Escaping the Machine — Orthodox Christianity

Have you read the recent book Against the Machine by Paul Kingsnorth?

Many people today feel that something essential has been lost in modern life. Paul Kingsnorth, an Orthodox Christian, describes “The Machine”—a worldview that reduces nature, people, and even our souls to things to be managed or consumed.

The danger is not technology itself but what happens when we rely on it as the foundation of our well-being. Then, the sacramental worldview is eroded. The world is reduced to mere material essence without spiritual depth, and God is pushed to the margins. This is the risk Kingsnorth highlights.

Early Christian Witness

The early Church shows us what true cultural transformation looks like. The first Christians lived under the harsh power of the Roman Empire, many expecting the Messiah to liberate them from oppression. Life was uncertain, often violent, and hostile to their faith. The Romans did not value human life. 

Yet in that world, the Church flourished. Why? Because Christians lived differently. They prayed constantly, forgave enemies, cared for the poor, fasted with joy, and gathered to receive Christ in the Eucharist. Their very lives became sacraments—visible signs of the Kingdom of God breaking into the world. They had no fear of death, because they lived with faith in the life to come, revealed to them in Christ’s Resurrection. Their hope was not in political liberation but in the victory of Christ who conquered death.

Orthodoxy’s Continuity

Orthodoxy has preserved through the centuries this same living faith. Salvation does not come by rejecting machines, fleeing modern life, or advancing technology. These things in themselves are tools—gifts that can be used in the service of Christ. Salvation comes through a life lived in Christ, the same path the apostles and martyrs walked:

• Prayer of the heart, making us attentive to God’s presence.
• Fasting and ascetic struggle, sanctifying our desires and teaching freedom.
• The holy mysteries (sacraments), transforming water, bread, wine, oil, marriage, and even death into bearers of divine grace.
• Communal life in the Church, binding us together with Christ in love, forgiveness, and worship.

Kingsnorth is right to warn us of a world that sees only mechanisms and not mystery. But the solution is not simply to abandon technology altogether, as some have tried. I once attempted living “off the grid” in a small community dedicated to sustainability—working the land, avoiding machinery, and seeking harmony with nature and spirit. While there were rewards in that way of life, our goals proved unattainable, and we found no lasting answers there. What I discovered is that the Orthodox Church offers a different way: to live sacramentally in every time and place.

Engaging Technology with Discernment

The path as shown by the early Church is to recover the sacramental way of life—a life in which Christ transfigures all things. It is not enough to simply attack technology. Technology is not our enemy. It becomes dangerous only when it is idolized—when it distracts our hearts, fills our lives with noise, and blinds us to the sacred nature of creation. The saints remind us that even the most ordinary things can be made holy when offered to God with thanksgiving.

The Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew puts it beautifully:

 “Faith and science do not meet as adversaries, but as collaborators and partners in the service of humanity. The view of an inevitable conflict between faith and science arises from a mistaken understanding of the essence and purpose of these two great spiritual powers.”

Living the Same Faith Today

The answer, then, is not to run away from the modern world but to transfigure it by living sacramentally. This is how the pagan Roman culture was transformed 2,000 years ago. Whether in a city, on a farm, at a desk, or on a smartphone, the path is the same: to life in Christ with love, humility, and joy.

This is why Orthodoxy is so precious today. It is not a nostalgic dream or a lost golden age, but the same faith the martyrs lived, the same path the saints walked, the same life Christ calls us to live now, the same faith that transformed the Roman pagan world.

Conclusion

We need not fear the growth of technology or even artificial intelligence. The Church has endured empires, persecutions, and revolutions, and still she shines with the same light of Christ. The path is always the same: to live the Gospel sacramentally, with prayer, fasting, love, and joy. 

Orthodoxy does not flee from the world but transfigures it. This is the faith the martyrs bore witness to, and it is the same life Christ offers us today.

