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Chapter 5
THAT IN ALL THINGS
CHRIST MIGHT HAVE THE PRE-EMINENCE
(Colossians 1:18)
NO ONE DUTY EXCLUDES THE OTHERS
IN THE KINGDOM OF CHRIST
Spiritual Autumn
SPECIALISTS, SLIPPING CHURCHES AND THE DIRECTION OF SLIDE
It is a great provision that in this very land
of Australia,
so often called the 'lucky country',
there has been a
tradition of strong biblical faith.
It has by no means been pervasive, and it is
now declining sharply,
as major denomination after its fellow falls into soporificity,
snoozing at the spiritual wheel,
as if too tired to face the realities of impending crash.
The Lutherans even in South Australian had a 'celebration' when a world-wide Lutheran body made a deal with Romanism re justification by faith (cf. Impossible for Men, Open to God Ch. 4) and has engaged in joint teaching of their theological students and those of Rome. The Uniting Church has been a topic in the preceding Chapter, loosening the bands of sexual licence in the utmost departure both from design and the words of deity in New and Old Testaments (cf. News 24, Regal Rays of Revelation Ch. 11, Dancers, Prancers, Lancers and Answers Ch. 3, *2A). Indeed, it has recently gone much further! (Ch. 4 above, *2). The Anglican body has also tolerated similar extremes of dissociation from deity in Christ Jesus and from moral law from the Bible (cf. News 99, Tender Times for Timely Truth Ch. 7 ). Sects abound.
It is in this sort of context that works of a specialist kind, as in the field of creation and science, seeking a biblical basis, have been so notable in this country. Two of great note have been operative in Queensland. A major worker in one of these went to the USA and has become leader in a vast enterprise in this field of creation and the Bible, with reference to science, employing major Ph.D. bio-scientists and other specialists in its investigative and publishing works, and has achieved considerable fame throughout that nation. The work of the three has much of conscientious labour, perspicuous instruction and careful presentation in the chosen specialty of creation.
Sad however are words that are heard of differences in administration or co-operation, and it is to be hoped this will be repaired, without the forbidden recourse to secular law (I Corinthians 6:2-6).
More sad however is a trend towards a certain degree of toleration, to be sure stopping short of accreditation, but almost of apologetic sway towards Romanism.
Thus a book by a Romanist priest has been reviewed in which the latter endeavours to put a certain apologetic face on the evolutionary aspect of Roman teaching. This is not exposed for what it is, and the book is actually recommended, despite its (thankfully) noted Mariolatry. This is found in the Journal of Creation, 22(2), 2008.
What help is to be gained from idolatry however in the spiritual domain! and creation and challenges to it, and the depiction of the Bible IS a spiritual domain; for it relates both to the work and the nature of God Himself! It is so whether for Rome or anyone else.
Indeed, what is permitted as sharing or co-operative association in all of this! (I Cor. 5:9ff., 6:9ff., Romans 16:17). Yet here is found a combination that is not hidden, and not bidden, indeed excluded. Moreover, the spiritual prohibition on entanglement, association or involvement with Romanism as such, is complete, from the Bible (cf. SMR pp. 911ff., 1032-1088H, 946ff., Separation 1997).
What applies on sexual morality on the one hand, for ANY body calling itself a church, is no less applicable where there is idolatry (cf. Keys to the Comfort of the Kingdom of Christ Ch. 3 and I Corinthians 5:9ff., 6:9ff., SMR pp. 1086ff.). The participatory, the associative, the admixture and the combination, all are outed as outrageous in the word of God.
When therefore someone is identified and presented in terms of Romanism, therefore as here, and the more when the topic is not least a religious one, though a specialist application proceeds, it should be welcomed to the embracive bosom of Christian bodies as the cat welcomes the dog in its bed; but with far better reason. Indeed, anything of cohesion or collation, forwarding or allowing the protestations at the religious level, or sharing when this is involved is far from not being mixed up with it. Any such admixture is proscribed in I Corinthians 5-6. Indeed, in context there, whether the case be unbiblical morals or idolatry, the intensity and immensity of the requirement for being separated in such cases is so severe that, if such a condition were to be applied to ALL people (not just those professing to be Christians), one would have to go out of this world to obey it! (Keys to the Comfort of the Kingdom of Christ Ch. 3, I Corinthians 5-6).
