to write be not interpreted as hatred.6 I write then because I must, not what I think, “since the thoughts of men are vile,”7 as Scripture says, but what God wants and grants through grace to begin this undertaking. Indeed, “the counsel of God,” says David, “remains forever, the thoughts of his heart from generation to generation.”8 Undoubtedly he calls “counsel” of God the Father the mysterious self-abasement of the only-begotten Son with a view to the deification of our nature,9 a self-abasement