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Will of God

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The will of God or divine will is a religious concept found in the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament, and a number of other texts and worldviews, according to which God's will is the cause of everything that exists.

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Bible

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  • He went a little farther and fell on His face, and prayed, saying, “O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will.”
  • And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
  • Therefore do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is.
  • For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication:
    That every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honour;
    • 1 Thessalonians 4:3-4 (KJV)
  • Be at peace among yourselves.
    Now we exhort you, brethren, warn them that are unruly, comfort the feebleminded, support the weak, be patient toward all men. See that none render evil for evil unto any man; but ever follow that which is good, both among yourselves, and to all men.
    Rejoice evermore. Pray without ceasing. In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. Quench not the Spirit. Despise not prophesyings. Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. Abstain from all appearance of evil.
  • Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
  • Epaphras, who is one of you, a bondservant of Christ, greets you, always laboring fervently for you in prayers, that you may stand perfect and complete in all the will of God. For I bear him witness that he has a great zeal for you, and those who are in Laodicea, and those in Hierapolis.
  • Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, according to the promise of life which is in Christ Jesus,
To Timothy, a beloved son:
Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.
I thank God, whom I serve with a pure conscience, as my forefathers did, as without ceasing I remember you in my prayers night and day, greatly desiring to see you, being mindful of your tears, that I may be filled with joy, when I call to remembrance the genuine faith that is in you, which dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice, and I am persuaded is in you also.
  • Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them. For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever.
  • Paul, called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God, and Sosthenes our brother,
To the church of God which is at Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all who in every place call on the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours:
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
  • Do not be afraid. Peace be with you. Praise God forevermore. As for me, when I came to you, the decision was not in accord with my will but in accord with the will of God. Therefore, continue to bless him every day of your life and sing hymns of praise to him. When you thought that you saw me eating, that was only a vision—I did not eat anything. Now raise yourselves from the ground and give thanks to God. I am about to ascend to him who sent me. Make a written record of all these things that have happened to you.

A

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  • There is a fundamental difference between the Jewish idea of creation and that of Islam. The creation according to Islam is not a unique act in a given time but a perpetual and constant event; and God supports and sustains all existence at every moment by His will and His thought. Outside His will, outside His thought, all is nothing, even the things which seem to us absolutely self-evident such as space and time. Allah alone wishes: the Universe exists; and all manifestations are as a witness of the Divine will.
  • Aga Khan III, Memoirs of Aga Khan: World Enough & Time (1954).
  • Princes may make laws and repeal them, but they can neither make nor destroy virtue, and how indeed should they be able to do what is impossible to the Deity himself? Virtue being as immutable in its nature as the divine will which is the ground of it.
    • Ethan Allen, Reason: The Only Oracle Of Man (1784), Ch. IV, Section II - Containing a Disquisition of the Law of Nature, as it respects the Moral System, interspersed with Observations on Subsequent Religions.
  • Christ has taken obedience upon Himself, obedience even to taking on Him our flesh, the cross even to gaining our salvation. Thus where the work lies, there too is the Author of the work. When therefore, all things have become subject to Christ, through Christ's obedience, so that all bend their knees in His name, then He Himself will be all in all. For now, since all do not believe, all do not seem to be in subjection. But when all have believed and done the will of God, then Christ will be all and in all. And when Christ is all and in all, then will God be all and in all (1 Cor 15:28); for the Father abides ever in the Son.
  • Sometimes God comes into the soul when it has neither called, prayed, or summoned him. and he instills into the soul and uncommon fire and love and sweetness in which it delights and rejoices greatly. The soul believes that the presence of God himself has cause this consolation, but this is not certain. But then the soul perceives that God is within itself - although it cannot see him inwardly - because it does sense and take delight in that his grace is present. Yet even this is not certain.
    But then the soul further perceives that God speaks to it with most sweet words that it delights in still more. And it rejoices because it feels God's presence. Yet some doubts still remain, but only a few. For as yet the soul possesses no perfect certainty that God is truly within it because other spirits can produce such conversation and feelings. So it still may be in doubt. It seems to me that this comes either from the soul's own wickedness and sinfulness, or else by the will of God, who does not want the soul to feel certain and secure.
    But when the soul senses the the presence of God more deeply than usual, then it assures itself of his inward presence. The soul feels his presence with an understanding so marvelous and so profound and with such great love and divine fire that it loses all love for itself and for the body. It speaks and knows and understands things that it has never heard from any human being. And it understands with such great illumination that it can scarcely hold it's peace. If it does hold it's peace, it does so out of the abundance of it's zeal so that it my not displease God it's Lover, nor cause offence, and likewise by reason of it's humility. It does not want to speak of things so exceedingly high in order that it may not draw attention to itself.
  • The contingency of effects or of causes cannot upset the certainty of divine providence. Three things seem to guarantee the certainty of providence: the infallibility of divine foreknowledge, the efficaciousness of the divine will, and the wisdom of the divine management, which discovers adequate ways of procuring an effect. None of these factors is opposed to the contingency of things.
God’s infallible knowledge embraces even contingent futures, inasmuch as God beholds in His eternity future events as actually existing. But we dealt with this question above.
Moreover, God’s will, since it is the universal cause of things, decides not only that something will come to pass, but that it will come about in this or that manner. The efficaciousness of the divine will demands not only that what God wishes will happen, but that it will happen in the way He wishes. But He wills that some things should happen necessarily and that other things should happen contingently; both are required for the perfection of the universe. That events may occur in both ways, He applies necessary causes to some things and contingent causes to others. In this manner, with some thincs happenipg necessarily and other things happening contingently, the divine will is efficaciously carried out.
Furthermore, it is clear that the certainty of providence is safeguarded by the wisdom of the divine dispensation, without prejudice to the contingency of things. Even the providence exercised by man can enable him so to bolster up a cause which can fail to produce an effect that, in some cases, the effect will inevitably follow. We find that a physician acts thus in exercising his healing art, as also does the vine-dresser who employs the proper remedy against barrenness in his vines. Much more, then, does the wisdom of the divine economy bring it about that, although contingent causes left to themselves can fail to produce an effect, the effect will inevitably follow when certain supplementary measures are employed; nor does this do away with the contingency of the effect. Evidently, therefore, contingency in things does not exclude the certainty of divine Providence.
  • But the reason why prayer is necessary for obtaining something from a man is not the same as the reason for its necessity when there is question of obtaining a favor from God. Prayer is addressed to man, first, to lay bare - the desire and the need of the petitioner, and secondly, to incline the mind of him to whom the prayer is addressed to grant the petition. These purposes have no place in the prayer that is sent up to God. When we pray we do not intend to manifest our needs or desires to God, for He knows all things. The Psalmist says to God: “Lord, all my desire is before You” (Psalm 37:10); and in the Gospel we are told: “Your Father knows that you have need of all these things” (Matt. 6:32). Again, the will of God is not influenced by human words to will what He had previously not willed. For, as we read in Numbers 23:19, “God is not a man, that He should lie, nor as the son of man, that He should be changed”; nor is God moved to repentance, as we are assured in 1 Samuel 15:29. Prayer, then, for obtaining something from God is necessary for man on account of the very one who prays, that he may reflect on his shortcomings and may turn his mind to desiring fervently and piously what he hopes to gain by his petition. In this way he is rendered fit to receive the favor. Yet a further difference between the prayer offered to God and that addressed to man is to be marked. Prayer addressed to a man presupposes a certain intimacy that may afford the petitioner an opportunity to present his request. But when we pray to God, the very prayer we send forth makes us intimate with Him, inasmuch as our soul is raised up to God and converses with Him in spiritual affection, and adores Him in spirit and truth. The familiar affection thus experienced in prayer begets an inducement in the petitioner to pray again with yet greater confidence. And so we read in Psalm 16:6: “I have cried to You,” that is, in trusting prayer, “for You, O God, have heard me”; as though, after being admitted to intimacy in the first prayer, the Psalmist cries out with all the greater confidence in the second.
For this reason, in prayer to God, perseverance or repetition of our supplication is not unseemly, but is regarded as acceptable to God. Indeed, “we ought always to pray and not to faint,” as we learn from Luke 18: 1. Our Lord, too, invites us to pray, for He said: “Ask, and it shall be given you... knock, and it shall be opened to you” (Matt. 7:7). But in prayer addressed to man, persistence in begging becomes irritating.
  • Whatever was in the human nature of Christ was moved at the bidding of the divine will; yet it does not follow that in Christ there was no movement of the will proper to human nature, for the good wills of other saints are moved by God's will... For although the will cannot be inwardly moved by any creature, yet it can be moved inwardly by God.
  • By way of brief summary, it should be known that the Lord's Prayer contains all that we ought to desire and all that we ought to avoid. Now, of all desirable things, that must be most desired which is most loved, and that is God.
Therefore, you seek, first of all, the glory of God when you say: "Hallowed be Thy name." You should desire three things from God, and they concern yourself. The first is that you may arrive at eternal life. And you pray for this when you say: "Thy kingdom come."
The second is that you will do the will of God and His justice. You pray for this in the words: "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven."
The third is that you may have the necessaries of life. And thus you pray: "Give us this day our daily bread." Concerning all these things the Lord says: "Seek ye first the kingdom of God," which complies with the second, "and all these things shall be added unto you,"(Matt 6:33) as in accord with the third.
We must avoid and flee from all things which are opposed to the good. For, as we have seen, good is above all things to be desired. This good is fourfold. First, there is the glory of God, and no evil is contrary to this: "If thou sin, what shalt thou hurt Him? And if thou do justly, what shall thou give Him?"(Job 35:6-7) Whether it be the evil inasmuch as God punishes it, or whether it be the good in that God rewards it--all redound to His glory.
The second good is eternal life, to which sin is contrary: because eternal life is lost by sin. And so to remove this evil we pray: "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us."
The third good is justice and good works, and temptation is contrary to this, because temptation hinders us from doing good. We pray, therefore, to have this evil taken away in the words: "Lead us not into temptation."
The fourth good is all the necessaries of life, and opposed to this are troubles and adversities. And we seek to remove them when we pray: "But deliver us from evil. Amen
  • The pursuit of perfection...is the pursuit of sweetness and light. He who works for sweetness and light, works to make reason and the will of God prevail. He who works for machinery, he who works for hatred, works only for confusion. Culture looks beyond machinery, culture hates hatred; culture has one great passion, the passion for sweetness and light. It has one even yet greater, the passion for making them all prevail. It is not satisfied till we all come to a perfect man; it knows that the sweetness and light of the few must be imperfect until the raw and unkindly masses of humanity are touched with sweetness and light.
  • Whatever plans we may make, we shall find quite useless when the time for action comes. Revolutions are always full of surprises, and whoever thinks he can play chess with a revolution will soon find how terrible is the grasp of God and how insignificant the human reason before the whirlwind of His breath. That man only is likely to dominate the chances of a Revolution, who makes no plans but preserves his heart pure for the will of God to declare itself. The great rule of life is to have no schemes but one unalterable purpose. If the will is fixed on the purpose it sets itself to accomplish, then circumstances will suggest the right course; but the schemer finds himself always tripped up by the unexpected.
    • Sri Aurobindo, ., Nahar, S., Aurobindo, ., & Institut de recherches évolutives (Paris). India's rebirth: A selection from Sri Aurobindo's writing, talks and speeches. Paris: Institut de Recherches Evolutives. 3rd Edition (2000). [1]

