Introduction

The world is at war, not a war that is fought with tanks and rockets, but a war that is being fought for the souls of every man woman and child.  Not only the ones that have already died, but those who are here now, and those who are still to come.  This is a battle to the death, but I dont mean the bodily death that we will all invariably face at the end of our lives, but spiritual death.  This is the death that Lucifer experienced when he rejected god, and it is the death that we all might face if we do not choose the right side of this war. 

How to fight

We must begin with an understanding that the war has already been won.  This may seem like a weird thing to say, especially in light of the previous paragraph, but if we do not understand this fact the fight does not make any sense.  So what do I mean, We are privileged to know that god wins in the end. God revealed it to John the apostle, and he wrote it down in his book of revelation. The book of revelation speaks of a woman clothed in the son, who will crush the head of the serpent under her heal.  This is woman is mother Mary, and the serpent is the evil one.  This is how the battle will conclude at the end of time. We will all be sent to our final judgement and our everlasting eternity, and where we go will depend on which side we chose to be on.  The evil one loses in the end, and even he knows it. He cant win, and it makes him furious, He knows God personally, and he know that he can never beat God, all he can do is hurt him.  Lucifer’s hatred for god, causes him to direct all of his energy towards us humans, and to the corruption of our souls.  God made mankind as his greatest creation, and his deepest hope is for us all to be with him in heaven.  So the only thing that gives the evil one any pleasure is depriving the lord of that joy, and so he fights, and lies, and corrupts everything he can to steal human souls away from the lord.

This is the battle line of the Great War, and we must choose a side, you cannot play the middle ground, you must fight. Not only for our own souls, but for the souls of those we love, and even for those lost souls that have chosen the wrong side.  They can still be saved too. Until that final judgement, our prayers are still effective, and so we must never desist from praying and fighting constantly. 

Happiness and the human need for it

Let me now define the lines of battle, first is the Happiness that comes from peace. It is the driving principle of all human life. It animates us, it drives us, and it give direction to our lives.  Here is a little thought experiment:

If I asked you what are you doing here, right now? You might say, reading. So I ask why are you doing that? You may respond I want to learn. So then I ask why do you want to learn? You might say so I can better understand my place in the universe. If I asked why again, and continued asking why, to every answer, like a child would, the answer often ultimately ends with you saying “because I want to be happy.”  This is not a hard fast rule, but if you are honest with yourself, it is more likely than not to end up somewhere close to that. Nevertheless, I assert and I hold it as an axiom for this study that all of our human actions are (or at least should be), ordered toward happiness, but specifically the happiness that god designs for us.

Human beings require happiness. We measure our lives by it. We draw meaning and purpose from it. But what is happiness? Is it pleasure, NO!, is it success, NO! Is it relationship, that’s closer, but still not it. Happiness is the result of ordering your life in line with the source of all happiness. But it is more than just ordering. The christian believes that we are created by an all powerful and loving God.  And we are part of the lords creation of all things. Humans are uniquely special in this creation because we were created in the image and likeness of God. What does it mean to be in the image of God.  It is not our physical existence, because god is pure spirit, so it is our soul. The human will and Intellect are what we share with the essence of God, and it is imprinted on our souls, from the moment of our conception. That image is what tells us what is true and false, and what is good and bad. And more than anything else, that part of our soul that reflects god’s image, is in a constant state of yearning to re-connect itself with the source…, the creator of the image Himself.  This is because when our soul is aligned with the source, it is like paddling a boat downriver, and everything just seems easier, and that is when the most happiness is possible in our lives, because we are ordering our will with the Will of the one that created us.  But when we are living in contradiction to God’s will, that causes us pain, and separation, and disconnectedness. It is like paddling the boat upriver, and everything you do is a harder, it is a constant fight, and a struggle against seemingly insurmountable odds and you never seem to get anywhere. Augustine said “Peace is the tranquility that comes from order”. So when we live in this order, everything is easier, and it is this peace that is the source of all happiness. 

We are ordered towards happiness, and drawn to it because of the image of god on our souls.  I believe that this is why god loves us so much, we were made for relationship with him, and in the end that is the goal for all of our lives. Simultaneously, this is also the same reason that satan hates us so much.

But, why is the human soul so unique, and why it is so special to the Lord? Lets start by reviewing how God created of all things in the universe.

God created the Angels first.  Angels are pure spirits just like god, they have a will and an intellect, but no physical body. They have an intellect, that has all the capacity and understanding it will ever need to do anything that is ever asked of them. And they have a will that is either aligned with god or against Him. But the one thing they lack are bodies with passions — things like fear, anger, lust, hunger, doubt, etc. But their faith is perfect, They litterally live in the presence and glory of the lord.  They are not subject to the physical temptations of the body, and do not get carried away by emotion and desire. So they are ultimately and completely beings of will (rational souls without bodies), and for them the decision of their lives comes down to one question… Will you serve?  Some decided they would, and others did not.

The universe of planets and stars, and all of the living things that inhabited them were created second, plants and animals, are just physical bodies, with no intellect.  They have a will to survive but that is the extent of its action in their lives. Plants and Animals are essentially just slaves to their physical needs, and cannot understand why they are suffering, or to reason a way out of it. But despite that they do have souls, albeit limited. Plants have a vegtative soul that seeks to live and to thrive, animals have a sensitive soul that allows them to strive for life like the plants, but also to explore. So while they are very alive, you would not say that they are like humans.  They provide many things for us, food, clothing, comfort and friendship, but are not equal to humans in Gods kingdom. 

