The Summit Study Hall

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“Say to yourself first thing in the morning: today I shall meet people who are meddling, ungrateful, aggressive, treacherous, malicious, unsocial. All this has afflicted them through their ignorance of true good and evil. But I have seen that the nature of good is what is right, and the nature of evil what is wrong;...”
-Meditations, 2.1


“What comes from men is welcome for our kinship’s sake, but sometimes pitiable also, in a way, because of their ignorance of good and evil: and this is no less a disability than that which removes the distinction of light and dark.”
-Meditations, 2.13


“You know from experience that in all your wanderings you have nowhere found the good life—not in logic, not in wealth, not in glory, not in indulgence: nowhere. Where then is it to be found? In doing what man’s nature requires. And how is he to do this? By having principles to govern his impulses and actions. What are those principles? Those of good and evil—the belief that nothing is good for a human which does not make him just, self-controlled, brave, and free: and nothing evil which does not make him the opposite of these.”
-Meditations, 8.1

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“All that happens has been fated by the Whole from the beginning and spun for your own destiny.”
-Meditations, 4.26


“...that this has happened to you, was prescribed for you, and is related to you, a thread of destiny spun for you from the first by the most ancient causes.”
-Meditations, 5.8.5


“Whatever happens to you was being prepared for you from everlasting, and the mesh of causes was ever spinning from eternity both your own existence and the incidence of this particular happening.”
-Meditations, 10.5

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“...departure from the world of men is nothing to fear, if gods exist; because they would not involve you in any harm. If they do not exist, or if they have no care for humankind, then what is life to me in a world devoid of gods, or devoid of providence? But they do exist, and they do care for humankind...”
-Meditations, 2.11

“To those who ask, ‘Where then have you seen the gods? What conviction of their existence leads you to this worship of them?’, I reply...that I have not seen my own soul either, and yet I honor it. So it is with the gods too: from my every experience of their power time after time I am certain that they exist, and I revere them.”
-Meditations, 12.28

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“For there were no days and nights and months and years before the heaven was created, but when he constructed the heaven he created them also. They are all parts of time, and the past and future are created species of time, which we unconsciously but wrongly transfer to the eternal essence; for we say that he "was," he "is," he "will be," but the truth is that "is" alone is properly attributed to him, and that "was" and "will be" only to be spoken of becoming in time, for they are motions, but that which is immovably the same cannot become older or younger by time, nor ever did or has become, or hereafter will be, older or younger, nor is subject at all to any of those states which affect moving and sensible things and of which generation is the cause. These are the forms of time, which imitates eternity and revolves according to a law of number.”
-Timaeus


“Time, then, and the heaven came into being at the same instant in order that, having been created together, if ever there was to be a dissolution of them, they might be dissolved together. It was framed after the pattern of the eternal nature, that it might resemble this as far as was possible; for the pattern exists from eternity, and the created heaven has been, and is, and will be, in all time. Such was the mind and thought of God in the creation of time.”
-Timaeus

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“But I should like to know whether you mean that there are certain ideas of which all other things partake, and from which they derive their names; that similars, for example, become similar, because they partake of similarity; and great things become great, because they partake of greatness; and that just and beautiful things become just and beautiful, because they partake of justice and beauty?”
-Parmenides


“The lovers of sounds and sights, I replied, are, as I conceive, fond of fine tones and colors and forms and all the artificial products that are made out of them, but their minds are incapable of seeing or loving absolute beauty...and he who, having a sense of beautiful things has no sense of absolute beauty, or who, in another lead him to a knowledge of that beauty is unable to follow—of such a one I ask, Is he awake or in a dream only?...”
-Republic, 5.476b-c


“Why then, Socrates, do I lose attention and go to sleep and have absolutely no ideas of the least value, when any one speaks of any other poet; but when Homer is mentioned, I wake up at once and am all attention and have plenty to say?”
“The reason, my friend, is obvious. No one can fail to see that you speak of Homer without any art or knowledge. If you were able to speak of him by rules of art, you would have been able to speak of all other poets; for poetry is a whole.”
-Ion, 532b


