Excerpt from God and Man, Vol. 2: Lectures on Dogmatic Theology In the beginning God created man and destined that he should be united with Him in the closest bonds of life and love. Other created beings there were, destined also to serve God, but their service Sprang from the ordinate exer cise of their natural activity. Man, on the contrary, was granted a higher sphere. He was destined to abide with his Creator in the sweet communion of friend with friend, and accordingly he was to share in His divine life. God on His part, willed that man should remain entirely free in giving or withholding his love. This is the state of justice in which the first man was constituted and in which according to the divine plan, all his descendants were to be created. It is also called, in the language of theology, the state of original innocence. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.