Paul in I Corinthians 5-6 notes that of course such a measure of separation was not his desire for ALL people in the forbidden categories, as this reductio ad absurdum shows. It would be inoperable then. No, says the apostle in I Corinthians, It was only when such immorality or idolatry and so forth, were to be found in those claiming to be Christians that the exclusion notice of such vehemence applied! You see precisely the same spirit in Numbers 16, when Israel was ordered to depart from the tents of the revisionists. The earth itself opened to help them separate. "The earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up," we read.
That was a divinely operated separation. We have however morals within and minds, eyes with which to read, and are so directed. It is not necessary to have an earthquake every time. People can think... and consider the word, the witness and the ways of the Lord.
You see the same spirit of the matter in a land where a spy, for example, seeing something like atomic bomb secrets in the day of such things beginning, decides to give them away, thus betraying the OSTENSIBLE place of loyalty, his own country. It is the same in this sphere: someone using the NAME of Christ (like that of a country, a 'sleeper' for example) and then acting adversely on the people of God from 'within'. Such a person is given no exculpation and just as he practises unblushing shame, misusing truth and deceiving his compatriots, so is his place. Those who insist on fellowship or co-function with such, instead of practising a separation which if general, would require them to go out of this world, are merely in rebellion, the nature of which is shown famously in I Samuel 15:22-23.
Not all who speak in science find it necessary to state their spiritual credentials, good or bad (and since God is and has spoken, these categories are as clear as light and darkness as in John 1:1-14 cf. SMR), and when this is unknown, action proceeds. When however it is first of all stated, and then made relevant to the discourse, then all applies with considerable and aggravated force.
Alas the work of the Romanist priest, noted in the magazine cited, is recommended for purchase, and not only so: there is no criticism of his cited assertion that the pope has no power to speak in the domain of creation, though obviously this is one of the most major doctrines in the Bible, with explicit parallel to salvation (II Corinthians 4:6, 5:17ff.), and with implication on the nature and character of God and His wisdom.
The fact of what the Lord has done, biblically as by observation, in verification-rich creation, is a testimony in fact of such lavishness of provision, supervision, intricacy of intellect and power of wisdom that it is awesome and amazing; and while judgments disadorn an earth which insistently demands them from the Maker, on a scale ever larger to the uttermost (cf. Amos 4), yet the wonder of it, the power and the glory of the Creator is not dimmed. It is man who is dimmed, who diminishes himself and plays his spirit diminuendo, but his bravura, forte. He even acts to dim and diminish deity, but only in his own mind; for facts do not change because of delusion, nor does design disappear because of abuse cf. Deity and Design, Designation and Destiny). It is only injured ... as is this race, an exhibit of it, as it persists in its fateful, and largely fatal course (cf. Matthew 24:12, Answers to Questions Ch. 5).
In some ways, pursuing what is forbidden, whether with Romanism or other religious dissidence from the word of God by those claiming to be Christian, is like using a false accounting system. If a clever but unscrupulous practitioner gets to your books, much may seem to be gained; but the muddle in the end is its own reward. Purity is like that: dabble with deviousness and you find decline, and as to that, it is just the beginning. Sand for building ? it is contraband, even for a wing.
It matters not at all whether, among what is called 'Christian", that which fails to distinguish the categorical concepts of the Bible as to conduct, and pollution, from those of society or ambition, be as far as it goes, good ambition or merely careless thought: for the result is not unlike in each case. If for example, to extend the impact of your wares you relax the biblical conditions for all conduct, then you are unwary with wares, and inherit concerns and cares which in time, like a rat plague in the basement, make themselves known. To be wiser than God is not a good ambition, even if it is not thought out, but merely practised.
