In the beginning was the Word. He spoke, and the Word was made flesh. And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us." Jesus continued, "My soul is filled with the Holy Spirit, because I lay down my life for the sheep." While at that point in the speech, the Lord gave himself as the "firstfruits" of the "fruit" of the tree of life--a new spiritual life, to be enjoyed by all believers through their faith in Christ--he continues to offer the invitation to join in on this new beginning. In his second discourse, the Holy Spirit says, "Come unto me," which means, "Come unto us as one who is seeking to please us." This is a statement of the spiritual law, something to which our Savior has come, seeking communion with us. This is the invitation he is giving in his preaching and in his sacrifice, because it is to us that he comes and is offering himself. It is this willingness to come to him that led him on his way to the cross for our salvation. (See the New International Version). It is the desire that makes a true believer a Christian. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, No. 1063) "The Church's witness of Christian truth must be not only the testimony of the faithful, for it is the whole Church which claims to be true, but also its witness of the faith of the non-believers. In other words, it is a faith which is in and for its people, the Church; this witness must be expressed in an authentic way. This witness must be true in the same way that the true Church is true; if it is not true, the entire Church is not Christian." (From the encyclical "Evangelii Gaudium", May 6, 2005, translated here by St. Gregory Palamas) "Without this witness of the faithful of the faith we can never hope to achieve a clear understanding of the faith or to believe clearly." (Catechism of the Catholic Church No. 1064, cited by St. Augustine) "We must never put someone in heaven who would be the devil's representative. For the devils' purpose is to deceive and torment souls. " -St. Ambrose (Letter to the Romans, cited by St. John Chrysostom in his homilies. St. Augustine also writes in his On the Trinity, that, "The devil's role is to draw away the light of the Spirit, and to blind the hearts of many who are so close to Christ, who truly adore him in order to receive the light of the truth, to discover eternal truth and to come to salvation." I will address the other side of this topic today, and not necessarily with the intent to debate the fact of the devil, for if you read what I am about to explain, it will no doubt make you want to read more from the Fathers, who also make their point without denying it. First, let us take a look at why the Fathers would not believe in the existence of the devil. The question that I find to be the most troubling is why the Fathers would think that the devil existed in the first place, and not the Father to whom they say that God became incarnate. If there is no Father then there can be no devil (since nothing ever becomes a cause). And if there was a devil and he became an angel, how does that change things to where it is said he "became" a sinful man? Why don't we say that he became an angel when he was still human? In all these instances he was in the same state as Christ when He was called and made man. Why does he not speak of He becoming a fallen angel, when He was still human? Or what of the fact that He was not one of the angels when he was made man but yet He was one of the serapias in heaven? These people have been taught that God did not create the serapias, but that when He created them, He gave them a form of man and they knew God, but when He made those that had the form of man, He did not call them gods, but He called them angels. transliteration of a Hebrew and probably Aramaic word. (As noted there, this is an interesting idea. It suggests a possible origin for Hebrew/Aramaic in some form but does not explain the origin.) Then another author suggests that the name refers to Adam (or some other being of the same age) and that his angel would be the first of the messengers. (This could be another explanation but in most cases the only source I've seen for this is that it is in the first chapter of Ezekiel as we are all familiar with, which I believe to be a reference to Adam.) As many of us know, the first book of the Bible is called Deuteronomy but the name "Adam" actually has little relevance whatsoever to what we find in the rest of the Bible. The meaning of the name "Adam" actually doesn't correspond with any ancient Hebrew name. In fact I believe we are being taught the idea of a god with a wife, when this is in fact a god of nature (Moses), or of men whose wives were named after her (Jacob). As for the name, it would only be found among ancient Hebrews in the form of El for Enoch (see here), or Ea for Enos (the original meaning of the name) [1]. This was to be understood as the name itself being a representation or an epithet, since the Hebrew word meaning to go was translated as "El" from the word which meant god, "El", was translated as "Enoch". As an example, Enoch was the angel who is said to have been the guardian to the ark of Noah (1 Enoch 11:5). If you follow the Bible's chronological order, Noah would be an earlier Adam, so Enos would have been an elder (not so much one as an elder). This should give us some idea