So last god created humans. Humans are special because god created us with a will, and an intellect, and also a physical body. The fact that we have all three, serves as both our greatest strength and our greatest weakness.  Since we have bodies, we are like animals, susceptible to temptation, and the unquenchable needs of physical form, but unlike animals, we have the mind and will to exert control over our bodies and our passions, and ultimately enjoy these things within reason. Concomitantly, since we have an intellect and will, we are like the angels, we have the ability to ponder higher things, and make assumptions and conclusions about our existence, but unlike the angels, we have the ability to experience the world and the pleasures and joys that it provides. This dance of falling into sin, and humbly exerting discipline over our lives, is a harmony of willful synchronicity.  Aristotle explained it like this. Imagine a charioteer. The Horses up front are the passsions. These passions are called irascible and concuciple, but we will not get into the details of what that exactly means here, but these passions are the cause of some of our worst sins, while at the same time the reason for some of the most meaningful and important parts of human existence.. Think “love and hatred” or “hope and despair”, but the passions are not good or bad by themselves, what matters is how we allow them to affect our lives, and how we use them with regard to others..  The man in the Chariot is the intellect deciding where the passions lead them, and the reigns connecting the horses and the man, are the will that the intellect exerts over the passions.  So if the man does not use the reigns to tell the horses where to go, they will run anywhere they please, and maybe into destruction.  But if the man uses his mind, directed toward righteousness, and exerts that will over the passions, then he is a fierce warrior charging toward virtue.

God is the source of all happiness?

God made us in his image, and we share in his essence. Our intellect and our will, then, are made in the image of god and are but a small reflection of His own image. But our physical form is different from god, and so our natures being both spirit and body does truly make us unique in gods kingdom.   The angels were made to be servants, and their freedom is in accepting or rejecting their role to serve. The animals because they lack a true intellect don’t have freedom, they can only accept the state of their existence, and strive to live another day, or reject it and die.  But humans get to choose, between living in the world, and indulging in all that has to offer, or rejecting the world and seeking the higher image of god written on their souls. The good father in heaven gave us all that we need, to have the ability to freely love or reject Him. And that is why God sees man as so precious. When the human freely chooses god over the world, and freely chooses righteousness over sin then that gift of love is greater than any thing one can offer to another. And when we offer that to god, we get closer to aligning our will with God in the way that Jesus did in his earthly life. And when we humans, finally achieve this end, if we are so inclined, then that is when we will find that we are the most happy, and paradoxically, the most free.

But making a leap like this is exceptionally difficult. If God is real, and he is pure spirit, how do we see Him or communicate with Him? Well he speaks to us through the world… If you find beauty, or happiness, or love in the world, that is a sliver of Gods full nature.  If you see a beautiful sunset, you are seeing part of god’s beauty. If you hear the laugh of a toddler, you are hearing a glimpse of God’s happiness. If you fall in love, then you are feeling a glimpse of how God loves.  When you add all of that up, and ponder how profound that is, you will only begin to scratch the surface of who god really is, and what his full nature is actually like.  

But God also speaks to us through the events of history. Every single thing that has happened in your life is traceable directly back to the lord. The job you have, the car you drive, the house you live in, are all gifts from God.  On a physical level because yes he is the creator of all things, and we humans are only tinkerers playing with, and using what god has already provided.  But on a deeper level too, the lord is always at work in our lives.  The lord has set a path for us, he knows where he wants us to go. On many levels this knowledge is imprinted on our souls at birth.  But he also respects our free will. So as long as you are walking that path he has set for you, you will not hear from him. But the moment you veer from the path, you will hear a voice (in your conscience), telling you “to make u-turn at your earliest convenience.” I like to call it God’s GPS. The more you ignore that correction, the louder that voice becomes.  But all the time, calmly and humbly He is showing you the way back to the path.  If you look back on your life you will remember these voices, and the gentle corrective hand that is always guiding you, and showing you the way.

“So when God’s Spirit moves you to faith, when God gives you the gift of faith, he does not do it by bypassing your free choice but by perfecting it. It is your free choice to believe in him and to trust him, to entrust your whole self to him. The very same act of faith that comes from your free choice is also coming from God’s Spirit within you inspiring you.” — Peter kreeft

But most importantly, He has always been there working in your life, and the lives of every other human being at the same time… Inconceivable right? I have trouble handling my email inbox, let alone the lives of 7 billion people. But he does it every moment of every day, and he does it with the goal of our ultimate happiness as first and foremost in his mind.

Aquinas on… form, matter, causes and actualization.

In order to understand the way in which god works in the world, and how he shares his love with us, I need to now explain the ways in which he most often reveals himself to us.  I need to do this, because in order to understand how the evil one corrupts and destroys god’s creation, you must first understand what the devil is attacking.  To do this I am going to introduce you to Thomas Aquinas, but in order to do that, we must start with defining a few terms first. Let us start by discussing the nature of all things, and then how all things in this world, ultimately find the fulfillment of their potential. So lets begin…

Starting with the most basic modes of existence All things in the universe have matterand form. 

• Matter is the constituent components that make up anything in the universe.  Water consists of hydrogen and oxygen, humans are much more complex, but on the most basic level we are all just assortments of constituent parts. 
• Form is the intangible thing that holds all that matter together and makes it what it is.  A dog has a different form than a bird.  They might have similar constituent parts, but the form of a bird is distinct and noticeably different than a dog.  Form is the guiding principle that holds all things as they are. Water is only water when 2 hydrogen and 1 oxygen molecules bond together, but it is the form of water that keeps them in that arrangement and does not allow them to transform into something else.

So what causes the matter to come into a certain form. It is change… All of the matter in the world is subject to it. This is easily observable in the world around us.  But things don’t change randomly and without reason, they only do so when they are acted upon by something else. Aquinas asserts that things change in a process consisting of four parts, called causes.

These terms come from 800 years ago, and they sound a little weird because their meaning in english is somewhat different today. We moderns understand “cause” as in, I do this thing, and something happens as a result.  But Aquinas here, is using the word to describe the process of creation, and why something happens when a creator acts his will upon it.  He uses these terms constantly throughout the suma, and so we must learn and understand them in the context that he used them.  

So to help with this understanding, I am going to use the analogy of a baker making a cake to illustrate the four causes more clearly.  Imagine your mom is baking you a cake, to celebrate your birthday.

These are the four causes of making that cake. 

• Formal cause — this is the recipe for making the cake. The structure of all of the elements and how to put them together.  This can be an idea in the bakers head, or a written down plan. The cake cannot be made unless you have a plan for its creation, this plan then, is the formal cause.
• Material cause — this is the ingredients, or the building materials.  In this case, sugar, flour, water, etc.  Without all of the ingredients, there is no starting point…, so having all the items you need to begin, is the material cause.
• Efficient cause — this is the designer putting it all together. The baker actually taking the ingredients and following the recipe to make the cake. Without the actual work of making the cake it will not happen, thus the work, is the efficient cause.
• Final cause — The reason for why it was built in first place…, In our example, to enjoy with family, to celebrate the birthday of a loved one. If there is no reason for making the cake, then it will not even start in the first place, thus this reason, is the final cause.