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  • "You err, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God" This canon is the mother of all canons against heresy; the causes of error are two; the ignorance of the will of God, and the ignorance or not sufficient consideration of his power.
  • One of the results of the world condition at this time is the speeding up of all the atomic lives upon and within the planet. This necessarily involves the increased vibratory activity of the human mechanism, with a consequent effect upon the psychic nature, producing an abnormal sensitivity and psychic awareness. It would be of value here to remember that the condition of humanity at this time is not the result of simply one factor, but of several—all of them being active simultaneously, because this period marks the close of one age and the inauguration of the new.The factors to which I refer are, primarily, three in number:
  1. This is a transition period between the passing out of the Piscean Age, with its emphasis upon authority and belief, and the coming in of the Aquarian Age, with its emphasis upon individual understanding and direct knowledge. The activity of these forces, characteristic of the two signs, produces in the atoms of the human body a corresponding activity. We are on the verge of new knowledges and the atoms of the body are being tuned up for reception. Those atoms which are predominantly Piscean are beginning to slow down their activity and to be "occultly withdrawn," as it is called, or abstracted, whilst those which are responsive to the New Age tendencies are, in their turn, being stimulated and their vibratory activity increased.
  2. The world war marked a climax in the history of mankind, and its subjective effect was far more potent than has hitherto been grasped. Through the power of prolonged sound, carried forward as a great experiment on the battlefields all over the world during a period of four years (1914-1918), and through the intense emotional strain of the entire planetary populace, the web of etheric matter (called the "veil of the temple") which separates the physical and astral planes was rent or torn asunder, and the amazing process of unifying the two worlds of physical plane living and of astral plane experience was begun and is now slowly going on. It will be obvious, therefore, that this must bring about vast changes and alterations in the human consciousness. Whilst it will usher in the age of understanding, of brotherhood and of illumination, it will also bring about states of reaction and the letting loose of psychic forces which today menace the uncontrolled and ignorant, and warrant the sounding of a note of warning and of caution.
  3. A third factor is as follows. It has been known for a long time by the mystics of all the world religions and by esoteric students everywhere, that certain members of the planetary Hierarchy are approaching closer to the earth at this time. By this I want you to infer that the thought, or the mental attention, of the Christ and of certain of His great disciples, the Masters of the Wisdom, is directed or focussed at this time on human affairs, and that some of Them are also preparing to break Their long silence and may appear later among men. This necessarily has a potent effect, first of all upon Their disciples and on those who are attuned to and synchronized with Their Minds, and secondly, it should be remembered that the energy which flows through these focal points of the Divine Will will have a dual effect and be destructive as well as constructive, according to the quality of the bodies which react to it. Different types of men respond distinctively to any inflow of energy, and a tremendous psychic stimulation is at this time going on, with results both divinely beneficent and sadly destructive.
  • The death-change comes.
    Death is another life. We bow our heads
    At going out, we think, and enter straight
    Another golden chamber of the king's,
    Larger than this we leave, and lovelier.
    And then in shadowy glimpses, disconnect,
    The story, flower-like, closes thus its leaves.
    The will of God is all in all. He makes,
    Destroys, remakes, for His own pleasure, all.
  • Indeed, early Christian texts such as the Didache and Barnabas incorporate the Jewish tradition about the “two ways” where abortion and expositio are condemned as murder. It is difficult to overestimate the importance of the fact that the doctrine of the “”two ways” condemned abortion, expositio, and infanticide: this tradition became an integral part of catechetical instruction and thus helped form early Christian attitudes.
    We can therefore say that by the beginning of the third century, there was a well established critical attitude to all forms of the murder of children-whether abortion, expositio, or other methods of killing. “Critical” is really too mild a word: these practices were utterly condemned. There already existed a certain measure of opposition to these practies among Roman moral philosophers, and some forms of the limitation of the number of children (including expositio) were rejected by the ruling authorities in some Italian cities, as reflected in the alimenta program mentioned above. Nevertheless, the early Christian attitude represents a considerable intensification of this criticism. The Christian writers go much further in backing up their arguments by means of fundamental principles; we also perceive a greater zeal and commitment, since they understood this question, theologically and ethically, as a matter of living in accordance with the will of God. On the deepest level, the question of refraining from murder was a question of salvation or damnation. I therefore find it difficult to see the Christian critique of expositio as nothing more than an echo and development of other critical voices in contemporary society. The intensity and extent of the Christian critique represents an intensification of existing criticism of Roman praxis and legislation in these fields.
  • The glory of God is not contingent on man's good will, but all existence subserves his purposes. The system of the universe is as a celestial poem, whose beauty is from all eternity, and must not be marred by human interpolations. Things proceed as they were ordered, in their nice, and well-adjusted, and perfect harmony; so that as the hand of the skilful artist gathers music from the harp-strings, history calls it forth from the well-tuned chords of time. Not that this harmony can be heard during the tumult of action. Philosophy comes after events, and gives the reason of them, and describes the nature of their results. The great mind of collective man may, one day, so improve in self-consciousness as to interpret the present and foretell the future; but as yet, the end of what is now happening, though we ourselves partake in it, seems to fall out by chance. All is nevertheless one whole; individuals, families, peoples, the race, march in accord with the Divine will; and when any part of the destiny of humanity is fulfilled, we see the ways of Providence vindicated. The antagonisms of imperfect matter and the perfect idea, of liberty and necessary law, become reconciled. What seemed irrational confusion, appears as the web woven by light, liberty and love. But this is not perceived till a great act in the drama of life is finished. The prayer of the patriarch, when he desired to behold the Divinity face to face, was denied; but he was able to catch a glimpse of Jehovah, after He had passed by; and so it fares with our search for Him in the wrestlings of the world. It is when the hour of conflict is over, that history comes to a right understanding of the strife, and is ready to exclaim: "Lo! God is here, and we knew it not."
  • Mainländer has a worldview of his own about the origin of the universe: God, saturated with his own over-being, decides that non-existence is better than existence; accordingly, like the Big Bang at the beginning of time, he commits suicide, desirous of non-being. Thus, the universe has not arisen out of a divine desire for creation, but is the result of a depletion of divine will. The philosophy of the decomposition or disintegration of the universe means that everything, organic and inorganic, is subordinated to the law of the weakening of power, that is, that the human being is also in the universe to die and cease to be. The death of God has generated life, but the course of life is not different from the slow process of divine disintegration. It is a will that can be verified daily in cemeteries, and is part of a cosmological telos.

Frederick C. Beiser, Weltschmerz: Pessimism in German Philosophy, 1860-1900 (2018), Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0198822653

  • Religion...must at least touch the will; for however small our will may be, it is always large enough to be united to the Will of God.
  • The new religious consciousness rises up against the nihilistic attitude towards the world and mankind. If a religious rebirth be possible, only then on this soil will there be the revealing of the religious meaning of secular culture and earthly liberation, the revealing of the truth about mankind. For the new religious consciousness the declaration of the will of God is together with this a declaration of the rights of man, a revealing of the Divine within mankind. We believe in the objective, the cosmic might of the truth of God, in the possibility according to God to guide the earthly destiny of mankind. This will be the victory of the true theocracy, whether over a false democratism, — the apotheosis of the quantitative collectivity of human wills, or so also over the false theocraticism, — all that apotheosis of the human will within Caesaropapism or Papocaesarism. Christ cannot have human vicarage in the person of the tsar or high-priest. He — is Himself the Tsar and High-Priest, and He will reign in the world. “Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done on earth, as it is in Heaven.”
    • Nikolai Berdayev, "Nihilism  On  A  Religious  Soil" (6 May 1907); it should be noted here that Berdyaev is here defining "theocracy" not in the sense as it is often used, of people ruling over other people, in claims of doing so by the commands of God, but rather defining it in terms of Christian anarchism — as a vigorous assertion of the right of no-one to rule over humans, save God.
  • You see somewhere a man who is starving and if you misunderstand karma — as too many of you do, to the shame of India, in a land where this teaching is of immemorial antiquity — you turn aside from that starving man and say that it is his karma to starve and perish; in those hardened heart of yours you use the will of God as a cover for your lack of love. That man’s karma to starve? Aye, and therefore he is starving! But if a Deva guides you to the place where your brother is starving, it is because he would make you the agent of his beneficence to that man whose evil karma of the present moment has been exhausted by his suffering; the Deva thus says to you: “Man your brother man is starving give him the relief it is his karma to receive, and be my agent in carrying out the law.
  • There are wars in this world, not because wars are the will of God but because of greed and arrogance, the lust for power and domination. There is hunger not merely because there is lack of food, but because of political and economic policies that foster inequality of the distribution of resources, because of one-sided control of world markets by powerful nations who refuse to enter seriously in the search for a more just, equitable, and sustainable economic order.
  • I would count him blessed and holy to whom such rapture has been vouchsafed in this mortal life, for even an instant to lose thyself,
    as if thou wert emptied and lost and swallowed up in God, is no human love; it is celestial    .
    But if sometimes a poor mortal feels that heavenly joy for a rapturous moment, then this wretched life envies his happiness,
    the malice of daily trifles disturbs him, this body of death weighs him down, the needs of the flesh are imperative,
    the weakness of corruption fails him, and above all brotherly love calls him back to duty.
    Alas! that voice summons him to re-enter his own round of existence; and he must ever cry out lamentably,
    ‘O Lord, I am oppressed: undertake for me’ (Isa. 38.14); and again, ‘O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?’ (Rom. 7.24)
    Seeing that the Scripture saith, God has made all for His own glory (Isa. 43.7), surely His creatures ought to conform themselves, as much as they can, to His will. In Him should all our affections center, so that in all things we should seek only to do His will, not to please ourselves. And real happiness will come, not in gratifying our desires or in gaining transient pleasures, but in accomplishing God’s will for us: even as we pray every day: ‘Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven’ (Matt. 6.10). O chaste and holy love! O sweet and gracious affection! O pure and cleansed purpose, thoroughly washed and purged from any admixture of selfishness, and sweetened by contact with the divine will! To reach this state is to become deified. As a drop of water poured into wine loses itself, and takes the color and savor of wine; or as a bar of iron, heated red-hot, becomes like fire itself, forgetting its own nature; or as the air, radiant with sun-beams, seems not so much to be illuminated as to be light itself; so in the saints all human affections melt away by some unspeakable transmutation into the will of God. For how could God be all in all, if anything merely human remained in man? The substance will endure, but in another beauty, a higher power, a greater glory. When will that be? Who will see, who possess it? ‘When shall I come to appear before the presence of God?’ (Ps. 42.2). ‘My heart hath talked of Thee, Seek ye My face: Thy face, Lord, will I seek’ (Ps. 27.8). Lord, thinkest Thou that I, even I shall see Thy holy temple?
  • And yet even from this — from evil — there will finally come good in some way; in some way that we may never understand or even see. … Perhaps evil is the crucible of goodness … And perhaps even Satan — Satan, in spite of himself — somehow serves to work out the will of God.
  • Have patience, Margaret, and trouble not thyself. Death comes for us all; even at our birth — even at our birth, death does but stand aside a little. And every day he looks toward us and muses somewhat to himself whether that day or the next he will draw nigh. It is the law of nature, and the will of God. You have long known the secrets of my heart.
  • The will of God, to which the law gives expression, is that men should defeat their enemies by loving them.
  • Earthly wealth does not belong to us, as those who have never thought about this erroneously believe. Otherwise, it always and forever would remain in our possession. But it changes hands constantly, thereby proving that it is given only for us to watch over temporarily. ... Wealth belongs to God; man is only the temporary caretaker. A faithful caretaker will follow exactly the wishes of the one who has entrusted the wealth to him. And we, temporarily ruling over the wealth given to us, must rule over it according to the will of God. Let us not use it as a means of indulging our desires and passions, as a resource for eternal perdition. Let us use it for the good of mankind, which lives in need and suffering. ... Do not forget that you are the image and likeness of God, that you are obliged to present this image in purity and holiness to God himself. Woe to you if God will not recognize His image, will not find in it any similarity with Himself! He will utter the dreadful words: "I do not know you."
    • Ignatius Brianchaninov, The Field

C

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  • It having been said above that God bends all the reprobate, and even Satan himself, at his will, three objections are started. First, that this happens by the permission, not by the will of God. To this objection there is a twofold reply, the one, that angels and men, good and bad, do nothing but what is appointed by God; the second, that all movements are secretly directed to their end by the hidden inspiration of God...
  • The happy ending of the fairy tale, the myth, and the divine comedy of the soul, is to be read, not as a contradiction, but as a transcendence of the universal tragedy of man. ...Tragedy is the shattering of the forms and of our attachment to the forms... the two are the terms of a single mythological theme... the down-going and the up-coming (kathados and anodos), which together constitute the totality of the revelation that is life, and which the individual must know and love if he is to be purged (katharsis=purgatorio) of the contagion of sin (disobedience to the divine will) and death (identification with the mortal form).
  • Yes, it is permissible to demand liberation from some particular evil, but always deferring to the will of God, who can also order that tribulation for the benefit of our soul.
  • Unde I [God] want you to know that al the penalties, which the creatures who have in their right have, lie in the will; but that, if the will were ordered and granted with my will, it would not bear punishment. Not that the efforts were taken away, however; but to that will, which she willingly brings for my love, she would not be sorry, for those volunteers bring, seeing that it is my will.
  • Be assured, my dear Anne, that it is only by taking our lesson from God and doing the will of God, that we can either please Him in time, or be happy with Him in eternity.
    • Thomas Chalmers, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 573.
  • Let us aspire towards this living confidence, that it is the will of God to unfold and exalt without end the spirit that trusts itself to Him in well-doing as to a faithful Creator.
  • “It has brought me the greatest sorrow you can imagine, because he was the most handsome little boy for his age that you could find. I feel his death even more than the loss of my own son [Fernando] because he was older and I knew him better and treated him as my own son. Nevertheless we must accept the will of God. May God forgive me, but I wish He had taken Christian instead of his son.”
    • Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, quoted in Geoffrey Parker, Emperor: A New Life of Charles V (2019) (Charles on the death of his nephew Hans of Denmark, August, 1532), Portrait of the Emperor as a Renaissance Prince
  • Three months later Olenka was coming home from mass, melancholy and in deep mourning. It happened that one of her neighbours, Vassily Andreitch Pustovalov, returning home from church, walked back beside her. He was the manager at Babakayev's, the timber merchant's. He wore a straw hat, a white waistcoat, and a gold watch-chain, and looked more a country gentleman than a man in trade. "Everything happens as it is ordained, Olga Semyonovna," he said gravely, with a sympathetic note in his voice; "and if any of our dear ones die, it must be because it is the will of God, so we ought have fortitude and bear it submissively." ... All day afterwards she heard his sedately dignified voice, and whenever she shut her eyes she saw his dark beard. She liked him very much. And apparently she had made an impression on him too, for not long afterwards an elderly lady, with whom she was only slightly acquainted, came to drink coffee with her, and as soon as she was seated at table began to talk about Pustovalov, saying that he was an excellent man whom one could thoroughly depend upon, and that any girl would be glad to marry him. Three days later Pustovalov came himself. He did not stay long, only about ten minutes, and he did not say much, but when he left, Olenka loved him--loved him so much that she lay awake all night in a perfect fever, and in the morning she sent for the elderly lady. The match was quickly arranged, and then came the wedding.
  • The Church of England does not regard contraception as a sin or a contravention of God's purpose. It is interesting to see how the thinking of the Church on this subject developed through the 20th century. In 1908 the Bishops of the Anglican Communion meeting at the Lambeth Conference declared that:-
    'the Conference records with alarm the growing practice of the artificial restriction of the family and earnestly calls upon all Christian people to discountenance the use of all artificial means of restriction as demoralising to character and hostile to national welfare.'
    Some of the Church oppo-sition at this time reflected a national concern about falling birth rates. By the 1920s, certain sections of the Church were beginning to develop a richer understanding of sexuality. Sexual love can be seen as good not just because it enabled the human race to reproduce itself. Sexual love was good in itself, and it provided an essential way for a husband and wife to express and strengthen their love for each other. In the Garden of Eden God had said, 'It is not good that the man (Adam) should be alone' (Genesis 2:18). It was also argued that people were limiting their families in order to give children a better chance of success. The debate makes fascinating reading and went on through the 1920s until the Lambeth Conference (meeting of all Bishops of the Anglican Communion - the Anglican Church worldwide - which takes place every ten years) of 1930. The 1930 resolution was greeted with mixed reactions and reads as follows:
    'Where there is a clearly felt moral obligation to limit or avoid parenthood, complete abstinence is the primary and obvious method.' but if there was morally sound reasoning for avoiding abstinence 'the Conference agrees that other methods may be used, provided that this is done in the light of Christian principles.'
    By the 1958 Lambeth Conference, contraception was a way of life among most Anglicans, and a resolution was passed to the effect that the responsibility for deciding upon the number and frequency of children was laid by God upon the consciences of parents 'in such ways as are acceptable to husband and wife'.
    In 1968, the Lambeth Conference considered the Papal Encyclical Humanae Vitae and while recording their appreciation of the Pope's deep concern for the institution of marriage and family life, the Bishops disagreed with his idea that methods of contraception other than abstinence and the rhythm method are contrary to the will of God.
  • I do not know whether it was the will of God, or just an evolutionary accident, but as it happens I am Afrikaans. This is a circumstance with which I am normally perfectly content.

