Zero is not zero knowledge nor zero reason, which would be 100% foolishness. Zero is zero filters, zero bias, zero fear of being wrong or right. From that starting point we take a fresh look at life.

Planets orbit stars. Stars spin in galaxies. Electrons race around protons. Everything and everyone in between interacts. Things push. Things pull. Magnets attract. Bombs explode. We shake hands. We talk. We influence, and are influenced by, each other.

We choose our spiritual/personal interactions. We choose what to talk about. We choose how to react. We clap, we cheer, we yell, we cry because we choose.

All of our choices are inspired, not forced, by faith, hope, and love (FHL). In any given situation, from brushing our teeth to going on dates to showing up at work everyday, we make choices based on what we believe, desire, and value. Negative beliefs, harmful desires, and self-centered values lead to poor choices just as positive FHL leads to good choices. For better or for worse, FHL is always in our minds influencing our decisions.

When we experience predictable patterns, such as the sun rising every day, our faith increases. If we sense improvement in those patterns, then our hope also rises. If we personally benefit from a pattern, such as a mother’s constant care, then we feel loved. Unless we purposefully reject it, a strong pattern with few to no exceptions builds our FHL. Recognizing this relationship is key to understanding ourselves and connecting successfully with others. It is our essence of being human.

Of course, we all would like positive patterns to go on forever and endlessly grow our FHL. We all want to live happy ever after, and good patterns getting better is the only way to live happy ever after. That spiritual drive within us is called, paradise instinct.

To fulfill our paradise instinct we need three ingredients: infinite power, constant goodness, and a real person. Because only a person can make personal/spiritual patterns, we need an Infinite Good Person (IGP). Anything less than a true IGP makes a perfect eternity impossible for us who are beings of FHL.

This does not prove that an IGP exists. Rather, we now have questions if such a being can exist and if we should even care because of all the evil in the world. That is the topic of the next section.

The big argument against God (the infinite good person kind) is that evil cannot exist in his universe. However, the freedom, value, and power of faith, hope, and love are not factored into that conclusion. Let’s do that now.

By definition, an Infinite Good Person does not do, think, or feel evil, ever. Now think of this practically. You can’t tempt or bribe an infinite being who has more than everything already! If an IGP had an ego, then they would not have made contradictory, rebellious, irreverent creatures like us.

Evil cannot start with the physical universe because that is under the sustaining control of infinite good. Therefore, evil can only begin if a being with the power of choice chooses it into existence. There is no good reason why a good person would choose against goodness, but choice does not need to be logical. That is the nature of the freedom of choice.

Clearly, there is evil in the world. So using that first choice as our starting point let’s consider scenarios.

If God did nothing, the parasite of evil would sooner or later destroy everything and everyone, including God and itself. That's not an option for Infinite Goodness.

On the other extreme, God could instantly wipe evil from existence, which means terminating the evildoer. Obviously, this did not happen. Instant, secret executions would spread fear and doubt which would blossom into rebellion–evil.

Infinite Goodness could redefine evil by lowering His standard of perfection, but practically speaking, this is not any better than doing nothing. It's merely playing word games while the universe destroys itself.

Another option is rebooting the universe by wiping memories or people altogether. That is just Infinity admitting failure, which is an oxymoron. Yet, it does not matter, because that option was not used because we are still here and we remember everything.

To avoid all those mistakes, divine mercy could permit evil in limited time and space. We call that a quarantine. Its purpose would be to protect the innocent while giving time to heal the sick.

How do you cure the evildoer? Through infinite goodness, which means infinite selflessness, which means infinite sacrifice—complete risk and total loss with no guarantee of repayment. For an evildoer to give up self they must be inspired and empowered by an Infinite Person who gives up Self. It’s the only way, because we are beings of faith, hope, and love.

Those who accept transformation are ready and able to live in a cleansed universe forever. Rebels would not be happy in such a place, so they are wiped from existence after everybody has had time to contrast good and evil. Figuratively speaking, this makes universe 2.0 where love has been tested and can never again be rejected.

We have seen that an infinite good person is both possible and desirable, but is such a Being real? If so, where is He? How do we communicate? Where do we learn the truth about Him? The rewards are too great to ignore, so we will begin a quest for a consistent, complete, creative, confirmed channel of communication.

We must turn to religion because human philosophy and natural science, by definition, cannot help us with our spiritual, supernatural goal. By process of elimination, only six of the world’s religions teach some version of an IGP. All six of those collapse on themselves because of internal inconsistencies and lack of confirming evidence.

However, along the way we discovered that over 5 billion people in multiple major religions all recommend the ancient teacher, Jesus of Nazareth, who has a unique story. Because of, and in spite of, religion we will investigate his teachings and credentials.

The authoritative source of his story is the writings of prophets and apostles gathered into a book called, the Bible. We will apply the patterns of faith, hope, and love to the interpretation of Scripture to discover and test what it really teaches.

It can be difficult to read the Bible without seeing through the popular Christian culture lens, but when we put that aside to read it with the possibility that an Infinite Good Person (the true God) has a wise, compassionate plan based on faith, hope, and love, then a new picture emerges. There are three levels of problems with corresponding solutions.

The first level is creation. This is not a problem in the standard sense, but it is a huge risk. The Infinite Good Father made a perfect universe for His children, gave them faith, hope, and love to be used positively or negatively, then promised perfection forever. God not only gave up personal freedom at creation, but He took on responsibility for beings with power of choice. Even if someone rebelled, this promise is always the first and foremost. Innocent people must be protected.

The Bible tells us that before the creation of Earth, Lucifer was a loyal angel who chose against his own contentment to become jealous of power and proud of his gifts. Refusing forgiveness and transformation, he persuaded about one third of all the angels to follow him. After time they were expelled from heaven (center of the universe) to a remote area to set up their own kingdom for all to see and make up their own minds. This is the second problem, and it causes sorrow and questions throughout the cosmos.