So these “causes” are best understood as not individual reasons for why something came into being, but more as the process of creation, as a whole.  You cannot make a cake without wrestling with all 4 causes, and if any of them are missing, then creation will not happen, so they must be considered as a whole. I have many ingredients in my kitchen, and there are many potential ends from that starting point. But without all the other causes being brought into the equation, nothing will happen. But please understand that theses are the same 4 cause needed, whether you are talking about baking a cake…, or God making the universe.  The only difference is scope.

So the “causes” show us how we explain the reason why anything is what it is. But it is important, and especially for the sake of my upcoming argument to know that everything we know or experience is just an idea until it is brought into reality.  This process is called actualization. Actualization is the full and complete process (using our example with the chef), of making a cake for a birthday party (the final cause) by actually gathering the ingredients (the material cause), and following the recipe (the formal cause) to make something new (the efficient cause). Actualization does not mean that every-time you start with sugar, flower and water, that you are going to end up with cake. There could be many potential actualizations for this starting point, but not infinite. These ingredients can make bread, cookies, tortillas, and pancakes, but it can’t be a puppy. 

So, actualization (or creation) requires an intellect and a will in order to come into being. The four causes are nothing until someone sets out to do something about it. Our recipe, ingredients, preparation, and enjoyment are nothing until we set our will and intellect to the task of starting to bake.

So we believe that God is the creator of all things, And we believe that he has a final cause in mind for all things, and when all things are fully actualized, they will achieve the ideal purpose for which He created them.

Gods plan is for all of those things He created to achieve full actualization, So why do some things not achieve the purpose for what they are intended. In two words, “free will,” and more specifically, the human inclination to sin. The evil one is on a never ending quest to temp us into using our free will to reject god and destroy His creation. The evil one does this because he wants all of the actualization of God’s creations to be corrupted, lied about, or destroyed into a mockery of God’s original plan.

Gods universals… goodness, truth, and beauty.

Thomas Aquinas said that all things that are good, true, or beautiful are from god. And since we are created by god (in his image), we also, are called to seek the goodness truth and beauty that god intended for us as well…, And the closer we get to achieving full actualization in our lives, then that is where we will find our truest and fullest happiness.

Now I would like to explore these universal attributes of god’s creation (Goodness, Truth, and Beauty) further, but more specifically in how we interact with them in our daily lives. 

I want to go back to the analogy of the baker and the Cake. When we think of these universals, how is a cake… good, true, or beautiful? I suggest that a cake is achieving its highest end when it is a tasty, well created, and expertly represents all the physical attributes of a cake.  If for some reason, it falls short of this ideal, and ends up lacking in one or many of these attributes, it does not mean that it might not taste good or look good, but it does not fully represent or “Actualize” what we assume a cake should be in our minds. So lets unpack what each of these means.

Goodness — can be defined as the actualization of the material cause. This means that the materials that make it up, must be right, in order for it to be Good! In our analogy, the ingredients on the bakers recipe…, if the cake has all of the right ingredients needed but you add cod liver oil to it, the cake is not going to be good, it will be corrupted.  Or if you add all of the ingredients of the recipe, but add no sugar, this also will not be good, it will be incomplete. So for a cake to be good, it must consist of all of the parts that cake is supposed to consist of and nothing more.  Too much or too little of something and the cake is rendered bad.  This is true for all things in the world…, When a designer creates a thing, that thing must consist of the materials that the designer intended. That is goodness.  If there are materials missing from the designer plan, or if it is later corrupted by things that should not be there, then that is Bad.

Truth — can be defined as the actualization of the formal cause. This means that cake is only truly a cake if the baker succeeds in making something that is actually a cake. If the baker took his recipe for a cake, but instead took the water, flour, and sugar, rolled out the dough into thin discs, baked it, and it came out looking and tasting like a tortilla. then it would be false to call that a cake. It may taste like a good tortilla, and it may look like an excellent example of a tortilla, but it is not a cake. So truth requires that the matter, form, and original idea of the cake match the end result. If it does not, then it is false, just like a tortilla is not a cake! So truth then is the realization that god created all things for a distinct purpose, and when the reality of an idea is being actualized toward that end, it is true, if it is being distorted or corrupted away from that end, it is false.

Beauty — can be defined as the actualization of the efficient cause. This means that beauty happens when idea of a thing in the designer’s mind, matches the end result of the final creation. When you imagine a perfect cake, it is moist, sweet, and very tasty.  It will have frosting on all sides, and it will be decorated to be esthetically pleasing to the eye.  When the designer takes this idea, and combines the ingredients, and finally creates the cake…, the cake is beautiful when it most closely matches the ideal of the perfect cake, and the ideal that the designer had in mind.  The cake is ugly, the farther and farther it gets away from the designers ideal. It is beautiful because it is striving to achieve the form for which it was designed. But the truest of all beauty happens when it reveals the mind and hand of its creator, and it is the most beautiful of all, is when that creator is god, and the thing most closely matches His design.

All of these above rely on the final cause, the purpose for which it was made in the first place. A thing is good when that thing represents the constituent parts that make up the designers plan. A thing is true if the thing is what the designer actually intended it to be. And a thing is beautiful when the thing most closely resembles the ideal in the designers mind.  And so finally, Perfection then is when the end result matches the original reason for its creation…, when the goodness, truth, and beauty of the thing are all fully actualized. Thus Perfection is the full actualization of the Final Cause.

In the case of God, His final cause is perfection of all things.  The ideal of the world that he had in mind, was always, good true and beautiful from the very beginning. You only need look at the natural world for evidence of this fact.  This world, this universe, the laws that hold it all together from the very tiniest of quarks to the behemoth mega stars light years away, everything follows the same law (natural law), and it is perfect.  This perfection of the universe is the achievement of God’s full actualization. Evidence of that is everywhere.  The extent to which things are not fully actualized is because of man’s free will, and the inclination and temptation to sin. 