Reference: Against the Machine: In the Unmaking of Humanity, Paul Kingsnorth, Thesis, N.Y. 2025

How Western Christianity Drifted Step-by-Step Away From Orthodoxy

When we examine the history of the Church and current situation, we can observe that mankind has slowly drifted from knowing the living Incarnate God, Jesus Christ, as absolute Truth and began creating substitutes. In the West, after the Church split into East and West in 1054, faith in the Traditional (Orthodoxy) Church’s life was weakened, people began to move away from a Heaven centered life and replace God with something more human centered—first through philosophy and reason, then through endless divisions, and finally through a “god” of progress, science, or personal choice.  Fr. Seraphim Rose reminds us, the tragedy is that modern man has not lost his need for God, but he has exchanged the true God who saves for an idol of explanation and control in a secular society. A heavenly focus was lost.  Below is an attempt to create a brief outline how this change took place.

1. Orthodoxy: God revealed and worshiped

• In the original Church founded by Christ, God is known personally, through Christ, and faithful participated in His divinity in the life of the Church.
• They envisioned a future life in Heaven as their central concern: union with God (theosis).
• Knowledge of God was not a human construction but based on revelation, faith, humility, and ascetic struggle to prepare for this heavenly future.
• Their worldview was sacramental: everything is filled with God’s presence and oriented toward eternity, but their life was centered in the Church where God’s presence was concentrated for their healing.

2. The Great Divide: Rome separates from the East in 1054

• Pope of Rome becomes the Vicar of Christ in West
• Human centered reform is initiated by Pope.
• Church becomes a state and even calls an army and engages in War
• Looses original culture of the East and becomes a centralized clerical institution.

3. Scholasticism in the West: God becomes an object of Reason

• After the schism (1054), the West developed a different spirit. A shift to a human centered church based on the authority of the Pope emerged.
• With figures like Anselm and Thomas Aquinas, faith increasingly became framed in terms of logic, categories, and rational demonstration. Reason become more powerful than revelation.
• The emphasis shifted from mystery and communion to explanation and systematization.
• God was still confessed, but more and more as the “God of philosophy,” a belief, not a lived experience.
• This is the beginning of what Fr. Seraphim calls the “new god”—not encountered in humility but thought about in abstractions.

4. Renaissance & Humanism: Man at the center

• The Renaissance 15th - 17th century revived classical humanism.
• Attention shifted from God’s saving work to man’s capacities: art, science, philosophy.
• Faith was still present, but God began to fade into the background as culture glorified man’s reason and creativity.

5. Reformation: Fragmentation of Christianity

• The Protestant Reformation (16th century) reacted against abuses in Rome (now separated from the Eastern Church), but it also rejected Tradition and the sacramental fullness of the Church. Church was no longer accepted as source of authority for Truth. 
• “Scripture alone” placed authority in a text interpreted by the individual mind.
• Christ was reduced to an external legal transaction (penal substitution), and salvation was less about transformation and more about justification.
• This further secularized the Christian worldview: once you separate Bible from Church, interpretation becomes subjective, leading to endless denominations. Instead of an infallible leader like the pose each individual be an infallible to discern the Truth.
• Thus the Christian West lost a unified vision of God and salvation. Truth became relative.

6. Enlightenment & Deism: God as Watchmaker

• Philosophers of the 17th–18th centuries (Descartes, Locke, Voltaire, etc.) sought a purely “rational” god.
• Deism presented God as a distant architect—He created the universe but no longer acts within it.
• Revelation, miracles, sacraments, praying to saints and even salvation were dismissed as irrational.
• Religion was retained, but only as a moral framework for society, not as communion with God.
• God becomes fully recognizable as an idea, not a divine all-powerful Creator of All. A Heavenly focus is lost as organizing principle of society.

7. German Idealism & Romanticism: God as Idea or Spirit

• Kant and Hegel developed God as a philosophical necessity: either as the guarantor of morality (Kant) or as the unfolding Absolute Spirit (Hegel).
• God is no longer transcendent but absorbed into thought, history, or human progress.
• The living, personal God revealed in Christ is almost gone—replaced by concepts.
• Christian faith becomes mental requiring Bible study and only an affirmation of belief for salvation. Social justice and conforming to moral standards of society become the norm, fully a human centered religion.