Be it seminary or publication, failing to separate and to distinguish and to use a TOTAL biblical perspective in dealing with issues is in every case an entanglement that does not profit, and for which, alas, a price may have to be paid. Jude is here eloquent, Revelation 2:18ff. is incisive, and Isaiah 8:20 is principial. Exposing people to something is fine, if it can be done without having ostensible Christians, in fact rebels in moral or idolatrous manner, in fellowship, partnership, participation or involvement. Here Billy Graham fell, sending some 'converts' to Romanist establishments and receiving a doctorate from the idolatrous regime.
THE RECLOTHING OF THE PAPACY
We are told, in the Journal of Creation, 22(2), 2008, that there have been various moves in Romanist teaching about literal meaning in Genesis 1; but there is amazing flexibility in what that is supposed to mean. The most intense and immense contradictions are apparently quite acceptable, such as recent popes show, in that some form of theistic evolution is contemplated, though this would in fact make of God a cruel and unfeeling monster, who to MAKE things made them suffer. There is no avoidance of this fact, though it is not faced as we shall see.
Thus,
when you read of the words of Cardinal Bellarmine (cited in another Creation Ministries International officer's book, the usually excellent Refutation of Evolution, pp. 99-100),
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to the effect
that |
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if Galileo's
view could be proved, |
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that prelate
would have to re-interpret scripture contrary to its plain meaning; |
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and when you add
to this the pretended Romanist power to control doctrine without limit, |
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this is in fact far from a tolerance or flexibility. |
In reality, it is an intolerance of the plain meaning of scripture, as Bellarmine himself cites it, that is, of what "appears to teach the contrary" so that he would change the interpretation for the church. This is then what he would conform to if Galileo were proven to be right (which Bellarmine is not satisfied to be the case). Scripture would be stressed, compressed or redressed to make it conform. That however is just a scene in this scenario demonstrating the very implacability which Rome brings. IT is to be persuaded; WHEN it is, then the Bible has to conform. This is precisely the record, and the basis of the Inquisition (cf. Ancient Words, Modern Deeds Ch. 14). As one French journalist is reputed to have stated: When you are in power, we claim liberty by YOUR principles; when WE are in power, we use force by our own.
Science then can instruct the Bible, so that the force of the biblical text is not the ultimate, but rather the ideas of man; and it is so with the Pope as another man. This or that, not the Bible, is the determinant. When man speaks, as such, it stands; when God speaks as Himself, it must be ... reinterpreted. If someone disagrees with the mangled interpretation selected and compelled, then force would be used if available! Tolerance ? of themselves only. Civil and religious power are both claimed as in the papal Bull, Unam Sanctam.
If man says so, or if its Pope feels so, or if its Bull declares so, then so it is, whether it is contrary to the impact of scripture or not. IT has authority beyond the Bible and anything else on this earth, by its claims, even over 'princes' (the papal Bull, Unam Sanctam, 1302), and THAT rather than reason or revelation in the Bible is that!
Not only, in this Bull, is it there declared that "it is altogether necessary to salvation for every human creature to be subject to the Roman pontiff" but "this authority, although given to a man and exercised by a man, is not human, but rather divine, given at God's mouth" - ultimately by this perversion of truth, to the Roman pontiff. "Whatsoever you will bind" is then made universal (despite Matthew 16:18, John 20:20-22, Matthew 23:8-10), and reformable only by God HIMSELF! Applied irrationally to a pope as above all human authority, and that directly so, because of alleged appointment, it has become the beacon of arrogance, the bastion of belligerence, the acme of intolerance and the panzer division for the invasion of the church of Jesus Christ, who has Him alone as Lord and Master, as He said.
Such is the Bull and it has been rampant indeed.
In a similar style, Canon Law is made obligatory*1, however much it contradicts itself.
It is beside the point to protest that the Pope is merely interpreting, since in terms of the Vatican Council of 1870, there is nothing against his will that may stand in teaching; and Vatican II affirmed all the official instruments of the faith backwards, at any such level. Reason applied to revelation is not the point; the pope is the point. If he deems it reasonable or clear or anything else, then so it is deemed to be. He acts as God Almighty on earth as in the New York Catechism's words. Reason is evacuated by the regality of the papacy: not in its own name, but in its own domain, being populated by a person whose word is ostensibly above all human response.