Man has free will, and man is far from perfect. But God deigned to make us pro-creators with Him. so man’s imperfect ideals, and our outright inclination to reject god’s gifts to us, dilutes gods perfection, and so corrupts the final cause, and as a result, the bad false and ugly come into the world. One of the atheists greatest laments is why does god allow pain and suffering in the world, and simply put, the answer is free will. Humans continually choose to smoke, and drink, take drugs, and do all kinds of terrible things that abuse the body, while at the same time having kids. We drench our foods with pesticides and preservatives, we eat things we shouldn’t and we eat too much of it.  All of these things affect the next generation, the Genetic pools get polluted, and future generations pay the price in cancer and disease. Pain follows, and we all look at God and ask Why.  The answer from god back to you is, you are free, and you did this to yourselves.  

God could fix everything, break all of the rules of natural law, negate your free choice, and make all the pain go away.  He could do that in an instant, but he wont.  And at the end of the day, you would not want him to? It would instantly take away our freedom, and make us all slaves. And it is precisely, because He loves us, that I can safely say he will never intervene in our lives in this way.  

But regardless of all of our reckless and self-destructive behavior, God already has a plan to save us all from our own devises, and it is well underway. The story of salvation, culminating in the Incarnation, Life, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus, is the answer to all of this.  

But until we get to the end of that story, we still have work to do here first. We need to find out how to achieve the full actualization that God has planned for each and every one of our lives…, why were you made, and what is gods plan for you?  Actualization is to be full of Gods love, and to be full of Gods love is to be happy. And that is our ultimate purpose, and reason for our lives.  It is why you were made, and why God loves you so much.  If it were that simple though, we would already be in heaven, but alas, we are not. The devil is constantly working to destroy our lives, tempting us to sin, and corrupting everything that god has created, taking everything that is good, true, and beautiful, and convincing you that it is bad false and ugly, while at the same time lying, tricking and corrupting you into believing the opposite, that the bad false and ugly, are actually the good true and beautiful.  Hard to believe it is possible…?, but today ware are told that killing babies is “pro life”, and women can truly become men, and that mocking gods plan for the family (with gay marriage) is beautiful.  And if you stand against any of this nonsense, you are called a hateful bigot.

“…[the Devil’s] logic is simple: if there is no heaven there is no hell; if there is no hell, then there is no sin; if there is no sin, then there is no judge, and if there is no judgement then evil is good and good is evil.” — Fulton Sheen

So how did we get to this point, and why is the devil doing this in the first place? Well that is a very interesting story, and we will get into that next.

The fall of Lucifer and why he does what he does.

I think that I have firmly accounted for what we are called in this world to do, and what it is that brings us the greatest happiness. But where does all the pain and suffering come from. He is called the Evil One, Satan, the Devil, or Lucifer, he is the source of all lies and the creator of unhappiness. But why does he do it, well we talked briefly about this already, but it is now time to get into the details.

The devil fights extraordinarily well to corrupt our souls, and to separate us from God. And over the millenia, he has gotten exceptionally good at it. But the devil is no fool, the angels have extraordinary intellects, and Lucifer was the most powerful of all the angels, he has read all the same books I have read, and he knows all of the prophecies about the end times, and he knows them better than all of us. And most importantly, he knows that he loses in the end. He knows that he is defeated, and that it is Mother mary that finally crushes his head. So why does he fight?  Well, it is the same reason that he rejected God in the first place, it comes down to nastiest of the 7 deadly sins, pride! Interesting side note, that same pride is now the rallying call for all of the LGBT nonsense.  The irony is incredible and completely lost on them.

To explain further, lets review the fall.  Lucifer was the greatest of all the angels.  He was first among the Seraphim, he was called the light bearer, and served at the right hand of God! He was the strongest and most powerful of all of god’s creations, and as such was given the most responsibility among the servant angels, His job was to bring the Light of god into the world.  Now as the angel of darkness, and the author of lies, it is truly incredible how far he has fallen from grace.

Remember, as I mentioned above about the nature of angels, they exist outside of time, they have no passions, and are beings consisting completely of intellect and will. They posses all of the knowledge and understanding that they will ever need to decide any choice that is put before them, and they had this knowledge from the first moment of their creation. Like us they also have free will, but unlike us, their decisions are instantaneous and eternal.  Mankind gets 70 -100 years to work out their opinion and position on God’s vision and plan for their lives.  But when an angel makes a decision, it is instantaneous and forever.

So when god showed His plan to lucifer and all of the angels, He showed them that He was going to create an entire universe, with stars and planets, He was going to fill those planets with mountains and plants and animals, and finally He was going to create Man in His image and likeness.  He showed the angels that these men would fall and reject Him, and that He planned to create a way to redeem them of their blasphemy.  And then He showed the Angels his final act, would be to send the second person of the trinity to earth, and that He would take the form of man, be born of a meek woman. He would live and teach these men about the Kingdom of God, and that finally he would die for these fallen and sinful men, thus lifting up mankind, redeeming them from their sin, and thus accomplishing the impossible task of raising the least of all his creations to be the greatest, in His kingdom of Heaven.

Gods plan has always been for the least to be raised to greatest in Heaven, and the last would be first in God’s Kingdom. And conversely, the opposite would be true, that the first and most powerful in Heaven, would then be called to be the servant of all and the lowest of all of the members of Gods Kingdom. This ultimately means that God’s angels would be called to serve these lowly men.  Some angels (guardian angels), would be asked to accompany these men of all of their lives, to guide and help them to make good decisions, and to help them atone of their bad ones. I cant think of a more thankless job than that. But all angels would be called to serve man in some way, because everything that god created was ultimately for man, and mans eternal salvation.

It was at that point lucifer and a third of the angels in heaven said no, that they would not serve, and at that moment, and for all time, they fell from heaven to dwell with man on earth until the final judgment. Some believe, I am not one, that the devil could have, and still can beg for forgiveness, and be welcomed back into heaven, but the reality of scripture says, that if you, with full and complete knowledge and understanding of god and what he is offering you, reject him, that there is no going back from that decision, and thus his damnation is decided, but we must never forget that the devil’s decision was his own free choice, made with full knowledge of the consequences.