    The truth is that I actually do not think about it too much, just as I do not think about it too much that I have a liver. The current flutterings about Afrikaans, however, I find disturbing. It is not doing the image of Afrikaners, and hence also of Afrikaans, any good.

    A mere ten years after the end of apartheid (yes, there was such a thing, and it was evil) to beat one's chest in such a self-justificatory manner, is bad taste morally.

    ...
    We are … being called up by certain parties to mobilise for Afrikaans, to fight for the survival of Afrikaans, and for minority rights. The problem is, however, that I do not see myself currently as part of a minority.

    When, in the 1970s and 1980s, as an Afrikaner, I resisted apartheid – and not in the 1990s when it became fashionable – then I felt myself part of a minority. At present I mainly find myself with an enormous feeling of moral relief.

    I would now like to carry on with my life and make a constructive contribution at the level of content. I do not wish to have to write letters like this one.

    • Paul Cilliers. A letter to The Burger, 10 October 2005; Cited in: Chris Brink (2006) No Lesser Place: The Taaldebat at Stellenbosch. p. 133
  • ἀναλάβωμεν παιδείαν, ἐφ᾿ ᾗ οὐδεὶς ὀφείλει ἀγανακτεῖν, ἀγαπητοί. ἡ νουθέτησις, ἣν ποιούμεθα εἰς ἀλλήλους, καλή ἐστιν καὶ ὑπεράγαν ὠφέλιμος· κολλᾷ γὰρ ἡμᾶς τῷ θελήματι τοῦ θεοῦ.
    • First Epistle of Clement, We should welcome discipline, loved ones; no one should be irritated by it. It is good and supremely useful to rebuke one another, for this binds us to the will of God.
  • Today is Trinity Sunday. Centuries ago words were written to be a call and a spur to the faithful servants of Truth and Justice: "Arm yourselves, and be ye men of valor, and be in readiness for the conflict; for it is better for us to perish in battle than to look upon the outrage of our nation and our altar. As the Will of God is in Heaven, even so let it be."
    • Winston Churchill, first radio address as prime minister, London (May 19, 1940); Winston S. Churchill: His Complete Speeches, 1897–1963 (1974), ed. Robert Rhodes James, vol. 6, p. 6223, referencing the heroism of the biblical Maccabees in I Maccabees (Apocrypha) 3:58–60.
  • Holiness is not being stoned in the land of Paganìa or kissing a leper on the mouth, but doing God's will, promptly, whether it is staying in our place, or rising higher.
  • Paul Claudel, L'annunzio a Maria (=L'annonce faite à Marie), translation into Italian by Francesco Casnati, Vita e Pensiero, Milano, 1989 (Pietro di Craon, p. 26).
  • In 1974, the English archaeologist Sir Walter Wilkinson discovered another manuscript, this time written in three languages: Arabic, Hebrew, and Latin...On 30 November 2011, I received a copy of the text that he had mentioned at that first meeting. I transcribe it here.
  • Now that I am at the end of my life, I leave for those who come after me everything that I learned while I walked the face of this Earth. May they make good use of it.
  • A week ago, our commanders held a meeting. The French soldiers are infinitely superior and far better equipped than ours. We were given a choice: to abandon the city or fight to the death, because we will certainly be defeated. Most of us decided to stay. The Muslims are, at this moment, gathered at the Al-Aqsa mosque, the Jews chose to assemble their soldiers in Mihrab Dawud, and the Christians... were charged with defending the southern part of the city... Judging from the enemy’s movements, we assume that they will attack tomorrow morning, spilling our blood in the name of the Pope, the ‘liberation’ of the city and the ‘divine will’.
  • I should be judged as a captain who went from Spain to the Indies to conquer a people numerous and warlike, whose manners and religion are very different from ours, who live in sierras and mountains, without fixed settlements, and where by divine will I have placed under the sovereignty of the King and Queen our Lords, an Other World, whereby Spain, which was reckoned poor, is become the richest of countries.
  • That one man is not deemed as good as another in the grand moral system of providence, is revealed to us in the Holy Writ, by the scheme of future rewards and punishments, as well as by the whole history of those whom God has favored in this world, for their piety, or punished for their rebellin. As compared with perfect holiness, all men are frail; but, as compared with each other, we are throughout the whole of sacred history made to see, that, in a moral sense, one man is not as good as another. The evil doer is punished, while they who are distinguished for their qualities and acts, are intended to be preferred... We are then to discard all visionary theories on this head, and look at things as they are. All that the most popular institutions attempt, is to prohibit that one race of man shall be made better than another by law, from father to son, which would be defeating the intentions of providence, creating a superiority that exists in neither physical nor moral nature, and substituting a political scheme for the will of God and the force of things. As a principle, one man is as good as another in rights.
  • I shall not attempt to paint to you the feelings of this heart, nor the majestic beauty and glory which surrounded us on this occasion; but you will believe me when I say, that earth, nor men, with the eloquence of time, cannot begin to clothe language in as interesting and sublime a manner as this holy personage. No; nor has this earth power to give the joy, to bestow the peace, or comprehend the wisdom which was contained in each sentence as they were delivered by the power of the Holy Spirit! Man may deceive his fellow-men, deception may follow deception, and the children of the wicked one may have power to seduce the foolish and untaught, till naught but fiction feeds the many, and the fruit of falsehood carries in its current the giddy to the grave; but one touch with the finger of his love, yes, one ray of glory from the upper world, or one word from the mouth of the Savior, from the bosom of eternity, strikes it all into insignificance, and blots it forever from the mind. The assurance that we were in the presence of an angel, the certainty that we heard the voice of Jesus, and the truth unsullied as it flowed from a pure personage, dictated by the will of God, is to me past description, and I shall ever look upon this expression of the Savior’s goodness with wonder and thanksgiving while I am permitted to tarry; and in those mansions where perfection dwells and sin never comes, I hope to adore in that day which shall never cease.”"
    • Letter from Oliver Cowder to W.W. Phelps (Letter I), (September 7, 1834). Published in Latter Day Saints' Messenger and Advocate, Vol. I. No. 1. Kirtland, Ohio, October, 1834. Published in Letters by Oliver Cowdery to W.W. Phelps on the Rise of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Liverpool, 1844.
  • O Holy Ghost, divine spirit of light and love, we consecrate to Thee our understanding, our hearts and our wills, our whole being for time and for eternity.
May our understandings be always submissive to Thy heavenly inspirations and to the teachings of the holy Catholic Church, of which Thou are the infallible Guide; may our hearts be ever inflamed with love of God and of neighbor; may our wills be ever conformed to the divine will, and may our whole life be a faithful imitation of the life and virtues of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, to whom with the Father and Thee be honor and glory forever. Amen.
Sacred Heart of Jesus have mercy on us! Our Lady Co-Redemptrix and Mediatrix of all graces, pray for us!
Dignare me laudare te, Virgo sacrata. Da mihi virtutem contra hostess tuos.
  • Humanity must evolve out of its sense of what is right for it; has to bring its will into line with the divine will, which issues from Shamballa, where the Will of God is known.
  • Benjamin Creme, The Reappearance of the Christ and the Masters of Wisdom (1980).
  • Whoever does the will of the Lord, never does anything happen to him to the contrary.
  • It is a contradiction to pray that God's will be done, and then, when he calls us and invites us out of this world, to be reluctant to obey the command of his will!
  • Saint Cyprian, Trattato sulla morte (Threaty on the Death), in AAVV, Liturgia horarum iuxta ritum Romanum, Typis Polyglottis Vaticanis, ed. italiana, Roma, 1972

D

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  • One must resign oneself to the will of God at the cost of any pain and any sacrifice.
  • 今般、天地乃神より生神金光大神差し向け、願う氏子におかげを授け、理解申して聞かせ、末々まで繁盛いたすこと、氏子ありての神、神ありての氏子、上下立つようにいたし候。
    • Tenchi Kane No Kami has sent Ikigami Konko Daijin to the people to give blessings and teachings and to have them prosper forever.
      Kami is Kami because of man, and man is man because of Kami. Both continue to uphold each other.
      • Konko Daijin, Goshinden: Message of Divine Will to the Founder (Received on October 10th, 1873 (Meiji 6))
  • God's will presents itself at every instant as an immense sea to which your heart cannot give ground; it receives only to the extent that it expands through faith, trust, and love.
  • There is nothing more reasonable, more perfect, more divine than the will of God.
  • Only God's will will be the fullness that will leave you no emptiness; worship her, go straight to her, overcoming and abandoning all appearances.
  • Love is ungrateful, infirm, and unworthy of the name of love if it is not faithful in doing all God's will.
  • Jane Frances de Chantal,Volerci come Dio ci vuole. Scritti spirituali, translation into Italian by Laura Draghi, Città Nuova, 2000.
  • Mary, being all transformed into God by the grace and glory that transforms all the saints into him, neither asks, nor wants, nor does anything that is contrary to the eternal and immutable will of God.
  • The exercise of always doing God's will is the best of all because it includes Indifference and Purity of Intention and all other ways practiced and advised; and if there is any other exercise that leads to perfection, it will be eminently found in this. Who is more indifferent than he who does God's will in everything, who never seeks himself in anything and does not even want what he might want, except because God wants it? Is there a person freer and more willing than this to perform divine good pleasure?
  • Vincent de Paul, Letter to the Missionaries, 7 March1659, p. 464. Quoted in Vincenzo de Paoli, Conferenze, in Opere di Vincenzo de Paoli, Centro Liturgico Vincenziano, Roma, 2008. ISBN 978-88-7367-080-3.
  • As we shall see, theories like those of Divine Right and Popular Sovereignty, which pass for opposites, stem in reality from the same trunk, the idea of sovereignty—the idea, that is, that somewhere there is a right to which all other rights must yield. It is not hard to discover behind this juridical concept a metaphysical one. A supreme Will, it runs, rules and disposes human societies, a Will which, being naturally good, it would be wrong to resist: this Will is either the Divine Will” or the “general will.”
    Power in being must be the emanation of this supreme sovereign, be it God or society; it must be the incarnation of this will. And its legitimacy is proportionate to its satisfaction of these conditions. Whether as delegate or mandatory, it can then exercise the right to rule. It is at this point that the two theories, in addition to their divergent conceptions as to the nature of the sovereign, become much differentiated. As to how, for instance, and to whom, and, above all, to what extent the right to rule is given. ...When can it be said, and by what signs can it be known, that Power, by betraying its trust, has lost its legitimacy, and, having now become no more than an observable fact, can no longer claim a right transcendent?
  • And another thing I think we need to be aware of is that not every instance of design we see in nature needs to be directly attributed to God. Certainly as Christians we believe there is an angelic hierarchy - it's not just that there's this physical material world and there's God. There can be various hierarchies of intelligent beings operating, God can work through what can be called derived intelligences - processes which carry out the Divine will, but maybe not perfectly because of the fall.
    • William A. Dembski, address given at Fellowship Baptist Church, Waco, Texas, 2004-03-07, quoted in Coyne, Jerry (11 August 2005), "The case against intelligent design: the faith that dare not speak its name", The New Republic 
  • Coming from a "Sunday school teacher," the book is designed to shock us into the reality that the social creation of gender roles is not "the divine will." Rather, gender roles are the result of human social control, greed, power politics and the continued pursuit of sexual gratification that blames all women for the crime of seducing men. ... Mr. Carter's "A Call to Action" should not only be required reading in America, but should also serve as the template for a complete reinterpretation of the religious views behind our treatment of each other, to discover what he claims is the true meaning behind the miracle of creation.
  • You should pray unceasingly, you should be grateful for everything, you should always rejoice, because that is the Will of God for you in Jesus Christ.
  • These three are subsumed under the broader rubric of doing the will of God and fulfilling His purposes in my life. I do not let go of integrity; that always comes in there as the foundation

E

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  • (Pir Ma’bari) came here and waged Jihad against the rajas and rebels (of Bijapur). And with his iron bar, he broke the heads and necks of many rajas and drove them to the dust of defeat. Many idolaters, who by the will of God had guidance and blessings, repented from their unbelief and error, and by the hands of (Pir Ma’bari) came to Islam.
  • The more a man is imbued with the ordered regularity of all events the firmer becomes his conviction that there is no room left by the side of this ordered regularity for causes of a different nature. For him neither the rule of human nor the rule of divine will exists as an independent cause of natural events. To be sure, the doctrine of a personal God interfering with natural events could never be refuted, in the real sense, by science, for this doctrine can always take refuge in those domains in which scientific knowledge has not yet been able to set foot.
    But I am persuaded that such behavior on the part of the representatives of religion would not only be unworthy but also fatal. For a doctrine which is able to maintain itself not in clear light but only in the dark, will of necessity lose its effect on mankind, with incalculable harm to human progress. In their struggle for the ethical good, teachers of religion must have the stature to give up the doctrine of a personal God, that is, give up that source of fear and hope which in the past placed such vast power in the hands of priests. In their labors they will have to avail themselves of those forces which are capable of cultivating the Good, the True, and the Beautiful in humanity itself. This is, to be sure, a more difficult but an incomparably more worthy task.
  • Albert Einstein, Science, Philosophy and Religion, A Symposium, published by the Conference on Science, Philosophy and Religion in Their Relation to the Democratic Way of Life, Inc., New York (1941); later published in Out of My Later Years (1950).
  • No one warns young people to follow Adam's example. He waited till God saw his need. Then God made Adam sleep, prepared for his mate, and brought her to him. We need more of this 'being asleep' in the will of God. Then we can receive what He brings us in His own time, if at all. Instead we are set as bloodhounds after a partner, considering everyone we see until our minds are so concerned with the sex problem that we can talk of nothing else when bull-session time comes around. It is true that a fellow cannot ignore women — but he can think of them as he ought — as sisters, not as sparring partners!
    • Jim Elliot, as quoted in Elisabeth Elliot, Shadow of the Almighty (1989), ch. 4
  • We really seek intelligence not for the answers it may suggest to the problems of life, but because we believe it is life,—not for aid in making the will of God prevail, but because we believe it is the will of God. We love it, as we love virtue, for its own sake, and we believe it is only virtue’s other and more precise name.
    • John Erskine, The Moral Obligation to be Intelligent (1915), pp. 26-27
  • Now we come to the other part of our topic, “man’s obligation to man.” Certainly we cannot do the will of God without treating our fellow man as we would have him treat us. It is a biblical axiom that to say you love God and hate your fellow man is hypocrisy of possibly the greatest magnitude. So many of us fall into this category either consciously or unconsciously until it behooves each of us to check ourselves closely so as to avoid becoming a party to hate or misunderstanding.
  • Medgar Evers, Speech at Mt. Heron Baptist Church (11 August 1957)

F

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  • I have no cares, O blessed Will!
    For all my cares are Thine;
    I live in triumph, Lord! for Thou
    Hast made Thy triumphs mine.
  • God's will is always just, always holy, always loving and paternal with us.
  • As to our friend, I pray God to bestow upon him a simplicity that shall give him peace. Happy are they indeed who can bear their sufferings in the enjoyment of this simple peace and perfect acquiesence in the will of God.
  • That which the God devoted man may not do for any consideration, is indeed also outwardly forbidden in the Perfect State; but he has already cast it from him in obedience to the Will of God, without regard to any outward prohibition. That which alone this God-devoted man loves and desires to do, is indeed outwardly commanded in this Perfect State; but he has already done it in obedience to the Will of God. If, then, this religious frame of mind is to exist in the State, and yet never to come into collision with it, it is absolutely necessary that the State should at all times keep pace with the development of the religious sense among its Citizens, so that it shall never command anything which True Religion forbids, or forbid anything which she enjoins. In such a state of things, the well-known principle, that we must obey God rather than man, could never come into application; for in that case man would only command what God also commanded, and there would remain to the willing servant only the choice whether he would pay his obedience to the command of human power, or to the Will of God, which he loves before all things else. From this perfect Freedom and superiority which Religion possesses over the State, arises the duty of both to keep themselves absolutely separate, and to cast off all immediate dependence on each other.
  • Moral obligation, being the obligation of a free agent, implies a law, and a law implies a law-giver. The will of God, therefore, is the true ground of all obligation, strictly and properly so called.
  • William Fleming, Vocabulary of philosophy, mental, moral, and metaphysical (1857)
  • We have communion in Christ's sufferings as we die with Him unto self, and rise with Him to our proper life — the life of self- surrender to the will of God.

