NATURE AND GRACE

Here is a quote absolutely packed with implications. I suspect it holds the key to many of my musings of late. From the Triads of St. Gregory Palamas.

"Just as in legal marriage, the pleasure derived from procreation cannot exactly be called a gift of God, because it is carnal and constitutes a gift of nature and not of grace (even though that nature has been created by God); even so the knowledge that comes from profane education, even if well used, is a gift of nature, and not of grace--a gift which God accords to all without exception through nature, and which one can develop by exercise. This last point--that no one acquires it without effort and exercise--is an evident proof that it is a question of a natural, not a spiritual, gift."

More on precisely what I think those implications are later.