Nevertheless, the devil was enraged by this turn of events. He knew that he could not and would not serve the lord. What’s more, he knew that he would be forever damned for his decision, and so he set out to do the only thing he had left to him, to spoil gods party in heaven. How? By destroying gods beloved creatures, one by one, taking as many of them into hell with him as he could, and forcing these lost souls to serve him for all time.

God’s vision is for every human to reconcile their original sin. To enter into heaven, and share in the joy of His beatific vision for ever and ever.  He knows every hair on your head by name, you are a beloved son or daughter, and he wants to have an eternal relationship with you in heaven.  That is His deepest desire for each and every one of you.  So between now, and the final judgment, there are still souls to be born, live, and ultimately die, and they each have the individual tasks of reconciling their sin with god, and determining their eternal destiny. Satan on the other hand knows his fate, and it infuriates him, and so he does the only thing that brings him the tiniest little reprieve from the pain. He corrupts, and lies, and destroys everything he can so that he can steal souls away from the lord.  The devils dream is that God will be alone in heaven and all will be suffering in hell with the devil, He wants heaven to be a ghost town. And so this has been the Devil’s primary goal from the beginning. God set out to save all of mankind from sin, and the devil has gone about the work of stealing away souls from gods plan.

How he tempts us and corrupts everything

How does the devil accomplish his work? In a nutshell, by lies, corruption, and deceit. If it is good, he corrupts it, and if it is true he lies about it, and if it is beautiful, he tries to make it ugly.  It is important that it is understood at this point that the devil is not able to destroy anything real, all by himself.  He is only another one of gods created beings, he cannot will a thing out of existence. He is a pure spirit like the angels.  And being a pure spirit means, that he does not have magical powers to change the physical world.  He is constrained by the same law (Natural Law), as the rest of gods creation. He cannot do anything on his own.  All he can do is lie about it, and corrupt it, and ultimately, hope to decieve us into destroying it for him. We are by contrast, physical beings, and we can destroy the created world. So this has become Satan’s special skill, one that he has honed and perfected for thousands of years.  He simply whispers in our ear, and with his lies, he ultimately influences us to do his will, and many of us through pride, anger, and selfishness, gladly comply. We ultimately, end up being the hands and feet of the evil one in this world, and his reign of terror thrives.

So what is natural law, and how does it bind and constrain all lving things. To better understand this we need to spend a little time going over what it is, and how it touches and affects everything seen and unseen in this world. 

Everything in the universe, is created by God, and is governed by His natural law. It covers everything from the molecules and matter that make up all things, to the movement of objects in the cosmos. It is the what defines gravity, math, science, and how all of that fits together to make an organizing principle that defines the harmony and symmetry visible in all areas of life. This law is a gift from god, it provides order and stability to everything around us. Everything you see, hear or feel…, All things in existence are constrained by these rules. We may not like them, but we cannot ignore them. Sometimes we even try to work around them, sometimes we can use them to our advantage, and sometimes they take advantage of us. The only thing you can not do with these laws is deny them altogether.

Many have tried though, but it only leads to madness, because to do so goes against everything we know to be true. For example, try to imagine a square with three sides, you cant it is not possible. Or think of an elephant with no bones, it is unthinkable because the natural order of life would not allow it. Finally think of a world with no gravity, everything would fall into chaos almost immediately.  So these laws of Nature give order and stability to the universe, but they also bring sanity to our lives. Sanity is tied to the order of the universe, and when clocks looks like they are melting on the wall, our minds go into paroxysms trying to make sense out of it.  So, without the order of God’s natural law the universe ceases to have meaning, and everything falls into confusion. The order allows us to know what to expect., and it gives us the foundation from which to build in myriad different ways.

Please understand, that I am not saying that god could not break his own rules, He is god, he can do anything he wants. He could change the rotation of the solar system, or make pigs fly, he is the creator of the universe, and there is nothing that He cant do, but he wont! He will not break his own laws because he knows that that is not good for us, and he loves us too much to allow that to happen. He could act capriciously, and save each of us from our current trouble or plight, but in doing so it would bring on a cascade of other problems, possibly worse than the original problem, not only for the one in question, but all those around him. Several years ago there was a movie titled “Bruce Almighty”. In this movie, Bruce is given the full power of god, and because he was only a man and could not deal with the overwhelming onslaught of prayers being sent to him, he decided to grant every prayer that was put before him, everyone gets their wish. This was a nice sentiment, but it was a calamity for the world. It might be nice for one person for one minute, but it ultimately leads to chaos and pain. The movie shows the pandemonium that ensues, when everyone gets what they want… It makes for a funny movie, but the real life implications are far more devastating. 

So God follows his own laws, not because he has to, but because he wants the best for us, and that creates order in this world. Order is what we need in order to feel happy, and safe, and peaceful. And it is in that state, that we come to know, love, and understand god most fully. 

So, it is easy to understand why the devil rails against order, and the Natural Law, because disorder pulls you away from that friendship with God. And that is why the evil one focuses so much energy on sewing disorder in this world. Because disorder leads to sin, and sin leads to corruption, and corruption leads directly into the clutches of the evil one.

So I hope it is now clear that the best way to destroy gods creation, is to sew disorder, and the devil does that through his demons. Angels and demons, even though they exist at a higher plane than us, nevertheless, they are governed by the same natural law. When God created the choirs of angels, and set them to their jobs, He ordered their natures to their tasks, and they were empowered and limited by the rules of God’s law, and by their position in His kingdom.  Some angels were in charge of the movements of planets, or the function of governments, and at the micro level, some, called guardian angels, were tasked to lookover individual humans. They were all given powers and limitations requisite to each of their positions.   Even though some now reject god, and have fallen from grace, they still retain their intellects, and their powers, but they also cannot go outside of these constraints either. But demons, do indeed use their abilities against us. They tempt and torment us to the extent that they are allowed by god and his original design.