“There is poetry, which, as you know, is complex and manifold. All creation or passage or non-being into being is poetry or making, and the processes of all art are creative; and the masters of arts are all poets or makers. Still, you know that they are not called poets, but have other names; only that portion of the art which is separated off from the rest, and is concerned with music and metre, is termed poetry, and they who possess poetry in this sense of the word are called poets”.
-Symposium, 205

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“Now of the divine, he himself was the creator, but the creation of the mortal he committed to his offspring. And they, imitating him, received from him the immortal principle of the soul; and around this they proceeded to fashion a mortal body, and made it to be the vehicle of the soul and constructed within the body a soul of another nature which was mortal, subject to terrible and irresistible affections-first of all, pleasure, the greatest incitement to evil;...”
-Timaeus


“...those who make pleasure their good are in equal perplexity; for they are compelled to admit that there are bad pleasures as well as good...and therefore to acknowledge that bad and good are the same?”
-Republic, 6.505c


“...there is an absolute beauty and an absolute good, and of other things to which the term “many” is applied there is an absolute; for they may be brought under a single idea, which is called the essence of each.”
Republic, 6.507b

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“Mortal souls, behold a new cycle of life and mortality. Your genius will not be allotted to you, but you will choose your genius; and let him who draws the first lot have the first choice, and the life which he chooses shall be his destiny.”
-Republic 10.617d-e


“...but let him know how to choose the mean and avoid extremes on either side, as far as possible, not only in this life but in all that which is to come. For this is the way to happiness.”
-Republic, 10.619a


“Even for the last comer, if he chooses wisely and will live diligently, there is appointed a happy and not undesirable existence.”
-Republic, 10.619b

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“...the sensible God who is the image of the intellectual, the greatest, best, fairest, most perfect-the one only begotten heaven.”
-Timaeus


“Would you, or would you not say, that absolute knowledge, if there is such a thing, must be a far more exact knowledge than our knowledge; and the same of beauty and of the rest?
And if there be such a thing as participation in absolute knowledge, no one is more likely than God to have this most exact knowledge?
But then, will God, having absolute knowledge, have a knowledge of human things?”
-Parmenides

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Scripture referenced:

Then, calling the crowd to join his disciples, he said, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross, and follow me.”
‭‭Mark‬ ‭8:34‬


Then Peter and John laid their hands upon these believers, and they received the Holy Spirit.
‭‭Acts 8:17


But it is no shame to suffer for being a Christian. Praise God for the privilege of being called by his name!
‭‭1 Peter‬ ‭4:16‬


But the believers who were scattered preached the Good News about Jesus wherever they went.
‭‭Acts‬ ‭8:4‬


May God, who gives this patience and encouragement, help you live in complete harmony with each other, as is fitting for followers of Christ Jesus.
‭‭Romans‬ ‭15:5‬


When he reached the place where the road started down the Mount of Olives, all of his followers began to shout and sing as they walked along, praising God for all the wonderful miracles they had seen.
‭‭Luke‬ ‭19:37‬


Joyful are people of integrity, who follow the instructions of the Lord.
‭‭Psalms‬ ‭119:1‬

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Scripture referenced:


...They stumble because they do not obey God’s word, and so they meet the fate that was planned for them.
‭‭1 Peter‬ ‭2:8‬


“But have you not heard? I decided this long ago. Long ago I planned it, and now I am making it happen...”
‭‭2 Kings‬ ‭19:25‬


Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.
‭‭1 Thessalonians‬ ‭5:18‬


So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus.
‭‭Romans‬ ‭8:1‬


O Lord, I will honor and praise your name, for you are my God. You do such wonderful things! You planned them long ago, and now you have accomplished them.
‭‭Isaiah‬ ‭25:1‬


So he will do to me whatever he has planned. He controls my destiny.
‭‭Job‬ ‭23:14‬