Thus it was this same Cardinal Bellarmine who did indeed counsel Galileo not to state his astronomical theory as the TRUTH, but who, later, was also the very one who COMMANDED Galileo to RECANT, in a mode which does not seem reasonable, or righteous, or fair, or just or really quite pleasant in style, as the account in Refuting Evolution in its tenor of treatment, might allow one to think. If we are going to take a topic, let us do it full justice. Thus Galileo, having been put under this command BY Bellarmine, was later consigned to prison, whatever may have actually happened, and consigned to retract - even if he murmured, or is reputed to have done, in speaking of the earth, 'and for all that it moves' (as Phillip Schaff renders it - p. 679, Vol. VIII, History of the Christian Church). It is there also that we find that Bellarmine ORDERED Galileo to teach that the earth was the immovable centre of the universe.
How astutely pleasant and commendably tolerant is the outcome, and the attitude, when such ostensibly absolute power corrupts so extensively! The Bible makes no such statement, the Romanist body had no power to use violence (as it did in this case, both physical and mental) to bind what the Bible does not, nor even if the word of God were contradicted, to use violence to maintain its cause, since this was not permitted even to save the Founder of the Christian Church, from the uttermost point of death. As Christ put it, IF His kingdom were of this world, then His servants would fight. SINCE they did not, there is proof positive that it is not a kingdom of that type. In fact, it does not even permit such action as shown with Peter in Matthew 26:52ff.. Violence to conscience and faith, using force to compel ideas has no part in the kingdom of heaven; so that the concepts of Rome were alien to it.
A 'nice' turn of words might make the earlier quotation from Bellarmine - to the effect that IF he were to be convinced that Galileo's theory was correct, he would re-interpret the Bible to match it - to be the equivalent of "being allowed to state" that the heliocentric view was a superior hypothesis. In fact, if Galileo put his idea as better than the assumed but misunderstood biblical concept of authority, when it was articulated, then prison was the liberty, and authority was the rationale of the coercion.
How COULD it be superior in truth if in Romanism, the Bible is statedly truth from God Himself, every word, and if the papacy rules interpretation and Galileo is not God! Interpretation ? THAT is for Rome. ITS interpretation ? correctly put by Galileo, wrongly found by Rome, the two were contrary.
What would it matter if at this point or that, when a man is merely toying with an idea, permission to be playful is given, so long as it is not presented as the truth! I In the long run, ROME was to decide what the interpretation was to be, as it still claims VIA Vatican II; and when that was done, if the scientist was not ON with this, then OFF to the prison with him! That was the actual situation with Galileo.
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Thus the
appearance of tolerance becomes the reality of intolerance, |
What then of an implied inferior concept, judged by a theory, WHEN the pope or his ministers duly define the concept they have in mind, the theory they favour, as if from the Bible but in fact with due reference to their own canons ? That would contradict their claims to speaking with direct authority from God in determinations, to the point that prison or even death could confirm the concept of authority which they claim!
Burnt ? No, he was not burnt, except in the metaphorical sense, in conscience, in humiliation, in dehumanisation of his voice and mind by force, in prison, that is all... just that. It is not enough to say Rome did not burn for a scientific idea; that may be true, but it is not exhaustive, as Churchill is reputed to have said to President Roosevelt, re his concept of aid.
More needs to be said, even in breadth of scope, even if in a very few words, than appears in Creation magazine concerning this element (October-December 2010, pp. 33ff.). Christians do not have to answer for the works of a body which, though it has the name of a church, does not keep to the criterion that one must not at all ADD to the word of God (Proverbs 30:6), nor act, unless the one in question be CHRIST HIMSELF (sinless, resurrected bodily, eternal...), as a master and teacher for His body. ALL others than the ETERNAL LORD have subordinate roles, as brethren, and whatever service they may give, it is not as lords, having dominion (I Peter 5), but as aids to the word of God to which nothing may be added, from which nothing subtracted as taught from Deuteronomy 4, 12 to the last Chapter of Revelation.