So if an angel was put in charge of leading you into virtue, and righteousness, the fallen demon, of that same choir of angels, is now going to use his powers of persuasion to lead you away from those virtues, and into sin and debauchery.  But just like an angel can not force you to do good, a demon can not force you to sin, but as we all know temptation to sin is way easier to accomplish, than encouragement to virtue.  But at the end of the day it is still a free choice, and the angels and demons have to work within those parameters to move you towards their end goal.

Fr. Chad Riperger, a very prominent excorcist, has made the following statement about this subject…, “Angels only go where they are allowed and do what is asked of them.  Deamons go where they are not resisted, and do whatever they can to lead you into sin.”

So there is a war going on between the angels and demons over the souls of men. Humans are caught in the middle of this battle, like the kids of two divorced parents, being pulled in different directions. But the difference here, is that we (the kids) have a choice, and that choice will determine our eternity

So how do we discern which spirit is actually calling us, St. Ignatius of Loyola, developed the rules of discernment, that will help you tell between the two, and I highly recommend that you spend time studying these rules.  It is an invaluable exercise. But ultimately it comes down to this, the angels are trying to appeal to the image of god that is found in every one of us, and guide us to virtue. Where the demons want to distort, confuse, lie, and destroy everything that God created, and they use us to accomplish their ends.

So we must be aware that the demons is leading us into sin, and angels are encouraging us to virtue. So when we encounter situations in our lives that create reactions in us, we must be very aware of where these thoughts, and feelings are coming from. Because sometimes the difference is so subtle that you might not know the difference. You must truly know your faith, and you must fully know yourself so you can effectively navigate the battle lines, and handle the evil ones incoming attacks.

So what does this battle look like, well it comes down to this…, You must do good and resist evil. That is what will bring you the most happiness, and that is the battle line. But how do you know what is good and what is evil? Let explore that next

How we fight back

Thomas Aquinas stated that everything in the entire universe was created by God, and more importantly the Bible says, in Genesis, that He created it all good.  Everything bad in the world is merely the perversion, corruption and destruction of that goodness. This evil then, is as St. Thomas called it, a “privation” of good.  This analogy also apllies to truth and beauty. Those unversals come from God, and are a view of the fullness of god in his glory, but only a small view.  Falseness, and Ugliness, are then the corruption and destruction (or privation) of those high ideals as well.

So why does this matter…? because this is the number one way that the Devil attacks our souls and perverts god’s creation. With lies, and perversion, and corruption, the evil one perverts all of what is good, true, and beautiful in this world, and laughs as we sadly set it ablaze, and watch it burn.  And this single act is where all of his greatest wins in this battle have come from, and so, this is where I want to focus our attention.

Like above, when I stated that that the devil is not trying to overpower god, or make a kingdom for himself, he knows that nothing like that is ever going to be possible for him, because he knows that he loses in the end. So the only thing he focuses on is tempting man away from God, and into sin and rejection of God. The Devil accomplishes his task by trying to invert, corrupt, and destroy everything that God has created or accomplished. If it is good, he wants to call it bad, and make the truely bad more desireable. If it is true, he wants to call it false, make the truely false seem more true, and if it is beautiful, he wants to call it ugly, and somehow convince us that the ugly is somehow more beautiful.

Look at every aspect of life and you will see that the Devil has a strong-hold on our civilization. With faith, the devil has successfully created a whole generation of athiests that reject god alltogether.  With reason, the devil has convinced us that the fundamental aspects of life, Man/Woman, right/wrong, good/evil are all backwards, and the last frontier is the family.  Marriage, is all but gone, and contraception is rampant, and parenthood is treated like slavery or imprisonment where only abortion is said to be the pathway to freedom. How did he accomplish this, we let him, with every decision we make, and every capitulation that we allow.  This culture that we live in today, has been expertly designed by the evil one, but we built it for him…, it brick by brick.

How to discern the battle lines

In order to fight back we must learn how to spot the differences between gods creation, and the lies and corruptions that the devil is trying to sell us from one moment to the next.

I want to ask you if you can tell what is good true and beautiful, but more importantly, how you know.  If we can come to agreement on this, then it makes it easier to see the differences, and to identify the bad, false and ugly when it is foisted upon us. 

I want you now to think of something good, true or beautiful in your life? Remember, it is good because it is authentically made from the parts that the designer intended, it is true because that thing ultimately is what the designer envisioned it to be from the beginning, and it is beautiful because it beautifully represents the thing that originated in the designers mind. Can you think of it? I think for most of us this is an easy thing to do.  The universals surround us everywhere, gods love and blessings touch almost every aspect of our lives. I think that we can almost identify these universal without even thinking about them. 

So, I assert, the good, true, and beautiful are obvious to us. We know them like we know the back of our own hand.  So now I want to discuss how you know? Is it because you just know? Are you the ultimate decider, or does everyone see it the same way you do? I argue that we know them because they are objectively so. Yes, they are intangible, we cant measure them, we cant grasp them with our hands, but we do know them, and they are as real to us as any of the physical things in this world. When we talk about love, do you know that it is real? Do you say that because I can’t put my finger on it, and I can’t measure it, that it does not exist to me. Clearly not, Love is as real, and as much a part of our lives as our family and friends. But it is a logical falicy to simply say I know because I know, so we need to be able to say something more here than just that.

I suggest that we need to explore the fruits.  But how do we measure the fruit? We must start with the intangible certainties of Love, Joy , Peace, and Happiness and see what fruit they bear (it is always goodness, truth and beauty).  Then on the other hand, you do the same thing with their opposites, hate, suffering, chaos, and sadness and see what kind of fruit they bear (it is always evil, lies, and ugliness).  When you start measuring, I think the difference is clear.  There is a long history of human success and failure, over the millennia, and we know that certain things work and other things dont. When people live their lives in order with gods teachings, and follow the way that He proscribed for us, happiness and peace follow. When people try to do things their own way, and do so at the expense of others, the result is pain and suffering. The fruits will show us the way.  

So now I want to explore the opposite question to the above, can you identify the alternative, the bad, false and ugly, in this world? And if so, how so?

Lets us confront the same question above. I want you to think of something that you know is bad, but modern culture tells you it is fine, and you are the bad one for disagreeing.  Think of something that is completely false, but others in society are convinced is true.  Or maybe something ugly, that the world tells you is beautiful and you are just a hater for not seeing it. For me all three are so clearly represented in the nonsense of transgender ideology. 

