Rule and law

By true divine providence, beings have within them a rule and law which allows those who appear to be ungrateful for the good things they’ve received, to be punished by their opposites, so that they’ll become grateful. And so that this experience of this will make them recognize the divine power which is able to bring about all these good things.

This has been arranged by divine providence so that we should not become complacent as regards these achievements and slip into pride, thinking that virtue and knowledge are ours by our own nature, rather than something acquired later through divine grace.

In that case, it becomes clear that we’ve been using our creative talents for evil purposes and even that divine awareness, to which we should cleave and which should be unshakeable within us, is a cause for us to fall into ignorance of it, which is something that shouldn’t happen.

» Saint Maximos the Confessor