denounce, not because of any desire for God. Oh no. Rather, it's to make themselves feel secure about a faith they doubt; to feel better about their 'sacrifices'. 'Key pathological symptom? They can't relax about this terrific (and terrifying!) freedom. Instead, they point-the-finger, like spoiled children. Legalism is like that. Pride is like that.

Their reaction is understandable: like the unbeliever, they too lack spiritual growth. The unbeliever has no human spirit, so of course he doesn't understand, and instead has a soul's childish reasoning with respect to God. Christian spiritual children have human spirits -- but little spiritual knowledge. So, still children.

Children are taught first right-and-wrong. They don't understand love, yet. They thus evaluate "love" based on rights-and-wrongs -- just as they learn "obedience" in those terms. Assuming they later grow up, they will come to realize "obedience" benefitted THEM more than their parents. They will come to realize "love" itself has no virtue, so needs to be married to virtue (God's Righteousness/Justice). So "love", while still childishly-understood, needs to vilify the opposition. It's the child's way of being loyal.

We Christian children, just like the unbelievers, hold the satanic idea that what we do ought to count for something, positive or negative. Thus, that 'love' is some kind of reward system, rather than Grace, irrespective of rights, of do's. Like Satan, we can't understand a 'love' which doesn't seduce, entice, please, in order to get its way. Like Satan, we want to be seductive, enticing, pleasing -- so to merit, earn, win, love from others. We, like Satan, count all of these seductions, these tit-for-tat rules, as virtues: 'good'.

So, as immature believers, we still reject God as much as the unbelievers do. Like Satan, we childishly presume that what we know -- viz., the morality rules of God -- is the whole truth, the whole spiritual life. We arrogantly ignore the "undesirable fact" that morality is but gift for man to get along with his fellows, and per se has no spiritual merit. We arrogantly ignore the 1st commandment, which demands one choose to learn God via Bible doctrine, in order to come to love God. Oh no, that takes too much time. Oh no, we're not 'doing anything', then. So, we reject God-knowledge, in favor of works knowledge. 'In favor of knowing 'good', of the "good-and-evil" plan of Satan. So, we substitute our ideas of works, of good, of worship, and deceive ourselves to be in the light (1 John's theme). We do Satan's jobs, but in God's name. If we knew that salvation could not be obtained via works, how is it now that we go off on our own way, working working working? Is that consistent? Ahh, but we are too irrational, too blind, to see the glaring inconsistency of our bustling about in God's name. (Cf. Galatians 3~5: Paul's explanation is fabulous!)

We substitute our own ideas of God's character, and call that substitution, His. For example, perhaps we claim man has no free will, due to the Fall, and are thus blind to the convoluted and insane 'logic' we use to defend that claim; we twist Scripture, like Satan does, in the 2nd Temptation of Matthew 4. We thus satanically overemphasize Sovereignty, at the expense of Righteousness and Justice, thus blaspheming Sovereignty, Omnipotence, Love -- because well, see -- God's too weak! to insure free will.

Or, we cheapen God into an emotional jerk, by overemphasizing Love, at the expense of Righteousness and Justice, so rationalize away thinking, in favor of the 'high' of miracles, rituals, mysticism, so-called 'sacred' movements, do's. Or, being lazy, we overemphasize His Bigness, at the expense of His Command that we learn Him (e.g., 2 Peter 3:18) -- does God give a command to make bricks without straw? Yet we fancy that knowing Him is 'a mystery' and throw up our hands -- well, we pat ourselves on the back about how humble we are, to throw up our hands -- another way we show we couldn't care less about God, just like the believers in Deuteronomy 30:11ff. Ahh, we must make Him Inscrutable, to justify our laziness? Whatever do we think the Bible is for, anyway? A paperweight?

Or, we argue endlessly over minute traditions, like the Pharisees used to do. Or, we cloak ourselves in established doctrines, in our erudition -- "cloak" being what we've done to our eyesight!