G

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  • All wisdom is contained in doing God's Holy will.
  • Giacomo Gaglione,La sofferenza vinta dall'amore, edited by don Angelo Delli Paoli, L.E.R., 1998., p. 73.
  • (About abortion) Kant taught us that man must always be treated as an end and never as a means. Forcing women to give birth every time they become pregnant means treating women's bodies as a means of reproduction, but treating women's bodies as a means of reproduction conflicts with Kant's teaching, which is not only Kant's but also Christian teaching, that man should be treated as an end and not as a means, that man is a person and not an instrument of procreation. The problem arises again in Italy because of the general subordination of Italian politicians to the demands of the Catholic Church: when I see both the right and the left genuflecting before the Catholic Church, I wonder: where is the Italian State? By definition, like any state, it must be secular, meaning that secular is a Greek word that means “common good”. So the secular person is the one who must take charge of everyone's needs, not the needs of a principle of faith: this is a very important thing. Secular people believe that they cannot have a moral code that does not derive from the will of God, but a moral code that derives from the will of God is typical of primitive moral codes, where men, not knowing how to make laws for themselves, had to anchor it to a higher will. But then we had the Enlightenment, and we began to reason; even if with little courage, we know how to use our brains. And so at this point it is quite possible to construct a secular morality, based first of all on that principle of Kant that we have mentioned, and then on another very important principle: that morality is made for men, not men for morality. This is another quote from Kant that reproduces exactly, in different words, what Jesus Christ said: the Sabbath is made for man, not man for the Sabbath. In other words, woe betide anyone who bends man to the law and uses the law as a judgement against man, because what needs to be saved is not the principle of the law, but man himself.
  • Umberto Galimberti, from the radio programme “Corpo delle donne” [Women's Bodies], Radio Feltrinelli podcast.
  • We have a natural right, therefore, to seek the abolition of slavery throughout the globe. It is our special duty to make Massachusetts free soil, so that the moment the fugitive slave stands upon it, he shall take his place in the ranks of the free. God commands us to "hide the outcast, and bewray not him that wandereth." I say, LET THE WILL OF GOD BE DONE! That is "the head and front" of my "fanaticism"! That is the extent of my "infidelity"! That comprehends all of my "treason"! THE WILL OF GOD BE DONE!
  • In theory, piety is reverence and love for God; and in practice, it is the exercise of all our powers in obedience to the Divine will. Combining the theory and practice, we have the richest treasure known on earth — love for God shown in obedience to God.
    • D. W. Gates, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 452.
  • “If it is the will of God.”
  • The Lord's will is always wisdom, man's will is often foolishness. God's will is always love, man's will is often selfishness.
  • Richard Gutzwiller, Meditazioni su Matteo, (Meditationen Über Matthâus), translation into Italian by L. Bornettini Magliano, Edizioni Paoline, Milano, 1962, p. 105.

H

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  • There are many aspects of the ancient laws of Israel that simply do not mediate an experience of divine will for people today.
    • Roger Haight, Dynamics Of Theology, Chapter Six, Scripture and Theology, p. 118
  • The problem of values is nothing but the problem of our acts, goals and morals. It concerns the compass by which we must steer our ship if we are to set a true course through life. The compass itself has been given different names by various religions and philosophies: happiness, the will of God, the meaning of life-to mention just a few. The differences in the names reflect profound differences in the awareness of different human groups. I have no wish to belittle these differences, but I have the clear impression that all such formulations try to express man's relatedness to a central order.
  • The prophets never taught that God and history are one, or that whatever happens below reflects the will of God above. Their vision is of man defying God, and God seeking man to reconcile with him.
  • From these concepts of the Deity there emerges inevitably the idea of a divine purpose, a great plan. That plan is assumed throughout this book to be evolution, but not of form alone. The word “evolution” is herein used to connote a process which is dual in its operation, spiritual as well as material, and directed rather than purely natural or “blind”. This process is understood to consist of a continuous development of form accompanied by a complementary and parallel unfolding of consciousness within the form.
    Although man cannot completely know the evolutionary plan -from his Superiors, Sages and Spiritual Teachers throughout the ages he learns that the motive is to awaken and bring to fulfilment that which is latent, seedlike, germinal. Divine Will, divine Wisdom, divine Intellect and divine Beauty, these are latent in all seeds, Macrocosmic and microcosmic. The apparent purpose for which the universe comes into existence is to change potentialities into actively manifested powers.

(Full text, PDF format), Chapter II, Science, Ancient, and Modern.

  • The Protestant way of reconciling the commandments of Christ with those human activities that appealed to them was to declare any reconciliation to be impossible. … We must love our enemies. But whether this means burning the heretic and the witch, sending children to work before they can read, making bombs and blessing them, or whether it means the opposite, each believer has to decide for himself without even suspecting what the true will of God might be. A guiding light, though a deceptive one, is provided by the interest of the fatherland, of which there is little mention in the Gospels. In the last few centuries, an incomparably greater number of believers have staked their lives for their country than for the forbidden love of its enemies. The idealists from Fichte to Hegel have also taken an active part in this development. In Europe, faith in God has now become faith in one’s own people. The motto, “Right or wrong, my country,” together with the tolerance of other religions with similar views, takes us back into that ancient world from which the primitive Christians had turned away.
    • Max Horkheimer, “Theism and Atheism” (1963), in Critique of Instrumental Reason (1974).
  • To me has been granted a somewhat unusual experience of life. Ninety full years have been measured off to me, their lessons and opportunities unabridged by wasting disease or gnawing poverty. I have enjoyed general good health, comfortable circumstances, excellent company, and the incitements to personal effort which civilized society offers to its members. For this life and its gifts I am, I hope, devoutly thankful. I came into this world a hopeless and ignorant bit of humanity. I have found in it many helps toward the attainment of my full human stature, material, mental, moral. In this slow process of attainment many features have proved transient. Visions have come and gone. Seasons have bloomed and closed, passions have flamed and faded. Something has never left me. My relation to it has suffered many changes, but it still remains, the foundation of my life, light in darkness, consolation in ill fortune, guide in uncertainty.
    In the nature of things, I must soon lose sight of this sense of constant metamorphosis whose limits bound our human life. How about this unchanging element? Will it die when I shall be laid in earth? The visible world has no answer to this question. For it, dead is dead, and gone is gone. But a deep spring of life within me says: "Look beyond. Thy days numbered hitherto register a divine promise. Thy mortal dissolution leaves this promise unfulfilled, but not abrogated. Thou mayst hope that all that made thy life divine will live for thine immortal part."
    I have quoted Theodore Parker's great word, and have made no attempt, so far, to bring into view considerations which may set before us the fundamental distinction between what in human experience passes and what abides.
  • “This principle of cosmic subjection has by theists always been realised with reference to God: the natural world, they are always telling us, however full of laws to which other conscious beings are subject, is completely subject to the mind and will of God, and its laws are imposed upon it from his mind in virtue of his creating it. What we now learn, and need to note, is that this is just as true of any other being who can be reckoned free. If men are free, then, they must be taken as being logically prior to Nature; as being its source rather than its outcome; as determining its order instead of being determined by this.”
    • George Holmes Howison, The Limits of Evolution, and Other Essays, Illustrating the Metaphysical Theory of Personal Ideaalism (1905), The Harmony of Determinism and Freedom, p.325
  • This sensible world […] is almost like a book written by the finger of God, that is, created by divine virtue, and individual creatures are like figures, not invented by human arbitrariness, but established by divine will to manifest the invisible wisdom of God. [...] It is therefore good to contemplate assiduously and admire divine works.
  • Hugh of Saint Victor, From Eruditio didascalica, lib. VII, De tribus diebus; quoted in Gino Ditadi, “'Introduction: The animal good to think about”', in Philosophers and animals, vol. 1, Isonomia editrice, Este, 1994, pp. 82-83. ISBN 88-85944-12-4.
  • Consciously, distinctly, resolutely, habitually, we need to give ourselves, our business, our interests, our families, our affections, into the Spirit's hands, to lead and fashion us as He will. When we work with the current of that Divine will, all is vital, efficient, fruitful.
  • Whatever Allah decides, we are believers, we believe in what he decides, there's no value for any life without faith. Whatever the will of God is, then the will of God will be there. Nothing is going to change the Will of God, the believers still believe that what God decides is acceptable.
  • Science seems to me to teach in the highest and strongest manner the great truth which is embodied in the Christian conception of entire surrender to the will of God. Sit down before fact as a little child, be prepared to give up every preconceived notion, follow humbly wherever and to whatever abysses nature leads, or you shall learn nothing. I have only begun to learn content and peace of mind since I have resolved at all risks to do this.

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  • Once they came to make Abba Isaac a priest. When he heard, he fled into Egypt, went into a field, and hid amidst the crop. The fathers went after him and, when they got to that same field, sat down to rest a little there, for it was night. They set the ass free to pasture, but the ass went and stood by the elder. When they sought the ass at dawn, they found Abba Isaac too. They were amazed and wanted to bind him but he would not let them.
    “I am not running away any more,” he said, “for it is the will of God and no matter where I run away to, I will come to it.”
  • Our conformity with divine will must be total, unreserved and constant.