of how the name came to be given to men rather than women. This is the earliest known mention of two men and two women sharing a common name at the time, and it's also just one of two named boys and girls in their family lineage. The earliest known reference to two families sharing a name dates back to 1675, which marks the beginning of what we refer to as the "Protestant" Reformation. The Early Days One of the most common names for boys growing up in Northern England is Oliver (as it occurs in 11 of 10 early references), and one of the most common names for girls growing up in Northern England is Lucy. However, there is another common name which I think is almost as common in our country as is Oliver and Lucy, in the form of John. John may date all the way back to the Norman Conquest from the 12th century (it was first recorded in English in the 10th century, but it isn't a common name until the 1700s and 1800s). Here are a few more links to interesting sites, and there's one that tells you why some of this is important. It's about the value the US now has in the future, but more importantly, in the past. We are becoming less interested in how many people we have in our world because of robots and artificial intelligence. We are less interested in how rich our future will be because technology is reducing our need for work, and in fact, it reduces what we will need to do for a livelihood. That means there's less time to make connections and organize protests and demonstrations, less time to read and write, and fewer opportunities to build and sustain a good life. It becomes more important for us to be able to do this work more efficiently, while at the same time providing the best possible education for all. That requires technology to reduce or keep up with our progress to the next level in the technological stack. Technology can do that faster and more efficiently than we can. It's smarter tech, better algorithms and higher-quality machines, and better human knowledge. For many years, we've been watching our children as they get smarter, and that makes us think that they're more important than ever. They're making more of the decisions, and we get to do it all the time. Now we're seeing some of those decisions being made by computers on a massive scale that's hard to track or plan for." It's that combination of machines and humans that may make us nervous, she adds. "What may happen is some of the things we are doing will be automated." Indeed, there are signs that AI has already created an army of bots to help fill repetitive jobs, so-called "automation centers." Automation centers typically employ a mix of humans and algorithms to do tasks related to the work they're doing. The most famous centers operate at Walmart's stores and Amazon's warehouses across the country, where a computer takes over tasks that might need human hand-over-hand coordination, like stocking shelves or sorting through items. There are dozens of robots in stores across the country that will soon be outfitted with voice-controlled technology. The new robot in this category has an ability to follow you around, listen to your orders, and offer advice. The robot is one of the new models being introduced in the future. Robot Voice Recognition The Amazon Fire phone has a built-in microphone for the voice control feature and it is very similar to how Siri works from Apple. Alexa has been around longer than the Echo, but the Fire Phone has some of the features that Siri has. A robot assistant called "bot" allows to read your directions, give you suggestions on what you need to buy, and more. Alexa has been around for years and it is a pretty cool concept. Voice technology is becoming more and more integrated within machines, making it possible to integrate with new technologies, like Amazon's Alexa, at a much deeper level. The Amazon Echo The Amazon Echo is pretty cool, especially when you take a look at its voice control features. But it lacks voice commands. This is a cool feature and is much appreciated. But I think some of those that want a bigger screen might be turned off by the fact that it only has an HDMI port and is just 4 inches in width. Apple has mentioned that it will have a few more screens of its own that offer even larger displays. Hopefully we'll hear about them in October with the official launch of the new 12.9-inch iPad Pro. Conclusion The Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same is true of the Scriptures, and we know that the Word was God; in the first place, because of the great and perfect character of the things which the Word revealed in the Old Testament and in the New Testament, which were the very Spirit of God. And secondly, because to the revelation of the Word we owe the knowledge of God, which can be gained only through the Divine Spirit. That there are several distinct works of the Holy Spirit is apparent from the fact that there are several Holy Spirit's in the Scriptures, but that they are united to one. There are three kinds of Holy Spirit, namely, the Spirit of the Church, the Spirit of the Holy Ghost, and the Spirit of Christ; and the names of each of these are from the Greek word Spiritos, which gives a sense of the Divine nature, and hence of the Divine life, of which the Spirit has many aspects; and yet they are united to one another and are not distinct.