We've just seen how the 'nice' standard of doing-works-equals-love is really an ego trip. Now, let's look at the very works themselves. Are they really nice, for the recipient? Watch: if 'I' do something nice for 'you', how the heck does God benefit from it? [Cf Job 4:6, 35:3,6,7, NAS] Did He need 'me' to do that nice thing? Or, did 'you' really need it? Or, did 'I'? Certainly God didn't need it. God doesn't need anything. So, to have the colossal gall to claim that something nice done for a human being, ought to count with Holy God -- is that not the epitome of childish arrogance? Moreover, should you be beholding to me because I did this thing? Whatever for? If you should be beholding to me, then how 'nice' is what I did? In truth, it wasn't nice at all, for now you have an obligation to me. Where is the love in that? So, my 'good deed' imposed on you. Now, you get guilt if you don't reciprocate. That's not nice. That's not love. What is that? Repulsive. Just like the folks God excoriated in Zechariah 7, as well as Amos, and Malachi -- their many sacrifices had become a stench in His Nostrils, so to speak. Repulsive.

The most repulsive thing of all, is an unwanted 'gift'. [That's how the unbeliever feels about the Cross: a disgusting/fantasy/enslaving/ veiled-threat 'gift'.] To top off the ugliness: the 'giver' wants reciprocation, and on his terms, as well?! Of course, to deny that reciprocation earns condemnation from the 'giver'. Gee, what a nice thing to do, huh? Is this repulsive, or what?

Think it over: here is Joe Blow. He's bustling in works. Each time he does one he thinks, "Ahh, I did a good thing." And -- ever so slightly -- pats himself on the back. Then, he thinks God will reward him for his sacrifice -- ever so subconsciously -- and does yet another good deed. Over time, he's done all these works. So, he's got a lot of confidence in what he will get from God. One day, though, he gets sick. Doesn't know why. It is really bad. "Why oh why did God let this happen to me? After all I did?" will be running through his mind. [Job's self-righteous friends show this reasoning in spades. Take Pepto-Bismol before you read what they say.]

And what is God thinking? "Why oh why did this person keep insisting on doing works he himself wanted to do -- and putting My Name on them? Now, he thinks I'm supposed to reward him for what I never asked him to do? For never learning what I wanted? How ugly, how repulsive, to demand of Me a reward, for works I never requested!" (Cf. Zechariah 7 -- it uses the same 'reaction'.)

Aren't we being childish, irrational, and repulsive, like Satan is? "Who has known the thinking of the Lord, that he should instruct Him? But [instead] we have the Thinking of Christ." (1 Corinthians 2:15-16) -- "for the purposes of being rational, without illusion." (Romans 12:3, corrected translation of "so as to have sound judgment" in NAS.) He does the instructing -- His Thinking is our instruction. Not the other way around, thank God!

Like Satan, we do not see our insanity. If Christ paid for us, what does that mean? It means He Loves us! US, not our works. But, like Satan, we are stuck on failure -- so when we think of Christ paying, "PAY" is all we insanely see. Sacrifice. Pain. Work. Hustle, hustle, hustle. So every verse in Scripture is bent to that interpretation. Just like Satan did, in Matthew 4. We hustle, because we feel BAD about what Christ paid. We resent our weakness, and want to instead feel WE are good. We don't want Christ to sacrifice for us -- we want the PRIDE of doing it ourselves! We wanna be grownups, waaah! Just like Satan wants. So, to cloak our true desire, we deceive ourselves to be in the light, and claim our idea of 'works' (etc) as God's desire -- and thus ease our puny consciences. We apply the Bible like Mommy's lipstick -- smearing it everywhere. We aim verses such as "faith without works is dead", like Daddy's gun, not respecting that it's loaded, and so maim/murder James' teaching there of GRACE. We brush away Paul's "elative conclusion" in 2 Corinthians 12:7-10 as if it were mere martyrdom, instead of the Secret of the Cross. We don't want to have the power of Christ -- we want to be strong in ourselves! What colossal arrogance. What a tragic flaw. What a missed opportunity for receiving Love.

