"It's amazing you can do this without real, honest-to-goodness power," I said.
They have sacrificed "goodness" for power, but even that power is meaningless unless augmented by beauty.
For God can choose to realize any world he wishes, and it would be inconsistent with his goodness and power to realize a world that is not as good as possible.
In one sense, the cosmos is eternally necessary to God since one cannot conceive such goodness and power as inactive at any time.
On the other hand, it is necessary for existence as relatively autonomous and responsible beings that consciousness of God should not be forced upon them, for to be compulsorily aware of God's universal presence as limitless goodness and power, making a total claim upon human life, would deprive them of creaturely freedom.
It seems clear that its meaning is such that if God were to choose to create less than the best it would logically follow that he is lacking in wisdom, goodness or power.
So, we should not think that God could exist without his nature and then cause the properties constituting his nature (absolute goodness, absolute power, and absolute knowledge) and cause himself to possess them.
The only way in which one god could be distinguished from another would be by coming "short of perfection in goodness, or power, or wisdom, or time, or place," but in that case "he would not be God" (John of Damascus, 173).
Once recognized, these patterns, such as chronic issues with certain types of employees or bosses or people in general, or recurring difficulties with certain types of business challenges or opportunities, open the door toward understanding basic beliefs about worth, talent, intelligence, goodness, personal power and confidence.
Have a little faith in the goodness and power of your own life, and then get out there and live it.