If therefore
Romanism does such a thing as this, it does not impact on biblical Christianity,
which both forbids the additives and the attitude. It is merely ONE of the
heretical asides through 'disfaith' which various religious groups (this time
one centred in Rome) have formed. There is no special treatment for any
one of these, for a particular case. The word of God is universal in its
application; and it too has its exclusions concerning idolatry (I Corinthians
5:11 to 6:11). What then of a scientific matter in the special case of this
Romanism ? What might be handed out to one in
this regard, from its authoritarian midst ? What for doctrine as such ? Merely a
substitution of God's word by their own, together with mass idolatry and
subversion of those who would enter in by doctrines such as purgatory and
priestly power. It is not tolerable or good or acceptable because it has
traditions and buildings and art work and pompous words and unbrotherly
aspirations (cf. SMR pp. 1032-1088H,
Register
..., SMR pp. 946ff.,
and more generally,
902-954
).
Burnt for many doctrinal and dogmatic reasons ? yes, very many were. Imprisoned for a scientific idea ? Yes, Romanism could manage to do that, and did with Galileo. Could one be humiliated, threatened and formally charged because of it, and compelled to gainsay it publicly, when it was a scientific matter ? Yes, in the famous case of Galileo, this was all done. Let us have it as it is.
Superior, then, in what can a theory be, when it is NOT the truth, as defined by Rome ? Superior in what, is it when prison can confine your thoughts in their centre, shame express their toleration and anathema put finale to faith ?
To take thus an hypothetical idea of a Cardinal, contrary to his inclination, which in due course became a concrete denial, imposed with claimed divine authority, as a ground for allowance, this is as far from liberty as is prison, and requires what is declared to be truth, yet to be inferior in some way to theory.
In this Romanist case of Galileo: TRUTH defined is imposed; theory contrary is disposed. The 'truth' is the opinion of a body which can add to the Bible and declare dominatingly what it means, using force to help it maintain its cause. That is the reality. Let us not turn from it, for truth's own sake!
INTERPRETATION, INVESTMENT,
ASSERTION, COERCION AND DESERTION
What is the point of saying, as does the priest behind the book reviewed in the Journal of Creation, that the topic of evolutionism and its acceptability or otherwise is beyond the powers of the pope, when all the ordained of Rome, as in Vatican II, HAVE to admit that ALL the instruments of authority are in their due place and stand, being affirmed by that Council. That of course includes the Council of Trent very specifically, and the Vatican Council of 1870, in which the unqualified power of the papacy is asseverated in assertorial terms. "Whatever resists this power thus ordained of God, resists the ordinance of God..." - says the Bull, Unam Sanctam.
Then it proceeds to note, in terms of due authority according to its claim, that to do so means lacking salvation! Secularity and the sacred alike are to rest under the imposing authority of the pope, on ultimate duress of spiritual exclusion from what is deemed to be heaven!
INTERPRETATION is wholly given, and the topics of what is MEANT in the Bible are the papal domain; and whether the result be in accord or in discord with this or that may therefore be determined: but the interpretation of the test-pad, the Bible is by authority, divinely papal in Roman Catholic estimation, rebellious presumption in terms of Jesus Christ (Matthew 23:8-10).. Irrational or otherwise as an interpretation, this is what is bound.
Three popes in Encyclical or other formal speech, over a period of some 57 years up to last year, have deemed evolutionism not contrary to the Bible. The first declared Darwin's view "a serious hypothesis, worthy of investigation", the middle one added that evolutionism is now "more than an hypothesis" and thus advanced past the permissive attitude of Pius XII, on through the enveloping approval which was that of John Paul II. This had moved on to the intensification of this by Benedict in 2007 *2. Rome lies with the fallen, exchanging compliments, and many are in the same bed.
Alas and alas, as in Revelation 18ff., it is and will be; and so too for the false prophet more broadly; for he is to be very broad (Revelation 16), quick-moving with his pests, avoiding the spiritual pesticide of the word of God, till his time comes (Revelation 19:20), when the abhorrent meets its end, just as Rome is so scheduled in Revelation 18. .
NOTE
From SMR p.981, we have this on the topic of Canon Law.