8. Modern Secularism: The “death of God”

• By the 19th–20th centuries (Nietzsche, Marx, Freud), the “god-idea” itself was discarded.
• Nietzsche declared the “death of God”—meaning Western man no longer believed in the Christian God, nor even in the Enlightenment’s rational substitute.
• Science and technology now take the role of the “new god,” promising explanation, power, and progress.
• Hope for a better world placed in technological progress and material well being.
• Our current secular worldview is the end of this process: life without transcendence, lived as though man is autonomous and salvation is a distant thought or discarded entirely..
• We find a world focused son technological process and material well being but still, many seek for something more.

Putting it all together:

• Orthodoxy: God is Being, revealed in Christ, worshiped in humility. Salvation is communion with Him. Life focused on a future in Heaven.
• Scholasticism: God becomes an object of rational thought.
• Reformation: God’s Church is fragmented; authority shifts to the individual.
• Enlightenment/Deism: God is reduced to a distant watchmaker, useful only for “explanation.”
• Idealism: God is an Idea or Spirit, constructed by the proud mind.
• Secularism: Even the idea of God is abandoned. Man seeks meaning in science, business, politics, or self-expression. Heaven is no longer a focus of life.

This is what Fr. Seraphim explains in his book, Nihilism: modern man still feels the need for “explanation” but has lost a knowledge of the Heavenly realm and a desire for salvation.

Seraphim Rose wrote in 1960s: 

A "new god" is clearly required by modern man, a god more closely fashioned after the pattern of such central modern concerns as science and business; it has, in fact, been an important intention of modern thought to provide such a god. This intention is clear already in Descartes, it is brought to fruition in the Deism of the Enlightenment, developed to its end in German idealism: the new god is not a Being but an idea, not revealed to faith and humility but constructed by the proud mind that still feels the need for "explanation" when it has lost its desire for salvation.

From: Nihilism:The Root of the Revolution of the Modern Age, p 25

Adam and Christ: The Orthodox View of Sin, Death, and Grace in Romans 5:12–21

 St. Paul, in Romans 5:12–21, presents a sweeping vision of salvation history, contrasting Adam—the fountainhead of sin and death—with Christ, the New Adam, who brings life and grace to the world. In the Orthodox understanding, this passage reveals the deepest truth about the Fall, the reality of human corruption, and the surpassing gift of redemption in Christ.

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Through One Man Sin Entered the World (Romans 5:12)

Paul writes, “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned—”

The Apostle roots the reality of sin and death not in an eternal principle but in the historical disobedience of Adam, the head of humanity. Death is not natural to creation but the fruit of sin, and in Orthodox teaching it becomes both consequence and tyrant. Humanity became enslaved through death, driven by passions and worldly desires trying to survive.

The Fathers emphasize that Paul does not mean we inherit Adam’s guilt, because each person is liable for their own actions. Instead of inheriting his sin we inherit his mortality and corruption, which incline us toward sin. St. Athanasius explains: “Because of corruption, it was impossible to escape death” (On the Incarnation, 4). Thus, sin reigns because death reigns.

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Adam as a Type of Christ (Romans 5:13–14)

Paul continues, “For until the law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who did not sin in a manner like the transgression of Adam who is a type of Him who was to come.”

Even before the giving of the Law, humanity was under the reign of death. The problem was not ignorance of commandments but the power of corruption. Adam is described as a “type” of Christ: both stand at the head of humanity, one bringing death, the other life.

The Orthodox perspective is always cosmic. There are two humanities: Adam’s humanity, marked by corruption and death, and Christ’s humanity, marked by righteousness and glory.

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The Gift Surpasses the Fall (Romans 5:15)

“But the free gift is not like the offense. For if by the one man’s offense many died, much more the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abounded to many.”

Here Paul insists that Christ’s work is not a mere reversal of Adam’s Fall, but something far greater. Where sin multiplied death, grace overflowed infinitely more. The gift of Christ heals, restores, and even deifies humanity.