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  • For me it is a very personal mission to leave my American Muslim children a legacy that their faith is based in the unalienable right to liberty and to teach them that the principles that founded America do not contradict their faith but strengthen it. Our founding principle is that I as a Muslim am able to best practice my faith in a society like the United States that guarantees the rights of every individual blind to faith with no governmental intermediary stepping between the individual and the creator to interpret the will of God. Because of this, our mission is to advocate for the principles of the Constitution of the United States of America, liberty and freedom and the separation of mosque and state. We believe that this mission from within the “House of Islam” is the only way to inoculate Muslim youth and young adults against radicalization. The “Liberty narrative” is the only effective counter to the “Islamist narrative."
    • Jasser, M. Zuhdi (2011-03-10). "The Extent of Radicalization in the American Muslim Community and the Community's Response". House Hearing.
  • Try how much of the word of God you can understand, and what is more, try how much you can practice. A sincere wish and purpose to do the will of God, will be your best way to know the mind of God.
  • The most fortunate of us, in our journey through life, frequently meet with calamities and misfortunes which may greatly afflict us; and, to fortify our minds against the attacks of these calamities and misfortunes, should be one of the principal studies and endeavours of our lives. The only method of doing this is to assume a perfect resignation to the Divine will, to consider that whatever does happen, must happen; and that by our uneasiness, we cannot prevent the blow before it does fall, but we may add to its force after it has fallen. These considerations, and others such as these, may enable us in some measure to surmount the difficulties thrown in our way; to bear up with a tolerable degree of patience under this burthen of life; and to proceed with a pious and unshaken resignation, till we arrive at our journey’s end, when we may deliver up our trust into the hands of him who gave it, and receive such reward as to him shall seem proportioned to our merit. Such, dear Page, will be the language of the man who considers his situation in this life, and such should be the language of every man who would wish to render that situation as easy as the nature of it will admit. Few things will disturb him at all: nothing will disturb him much.
    • Thomas Jefferson, Letter to John Page (15 July 1763); published in The Works of Thomas Jefferson (1905)
  • In the relics of the saints the Lord Christ has provided us with saving fountains which in many ways pour out benefactions and gush with fragrant ointment. And let no one disbelieve. For, if by the will of God water poured out of the precipitous living rock in the desert, and for the thirsty Sampson from the jawbone of an ass, is it unbelievable that fragrant ointment should flow from the relics of the martyrs? Certainly not, at least for such as know the power of God and the honor which the saints have from Him.
  • Alternate translation: Christ gives us the relics of saints as health-giving springs through which flow blessings and healing. This should not be doubted. For if at God’s word water gushed from hard rock in the wilderness-yes, and from an ass’s jawbone when Samson was thirsty -why should it seem incredible that healing medicine should distill from the relics of saints
    • In Relics: The Shroud of Turin, the True Cross, the Blood of Januarius...History, Mysticism, and the Catholic Church, Joan Carroll Cruz, 1984, Our Sunday Visitor, Huntington, Indiana, ISBN 0879737018 ISBN 9780879737016 p. 206. [4]
    • In The Incorruptibles, 1974, 1977, Joan Carroll Cruz, St. Benedict Press & TAN Books, Rockford, Illinois, ISBN 0895550660 ISBN 9780895550668 Introduction, p. 37.
  • Lex donum Dei est, æquitatis forma, norma justitiæ, divinæ voluntatis imago, salutis custodia, unio et consolidatio populorum, regula officiorum, exclusio et exterminatio vitiorum, violentiæ et totius injuriæ pœna.
    • Law is the gift of God, the model of equity, a standard of justice, a likeness of the divine will, the guardian of well-being, a bond of union and solidarity between peoples, a rule defining duties, a barrier against the vices and the destroyer thereof, a punishment of violence and all wrongdoing.
  • God's clemency has granted us his law, which establishes what things it is useful for us to know, and which indicates how lawful we are to know about God and how right it is to investigate... In this law, in fact, God's will is made explicit and evident, so that each of us knows what he needs to do.
  • Try how much of the word of God you can understand, and what is more, try how much you can practice. A sincere wish and purpose to do the will of God, will be your best way to know the mind of God.
    • John Angell James, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 554.
  • To bear adversity with meek submission to the will of God; to endure chastisement with all long-suffering and joyfulness; to appear cheerful amid surrounding gloom, hopeful amidst desponding circumstances, happy in God when there is nothing else to make us happy; he who does this has indeed made great advances in the divine life.
    • John Angell James, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 565.
  • It is... the universal law of harmony which unerringly restores all disturbance to equilibrium. In this the theory conflicts with the ordinary conception about God, built up from the Jewish system, which assumes that the Almighty as a thinking entity, extraneous to the Cosmos, builds up, finds his construction inharmonious, out of proportion, errant, and disturbed, and then has to pull down, destroy, or punish that which he created. This has either caused thousands to live in fear of God, in compliance with his assumed commands, with the selfish object of obtaining reward and securing escape from his wrath, or has plunged them into darkness which comes from a denial of all spiritual life. But as there is plainly, indeed painfully, evident to every human being a constant destruction going on in and around us, a continual war not only among men but everywhere through the whole solar system, causing sorrow in all directions, reason requires a solution of the riddle. The poor, who see no refuge or hope, cry aloud to a God who makes no reply, and then envy springs up in them when they consider the comforts and opportunities of the rich... Turning to the teacher of religion, they meet the reply to their questioning of the justice which will permit such misery to those who did nothing requiring them to be born with no means, no opportunities for education, no capacity to overcome social, racial, or circumstantial obstacles, "It is the will of God."
  • Also our Lord God shewed that it is full great pleasance to Him that a helpless soul come to Him simply and plainly and homely. For this is the natural yearnings of the soul, by the touching of the Holy Ghost (as by the understanding that I have in this Shewing): God, of Thy Goodness, give me Thyself: for Thou art enough to me, and I may nothing ask that is less that may be full worship to Thee; and if I ask anything that is less, ever me wanteth, — but only in Thee I have all.
    And these words are full lovely to the soul, and full near touch they the will of God and His Goodness. For His Goodness comprehendeth all His creatures and all His blessed works, and overpasseth without end. For He is the endlessness, and He hath made us only to Himself, and restored us by His blessed Passion, and keepeth us in His blessed love; and all this of His Goodness.
  • An object that has no will of its own, capable, if need be, of opposing its creator, and with no qualities other than its creator’s, such an object has no independent existence and is incapable of ethical decision. ... Therefore Lucifer was perhaps the one who best understood the divine will struggling to create a world and who carried out that will most faithfully. For, by rebelling against God, he became the active principle of a creation which opposed to God a counter-will of its own.
    • Carl Jung, Collected Works of C.G. Jung, Volume 11: Psychology and Religion: West and East (1958), p. 196

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  • In the great Declaration of our principles, it didn't say that all men are created equal 'if you so choose.' It said that all are created equal by the power and the will of God, and that we must respect their rights as we respect that will.
    • Alan Keyes, Delaware State Republican Dinner (8 April 1995)
  • “Is it possible that under these circumstances two nations — the Mahomedans and the Hindus — could sit on the same throne and remain equal in power? Most certainly not. It is necessary that one of them should conquer the other and thrust it down. To hope that both could remain equal is to desire the impossible and the inconceivable. “ “This thing — who, after the departure of the English, would be conquerors — would rest on the will of God. But until one nation had conquered the other and made it obedient, peace could not reign in the land. This conclusion is based on proofs so absolute that no one can deny it.”
  • “Then our Musalman brothers, the Pathans, would come out as a swarm of locusts from their mountain valleys, and make rivers of blood to flow from their frontier in the north to the extreme end of Bengal”
  • It is true that Kinshasa is my diocese of incardination, but I had to readjust after my curial past in Rome, for 18 good years. It was still not easy, but overall I got quickly readjusted. My move to the diocese of Kisantu is a surprise for me and it fills me with joy. I always try to consider the will of God and not my own. I am grateful to the Lord for his presence in my life. I am also grateful to the Holy Father, Pope Francis, for his interest in the particular church of Kisantu and his confidence in me. I am confident that the new mission, albeit with many challenges, will go well with the help of the Lord and the commitment of the faithful of Kisantu.
  • If their princes exceed their bounds, Madam, no doubt they may be resisted, even by power. For there is neither greater honor, nor greater obedience, to be given to kings or princes, than God hath commanded to be given unto father and mother. But the father may be stricken with a frenzy, in which he would slay his children. If the children arise, join themselves together, apprehend the father, take the sword from him, bind his hands, and keep him in prison till his frenzy be overpast: think ye, Madam, that the children do any wrong? It is even so, Madam, with princes that would murder the children of God that are subjects unto them. Their blind zeal is nothing but a very mad frenzy, and therefore, to take the sword from them, to bind their hands, and to cast them into prison, till they be brought to a more sober mind, is no disobedience against princes, but just obedience, because it agreeth with the will of God.

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  • In its capacity as a religion, too, Theosophy gives its followers a rule of life, based not on alleged commands delivered at some remote period of the past, but on plain common sense as indicated by observed facts. The attitude of the student of Theosophy towards the rules which it prescribes resembles rather that which we adopt to hygienic regulations than obedience to religious commandments. We may say, if we wish, that this thing or that is in accordance with the divine Will, for the divine Will is expressed in what we know as the laws of Nature. Because that Will wisely ordereth all things, to infringe its laws means to disturb the smooth working of the scheme, to hold back for a moment that fragment or tiny part of evolution, and consequently to bring discomfort upon ourselves and others. It is for that reason that the wise man avoids infringing them -- not to escape the imaginary wrath of some offended deity. Ch I
  • Every religion has taught that man should put himself always on the side of the will of God in the world, on the side of good as against evil, of evolution as against retrogression. The man who ranges himself on the side of evolution realizes the wickedness of destroying life; for he knows that, just as he is here in this physical body in order that he may learn the lessons of this plane, so is the animal occupying his body for the same reason, that through it he may gain experience at his lower stage. He knows that the life behind the animal is the Divine Life, that all life in the world is Divine; the animals therefore are truly our brothers, even though they may be younger brothers, and we can have no sort of right to take their lives for the gratification of our perverted tastes.
  • From a religious point of view the triadic classification of being as nature, spirit, and God has no validity. There is only the dyad: nature, which includes the human spirit, and God. The only way man can break the bonds of nature is by cleaving to God; by acting in compliance with the divine will rather than in accordance with the human will.
  • For Sécretan, all necessities, even logical ones, are relative; God created logical, mathematical, and moral truths: truth and good are divine creation. The order of the world is necessary because it is a free effect of divine will: everywhere necessity rests on freedom and presupposes it. The absolute is God with respect to the world because divine attributes exist only with respect to the world.
  • The subject presented in the memorial is one upon which I have thought much for weeks past, and I may even say for months. I am approached with the most opposite opinions and advice, and that by religious men, who are equally certain that they represent the Divine will. I am sure that either the one or the other class is mistaken in that belief, and perhaps in some respects both. I hope it will not be irreverent for me to say that if it is probable that God would reveal his will to others, on a point so connected with my duty, it might be supposed he would reveal it directly to me; for, unless I am more deceived in myself than I often am, it is my earnest desire to know the will of Providence in this matter. And if I can learn what it is I will do it! These are not, however, the days of miracles, and I suppose it will be granted that I am not to expect a direct revelation. I must study the plain physical facts of the case, ascertain what is possible, and learn what appears to be wise and right.
    The subject is difficult, and good men do not agree.
  • As men, we have God for our King, and are under the law of reason: as Christians, we have Jesus the Messiah for our King, and are under the law revealed by him in the gospel. And though every Christian, both as a deist and a Christian, be obliged to study both the law of nature and the revealed law, that in them he may know the will of God, and of Jesus Christ, whom he hath sent; yet, in neither of these laws, is there to be found a select set of fundamentals, distinct from the rest, which are to make him a deist, or a Christian. But he that believes one eternal, invisible God, his Lord and King, ceases thereby to be an atheist; and he that believes Jesus to be the Messiah, his king, ordained by God, thereby becomes a Christian, is delivered from the power of darkness, and is translated into the kingdom of the Son of God; is actually within the covenant of grace, and has that faith, which shall be imputed to him for righteousness; and, if he continues in his allegiance to this his King, shall receive the reward: eternal life.
    • John Locke, The Reasonableness of Christianity (1695), § 228
  • As to why some are touched by the law and others not, so that some receive and others scorn the offer of grace...[this is the] hidden will of God, Who, according to His own counsel, ordains such persons as He wills to receive and partake of the mercy preached and offered.
  • If the inexpressible cruelties of slavery could not stop us, the opposition we now face will surely fail. We will win our freedom because the sacred heritage of our nation and the eternal will of God are embodied in our echoing demands.
  • In every age and every generation men have envisioned some promised land. Plato envisioned it in his republic as a time when justice would reign throughout society and philosophers would become kings and kings philosophers. Karl Marx envisioned it as a classless society in which the proletariat would finally conquer the reign of the bourgeoisie; out of that idea came the slogan, "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need." Bellamy, in Looking Backward, thought of it as a day when the inequalities of monopoly capitalism would pass away. Society would exist on the basis of evenness of economic output. Christianity envisioned it as the Kingdom of God, a time when the will of God will reign supreme, and brotherhood, love, and right relationships will be the order of society. In every age and every generation men have dreamed of some promised land of fulfillment of freedom. Whether it was the right promised land or not, they dreamed of it. But in moving from some Egypt of slavery, whether in the intellectual, cultural or moral realm, toward some promised land, there is always the same temptation. Individuals will get bogged down in a particular mountain in a particular spot, and thereby become the victims of stagnant complacency. So, this afternoon, I would like to deal with three or four symbolic mountains that we have been in long enough-mountains that we must move out of if we are to go forward in our world and if civilization is to survive.
  • Universal Values: ...The spirit and teaching of Jesus is ...an exposition of the purposes of His Father in Heaven. They involve a reversal of many of the world's estimates by emphasizing the infinite value of each human soul, the superiority of personal character to anything that a man may own, the greatness of power to serve as contrasted to the power to rule, the supremecy of the law of love. These reversals of standards are challenges to every age. ...Jesus accepted in His own acts the validity of all these estimates. ...Nor did he hesitate to call upon His own nation to abandon the dreams of centuries, because they were contrary to the better purposes of God.
    ...All of this must give pause. The perennial question is, What is the will of God? No scholastic reply will suffice. It is the most practical of all questions, for we must also ask: Are our actions in line with the eternal plan, or are we opposing our narrow human purposes to the rolling destiny of creation?