This current mass hysteria of the liberal cultural elite is so clearly wrong in just about every way.  Most of us can see it clear as day, but they are afraid that they will be ostracized from society or a friend group if they say so.  It is clearly not good for anyone.  The people that get wrapped up in this ideology have some of the highest suicide rates in the world.  The society at large is harmed because children who are normally confused and awkward about their puberty are convinced that this ‘gender theory’ is the solution for them. Their beautiful bodies are sometimes irreparably mutilated. And parents are harmed because the children that they love are literally snatched from their lives, separated from them…, sometimes permanently.  

This phenomenon is absolutely not good or true or beautiful, it is utterly dividing everyone, clearly wreaking havoc on all aspects of our society.  It is by all definitions the opposite of love, joy, peace and happiness. But how did we get to this place in our society, how did the devil get so many people to buy into this craziness? He did it in little baby steps.  

Jesus said the whole law can be boiled down to love god, and love your neighbor…, which includes your family. The devil has been actively chipping away at all of this from the very beginning of time. In the garden, he convinced adam and eve that they did not need god. He built upon this lie for millennia to the point where now it is considered stupid, by many, to believe that god is real. The next bulwark was the neighbor.   He sewed jealousy and distrust between neighbors for centuries, and now today’s culture tells us to put ourselves first, “you do you”, and our neighbor can wait his turn. The family is is the last battlefront. It started with Cain and Abel, and from one generation to the next, lies betrayal and division have been the norm not the exception. Be it divorce, lgbt, transgender the family is under more attack today than ever before. Doctors will proscribe meds without parent approval, and even perform abortions, and ‘gender affirming surgeries” without telling parents. Families are litterally being torn to pieces. 

So the battle is ultimately over these three things.  Goodness, truth, and beauty. But more specifically the things that bring peace and love into this world over the things that bring division and suffering. If you want to know where and how spiritual warfare is fought, it is over these things.  The devil seems to be winning now, but that is just temporary.  The good thing about this battle line is that it makes it very clear where the fight is, and how to fight back.

So in order to fight back we have to use the evil one’s own tactics against him, specifically, I’m thinking of Saul Alinsky and his book “rules for radicals.” In this book he identifies his process for defeating his political enemy as this… “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.” Alinsky, was all about division, and infuriating the enemy so that they would be pressured in to responding irrationally, thus loosing all credibility, and the debate, regardless of whether you were right or not.  I want to take these rules, and instead of putting wedges between people, I want to use them to put a wedge between people and the bad ideas of the devil.  We need to separate the human person from the demonic oppression that so many in our world are suffering from.

Pick the target — this part is easy, anything that is bad, false or ugly in this world is the target. Lets continue this thought experiment, with our discussion of transgender ideology. The target is the idea that a man can ever become a woman and vice versa.  This idea is nonsense, and cannot be tollerated. People need to be separated from this idea.

Freeze it — Once we identify the target we must point it out at every chance we can.  You must not allow even a single event to go unchallenged. You must become able to see the subtlest example, when something is not right, and pinpoint what exactly it is, that is wrong. To do this we must become counter-cultural…, the world wants to lull you to sleep with messages of ‘you do you’ and ‘find your bliss’, and ‘who am I to judge’.  You must not fall for this propaganda. You must learn to identify the error as soon as you see it. With the transgender example it means not using pronouns that are not part of the human language.  It means not enabling psychosis when you see it, and instead choosing to always speak the truth. This is hard, and it takes practice and knowledge, and the only way you get this wisdom is by becoming accustomed to god, his teaching, and his plan for this world. This only happens by exposing yourself to his creation, specifically the good, true, and beautiful, and by surrounding ourselves with good books, good media, good friends, and at all times we must seek the universals. You will know when you find it, because you will know it in your soul, from that part of your soul that is made in the image of god.  When that happens you must freeze it, and go to the next step.

Personalize it — So when we see an instance of the devils lies at work, we must call it out, and not allow it to go on a second more, without pushing back. The devil succeeds more often than he fails because he creates a climate where holy people are afraid to fight back. This complacency, creates an environment where nonsense goes unchallenged.  These poor transgender victims go day to day being reaffirmed in their mental disorder.  They never hear a dissenting voice, ever! And so we must look into that evil and call it out.  And take the necessary steps to get them the help they need to start healing.  But primarily, we need to help them see the person that god made them to be. When god made the universe, he spoke it into creation, he said let there be light and it was so. When God made your soul a similar thing happened. He said a word (your name), and with that word you came into existence. That word represents everything that God willed for your life and the beautiful gifts that you have to offer the world. God does not make mistakes, He made you with a purpose, and the world and heaven will either be made better because of your gift, or it will be left lacking because you did not share it.  The symphony in heaven will only be greater if you fully achieve the purpose for which you were made. Changing your physical appearance will never change that, it will only allow you to fall deeper into the clutches of the evil one. The other part of this problem, and I believe the more insidious one…, are the ones propping up and supporting this nonsense.  These are the people, not choosing the transgender life for themselves but happily affirming it in others.  these people need to be confronted even more strenuously. We must separate them from the idea, that while this is not okay for me…,  “who am I to judge”. We must ask them questions like if your best friend was cutting themselves, or vomitting up all their meals, or if they were attempting to taste all their food with their eyeballs, you would recognize it as a mental disorder, and help them get psychological help the need. You would not affirm them in their psychosis.  We must challenge all of this evil, and ask people if it is not good for you, why is is good for anyone else?  We must have the courage to call this out these lies, and not be afraid of the consequences.