In Orthodox thought, grace is stronger than sin. Christ, the Second Adam, does not merely cancel the Fall but raises humanity higher than Adam ever stood.

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From Condemnation to Justification (Romans 5:16–17)

Paul contrasts Adam’s legacy and Christ’s: “The judgment which came from one offense resulted in condemnation, but the free gift which came from many offenses resulted in justification… much more those who receive abundance of grace… will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.”

Through one person, Adam’s disobedience brought condemnation, estrangement, and mortality. In one person Christ’s act brings justification, communion, and life. In Him we not only escape death—we reign over it. Baptized Christians participate in His kingship, reigning with Him as priests and rulers over sin and death.

Salvation, in Orthodox understanding, is royal participation in Christ’s victory. The saints are crowned as kings and priests in His Kingdom.

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Disobedience Healed by Obedience (Romans 5:18–19)

Paul writes, “As through one man’s offense judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation, even so through one Man’s righteous act the free gift came to all men, resulting in justification of life. For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man’s obedience many will be made righteous.”

Adam’s disobedience fractured humanity at its root. Christ’s obedience, even to the Cross, heals and re-creates it. Humanity became corrupt in Adam, but it is renewed in Christ. This is not legalistic claim of wrongdoing but true nature of reality—our very nature is changed by union with Christ.

In Orthodoxy, righteousness is not merely “credited” to us; it is a reality imparted as we are united to Christ’s obedience and transformed in His life.

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Where Sin Abounded, Grace Abounded More (Romans 5:20–21)

“Moreover the law entered that the offense might abound. But where sin abounded, grace abounded much more, so that as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

The Law revealed the depth of sin as an evil but could not heal it. Yet no sin, however great, can outstrip the abundance of God’s grace. Where sin reigned through death, grace now reigns through Christ, leading not only to forgiveness but to eternal life—communion in His risen glory. After the resurrection when our bodies have become imperishable and immortal, grace will reign in them, the passions will come to an end, sin then having no place

Orthodox teaching stresses that eternal life is not simply endless existence, but life in union with God’s uncreated energies, with Him in love.

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Conclusion

Romans 5:12–21 sets before us the entire drama of salvation: Adam brought sin, corruption, and death; Christ brings righteousness, healing, and eternal life. We inherit not Adam’s guilt but his mortality, and thus fall into sin. Yet the free gift of Christ is greater than the Fall. His obedience heals our disobedience, His grace overflows beyond our corruption, and His life becomes ours.

In Adam, humanity fell under the tyranny of death. In Christ, humanity rises into royal participation in the Kingdom, where grace reigns through righteousness to eternal life. We are healed to assume eternal life in His Kingdom where no sin abides.

Orthodox Understanding of "Justified by Faith" -- Romans 5:1-11

St. Paul, in Romans 5:1–11, offers one of his clearest teachings on what it means to be justified by faith and how this justification transforms the Christian life. For the Orthodox Church, this passage reveals that justification is not a bare legal declaration but God’s real act of healing and reconciling humanity to Himself. Faith is not passive opinion but a living trust that unites us to Christ, allowing His grace to work within us.

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Peace with God (Romans 5:1)

“Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

“Having been justified” (δικαιωθέντες) shows that God is the one who acts, while we receive. Justification is God’s effective verdict that forgives, restores, and begins to heal our nature, bringing us back into communion.

“By faith” (ἐκ πίστεως) means more than intellectual assent—it is living trust, fidelity, and allegiance to Christ. St. John Chrysostom explains that true faith proves itself in love and obedience—not because works replace grace, but because grace always bears fruit.

“Peace with God” is not simply an inner feeling but objective reconciliation. Sin’s enmity is removed, and we are restored to friendship with God through Christ. This peace is sustained within the life of the Church—through prayer, the sacraments, and repentance.

Orthodox insight: Justification is healing and reconciliation. Faith is the door; grace is the life inside the house.

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Standing in Grace (Romans 5:2)

“Through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.”

“Access” (προσαγωγή) evokes liturgical language: Christ, through His Church’s liturgy, introduces us into the King’s presence.