We prove we can't breathe His Love, when we hustle about, rather than listening to the "still, small voice" of the Spirit teaching us "God-breathed" (theopneustos) Bible Doctrine. No wonder we are so blue-in-the-face with frustration; so crusading, so hardened, so jaded. So crazy. 'Just like Satan &Co.

By receiving Love, one learns Love. Love, God's Way, is to transmit successive deposits of Christ's Own Thinking, into one's human spirit (which is why one first needs to be saved to become "good"); from there, into the soul. Each such transmission is made upon the believer's assent. By means of such successive deposits, "Doctrine works", to use James' 1:3 expression. ("Faith" usually = "believed doctrine", in Scripture: see also 1 Peter 1:7-8e), to grow one up spiritually.) 'To make one wise. Thus, one ages to spiritual maturity. During that process, one grows out of the childish idea of "love", and instead comes to have the joy of "good" without strings. One learns that Love is not love, if based on strings (rights, reciprocation). One learns to have integrity, so to hold together despite foregoing one's rights. Only then, is love, Love, because only then, is Love FREE of need-for-rights. Love means loving despite. Again, without a power to go-against, free will isn't free -- and love, is not love.

What does God want, then? Ahhh. Witness the irony and genius of God, and God's "superior power", as Ephesians 1-3 stress: He wants like-minded beings, freely-developed! But wait! Only God can empower that, right? Right. You can smile now -- see how even a handicapped person is not left out? If no human power can accomplish what God wants, then where is works? It's excluded, laughs Paul, in Romans 4-15.

Why shouldn't He want us to be like Him? Who doesn't want someone like self? Rapport requires like-mindedness. The Son's Humanity is totally compatible with Deity -- the only Such Person in the universe to be so compatible. Now, think: what 'works' came from such compatibility? Didn't the compatibility precede the Cross? Didn't Christ have to "grow up" to be strong enough to endure the horrendous imputation and judgment of our sins, so as not to react? And, as Hebrews 12:2 tells us, what was His response? Joy, not sacrifice. He "disregarded the shame" -- disregarded it, despised it. (Greek word means "despise" in the sense of disregarding; disregarding, because unimportant.) He was so happy, He ignored the cost. It was of no value to Him. He was too busy being happy.

Now, that's the "work" which being like-minded 'buys': Joy (cf. John 15:11). Which, to the worker, is no work at all. That's why Abraham wanted to sacrifice his son, as James 2 explains. Abraham, like Moses after him, was occupied with "Him Who is Invisible" -- not preoccupied with self, with works. Not seduced into the 'proper' behavior, with the result that what the seducee gave into, was the seduction, rather than the Righteousness itself. Not 'helped' by the ever-arrogant elitist method: "well, we can't actually teach the masses what's in the Bible -- they can't take it. Let's give them simple do's, instead." Not needing some romantic fantasy relationship, with signs, visions, miracles, and other emotional junk to drug ego. No, none of these. Instead, the truth can be served unsauced, naked. Even to puny man.

THAT's the life God wants for us. That's the life Christ prayed we receive, as a result of (what would be) the Cross, in John 17. To become one: Via His Life, we get ours. So, then: do we want God, or not? Our first "yes", of course, is to believe in Christ. That saves us. That makes us Able To Know God: so it can't be arbitrary and capricious, because until then, we don't have the spiritual equipment to know Him. (More on this topic follows, below.) After that, if we say "yes, I want to know God" -- He happily replies, "What, is My Arm too short?" (e.g. Numbers 11:23) and "For with God, nothing is impossible." (e.g. Luke 1:37)

So, If we say that first "yes", we have the free-will (heh) task of learning Him, a task which only the Holy Spirit enables at each "yes" of our free will, but He will provide only so much knowledge at a time -- lest free will be manipulated. Ergo, one learns a little each day, "line upon line". Not everything at once. So, not 'sacrificially', but enjoyably. That is why God Beats Satan. Satan wants sacrifice via seductive romance: after the conquest, there's not much thrill. God wants just plain Love.