One of the elements of the PEACE OF TRUTH, our immediately following consideration (p. 983 infra) is the consistency, persistency and consummate accuracy of articulation of what it provides; of what, in this case, is written. The defilement of this consistency, of this persistency and this accurate articulation, is one of the negative properties which shows up in false claimants to the status of the word of God... where indeed anything rational is provided at all! Let us illustrate.
The Roman Catholic body provides a good example. Parties have arisen in it, pushing now this, now that doctrine. 'Fathers' have said this and that, over the centuries during which the 'Canon Law' has been compiled; so that it almost becomes a romance of adventure to seek to compile their utterances, for sheer diversity. Some hold starkly to Christ and some are church-based: one Pope indeed (Leo II) declaring heretical the doctrine of a predecessor (Honorius) as did Church Councils and Pope for 800 years. (Cf. Dr. Laird Harris, Fundamental Protestant Doctrine, II, p. 13; The New Schaff Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, V, p. 353; Lorraine Boettner, Roman Catholicism, Ch.'s 4, 6, 11.) Yet 'they', these 'fathers' should be believed... What would you believe; but rather Christ (Matthew 23:8-10), who covered the case by forbidding such practice from the first (cf. also Mark 7:7).
Again on p. 1088A, we have this.
*14 John Paul II in The Code of Canon Law (prepared by The Canon Law Society of Great Britain and Ireland et al.), 1983, states:
"It is hoped that this English version of the Code will be a fitting resource
for an attentive and fruitful study of the law of the Church...
We order that henceforth it is to have the force of law
for the whole Latin Church,
and we commit its observance to the care and vigilance of all who are responsible."Not merely is the massive Code of Canon Law adhered to, rather than departed from: it is BOUND, explicitly being given indeed the FORCE OF LAW. Revisionism this is not!
GOD SPOKE: THEREFORE LET THAT WORD SPEAK - "not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually works also in you who believe." (1 Thessalonians 2:13.) Indeed, "Add not to His words, lest He rebuke you and you be found a liar" - Proverbs 30:6. God knows what His words are and who His Son is; and will require of any who abuse His name by seeking to direct, correct or replace His spoken or His living word (Matthew 7:21-29, 4:4,10, Revelation 22:18-20, Galatians 1:6-12). It is necessary to ABIDE in His words; and this is not a work of speech, but of being still (Psalm 46:10).
THE TRIO IN SLIDE
Excerpt from the speech of the Pope John Paul II, to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, 1996.
3. Before offering you several reflections that more specifically concern the subject of the origin of life and its evolution, I would like to remind you that the magisterium of the Church has already made pronouncements on these matters within the framework of her own competence. I will cite here two interventions.
In his encyclical Humani Generis (1950), my predecessor Pius XII had already stated that there was no opposition between evolution and the doctrine of the faith about man and his vocation, on condition that one did not lose sight of several indisputable points.
For my part, when I received those taking part in your academy's plenary assembly on October 31, 1992, I had the opportunity with regard to Galileo to draw attention to the need of a rigorous hermeneutic for the correct interpretation of the inspired word. It is necessary to determine the proper sense of Scripture, while avoiding any unwarranted interpretations that make it say what it does not intend to say. In order to delineate the field of their own study, the exegete and the theologian must keep informed about the results achieved by the natural sciences (cf. AAS 85 1/81993 3/8, pp. 764-772; address to the Pontifical Biblical Commission, April 23, 1993, announcing the document on the The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church: AAS 86 1/81994 3/8, pp. 232-243).
4. Taking into account the state of scientific research at the time as well as of the requirements of theology, the encyclical Humani Generis considered the doctrine of "evolutionism" a serious hypothesis, worthy of investigation and in-depth study equal to that of the opposing hypothesis. Pius XII added two methodological conditions: that this opinion should not be adopted as though it were a certain, proven doctrine and as though one could totally prescind from revelation with regard to the questions it raises. He also spelled out the condition on which this opinion would be compatible with the Christian faith, a point to which I will return. Today, almost half a century after the publication of the encyclical, new knowledge has led to the recognition of the theory of evolution as more than a hypothesis. [Aujourdhui, près d'un demi-siècle après la parution de l'encyclique, de nouvelles connaissances conduisent à reconnaitre dans la théorie de l'évolution plus qu'une hypothèse.] It is indeed remarkable that this theory has been progressively accepted by researchers, following a series of discoveries in various fields of knowledge. The convergence, neither sought nor fabricated, of the results of work that was conducted independently is in itself a significant argument in favor of this theory.