“This grace in which we stand” describes grace as an abiding reality, the divine energy of God in which we are firmly rooted.

“Hope of the glory of God” is not simply “going to heaven,” but the hope of theosis—participation in God’s uncreated life through union with Christ.

Orthodox insight: Faith ushers us into a continual standing within grace, shaping us toward Christlikeness, especially through the liturgy where we live this divine reality.

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Suffering and Transformation (Romans 5:3–5)

Paul writes that we “glory in tribulations,” because suffering produces endurance, character, and hope. For the Orthodox, trials are not abandonment but opportunities for formation. Ascetic struggle—fasting, vigilance, repentance—is our synergy with God’s grace.

“Hope does not put to shame, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit.” This is sacramental language: the Spirit given in Baptism, Chrismation, and the Eucharist pours God’s love into our hearts, becoming the inner power of transformation.

Orthodox insight: Justification flowers into sanctification. The Spirit’s indwelling makes endurance into Christlike character.

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The Cross as Love Revealed (Romans 5:6–8)

“For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly… God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

We did not initiate reconciliation; God did. The Cross is the supreme manifestation of divine love. Orthodox theology does not see the Cross as the outpouring of God’s wrath on His Son, but as the Physician entering into our sickness to heal us. Christ conquers death and restores us by His Resurrection.

Orthodox insight: The Cross is God’s love in action—our healing and victory, not divine anger unleashed.

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Saved by His Life (Romans 5:9–10)

“Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.”

“By His blood” recalls His poured-out life, given to us in the Eucharist. In Communion we receive the very life that justifies and heals.

“Saved by His life” shows that salvation is not only the Cross but the whole risen and ascended life of Christ, into which we enter by prayer, the sacraments, and virtue.

The Fathers describe “wrath” not as God’s emotional rage, but as the experience of resisting His love. In Christ we turn toward Him, and His love becomes light and joy.

Orthodox insight: Reconciliation through the Cross leads into ongoing salvation by sharing Christ’s risen life, especially in the Eucharist.

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The Gift of Reconciliation (Romans 5:11)

“And not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.”

Christian assurance is not presumption but worship—boasting in God. Reconciliation is both gift and ongoing communion: it shapes our forgiveness of others, our Eucharistic life, and our belonging in the Body of Christ.

Orthodox insight: The proof of reconciliation is a life of doxology, forgiveness, and participation in the Church’s Eucharistic worship.

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Synthesis: The Orthodox View of Faith and Justification

• God acts; we receive: Justification is God’s real act of restoring us to communion.

• Faith is living trust: It unites us to Christ and bears fruit in love.

• Grace is participatory: We stand in it, are formed by trials, and are energized by the Spirit.

• Synergy: We freely cooperate, never earning salvation, but working out what God works in us (Phil. 2:12–13).

• Theosis: The goal of justification is not simply acquittal, but glory—real participation in God’s life.

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Conclusion

Romans 5:1–11 reveals that justification is not an abstract doctrine but the living reality of healing and reconciliation with God through Christ, sustained through the Spirit, and fulfilled in the Church. Faith opens the door, grace fills the house, and peace is the fruit of communion. This peace is lived out in worship, ascetic struggle, sacramental participation, and the hope of sharing in God’s glory through our union with Him.

The Orthodox Understanding of Redemption through St. Paul’s Teaching in Romans 5–8

One of the deepest questions of Christian faith is why God allowed Adam and Eve to fall and how this fall relates to His plan for our salvation. The Apostle Paul gives his most complete answer in Romans 5–8, where he moves from the tragedy of Adam’s disobedience to the triumph of life in the Spirit. Orthodox teaching sees in this passage the whole sweep of salvation history: creation, fall, redemption, and glorification.

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The Fall of Adam and Eve

Adam and Eve were created in communion with God, made “very good” (Gen. 1:31), and placed in a life of freedom, beauty, and intimate relationship with their Creator. Yet they were not created as perfected beings; rather, they were called to grow into maturity, to freely choose God’s love.