Have you ever seen an old couple who were still in love with each other? Take the on-screen actor-team of Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy. They manage to portray the point: real romance is based on real, naked, unvarnished love. It needs no goodies to dress it up. Wrinkles and sickness don't diminish it. Age only makes it bigger. So it is, with God's Love. Emotion is way too small for this Love, so if one needs to associate a 'feeling' with it, to get a sense of how total this Love really is, the closest word for that feeling is this: ABSOLUTE HONOR.

Honor dresses up, too. Back in Victorian England, there was a Royal Standard that one dressed properly. This standard existed because the self ought to HONOR whoever saw him by a proper appearance. It wasn't at all about self being admired, but rather about the OBJECT getting a pleasant view. All the other Royal Protocols also had this purpose in mind. It was a looking up, not a putting-down. Some of those who were of the lower classes, of course, were reminded of their own inferiority by such superior appearances, so interpreted them as snooty putdowns, "putting on airs". Much of what has become our blue-jeans culture today grew out of those who felt insulted, though being honored!

God's plan is superior enjoyment, happiness. So, those who are offended by God's superiority will interpret His Plan as an insult to them. Like Satan, they are intimidated by the Standard, upset that they are inferior, and the offer by God to fix their vegetably-naked inferiority by clothing everyone in Christ (Romans 13:14), is the most offensive of all! By contrast, look at God's protocols, which the Son Himself -- alone not inferior -- which the Son Himself preferred: "Sacrifice", even if true sacrifice (the Cross!) is an enjoyment (Philippians 2:5ff, Hebrews 2:9-10, Hebrews 5:8-9, Hebrews 12:2). So, the key is -- to have the integrity to enjoy, rather than the anti-integrity to be insulted (Hebrews 12:1-15). To get the integrity, one needs the Thinking of Christ, Royal Law, the Royal Honor Code, God's Script, happily circulating in the soul: the Bible.

1. become a believer (believe ONCE in Christ for your salvation -- that He paid for all of your sins, be they past, present, or future -- it doesn't matter you don't now understand the how's -- you will, later on);
2. use 1 John 1:9 to be online with the Holy Spirit ("abide", in 1 John's lingo); AWARENESS is '#1 critical' to your spiritual life! As you'll see in Part II and the "Spiritual Pathology" link, lack of awareness is the prime symptom of descent into mental illness -- that's true in the mental sciences, because it's first true spiritually (i.e., spiritual state radically influences mental and physical states -- more on this follows in Part II, and passim in the rest of the webseries).
3. Keep learning Bible Doctrine spiritually, as follows. God doesn't need human IQ to teach you, only Satan does -- hence be sure to use these steps, so you're not under Satan's fake-God 'teaching':
   • use 1 John 1:9 habitually, to stay in fellowship with the Holy Spirit;
   • in such a state, listen to your God-given pastor (He'll show you who);
   • God (Holy Spirit) sends what you hear to your human spirit for "translation",
   • and from there to the academic "mind" (Greek: "nous"), so your soul can understand it; when you understand,
   • if you "eat"/BELIEVE it, God (Holy Spirit) 'metabolizes' it for you, depositing that information in your soul's "heart" so the knowledge can circulate usefully, like blood.
   • To think out/think on/recall any doctrine (i.e., on your own), use the above steps -- when you wake up, or when you go to sleep, as it says in Deuteronomy -- meaning, all the time. The idea: basically, keep up a conversation with God. Keep on pondering what you think you know; like, what is it like to be God? Test yourself, try to answer the question. Be curious: when you read a passage, or hear it taught by your pastor, PONDER WHAT IT MEANS. Ask God about it. Try to answer what it means. In short, keep the doctrine moving through your soul, to nourish you. Keep thinking how it applies to your day, play with it when brushing your teeth, standing in line. [The Doctrine itself (about which you are thinking) is the "pastor" step, by the way, during the rest of the day.]
   • Remember as many Bible promises as you can. This will get you through trouble, especially guilt. The believer is especially prone to feelings of insecurity. There is no need to be insecure, but until you get 'fluent' in remembering God's promises, you will be vulnerable to those typical feelings of 'I'm not good enough'. (It's a Big lie that you're not good enough, because Perfect! Christ Perfectly! Paid For You: but incipient love always feels it's not good enough, so you will be plagued by such feelings.) Entonces (therefore), AGGRESSIVELY RECALL God's Promises.
   • Pray as often as you think of it, aka "talk with the Father". It cannot be stressed enough: without this step, a growing constant conversation with God, Satan will conquer you. For awareness of another person vitally depends on conversation with that person. Especially, when the Person is God. So this step uses the doctrine you know intensely, and getting into this habit will so increase your awareness you'll find it vastly protects your spiritual life!
     Prayer protocol: a) use 1 John 1:9 to be online; b) pray TO the Father c) IN the name of the Son (it's a Royal Voting protocol, as the penultimate section in Part III will explain). Make sure your requests line up with the doctrine you know, too. John 17 is a really good prayer outline. Note the tone, too. No flowery language needed!