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  • If it be the will of God that I should bring down contempt and ridicule upon myself when I endeavour to exercise a public ministration, it will be a favour for which I ought to bless Him ; for, perhaps, he sees that such is the only means by which I can acquire humility; and it is essential that I should be humble, for otherwise my salvation is impossible.
  • What disturbs us in this world is not " trouble," but our opposition to trouble. The true source of all that frets and irritates and wears away our lives, is not in external things, but in the resistance of our wills to the will of God expressed by external things.
  • My object in adopting this arrangement is that the truths should be at one time apparent and at another time concealed. Thus we shall not be in opposition to the Divine Will (from which it is wrong to deviate) which has withheld from the multitude the truths required for the knowledge of God, according to the words, "The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him." (Psalm 25:14)
  • This must be our belief when we have a correct knowledge of our own self, and comprehend the true nature of everything; we must be content, and not trouble our mind with seeking a certain final cause for things that have none, or have no other final cause but their own existence, which depends on the Will of God, or, if you prefer, on the Divine Wisdom.
  • I find the doing of the will of God, leaves me no time for disputing about His plans.
  • To recapitulate, the fountain-head of the Quranic dimension of war lies in the fact that war is waged for the cause of Allah, and with the object of imposing conditions of justice and peace. To those who fight for this noblest heavenly cause, the Book promises handsome heavenly assistance. The index of fighting for Allah's cause is Man's total submission to His will. Those who fail to submit themselves fully and completely to the Will of God run the risk of incurring heavenly wrath. Nature has no particular or specific liking for any community of people as such; it helps only those who qualify themselves for it, and punishes the rest. Fighting involves risk to life and property that must be accepted willingly and cheerfully. Death in this world is inevitable; life in the Hereafter is certain; and the reward of those who fight for the cause of Allah is sage, splendid and sure. Our reward is in direct proportion to our performance. Those who die fighting for the cause of Allah never actually die. For those who believed and practised them, the Quranic dimensions revolutionized warfare in it real sense. They conferred upon them a personality so strong and overbearing as to prove themselves equal to, indeed dominate, every contingency in war. They dwarfed the psychological and moral dimensions discovered by the human mind after taking so long and labyrinthine a route. They conferred upon the Muslim armies a complete and total protection and immunity against all the psychological and moral attacks that the enemy could brin to bear upon them. They conferred upon the Muslim armies a complete and total protection and immunity against all the psychological and moral attacks that the enemy could bring to bear upon them.
  • “I hear you will bring in a law,” Kingston says. “It seems harsh, to make them commit a crime in retrospect.”
    They try to explain it to the constable. A prince cannot be impeded by temporal distinctions: past, present, future. Nor can he excuse the past, just for being over and done. He can’t say, ‘all water under the bridges;’ the past is always trickling under the soil, a slow leak you can’t trace. Often, meaning is only revealed retrospectively. The will of God, for instance, is brought to light these days by more skilful translators. As for the future, the king’s desires move swiftly and the law must run to keep up. Bear in mind his Majesty’s remarkable foresight, at the trial of the late queen. He knew the sentence before the verdict was in.
    “True,” Kingston says. “The executioner was already on the sea.
  • Think of the fanaticism, the endless persecutions, the religious wars, that sanguinary frenzy of which the ancients had no conception! Think of the crusades, a butchery lasting two hundred years and inexcusable, its war cry “It is the will of God,” its object to gain possession of the grave of one who preached love and sufferance; think of the cruel expul- sion and extermination of the Moors and Jews from Spain! Think of the orgies of blood, the inquisitions, the heretical tribunals, the bloody and terrible conquests of the Moham- medans in three continents, or those of Christianity in America, whose inhabitants were for the most part, and in Cuba entirely exterminated.”” ...‘“‘Perhaps I go too far in saying all religions. For the sake of truth, I must add that the fanatical enormities perpetrated in the name of religion are only to be put down to the adherents of monotheistic creeds, that is, the Jewish faith and its two branches, Christianity and Islamism. We hear of nothing of the kind in the case of Hindoos and Buddhists.”
    • Suzanne L. Marchand about Arthur Schopenhauer - German Orientalism in the Age of Empire. Religion, Race, and Scholarship-Cambridge University Press (2009)
“My wish is in accord with the will of God,”
Still remains,
Envision the realization of your hopes,
And offer your gratitude to God saying,
“I have already received.”
Discard that mind that insists things must be a certain way,
And entrust the results completely to God.
  • Masanobu Taniguchi, Song in Praise of the Bodhisattva Who Reflects the Sounds of the World
  • When I say I am the Avatar, there are a few who feel happy, some who feel shocked, and many who hearing me claim this, would take me for a hypocrite, a fraud, a supreme egoist, or just mad. 'If I were to say every one of you is an Avatar, a few would be tickled, and many would consider it a blasphemy or a joke. The fact that God being One, Indivisible and equally in us all, we can be nought else but one, is too much for the duality-conscious mind to accept. Yet each of us is what the other is. I know I am the Avatar in every sense of the word, and that each one of you is an Avatar in one sense or the other.
    It is an unalterable and universally recognized fact since time immemorial that God knows everything. God does everything, and that nothing happens but by the Will of God. Therefore it is God who makes me say I am the Avatar, and that each one of you is an Avatar. Again, it is He Who is tickled through some, and through others is shocked. It is God Who acts, and God Who reacts. It is He Who scoffs, and He Who responds. He is the Creator, the Producer, the Actor and the Audience in His own Divine Play.
    • Meher Baba, in "How to Love God" (12 September 1954)
  • A question arises regarding the angels who dwell with us, serve us and protect us, whether their joys are equal to those of the angels in heaven, or whether they are diminished by the fact that they protect and serve us. No, they are certainly not; for the work of the angels is the will of God, and the will of God is the work of the angels; their service to us does not hinder their joy nor their working. If God told an angel to go to a tree and pluck caterpillars off it, the angel would be quite ready to do so, and it would be his happiness, if it were the will of God.
  • The man who abides in the will of God wills nothing else than what God is, and what He wills. If he were ill he would not wish to be well. If he really abides in God's will, all pain is to him a joy, all complication, simple: yea, even the pains of hell would be a joy to him. He is free and gone out from himself, and from all that he receives, he must be free. If my eye is to discern colour, it must itself be free from all colour. The eye with which I see God is the same with which God sees me. My eye and God's eye is one eye, and one sight, and one knowledge, and one love.
  • Let us, therefore, not live in the summer‑house of emotion, but in the central citadel of the will, wholly yielded and devoted to the will of God.
  • Whatever crushes individuality is despotism, by whatever name it may be called, and whether it professes to be enforcing the will of God or the injunctions of men.
  • I have known many Christians—Poles, Frenchman, Spaniards—who were strict Stalinists in the field of politics but who retained certain inner reservations, believing God would make corrections once the bloody sentences of the all-mighties of History were carried out. They pushed their reasoning rather far. They argue that history develops according to immutable laws that exist by the will of God; one of these laws is the class struggle; the twentieth century marks the victory of the proletariat, which is led in its struggle by the Communist Party; Stalin, the leader of the Communist Party, fulfils the law of history or in other words acts by the will of God, therefore one must obey him. Mankind can be renewed only on the Russian pattern; that is why no Christian can oppose the one—cruel, it is true—idea which will create a new kind of man over the entire planet. Such reasoning is often used by clerics who are party tools. "Christ is a new man. The new man is a Soviet man. Therefore Christ is a Soviet man!" said Justinian Marina, the Rumanian patriarch.
  • Prayer and faith, the universal remedies against every want and every difficulty; and the nourishment of prayer and faith, God’s holy word, helped me over all the difficulties.--I never remember, in all my Christian course, a period now (in October 1881) of fifty-five years and eleven months, that I ever SINCERELY and PATIENTLY sought to know the will of God by the teaching of the Holy Ghost, through the instrumentality of the word of God, but I have been ALWAYS directed rightly.
    • George Müller, A Narrative of Some of the Lord's Dealings with George Müller Written by Himself, Third Part.

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  • I resigned myself to the will of God because the duty of every Christian is to accept the cross which the Saviour sends. It would be a sin to strive against the will of God. I did not accept the cross because of the cross, but in devotion to the Cross of the Saviour… My pains by themselves are of no avail to save souls, but only when united with the pains of Our Lord. If it were possible, I would willingly accept sufferings in Heaven in order to bring more souls to the Saviour.
  • There is many a thing which the world calls disappointment; but there is no such thing in the dictionary of faith. What to others are disappointments are to believers intimations of the will of God.
  • John Newton, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 281.
  • As I do not look at doctrinal development as an automatic unfolding of the divine will, neither do I approach it as a process determined by forces capable of quantification. “Tension” and “reaction” are physical terms which may carry unintended implications of mechanical response. There was tension within the Catholic doctrine arising from the value placed on procreation and the conflicting value placed on education. In using the term “tension” I do not imply that one value had to give way. The catholic teaching on marriage was a reaction to the organized gnostic opposition to all procreation. By saying “reaction” I do not mean that the formation of the counter doctrine was inevitable, but that such doctrine had to be asserted if certain values prized by some Christians were to be preserved. “Tension” and “reaction” are ways of signaling the existence of human choices which had to be made at the cost of suppressing some possible alternatives.
  • For Muslims the Islamic Shari'ah, or Divine Law, is the concrete embodiment of the Divine Will as elaborated in the Quran for the followers of Islam; and from the Islamic point of view the scriptures of all divinely revealed religions, each of which possesses its own Shari'ah, have the same function in those religions. For Muslims, who accept the Quran as the Word of God, therefore, following the Divine Law is basic and foundational for the practice of their religion.
  • Mysticism: to dwell on the unseen, to withdraw ourselves from the things of sense into communion with God — to endeavour to partake of the Divine nature; that is, of Holiness. When we ask ourselves only what is right, or what is the will of God (the same question), then we may truly be said to live in His light.

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  • Some people think that to be accepting of the will of God means to be rather passive. However, to readily accept the will of God really means to actively strive to accomplish God’s will.
    All life form—grasses, trees, human beings and so on—prosper by harmoniously following the will of God. This enables a tree to grow tall and strong and a human being to become virtuous and to achieve great things. We need to firmly understand this divine arrangement. It is essential that we do not limit our potential with shallow human logic and that we become a vessel into which the will of God and the Light of God can smoothly enter.

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  • I will frankly confess that I was convinced that God had ordained me to do certain things for the service of my nation, things that perhaps could not be done by anyone else. In whatever I have done and whatever I do in the future, I consider myself as an agent of the will of God.
  • You and I may perish. Temptation which has been too strong for thousands of stronger men, may be too great for me; I may prove false to my own idea of religion and of duty; the gold of commerce may buy me, as it has bought richer men; the love of the praise of men may seduce me; or the fear of men may deter my coward voice, and I may be swept off in the earthquake, in the storm, or in the fire, and prove false to that still small voice. If it shall ever be so, still the great ideas which I have set forth, of man, of God, of religion, — they will endure, and one day will be "a flame in the heart of all mankind." To-day! why, my friends, eternity is all around to-day, and we can step but towards that. A truth of the mind, of the conscience, of the heart, of the soul, — it is the will of God; and the omnipotence of God is pledged for the achievement of that will. Eternity is the life-time of Truth.
    • Theodore Parker, Two Sermons (1853), Sermon II : Of the Position and Duty of a Minister.
  • We will do our part, but everything is in God's hands, but one thing is certain: Niña now offers herself to us and to the faithful around the world, especially children and young people, as a model of Christian life. In her life she chose the path of holiness, she wanted to be close to the heart of God, she accepted and was faithful to the will of God in her journey. At this time we continue to ask for her intercession and we continue to work for the cause, praying and hoping that one day, God willing, she will be presented to us by Mother Church as Saint Niña Ruiz-Abad.
  • There are many expressions of God's will that we already know without even needing any particular inspiration: it is the will of God that manifests itself, in a general way, in the commandments of Scripture, in the teaching of the Church, in the needs specific to our vocation, to our professional life, etc.
  • Jacques Philippe, Alla scuola dello Spirito Santo, translation into Italian by Mariarosaria Spagnolo, EDB, Bologna, 2004.
  • The Most Blessed Virgin Mary is inseparable from the Triune God, her glory is Theirs and Their glory is her, since the Divine Will places everything in common. She denied nothing to the Trinity, giving Them not only that which she was supposed to give Them directly, but also which other creatures denied to give Them. Operating in a universal way is the divine way, and the Blessed Mother was able to operate with the ways of her Creator because she possessed the Kingdom of His Will. The Divine Will contains everything and preserves of all of Its acts, thus it preserves all the acts of the Sovereign Queen as if they were all Its own, because she did everything in the Fiat. One who has done good to all, loved all, and has operated in a universal way for God and everyone, justly has rights over all and over everything. The Celestial Mother wants the return for the universal love she had for all generations. Who else can requite her if not one who loves in the same Kingdom of the Divine Will? The Queen of Heaven, to impetrate the Kingdom of Redemption, had a prayer, a sigh, an act for all, and for each one - she let no one escape Her; and by this, she gave to each one the right to be able to receive their Redeemer.
    • Marian Apparition Messages to the Italian mystic Luisa Piccarreta: V19 dated June 26, 1926; V34 dated April 21, 1936; and V24 dated September 29, 1928. Quotations given by the following book:
      • Rega (OFS), Frank M. (2017) (in en). What God is by Nature, Mary is by Grace. The Greateness of the Blessed Virgin as revealed to Luisa Piccareta (Second ed.). pp. 77-78. ISBN 978-1548251109. 
  • The Divine Will contains the creative strenght. From within God's one single "Fiat" came out billions and billions of stars. From the Fiat Mihi" of the Mother of God, from which Redemption had its origin, came out billions and billions of acts of grace, which communicate themselves to souls. These acts of grace are more beautiful, more resplendent and more varied than billions of stars! The Divine Fiat is full of life, and in fact It is life itself, and alla lives and things come out from within the Fiat. From the Fiat of God, Creation came out, and in each created thing can be seen the imprint of that Fiat. From the "Fiat Mihi" of the Blessed Virgin, pronounced in the Divine Will with the same power of the Fiat of Creation, Redemption came forth. Therefore everything that concerns the Redemption bears the imprint of her "Fiat Mihi".Even the very Humanity of her Son, His steps, works and words, were sealed with Mary's "Fiat Mihi".
  • A weapon that comes down as still
    As snowflakes fall upon the sod;
    But executes a freeman's will,
    As lightning does the will of God;
    And from its force nor doors nor locks
    Can shield you,—'t is the ballot-box.
    • Johmn Pierpoint, A Word from a Petitioner, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
  • The injection of evolutionary thinking into socialist theory introduced into it the element of inevitability. According to “scientific socialism,” human actions may somewhat retard or accelerate social evolution, but they cannot alter its direction, which depends on objective factors. Thus, for reasons that will be spelled out below, capitalism in time must inexorably yield to socialism. The emotional appeal of this belief is not much different from the religious faith in the will of God, inspiring those who hold it with an unshakable conviction that no matter how many setbacks their cause may suffer, ultimate victory is assured. It would hold especial attraction for intellectuals by promising to replace spontaneous and messy life with a rational order of which they would be the interpreters and mentors. As Marx put it in a celebrated dictum, “The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways: the point, however, is to change it.” And who is better qualified to “change” it intelligently than intellectuals? For all its formal commitment to the scientific method, Marxism violated its most basic feature, namely open-mindedness and a willingness to adjust theory to new evidence. (Bertrand Russell called Bolshevism, an offspring of Marxism, a “religion” and spoke of its “habit of militant certainty about objectively doubtful matters.”) It was a rigid doctrine, dismissive of different views. Marx made no secret of his attitude toward those who disagreed with him: criticism, he once wrote, “is not a scalpel but a weapon. Its object is the enemy, [whom] it wishes not to refute but to destroy.” Marxism thus was dogma masquerading as science.
  • As a citizen, and as President of the Chamber of Deputies, I bow to the Constitution and pledge to strictly fulfil my institutional mandate. As a Catholic, I cannot but entrust my work in this Parliament – and, in prayer, the life of the nation – to the will of God, to whom the destinies of all nations and of history belong.
  • From the inaugural address of Irene Pivetti as President of the Chamber of Deputies of the Italian Republic, 12th legislature, 15 April 1994; available at Camera.it.
  • Is disobedience a path of renewal for the Church? ... Surely Christ Himself corrected human traditions which threatened to stifle the word and the will of God? Indeed He did, so as to rekindle obedience to the true will of God, to His ever enduring word. His concern was for true obedience, as opposed to human caprice.
  • Work for the recovery of that land in which for our salvation Truth has arisen from the land and did not disdain to carry the forked wood of the cross for us. Pay attention not to earthly profit and glory, but to the will of God who himself taught us to lay down our souls for our brothers. ... You should act without trepidation and do not fear to give away earthly possessions, which will last for such a short time. ... We promise full remission of their sins and eternal life to those who take up the labor of this journey with a contrite heart and a humble spirit and depart in penitence of their sins and with true faith.
    • Pope Gregory VIII, Audita tremendi (29 October 1187), quoted in Jessalynn Bird, Edward Peters and James M. Powell (eds.), Crusade and Christendom: Annotated Documents in Translation from Innocent III to the Fall of Acre, 1187-1291 (2013), pp. 7–8
  • Whenever our Lord speaks of the object of his mission and death, as he often does, it is either in a more general way, as for the salvation of the world, to do the will of God, to fulfil the scripture prophecies … or more particularly, to give the fullest proof of his mission by his resurrection from the dead, and an assurance of a similar resurrection of all his followers. He also compares his being raised upon the cross to the elevation of the serpent in the wilderness, and to seed buried in the ground, as necessary to its future increase. But all these representations are quite foreign to anything in the doctrine of atonement.
    • Joseph Priestley, An History of the Corruptions of Christianity (1782), Part II : Opinions Relating to the Doctrine of Atonement, § I : That Christ did not die to make satisfaction for the sins of men.