Their disobedience—grasping at the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil—was not merely breaking a rule, but turning away from God as the source of life. The Fathers teach that the true consequence of the Fall was death: corruption entered human nature, cutting us off from God. Because we are created with a free will, we do not inherit Adam’s guilt, as in Western theology, but we inherit his mortality and corruption, which in turn incline us toward sin. As St. Athanasius says, humanity “was perishing, and corruption was prevailing against them” (On the Incarnation 4).

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Romans 5: Adam and the New Adam

St. Paul explains the Fall through Adam: “Through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men” (Rom. 5:12). Sin and death became a hereditary condition of the human race.

But God did not abandon His creation. From the beginning, He planned a greater work: the coming of the New Adam, Jesus Christ. Paul writes, “As through one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man’s obedience many will be made righteous” (Rom. 5:19). Christ’s perfect obedience reverses Adam’s disobedience, and His resurrection brings life stronger than death.

Where Adam’s legacy was corruption, Christ’s legacy is grace that “super-abounds” (Rom. 5:20). The Fall was permitted by God not because He willed evil, but because through it He revealed an even greater gift: salvation in His Son, a love stronger than death.

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Romans 6: Baptism into Christ

How does this redemption touch us personally? Paul answers: through Baptism. “Do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?” (Rom. 6:3). Baptism is our participation in Christ’s death and resurrection. The old man dies, and a new life begins.

The Orthodox Church understands Baptism not as a symbol but as a real union with Christ. In it, accompanied with Holy Chrismation receiving the seal of the Holy Spirit, we are reborn to a new a new life of holiness. “The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 6:23). Salvation is thus not a legal acquittal but a transformation, a rebirth into life itself.

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Romans 7: The Struggle with Sin

Yet Paul acknowledges that even the baptized still experience inner conflict. The Law, though holy, could not heal humanity; it only revealed sin’s power. Paul describes the divided self: “The good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice” (Rom. 7:19).

This is the universal human experience of the passions. The Fall left us weakened, and though the Law shows the path, it cannot give strength to walk it. Paul cries out, “O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” His answer: “Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Rom. 7:24–25).

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Romans 8: Life in the Spirit

The answer to the Fall is not merely Christ’s death and resurrection in the past, but His life in us through the Holy Spirit received in our Baptism and Chrismation. “The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death” (Rom. 8:2). The Spirit fulfills what the Law could not: He heals, strengthens, and transforms from within.

In the Spirit we become children of God: “You received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, ‘Abba, Father’”(Rom. 8:15). As sons and daughters, we are heirs with Christ, destined to share in His glory. Even creation itself, subject to corruption through the Fall, awaits this redemption, groaning for the revelation of the sons of God (Rom. 8:19–21).

Paul concludes triumphantly: nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus—not death, not suffering, not any power in creation (Rom. 8:38–39). The Fall introduced separation, but in Christ, union is restored forever.

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The Meaning of the Fall in Light of Redemption

So why did God allow the Fall? The Fathers teach that it was not His will for man to sin, but in His providence He permitted it, knowing He would bring an even greater good: communion with God through the Incarnation of His Son.

As St. John Chrysostom says that Adam’s sin harmed us, but Christ’s grace has conferred on us far greater blessings than those we lost. The Fall revealed our weakness, but it opened the way for us to know God’s infinite love—a love that descends into death itself to raise us into eternal life.

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Conclusion

The Fall of Adam and Eve was humanity’s first turning away, but God’s plan was always restoration and glorification. Romans 5–8 shows us the whole arc:

• From Adam’s disobedience to Christ’s obedience,

• From slavery under sin to freedom in baptism,

• From the powerless Law to the Spirit’s transforming power,

• From condemnation to adoption,

• From corruption to resurrection glory.

In Christ, the tragedy of the Fall becomes the backdrop for the revelation of God’s boundless love. Where death reigned, now life abounds. Where sin divided, the Spirit unites. And where Adam fell, Christ raises all humanity, bringing us into communion with God—the true destiny for which we were created.