“Our deeds will not cause God to love us more; our sins will not cause God to love us less.”

“The closer we are to God, the more the slightest sin will cause us deep sorrow.”

“It is when we are at our darkest hour, when we can see no evidence that God loves us or that he is even there to listen to our prayers, much less answer them...and yet, we still obey.It is then that the devil is reminded that his cause is lost.”

“Sin so contaminates every area of our being that deeds done in religious service are tainted with self-love, self-seeking, self-worship...Not only do our evil deeds comdemn us, even our moral deeds damn us.”

“The more I thought about human nature, the more I saw how our tragic inclination for sin/mistakes causes us to use our minds to rationalize our action.”

“The definition of God as infinite Love was a particularly important theme for [John Duns] Scotus. He disagreed with Anselm, who understood the Incarnation as a necessary payment for sin. He also disagreed with Thomas [Aquinas], who argued that the Incarnation, though willed by God from eternity, was made necessary by the existence of sin. For Scotus the Incarnation was willed through eternity as an expression of God's love, and hence God's desire for consummated union with creation. Our redemption by the cross, though caused by sin, was likewise an expression of God's love and compassion, rather than as an appeasement of God's anger or a form of compensation for God's injured majesty. Scotus believed that...knowledge of God's love should evoke a loving response on the part of humanity. 'I am of the opinion that God wished to redeem us in this fashion principally in order to draw us to his love.' Through our own loving self-gift, he argued, we join with Christ 'in becoming co-lovers of the Holy Trinity.”