R

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  • Established religion sees religious faith as the sacred ideology of the dominant social order. Religion is the 'handmaiden' of the ruling class. It defines this established social order as one that has been created by God and is the reflection of the divine will. Its words for God reflect the titles of the rulers. God and the rulers are called by the same names and are imaged as looking alike. The rulers thus appear to be like God, to have a special closeness to God and to represent God on earth.
    • Rosemary Radford Ruether, "Prophetic Tradition and the Liberation of Women: Promise and Betrayal" (1994), Feminist Theology v. 2 no. 5 pp. 58–73 p. 58
  • Along his journey Rama freed Ahalya from her curse. The grace of God is so strong it can free us from the most difficult situations. Through it our inner wisdom, symbolized by the sage's wife, can be released from the stone of ignorance and materialism in which it is trapped. But for this to occur, we must open ourselves to the Divine Will. Otherwise obstacles will arise that we cannot possibly overcome by our power.
    • The Oracle of Rama, In: p. 53
  • To us who regard [Jesus]as the unique revelation of God, the unfolding of the divine life under human forms, he is the ultimate standard of moral and spiritual life, the perfect expression of the will of God for humanity, the categorical imperative with a human heart. But very many who do not hold this belief in a formulated way or who feel compelled to deny it, including an increasing portion of our Jewish fellow-citizens, will still consent that in Jesus our race has reached one of its highest points, if not its crowning summit thus far, so that Jesus Christ is a prophecy of the future glory of humanity, the type of Man as he is to be. Christianizing means humanizing in the highest sense.
  • And for love to bow, adoring, to his will always and in all!
  • I think the verdict that has been given against me is a proof that I am more than ordinary myself, but that the circumstances and the help that is given is more than ordinary, are more than ordinary, and although I consider myself only as others, yet by the will of God, by his Providence, by the circumstances which have surrounded me for fifteen years, I think that I have been called to do something which at least in the North-West nobody has done yet, and in some way I think that to a certain number of people the verdict against me to day is a proof that maybe I am a prophet, maybe Riel is a prophet. He suffers for it.
  • Louis Riel, Address on his sentencing (1 August 1885).
  • God's will is victory over solitude.
  • God's will is to serve life.
  • In the face of great perils never before encountered, our strong purpose is to protect and to perpetuate the integrity of democracy. For this we muster the spirit of America, and the faith of America. We do not retreat. We are not content to stand still. As Americans, we go forward, in the service of our country, by the will of God.
  • It is presumption and detestable guilt to want to prevent God's will and follow our way of seeing and thinking.
  • Agostino Roscelli, Manoscritti del servo di Dio Don Agostino Roscelli, fondatore delle Suore dell'immacolata di Genova, Grafiche Fassicomo, 1980.
  • No work is great in itself, that no office is desirable in itself, except in that it is God's will that I do that deed or that I occupy that office.
  • Agostino Roscelli, Manoscritti del servo di Dio Don Agostino Roscelli, fondatore delle Suore dell'immacolata di Genova, Grafiche Fassicomo, 1980.
  • Being good is the same as being a philosopher. If you obey your father, you will follow the will of a man; if you choose the philosopher's life, the will of God. It is plain, therefore, that your duty lies in the pursuit of philosophy.
    • Gaius Musonius Rufus, Fragment 16 "What is the best provision for old age," in Moral Exhortation (1986), p. 32
  • Nietzsche's objection to Christianity is that it caused acceptance of what he calls 'slave morality'. It is curious to observe the contrast between his arguments and those of the French philosophes who preceded the Revolution. They argued that Christian dogmas are untrue; that Christianity teaches submission to what is deemed to be the will of God, whereas self-respecting human beings should not bow before any higher Power; and that the Christian Churches have become the allies of tyrants, and are helping the enemies of democracy to deny liberty and continue to grind the faces of the poor. Nietzsche is not interested in the metaphysical truth of either Christianity or any other religion; being convinced that no religion is really true, he judges all religions entirely by their social effects. He agrees with the philosophes in objecting to submission to the supposed will of God, but he would substitute for it the will of earthly 'artist-tyrants'. Submission is right, except for these supermen, but not submission to the Christian God. As for the Christian Churches' being allies of tyrants and enemies of democracy, that, he says, is the very reverse of the truth. The French Revolution and Socialism are, according to him, essentially identical in spirit with Christianity; to all alike he is opposed, and for the same reason: that he will not treat all men as equal in any respect whatever.
  • Today I feel that God motivates me to use my whole being to combat by nonviolent means the ever-growing racial tension in the United States; at the same time the state directs that I shall do its will; which of these dictates can I follow-that of God or that of the state? Surely, I must at all times attempt to obey the law of the state. But when the will of God and the will of the state conflict, I am compelled to follow the will of God. If I cannot continue in my present vocation, I must resist.

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  • The will of God prevails—In great contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one must be wrong. God cannot be for, and against the same thing at the same time. In the present civil war it is quite possible that God's purpose is somewhat different from the purpose of either party—and yet the human instrumentalities, working just as they do, are of the best adaptation to effect this.
  • Oh, that we had our eyes more and more steadily fixt on the risen Savior! Oh, that we could ever be learning more and more from Him to breathe out blessing, as He did when He imparted His Spirit to the disciples! Oh, that we were more and more learning like Him to encourage the foolish and slow of heart to joyful faith in the divine promises, to active obedience to the divine will of their Lord and Master, to the glad enjoyment and use of all the heavenly treasures that He has thrown open to us! Oh, that we were ever speaking more effectively to all connected with us, of the kingdom of God and of our inheritance in it, so that they might see why it was necessary for Christ to suffer, but also into what glory He has gone! These are our desires, and they are not vain desires.
  • Christ’s Second Coming, which is sure as God, is merely the correction of mistakes and the return of sanity. It is a part of the condition which restores the never-lost, and re-establishes what is forever and forever true. It is the invitation to God’s Word to take illusion’s place; the willingness to let forgiveness rest upon all things without exception and without reserve.
    It is the all-inclusive nature of Christ’s Second Coming that permits it to embrace the world, and hold you safe within its gentle advent which encompasses all living things with you. There is no end to the release the Second Coming brings, as God’s creation must be limitless. Forgiveness lights the Second Coming’s way because it shines on everyone as one.
    The Second Coming ends the lessons which the Holy Spirit teaches, making way for the Last Judgement, in which learning ends in one last summary that will extend beyond itself, and reaches up to God. The Second Coming is the time in which all minds are given to the hands of Christ, to be returned to Spirit in the Name of true creation and the Will of God.
    • Helen Schucman in A Course in Miracles|A Course in Miracles, workbook, p. 446, (1976)
  • Man has the duty to resign himself to the will of God, but by the same token he has the right to transcend spiritually the suffering of the soul to the extent that this is possible for him; and this, precisely, is not possible without a prior attitude of acceptance and resignation, which alone brings out fully the serenity of the intelligence and which alone opens the soul to help from Heaven.
  • Paul and Augustine transformed Jewish belief in a divine will directed at a ‘chosen’ people. They universalized the claims of that will and internalized it, making it available to all of humanity. In doing so, they created the potential for ‘Christian liberty’, a rightful power for individuals. By combining the assumption of human equality with the need to discover the divine will, a new relationship with deity became possible, one that was personal rather than tribal. Yet if Paul and Augustine conjured up a vision of moral freedom, it was the twelfth-century canonists who converted that vision into a formal legal system founded on natural rights.
    • Larry Siedentop, Inventing the Individual (2014), Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press, 18. The Democratizing of Reason (p. 245)
  • Poor David Hume is dying very fast, but with great cheerfulness and good humour and with more real resignation to the necessary course of things then any whining Christian ever dyed with pretended resignation to the will of God.
  • "No one on this earth can avoid affliction; and although the afflictions which the Lord sends are not great men imagine them beyond their strength and are crushed by them. This is because they will not humble their souls and commit themselves to the will of God. But the Lord Himself guides with His grace those who are given over to God's will, and they bear all things with fortitude for the sake of God Whom they have so loved and with Whom they are glorified for ever. It is impossible to escape tribulation in this world but the man who is given over to the will of God bears tribulation easily, seeing it but putting his trust in the Lord, and so his tribulations pass."
  • This impels me, before going into your reasons, to set forth briefly my opinion on the question, whether the world was made by chance. But I answer, that as it is clear that chance and necessity are two contraries, so is it also clear, that he, who asserts the world to be a necessary effect of the divine nature, must utterly deny that the world has been made by chance; whereas, he who affirms that God need not have made the world, confirms, though in different language, the doctrine that it has been made by chance; inasmuch as he maintains that it proceeds from a wish, which might never have been formed. However, as this opinion and theory is on the face of it absurd, it is commonly very unanimously admitted, that God's will is eternal, and has never been indifferent; hence... the world is a necessary effect of the divine nature. Let them call it will, understanding, or any name they like, they come at last to the same conclusion, that under different names they are expressing one and the same thing. If you ask them, whether the divine will does not differ from the human, they answer, that the former has nothing in common with the latter except its name; especially as they generally admit that God's will, understanding, intellect, essence, and nature are all identical; so I... lest I... confound the divine nature with the human, do not assign to God human attributes, such as will, understanding, attention, hearing, &c. I therefore say, as I have said already, that the world is a necessary effect of the divine nature, and that it has not been made by chance. I think this is enough to persuade you, that the opinion of those (if such there be) who say that the world has been made by chance, is entirely contrary to mine; and relying on this hypothesis, I proceed to examine those reasons which lead you to infer the existence of all kinds of ghosts.
  • Plainly, they are but triflers who, when they cannot explain a thing, run back to the will of God; this is, truly, a ridiculous way of expressing ignorance.
  • Recently an editor commented on this birth control movement. The climax of his editorial was that the distribution of contraceptive literature is not only against the law of man but of the Almighty. The old cry of superstition against science. Do these men who claim to be so intimately acquainted with God ever announce what the will of God is with regard to crushing little children in the mills, the mines, the factories? One does not hear much concerning God’s decision in this respect. Yet when they do speak up, it is usually to impress upon us the thought that in child labor there may be hidden some divine purpose. In their hearts they must know that it exists to fill the pocket of greedy mill and mine and factor owners and stockholders.
  • Anyone who is of a thoughtful, philisophical cast of mind will occasionaly be struck by the appearance of certain organizing principles of history. The forms these principles seem to take inevitably depends upon one's specific obsession. For a mornachist, history is a struggle of classes of economic civil war. An agriculturalist sees the dynamic of populations, land, and availability of food; a philosopher might speak of the will to power or the will to sythesis; a theologian of the will of God.
  • Disciple: The truth be praised! Dear Lord, tell me, does anything (of this self) still remain in the happy, detached person?
    Truth: Without a doubt it happens that, when the good and loyal servant is led into the joy of his Lord, he becomes drunk from the limitless overabundance of God's house. What happens to a drunken man happens to him, though it cannot really be described, that he so forgets his self that he is not at all his self and consequently has got rid of his self completely and lost himself entirely in God, becoming one spirit in all ways with him, just as a small drop of water does which has been dropped into a large amount of wine. Just as the drop of water loses itself, drawing the taste and colour of the wine to and into itself, so it happens that those who are in full possession of blessedness lose all human desires in an inexpressible manner, and they ebb away from themselves and are immersed completely in the divine will. Otherwise, if something of the individual were to remain of which he or she were not completely emptied, scripture could not be true in stating that God shall become all things in all things. Certainly one's being remains, but in a different form, in a different resplendence, and in a different power. This is all the result of total detachment from self.
  • Henry Suso, The Little Book of Truth, from "The Exemplar" by Frank Tobin.

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  • Laborare est orare. [To work is to pray.] By the Puritan moralist the ancient maxim is repeated with a new and intenser significance. The labor which he idealizes is not simply a requirement imposed by nature, or a punishment for the sin of Adam. It is itself a kind of ascetic discipline, more rigorous than that demanded of any order of mendicants—a discipline imposed by the will of God, and to be undergone, not in solitude, but in the punctual discharge of secular duties. It is not merely an economic means, to be laid aside when physical needs have been satisfied. It is a spiritual end, for in it alone can the soul find health, and it must be continued as an ethical duty long after it has ceased to be a material necessity.
    • R. H. Tawney, Religion and the Rise of Capitalism (1926), p. 242
  • Julian’s folly was yet more clearly manifested by his death. He crossed the river that separates the Roman Empire from the Persian, brought over his army, and then forthwith burnt his boats, so making his men fight not in willing but in forced obedience. The best generals are wont to fill their troops with enthusiasm, and, if they see them growing discouraged, to cheer them and raise their hopes; but Julian by burning the bridge of retreat cut off all good hope. A further proof of his incompetence was his failure to fulfil the duty of foraging in all directions and providing his troops with supplies. Julian had neither ordered supplies to be brought from Rome, nor did he make any bountiful provision by ravaging the enemy’s country. He left the inhabited world behind him, and persisted in marching through the wilderness. His soldiers had not enough to eat and drink; they were without guides; they were marching astray in a desert land. Thus they saw the folly of their most wise emperor. In the midst of their murmuring and grumbling they suddenly found him who had struggled in mad rage against his Maker wounded to death. Ares who raises the war-din had never come to help him as he promised; Loxias had given lying divination; he who glads him in the thunderbolts had hurled no bolt on the man who dealt the fatal blow; the boasting of his threats was dashed to the ground. The name of the man who dealt that righteous stroke no one knows to this day. Some say that he was wounded by an invisible being, others by one of the Nomads who were called Ishmaelites; others by a trooper who could not endure the pains of famine in the wilderness. But whether it were man or angel who plied the steel, without doubt the doer of the deed was the minister of the will of God. It is related that when Julian had received the wound, he filled his hand with blood, flung it into the air and cried, "Thou hast won, O Galilean." Thus he gave utterance at once to a confession of the victory and to a blasphemy. So infatuated was he.
    • Theodoret, in Ecclesiastical History, Book III, Ch. 20 (c. 429); this is usually accepted as the origin of the spurious tradition of the last words of Julian being "Thou hast won, O Galilean." No mention of such a declaration occurs in the accounts of any earlier writers, even those most hostile to Julian.
  • Perfection consists in doing His will, in being what He wants us to be.
  • As I listened I thought once again how precarious was the existence of the Bedu.  Their way of life naturally made them fatalists; so much was beyond their control.  It was impossible for them to provide for a morrow when everything depended on a chance fall of rain or when raiders, sickness, or any one of a hundred chance happenings might at any time leave them destitute, or end their lives. They did what they could, and no people were more self-reliant, but if things went wrong they accepted their fate without bitterness, and with dignity as the will of God.
  • He is truly great that is great in charity. He is truly great that is little in himself, and maketh no account of any height of honor. And he is truly learned that doeth the will of God, and forsaketh his own will.
  • Strive, My Son, to do another’s will rather than thine own. Choose always to have less rather than more. Seek always after the lowest place, and to be subject to all. Wish always and pray that the will of God be fulfilled in thee.
  • But the God Spirit, the God love, the one God principle of everything, not only do I not deny it, but I do not believe that anything really exists other than God, and I see the whole meaning of life solely in the fulfillment of God's will as it is expressed in Christian doctrine.
  • Leo Tolstoy,"Perché la gente si droga?" e altri saggi su società, politica e religione, edited by Igor Sibaldi, Mondadori, Milano, 1988. ISBN 8804315504, Risposta alla deliberazione del sinodo (1901).
  • A real mother, who knows the will of God by experience, will prepare her children also to fulfil it. Such a mother will suffer if she sees her child overfed, effeminate, and dressed-up, for she knows that these things will make it difficult for it to fulfil the will of God which she recognizes.
  • Let a man set his heart only on doing the will of God and he is instantly free.

