Only Three Alternatives

...God is the only good of all creatures: and by necessity, each must find its good in that kind and degree of the fruition of God which is proper to its nature. The kind and degree may vary with the creature's nature: but that there ever could be any other good, is an atheistic dream. George Macdonald, in a passage I cannot now find, represents God as saying to men, 'You must be strong with my strength and blessed with my blessedness, for I have no other to give you.' That is the conclusion of the whole matter. God gives what He has, not what he has not. To be God -- to be like God and to share in His goodness in creaturely response -- to be miserable -- these are the only three alternatives. If we will not learn to eat the only food that the universe grows...then we must starve eternally.

- C.S. Lewis