     So-called "backsliding" in the spiritual life results when the person arrests in the childhood stage of the spiritual life. There is no way one grows OUT of this stage, if he doesn't develop a conversational usage of prayer, like David did. Prove this quickly: what absorbs your attention? Notice how other things which compete for attention get blocked out? Notice how the more attention you pay to something, the more it engrosses you? So pay attention to God. Keep talking to Him in your soul, on whatever topic, even if it's hello, here's what I ate today. "Where your heart is, there shall be your treasure." Where you put your attention is where you will eventually be engrossed. So put your attention on God. Again, this point can not be emphasized enough.

   • Use DOCTRINE to solve problems or learn Answers to what you face in life, constantly. This OPENS your soul, makes it BIGGER. You'll have many problems. Ask: what doctrine do I know which answers this issue? You WILL know some, for you won't get the problem until you know enough to be able to USE what you know on the problem. Part V of the "Tulips" link on the Home Page has a 10-category listing of what my pastor calls "Problem-Solving Devices" (10 litmii of how to think when a problem hits, 10 attitudes to develop) which might help you with your analysis, here. (Search on "10 classifications", once you're on that webpage.) Learning Doctrine per se makes you bigger, but you hit plateaus, kinda analogous to physical exercise. So, to get BIGGER still, have more capacity for fellowship with God, you have to USE the Doctrine you learn in your daily life. It's analogous to Christ's experience on the Cross, the why of which you'll understand, by the end of Part IV.
   • The accumulated "eating", over some years, makes you grow up spiritually, so it thus produces
4. Love for God (due to increased integrity being produced by that knowledge); which produces
5. Love for all mankind (illustrated by love for "the brethren"), which is EVIDENCE of God, in the world (1 John 4:12); so to produce a result
6. "we shall become like Him" (1 John 3), and thus
7. will have full joy and fellowship with Him (1 John 1:4-5), and thus will have
8. "confidence in the Day of Evaluation -- for just as He is, so also we are, in this world" (1 John 4:17, corrected translation).

Love is not the childish gushing and sending of cutesy emails. Love is not the huggy-bear statements and emotional rollercoaster rides. All that, is mere emotion, with a good bit of Satan &Co. 'help' to make you fantasize you are spiritual. Love is an attitude, not a feeling at all. It is an attitude which remains no matter what you feel. And it always backs off. So all that gushy, pushy, typical Christian behavior on irc and real life is bogus. Urges are never Love. Because Love, is innately foregoing. See 1 Corinthians 13.