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  • To desire and strive to be of some service to the world, to aim at doing something which shall really increase the happiness and welfare and virtue of mankind,—this is a choice which is possible for all of us; and surely it is a good haven to sail for. The more we think of it, the more attractive and desirable it becomes. To do some work that is needed, and to do it thoroughly well; to make our toil count for something in adding to the sum total of what is actually profitable for humanity; to make two blades of grass grow where one grew before, or, better still, to make one wholesome idea take root in a mind that was bare and fallow; to make our example count for something on the side of honesty and cheerfulness, and courage, and good faith, and love - this is an aim for life which is very wide, and yet very definite, as clear as light. It is not in the least vague. It is only free; it has the power to embody itself in a thousand forms without changing its character. Those who seek it know what it means, however it may be expressed. It is real and genuine and satisfying. There is nothing beyond it, because there can be no higher practical result of effort. It is the translation, through many languages, of the true, divine purpose of all the work and labor that is done beneath the sun, into one final, universal word. It is the active consciousness of personal harmony with the will of God who worketh hitherto. (p.27)
  • If God did not want the worst and most unworthy deeds to take place in the world, without any doubt he, with a single nod, would drive out and banish from the ends of the world all ignominious deeds: which of us can resist the divine will? How can one think that crimes are committed against God's will, if he gives the wicked, at the moment of committing a crime, the strength necessary for it? But if man is lost against God's will, then God is weaker than man, who opposes him and has the strength. It follows that God wants the world what it is: if He wanted a better one, He could have it.
  • I find myself so nailed in the divine will, that I care neither death nor life: I want to live as much as he wants, and I want to serve him as much as he likes and nothing more.
  • God's will, my paradise!
  • Pauline Visintainer), quoted in Célia B. Cadorin, Essere per gli altri: cronistoria di Madre Paolina del Cuore Agonizzante di Gesù, Ed. Tipolitografia Bolognani, 1989.
  • In the total fulfillment of God's will all responsibility falls on Him.
  • The things of the world are ever rising and falling, and in unceasing change. This change must be in accordance with the will of God, as he has given to man neither the power nor the wisdom to control it and bring it to a close. The great lesson to be learned in such cases is, that man must strengthen himself doubly to perform his duty, and do what is right, seeking his happiness and inward peace in objects which cannot be taken away from him.
  • To all the rest of my fellow Catholics, stand up and fight for the truth. You want to know the will of God for your lives, you want to know how to get to Heaven in these monstrously evil times, this is how. You fight against this evil with every ounce of strength in your mind heart and soul. You stand in the breach and defend the glory of our Holy Mother, the Church. And you protect and shield the innocent, the weak. And whatever happens to you in the process doesn't matter. You were created for greatness. Live up to your calling. You were made for combat.

W

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  • The religious believer can make himself sure of his state of grace either in that he feels himself to be the vessel of the Holy Spirit or the tool of the divine will. In the former case his religious life tends to mysticism and emotionalism, in the latter to ascetic action; Luther stood close to the former type, Calvinism belonged definitely to the latter. The Calvinist also wanted to be saved sola fide. But since Calvin viewed all pure feelings and emotions, no matter how exalted they might seem to be, with suspicion, faith had to be proved by its objective results in order to provide a firm foundation for the certitudo salutis. It must be a fides efficax, the call to salvation an effectual calling (expression used in Savoy Declaration).
  • The love of these things that are outside visible Christianity keeps me outside the Church... But it also seems to me that when one speaks to you of unbelievers who are in affliction and accept their affliction as a part of the order of the world, it does not impress you in the same way as if it were a question of Christians and of submission to the will of God. Yet it is the same thing.
    • Simone Weil, Last letter to Father Joseph-Marie Perrin, from a refugee camp in Casablanca (26 May 1942), as translated in The Simone Weil Reader (1957) edited by George A. Panichas, p. 111
  • And the priests looked down into the pit of injustice
    and they turned away their faces and said
    Our kingdom is not as the kingdom of this world
    Our life on earth is but a pilgrimage
    The soul lives on humility and patience
    at the same time screwing from the poor their last centime
    They settled down among their treasures
    and ate and drank with princes
    and to the starving they said
    Suffer
    Suffer as he suffered on the cross
    for it is the will of God
  • We fight not for ourselves but for growth, growth that goes on for ever. To-morrow, whether we live or die, growth will conquer through us. That is the law of the spirit for evermore. To grow according to the will of God! To grow out of these cracks and crannies, out of these shadows and darknesses, into greatness and the light! Greater," he said, speaking with slow deliberation, "greater, my Brothers! And then-still greater. To grow and again-to grow. To grow at last into the fellowship and understanding of God. Growing. . . . Till the earth is no more than a footstool. … Till the spirit shall have driven fear into nothingness, and spread. … " He swung his arms heavenward — "There!"
  • If they be dead, as I can no longer doubt, we must submit to the will of God and trust in His divine Providence, that He who has given the blood of His only Son to maintain His Church will do nothing but what will redound to the advancement of His glory and the preservation of His Church—however impossible it may appear. And though we all were to die, and all this poor people were massacred and driven out, we still must trust that God will not abandon his own.
    • William the Silent, On the loss of some of his brothers, in a letter to his brother John, as quoted in William the Silent (1897) by Frederic Harrison, p. 76
  • We must have patience and not lose heart, submitting to the will of God, and striving incessantly, as I have resolved to do, come what may. With God’s help, I am determined to push onward, and by next month I trust to be at our appointed rendezvous. Watch Alva closely, and contrive to join me as arranged.
    • William the Silent, Letter to his brother, Louis of Nassau, as quoted in William the Silent (1897) by Frederic Harrison, p. 93
  • God is the great mysterious motivator of what we call nature and it has been said often by philosophers, that nature is the will of God. And, I prefer to say that nature is the only body of God that we shall ever see. If we wish to know the truth concerning anything, we'll find it in the nature of that thing.
    • Frank Lloyd Wright, as quoted in Truth Against the World : Frank Lloyd Wright speaks for an organic architecture (1987) edited by Patrick J. Meehan

Z

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  • The Vatican, Germany, Poland, Great Britain, and the United States undertook frantic efforts to save the Archbishop and his chancellor. In Moscow, the ministers from the Polish, British, Czechoslovak, and Italian missions appealed 'on the grounds of humanity,' and Poland offered to exchange any prisoner to save the archbishop and the monsignor. Finally, on March 29, the Archbishop's sentence was commuted to ten years in prison, ... but the Monsignor was not to be spared. Again, there were appeals from foreign powers, from Western Socialists and Church leaders alike. These appeals were for naught: Pravda editorialized on March 30 that the tribunal was defending the rights of the workers, who had been oppressed by the bourgeois system for centuries with the aid of priests. Pro-Communist foreigners who intervened for the two men were also condemned as 'compromisers with the priestly servants of the bourgeoisie.' ...Father Rutkowski recorded later that Budkiewicz surrendered himself over to the will of God without reservation. On Easter Sunday, the world was told that the Monsignor was still alive, and Pope Pius XI publicly prayed at St. Peter's that the Soviets would spare his life. Moscow officials told foreign ministers and reporters that the Monsignor's sentence was just, and that the Soviet Union was a sovereign nation that would accept no interference. In reply to an appeal from the rabbis of New York City to spare Budkiewicz's life, Pravda wrote a blistering editorial against 'Jewish bankers who rule the world' and bluntly warned that the Soviets would kill Jewish opponents of the Revolution as well. Only on April 4 did the truth finally emerge: the Monsignor had already been in the grave for three days. When the news came to Rome, Pope Pius fell to his knees and wept as he prayed for the priest's soul. To make matters worse, Cardinal Gasparri had just finished reading a note from the Soviets saying that 'everything was proceeding satisfactorily' when he was handed the telegram announcing the execution. On March 31, 1923, Holy Saturday, at 11:30 PM, after a week of fervent prayers and a firm declaration that he was ready to be sacrificed for his sins, Monsignor Constantine Budkiewicz had been taken from his cell and, sometime before the dawn of Easter Sunday, shot in the back of the head on the steps of the Lubyanka prison.
    • Father Christopher Lawrence Zugger, "The Forgotten: Catholics in the Soviet Empire from Lenin through Stalin," University of Syracuse Press, 2001. Page 182.

Works

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  • It is necessary to carry out God's will as much as it is necessary to achieve eternal health, because Jesus Christ said that only those who have done the will of their Father will enter the kingdom of heaven.
  • In both prosperous and adverse things of the present life we must always also recognize the will of God, who arranges or permits everything for our good.
  • We can know God's will especially through the Church and our spiritual superiors established by God to guide us in the path of health. We can also know this most holy will from divine inspirations and from the very circumstances in which the Lord has placed us.
  • As the truth of this proposition [33] follows from the supreme perfection of God; we can have no sound reason for persuading ourselves to believe that God did not wish to create all the things which were in his intellect, and to create them in the same perfection as he had understood them.
    But, it will be said, there is in things no perfection nor imperfection; that which is in them, and which causes them to be called perfect or imperfect, good or bad, depends solely on the will of God. If God had so willed, he might have brought it about that what is now perfection should be extreme imperfection, and vice versâ. What is such an assertion, but an open declaration that God... might bring it about by his will, that he should understand things differently... ? This... is the height of absurdity. ...All things depend on the power of God. In order that things should be different from what they are, God's will would necessarily have to be different. But God's will cannot be different... from God's perfection. ...the theory which subjects all things to the will of an indifferent deity, and asserts that they are all dependent on his fiat, is less far from the truth than the theory of those, who maintain that God acts in all things with a view of promoting what is good. For these latter persons seem to set up something beyond God, which does not depend on God, but which God in acting looks to as an exemplar, or which he aims at as a definite goal. This is only another name for subjecting God to the dominion of destiny, an utter absurdity in respect to God... the first and only free cause of the essence of all things and also of their existence. I need therefore spend no time in refuting such wild theories.
  • We must not omit to notice that the followers of this doctrine, anxious to display their talent in assigning final causes, have imported a new method of argument in proof of their theory—namely, a reduction, not to the impossible, but to ignorance; thus showing that they have no other method of exhibiting their doctrine. For example, if a stone falls from a roof on to someone's head, and kills him, they will demonstrate by their new method, that the stone fell in order to kill the man; for, if it had not by God's will fallen with that object, how could so many circumstances (and there are often many concurrent circumstances) have all happened together by chance? Perhaps you will answer that the event is due to the facts that the wind was blowing, and the man was walking that way. "But why," they will insist, "was the wind blowing, and why was the man at that very time walking that way?" If you again answer, that the wind had then sprung up because the sea had begun to be agitated the day before, the weather being previously calm, and that the man had been invited by a friend, they will again insist: "But why was the sea agitated, and why was the man invited at that time?" So they will pursue their questions from cause to cause, till at last you take refuge in the will of God—in other words, the sanctuary of ignorance. So, again, when they survey the frame of the human body, they are amazed; and being ignorant of the causes of so great a work of art, conclude that it has been fashioned, not mechanically, but by divine and supernatural skill, and has been so put together that one part shall not hurt another.
  • The multitude understand by the power of God the free will of God, and the right over all things that exist, which latter are accordingly generally considered as contingent. For it is said that God has the power to destroy all things, and to reduce them to nothing. But... God acts by the same necessity, as that by which he understands himself. ...so also does it follow by the same necessity that God performs infinite acts in infinite ways. ...God's power is identical with God's essence in action; therefore it is as impossible for us to conceive of God as not acting, as to conceive of him as non-existent. ...the power which is commonly attributed to God is not only human (as showing that God is conceived by the multitude as a man, or in the likeness of a man), but involves the negation of power. ...No one will be able to follow my meaning, unless he is scrupulously careful not to confound the power of God with the human power and right of kings.
  • We, the members of Tenrikyo, sing the Mikagura-uta, and unite in dedicating ourselves to the task of constructing a world of yokigurashi. We may say that the Mikagura-uta is our marching song as we march our way to the world of the Kanrodai.
    Our faith requires at all times that we look to the future, and, herein, I believe, we find a grand feature of our religion.
    The Mikagura-uta takes its illustrations from a historical fact, but its message regarding the Divine Will needs to be applied in the present and in the future. We may claim to understand the true meaning of the Mikagura-uta, only when we have learned to strive in accordance with this message.
    • Mikagura-uta, p. 160, in Fukaya, Tadamasa 深谷忠政 (1978). A Commentary on the Mikagura-uta, The Songs for the Tsutome (Tenrikyo Overseas Mission Department, Trans.). Tenri, Japan: Tenrikyo Overseas Mission Department. (Japanese title: みかぐらうた講義)

Sse also

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