Polarize it — This is where we diverge from Alinsky.  He wants to divide and isolate people from each other. He wants them to feel so alone, that it becomes intolerable, and they eventually capitulate and beg for the mercy of their attackers.  We need stop polarizing people from each other and instead start polarize these victims from the devil’s Bad ideas. We do this by educating those that believe the nonesense that the devil pushes, that it is not only wrong, but that it will only lead to a life of pain, and suffering.  But we must do it with charity. In cursillo, we have a slogan… “make a friend, be a friend, and bring a friend to christ.”  This is the formula for helping people ditch the devils bad Ideas. If you just yell and scream, that you are right, and they are wrong, you might win the debate, but you will not win the soul for christ.  To convert a soul you must witness the life you are hoping to pass on to them, you must love them, and show them the way, in how you live your life.  This is charity.  We must never back down on the clear teachings of the church, but we must also, always see the image of god in the individual, and show them the dignity and respect that we would show the closest people to us in our lives.  At all times we must recognize that the devil and his demons are the source of this all this division and hate, and that the humans involved, are more often than not, victims of the evil themselves.  They are, just like you, made in the likeness of god, and that they too, need to be saved from the clutches of the evil one. At the end of the day we are battling ideas not people, and the devil is the author of all of those bad ideas, lies, and division. If you present the person the alternative of love and friendship, they will eventually drop the lies of the evil one, and cling the hope that surpasses all understanding. 

The world is suffering, and people are experiencing unspeakable ugliness, and it is the evil one that is whispering lies into the ears of these victims, and they believe it because they have never known another way. Our call as god’s soldiers, is to wade into this ugliness, like St. Teresa did, and with charity, pour love onto those people that are lost completely in the pit of despair. If you succeed you will be greatly exalted in heaven.  As James says in 5:19-20:

My brothers, if anyone among you should stray from the truth and someone bring him back, he should know that whoever brings back a sinner from the error of his way will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.

At the end of the day…, lies cannot hold up in the face of truth, and evil cannot stand the light of goodness. And ugliness cowers in the face of beauty.

In conclusion…

We are in a war for the souls of all mankind. The battle lines are drawn between the eternal happiness of heaven and that eternal terror of hell.  Human beings, made in the image and likeness of god, our deepest yearning and desire is to be happy. The happiness we hope for, comes from aligning our wills with god’s will. To align our wills, we need to seek order in our lives, and filling our lives with God’s Universals…, goodness, truth, and beauty. The devil wants to corrupt and lie to us in order to get us to abandon these universals and to substitute them with his lies, and corruption… he does it by sewing disorder in our lives. So the way we fight back is by recognizing this disorder all around us, rejecting it completely, educating those victims of the truth, and hopefully separating them from the delusion.  

If we can do this, we can take back the lost ground, save lost souls, and as James says, “cover a multitude of sins.”  That is the point of this document, and it is the call of all the faithful.  

I want my conscience clear when I stand before the lord and he asks what have you done for the least of these little ones.  Did you lead them astray, or did you try to rescue them and bring them back into the flock?  And I definitely dont want to find out what a millstone looks like when it is tied to my neck and I am sinking to the bottom of the pit of hell.  

In order to summarize this entire document, and to help you understand further, what spiritual warfare looks like in the real lived human experience, I would like to give you an example of how one battle has played out in my own life. I want to tell you about my journey to being a fighter for Pro-Life.  Quickly after I became a catholic, I was asked by serveral people if I would like to join them in protest outside of planned parenthood.  My reflex reaction was always, no I cant do that. The reason in my head was that I owned a small business in a liberal town, and I was afraid someone would see me, and it would affect my business.  But I was really just being a coward… But time goes by and I became more serious in my faith and couldn’t deny, any more, the evil that is abortion, and I told myself that if I was going to practice what I preach, I needed to go stand on that street corner.  The first time I went, I refused to hold a sign, I told everyone that I was just going to pray my rosary.  And so I did… I prayed my rosary, in latin, because I know the devil hates latin, and as time went by, the freaks really did come out of the woodwork.  Cars would drive by with young people screaming obcenities, and giving me the one finger salute, and I even had one car stop and the passenger barked at me like they were a dog from the pits of hell.  There are witnesses, I promise it is true.  My usual response was to say I love you! Most the time that just made them more angry.  But one day I said that to the man in a car driving by… bewildered, he said “why?”  I told them because you and those babies are made in the image and likeness of god, and they like you, have infinite dignity and worth.  That is why I am here, and that is why I pray for an end to this atrocity.  The man’s face as perplexed.  I dont know if he had ever heard anything like that in his life, but he was speechless, and he drove away.  I dont know that man, I dont know if those words changed him, but I did make him think of something he had never thought of before.  That is the task that we are all now called to.  I am not a perfect practitioner of this, but it has to begin somewhere.  In this example I identified the target, abortion.  I froze it by standing on the corner, and not allowing these ideas to go un challenged.  I personalized it by saying that that man was a being of infinite worth just like every other unborn baby in the world.  And at the end of the day…, did I polarize that man from the bad idea of supporting abortion…? I have no idea, but I guarantee if he ever does change his thinking on abortion, that that moment will have played a part.

The most important part of all of this, is that I was there.  If I had stayed home, I dont know if that interaction would have happened with someone else?  But because I was there something happened, and that “something” needs to happen a lot more often, millions of times a day, all over the world.  Roe may have been overturned, and I litterally cried on that day, but the fight on abortion is not over, and the fight on a million other things just as bad are just starting up…, Homosexuality, Transgenderism, Pedophilia, the destruction of the traditional catholic church, etc.  the war is ongoing and everywhere, and the battle lines, are littlerally in your own homes.  We must get educated and we must muster our courage to go out and fight. The evil one is constantly attacking us. We must recognize it, freeze it, and then educate the world against all of the Devils bad ideas.  This is the only way to fight the evil one.  he hides in the shadows, and attacks when you are not looking.  But Devil is a coward, and if we shine the light of truth on him, he will turn and run, like the cockroach that he is. Do not ever forget that, and stay strong in the lord, and you will triumph in the end.

So fight, today, now! tomorrow, and the next day.  Never stop fighting! Your eternal destiny depends on it.  Will it be heaven, or hell? That depends on which side you choose?  Let’s fight, not only for ourselves and our families, but let’s storm the gates of hell, and take back the lost souls as well.  And lets send the devil back to the pit of hell. If we succeed, then maybe, just maybe, we will hear the lord say those most Awesome of all words… “well done, my good and faithful servant”

I cant think of anything more important than that.  I hope you agree, but more importantly, I hope you will join me.

Deus Volt!