Today’s readings explore the power, presence, and perception of God across creation, experience, and intellect. Irenaeus refutes the claim that angels created the world against God’s will, insisting that the Father formed all things through His Word, needing no help from lesser beings or flawed intermediaries. Augustine mourns the burdens of life apart from God, confessing the restless sorrows and fragile joys that make human existence a constant trial—and yet, he clings to hope in the God who heals. Thomas Aquinas asks whether the intellect can know contingent things—those that could be otherwise—and affirms that it can, through its partnership with sense and memory. Though our minds are ordered to the eternal, they remain capable of discerning the particular, the possible, and the painfully real. (Irenaeus, Against Heresies, Book 2, Chapter 2; Augustine, Confessions, Book 10, Chapter 28; Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Part 1, Question 86, Article 3)

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