For whom there is no God in God's Providence, there is no God in God's commandments. Whoever has seen God in the management of His world, who has revered this management, who has revered the destinies of God, can only nail his flesh to the fear of God[162]: to crucify the will and wisdom of sin and matter-loving on the cross of the Gospel commandments. In order to see God in His Providence, purity of mind, heart and body is needed. In order to acquire purity, one must live according to the commandments of the Gospel. From the vision of God's destinies is born in great abundance the mother of this vision – a pious life.

God governs the universe; He also governs the life of each person in all its details. Such management, which enters into the most trivial, apparently insignificant conditions of the existence of creatures, corresponds to the infinite perfection of God's attributes. The law of such government is read in nature, read in the public and private life of people, read in the Holy Scriptures. Are not two birds, said the Saviour, valued by one assarius; and not one of them falls to the ground without your Father. And to you, ever and faithful servants of God, and all the rulers of the head of all are the essence [163]. I believe the all-holy words! I cannot but believe them: they depict with accuracy the perfection of my God. From Thy presence, O my Lord, my destiny shall go forth [164]! I belong to you entirely! My life and death are hourly in Thy hands! In all my affairs, in all my circumstances, Thou hast participated: Thou hast helped me in pleasing Thee; Thou dost suffer me long in the face of my self-willed, sinful, and insane actions. Thy right hand constantly directs me to the path! Without the assistance of this right hand, I would have lost my way long ago, I would have perished irretrievably. You, the only one capable of judging man, judge me and decide my fate forever according to Your righteous judgment, according to Your ineffable mercy. I am Thine before my existence, and in my being, and beyond the boundaries of my earthly existence or pilgrimage!

The destinies of God are everything that happens in the universe. Everything that happens happens as a result of God's judgment and decree. Secretly from God and independently of Him, nothing is done and cannot be accomplished. One thing is done according to the will of God; the other is done by God's permission; everything that happens is done according to the judgment and decree of God. For this reason, the destinies of God are often called in Scripture the judgment of God. God's judgment is always righteous; righteous art Thou, O Lord, saith the Prophet, and judge Thy righteousness [165].

By the action of God's will, the visible and invisible worlds were created, man was created and redeemed, all events, public and private, have been accomplished and are taking place, from which God's goodness, God's omnipotence, God's wisdom shine like the sun from heaven. By God's permission, by the will of creatures, evil appeared with all its consequences: by God's permission, by God's own will, the angels fell, man fell, men did not accept God and departed from God, redeemed by the incarnate God; by God's permission, by the evil will of the angels, rejected and fallen men, the earth was corrupted by the crimes and impiety of these angels and these people. By God's permission and judgment, various sorrows and calamities, public and private, are and will punish the universe; by God's permission and judgment, eternal torment will befall apostates from God, the enemies of God, in the fiery, gloomy abyss of hell, for which they have prepared themselves arbitrarily. The Apostle beheld with a pure mind, with a mind illumined by the rays of holy Truth, he gazed upon the unattainable height of God's destinies, and in holy horror at the vision of these destinies he exclaimed: Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and understanding of God! For His judgments have not been tried, and His ways have not been searched. For he who understands the mind of the Lord; or who was His counsellor? [166]

The Apostle exclaimed this, speaking of a terrible crime, of the arbitrary rejection of the Redeemer by the Jews, of a frenzied rejection, which culminated in a monstrous crime: the murder of the Redeemer. Speaking of the crime of men, which fully depended on their free will, the Apostle expresses himself as if the crime had been committed by God. God shut up all the Jews in opposition [167]. God gave them the spirit of tenderness [168], their eyes could not see and their ears could not hear [169]. God's allowance is called God's action. Unlimited in power and authority, as it were, He limited Himself, without changing the will of man, without stopping the actions of men, who entered into stubborn resistance, into fierce opposition to the will and action of God. The will of creatures, all their efforts, would not be able to resist the almighty right hand of the Creator. This has not been done. These are the destinies of God. It is impossible to comprehend them, as it exceeds the reason of rational creatures. The study of what cannot be comprehended is a vain work, devoid of meaning. The investigation of God's destinies is forbidden by God as an undertaking inspired by blind arrogance, as an undertaking inspired by a false view of the subject, as an undertaking leading to inevitable error, to blasphemy, to the destruction of the soul. One must, following the example of the Apostle, see and contemplate the destinies of God with the eye of faith, with the eye of spiritual reason, and, not allowing oneself to make fruitless judgments according to human principles, one should reverently plunge into sacred perplexity, into sacred spiritual darkness, which is at the same time the wondrous light with which God is hidden from the eyes of the mind, both human and angelic.

"Evil has no essence," said the Fathers, "it comes from our negligence about virtue and disappears from our zeal for virtue" [171]. Evil, being a lack of good, can only refer to limited rational creatures, in which the good is limited. Lack has no place in the infinite, nor does it take place. God is infinite, and His goodness is infinite. The infinite does not decrease by all possible numerical subtractions from it, nor does it increase by all such appendices to it. Neither evil nor good of creatures has and cannot have any influence either on God or on His actions. The destinies of God stand on a height inaccessible and inviolable; they stand on a height that does not depend on both demonic and human actions. The action of God exists with its own property and meaning, in spite of whatever the action, both human and demonic, may be, united in outward appearance in one action with the action of God.