God, who would have all of His people free and informed, set up the tree of knowledge of good and evil as a sort of voting booth. Lucifer, now Satan, deceived the first man and woman into distrusting and disobeying. The chain reaction of that decision changed their immortal generous natures into self-centered, materialistic humans subject to suffering and death. This is the third problem that complicates the first two, because deception leaves the door open to transformation through truth and repentance, IF Mercy convinces Justice to give time and resources.

The dead body of Jesus on the cross was terrible, but it was only a parable pointing to much deeper truths. Infinity must separate from Infinity. The Father must remain actively upholding the universe, while the Son took on the weight of human sin which always crushes the soul. Jesus did not merely die a finite bodily death. He offered His soul (eternal life), not to the Father, but to us. In Christ on the cross, we die. In Christ risen from the tomb, we live. It is a trade–soul for Soul–in which we win and He loses. Whether or not we choose to win in Him, He already gave up all in infinite sacrifice. Mercy, which wants the sinner to be transformed, and justice, which wants the sinner to die, are both satisfied at the cross.

On the cross, God proved Himself fully good and Satan fully evil, but people and angels still need to learn something about themselves. The cross was a seed, buried in the ground and watered with blood, that has the spiritual power to spring up and blossom in every open heart. Because the same One Life is in every plant, every true member of the true church is one with God and becomes one with each other. This gospel-in-real-life demonstration by the church proves God’s effectiveness in the soul by faith, hope, and love on this earth in the midst of this present evil. Therefore it becomes clear that the creation promise never needed to be rejected in the beginning, and it will never be rejected in the future. Creator, creature, and creation are fully invested, fully united, one in purpose and principle and peace.

Solving the third problem actually becomes a way of restoring the first creation promise. However, evil and evil doers still need to be dealt with. Through the gospel preaching of the church, through the satanic deceptions of the enemy, and through both the beauties and the cataclysms of nature, the people of Earth are being influenced to decide for or against being filled with the life, truth, and goodness of Christ. The final judgment looks at that one heart factor alone to determine who shall be granted immortality. Only those who now live in Christ will continue to live in Christ. All others will suffer the proportional consequences of their sins before final extinction. Then all will be clean and peaceful. Rebels and rebellion will be no more.

Then the suffering universe will no longer have any more to learn from sin. Like veterans returned home from war, the saints are fully convinced of evil. They will never turn back to selfishness, to pride, to discontent. Their eyes are open never to close again. Evil, and the temptation to evil, are trampled under the feet of dancing and celebration. Everyone joins hands with the scarred hands of Him who made the party possible. Tested, sincere, victorious faith, hope, and love are more than enough to inspire harmonious singing through the endless ages of eternity.

I’m showing you the regular charts because I really don’t know how to summarize them further. In this superfast overview I will not be explaining the details. I will just point out a highlight or two from each chart to begin introducing the ideas then keep moving. (Note: Vertical charts are not one-to-one with horizontal charts. However, both total sets have all the illustrations.)

The Beatitudes are the table of contents to the Sermon on the Mount, which is found in Matthew 5 to 7. Beatitude is Latin for “blessed” or “happy.” They are the eight repetitions that each begin with “blessed are.” The first five focus on the conversion of the selfish heart into a sharing servant. The last three focus on the person’s spiritual walk with God.

Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.

Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.

Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.

Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.

Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.

Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.

Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

A “mini-chapter” of the sermon unpacks its corresponding Beatitude. Similarly, each phrase of the Lord’s Prayer is based on the same principle as the Beatitude on its left.

Why the rainbow colors? They serve as a valuable teaching tool. The top row is always white. This represents God’s original creative love that starts everything. When white light hits a prism or raindrop it refracts into the same seven colors in the same order. This is the Bible number for perfect completeness. Red is always on the outside, proceeding to orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, then violet on the inside.

When the second rainbow is strong enough to see, it always begins with red. This represents beginning the cycle all over again, but on a higher level. Notice that the poor in spirit and the persecuted both have a similar reward–the kingdom of heaven. The poor in spirit realize their evil tendencies and actions. They are given the kingdom of heaven of grace to begin dealing with them. The persecuted suffer because of those who refuse to acknowledge their spiritual poverty. They are given the kingdom of heaven of glory.

The white row on the bottom represents all the colors recombining to glorify the Creator of Light.

God could have snapped the world into existence in an instant. However, He took seven days to teach valuable lessons. The steps of creation and the steps of redemption show the identical truths of God’s character in the same order.

The ten commandments will take a bit of an explanation later because they have a complete reversal of order. However, notice that order is maintained. They are not random.

The entire Bible and world history have an overall Beatitude order to them as God teaches large groups of people the same lessons in the same order.

Even the essence of the scientific method and learning itself reveal the same principles as the Beatitudes. Like faith, hope, and love, these principles are “baked” into the human mind.

This last chart has the truncated records of the encounters of Jesus with people. There is Nicodemus, a Jewish leader. There is the foreign Samaritan woman at the well. There is the thief on the cross crucified next to Jesus. In each of these brief discussions we see the same principles of spiritual transformation. Not all eight Beatitudes are represented, but that was not the purpose of each chat. In real life, God gives us just what we can handle at the time. He takes us only as far as we are able to see and willing to go. The important point is that each element of conversion is present, even if they overlap just as the colors of a real rainbow blend together.

The ordering of the Beatitudes is not arbitrary as if they are rules imposed on human nature. Rather, they are an expression of what already happens whether we are aware of it or not. Faith, hope, and love is the motive for our interactions. The Beatitudes are the kindsof interactions we choose.