A striking example of such an action is a great event: the suffering and death of the God-Man. On the one hand, to these sufferings and this death the incarnate God deigned to submit according to His all-holy will; on the other hand, the Jewish chief priests, led also by their own will, subjected the incarnate God to the most humiliating dishonor, cruel tortures and shameful death. Demons participated in the evil deed of men, as the leaders of the evil deed [172]. Here the action of God was united, outwardly, into one action with human and demonic action; but, in essence, action differed from action by an all-perfect difference. But you have rejected the Holy and Righteous One, said the Apostle Peter to the Jews, but you have killed the Author of life; And God, Who foretold the mouth of all His prophets to suffer Christ, do so [173]. The same idea was expressed by all the Apostles in the prayer which they pronounced at the news of the persecution of the Church in Jerusalem. They said in their prayer, "O Lord, Thou art God, Who hast made the heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and all that is in them, Who by the Holy Spirit hast said through the mouth of our father David Thy servant, Thou hast staggered tongues, and men have learned in vain! the king of the land appeared, and the princes gathered together against the Lord and His Christ. For having truly gathered together in this city against Thy Holy Servant Jesus, Whom Thou didst anoint, and Herod and Pilate of Pontius, with the tongues and people of Israel, did, as Thy hand and Thy counsel were foreordained to be[174].

God's destinies and actions go their own way; human and demonic actions also follow their own path. Crimes and atrocities do not cease to be crimes and atrocities in relation to their doers, even though those who commit evil with evil intent are only instruments of the will of God. The latter is a consequence of the unlimited wisdom of God, of the unlimited power of God, because of which creatures, acting according to their free will, at the same time remain unnecessarily in the power of the Creator, without understanding it, and fulfill the will of the Creator without knowing it.

The destinies of God are present and act in the midst of events performed by men and demons, as the subtlest spirit among matter, not dependent on matter, not constrained by matter, acting on matter and not being affected by matter. The destinies of God are the omnipotent action in the universe of the all-perfect God, the one, in the exact sense, Spirit, who fills the universe and everything that is beyond the universe, not embraced by the universe. God is not embraced by the material world, which is subject to our senses; does not embrace God and the world of spirits, which is not subject to our senses. His actions and His destinies correspond to God: and they are incomprehensible. Let both men and angels be reverently silent before them! In relation to God, spirits are the same substance: they differ from God both in essence and properties, differ in immeasurable difference, differ as much as gross matter differs [175]. Such is the law for the relation of the infinite to all that is limited and finite. No matter how limited objects differ from each other, no matter how much they increase or decrease, their difference from the infinite does not change and can never change: it is always equal, because it is always infinite.

Woe to the world because of temptation: for need is to come by temptation: woe to the man whose temptation comes[176]. This was said by the Savior of the world, our Lord Jesus Christ. This is said about the events that are taking place before our eyes and are yet to take place, in which the all-holy destinies of God merge into one with the criminal and disastrous consequences of sinful, lustful, and hostile to God human will.

The need to come by temptation: with these words God's predestination is declared, God's destinies are declared, incomprehensible to man and inaccessible to his comprehension. Woe to the man whose temptation comes: this declares the wrath of God to the ministers, preachers, patrons of sin, sowers and distributors of sin in human society, enemies and persecutors of the true knowledge of God and Divine services. Their mood and activity have already been condemned by God; thunderous threats have already been uttered against this mood and this activity; Eternal hell with its prisons, with its terrible tortures and executions, has already been prepared for their retribution. But the activity and mood of men, which are hostile and opposed to God, are permitted by God. Such are the destinies of God. Evil committed by creatures cannot violate in God, in the All-Perfect Good, the inviolable, inviolable abiding in His unchangeable attributes and dignity, cannot hinder the boundless Wisdom of God from fulfilling Her all-holy, all-powerful will.

What is God's predestination? This is the image of expression used in the Holy Scriptures, by which the greatness of God is depicted, which surpasses any image. The concept of predestination has many similarities with the concept of destinies: the concept often merges with the concept. Let us explain, as far as we can, the predestination of God, the existence of which is testified to in Holy Scripture [177], the misunderstanding of which leads many into the fatal abyss of error.

God is not subject to time [178]: time does not exist for God. The word "time" expresses the concept formed in rational creatures from the impression produced in them by the changes of phenomena in nature. Thus time is determined by science. And there was evening and there was morning, the day was one [179]. Thus the Scriptures present the origin of the concept of time, which is in full agreement with the conclusion of positive science. It is obvious that impressions from outside cannot act on God, otherwise He would not be perfect and would be subject to applications and belittlements, which are not characteristic of the infinite. In general, there is no time for God: there is no future time for him. That which is to be accomplished is before the already perfected face of God, and the fate of each person beyond the grave, which must flow out as a natural consequence of his earthly, voluntary activity, is already known to God, has already been decided by God. Thy eyes have seen my undone [181], O all-perfect God! The inspired Prophet confessed this; By logical necessity, every person should confess this.

"I am predestined! I have no opportunity to resist predestination, to change or destroy God's predestination. Why force oneself to an inexorably strict Christian virtue? Why subject oneself to innumerable deprivations and live in constant renunciation of life? I'll live as I want and like! I will hasten to what my dream beckons me to, drawing before my eyes charming pictures! I will amuse myself to my heart's content with all pleasures, even sinful ones! They are scattered luxuriously throughout the universe, and an unbearable curiosity draws you to taste and get to know them by experience! If I am predestined to be saved, then, in spite of all my wickedness, God will save me. But if I am destined to perish, I will perish, in spite of all my efforts to obtain salvation." Such a judgment is proclaimed to be ignorance of the mysteries of Christianity! It is proclaimed to be falsely named reason and carnal wisdom. A terrible blasphemy is pronounced in it, which they do not understand! Unfortunate, completely erroneous reasoning is recognized and accepted by many as an irrefutable truth: on it is based a self-willed life, a life that is lawless and depraved. On earthly vicious life is based an eternally sorrowful life, an eternally miserable life in the land beyond the grave.