Thus Pius XII found a way to his satisfaction, in his encyclical, of accepting both physical evolution and spiritual reality as jointly sound. He did not declare evolution correct, but inoffensive, provided the spiritual aspect was preserved apart. John Paul II added that after half of a century, the position has changed in principle. Now, however, the theory (or as he later affirms, the realm of the theories, for there is not one, he states, but there are several) of evolutionary kind constitute "more than a hypothesis".
This means that it has substantial confirmation, making it either truth or currently indistinguishable from it. The 'convergence' of course is the precise opposite of the reality (cf. TMR Ch. 1, SMR pp.140ff., Deity and Design ... and especially, the two volumes of Light Dwells with the Lord's Christ, where verification is a specialised issue). Indeed, it is being papally affirmed in such a fashion as to render the permissiveness (provided there were conditions met), of Pius XII, to be categorically surpassed. An hypothesis then, formerly by Pius deemed of fair quality, is now held by John Paul to be BEYOND that status, in his own more recent declaration.
Further, the convergence of fields of knowledge with this variable concept of evolution which he thinks he descries (whatever that concept may be deemed to be, in its approach to the formation of the human body) is affirmed as impressive, so beyond the realm of hypothesis. Indeed, in a later context of theories having to be rejected if verification does not confirm them, this places for his choice of terms, evolutionism as indistinguishable at any point, from truth. IF it were, then the normal parade of fallen theories departing the truth would be, as he indicates, in progress!
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In fact, of course, in this
respect, it is more than merely amusing to note |
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the force of Gould (Wake
Up World! ... Chs. 4-6) |
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in confrontation with
more old-fashioned and wholly ludicrous gradualism |
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(seen to be such in the light
more especially of recent increments of knowledge of the virtually endless
wheels within wheels of co-ordinated and code-directed workings and
provisions of the cell and body, interlaced in depth and with finesse of
the uttermost rigour which no man has matched), |
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with his withering diatribes and restless ires! |
It is yet more hilarious when Gould's own omissions are considered (ref. as above), and conjoined with his ironies! Thus is the battle-field left desolate and the reigning theory, with Darwin, dead in its varied contests (Delusive Drift or Divine Dynamic Chs. 4, 3 and 2).
Gould engages with rollicking enthusiasm in the shredding at least in a substantial degree of ONE of the theories, while its advocates find the ideas of Gould lacking in respect for the domain of Darwin. How between them they are deemed to confirm themselves is rather like thinking that Palin and Obama between them are making for someone's election! The very concept is specious and ludicrous. War is not a platform for peace, nor frank contradiction a password for unity, on the basis of which truth is being affirmed. It is a very emblem of the clash of contraries.
Internecine conflict on the evidence and meaning is the assurance of truth!
Nevertheless, as if for some absurd funeral service for Darwin, with Gould helping with the coffin while dragging along one for himself, John Paul II deems this statedly DIVERSE domain, from his declaration, this overall domain now to be MORE THAN hypothetical. Indeed, he evidently finds it one which can indeed be found acceptable and instructive, provided the spiritual is separated.
Unfortunately, that is precisely what is per se impossible, since the GOD who CREATES, by whatever method, is IMPLICATED in the method. It is HIS creation and so HIS METHOD, and all that transpires is acceptable to Him who has no constraints, no conditions and no qualifications. He can choose universes or forms of life at will, and their grounds, processes and ways at will. He can judge and rebuke the beautiful (as in Ezekiel 28:14ff.), but this is sin's income, not creation's output. Will works woe if it will; and God brings judgment as He will, and what He wills is so longsuffering and forbearing, that once one's eyes are opened to the fulness of sin and the incarnate force of evil, as it were, the very thrust of the devil, His grace is staggering.
It is rebuke which impoverishes, and pains, however; not creation, the work of His own power, uncompounded by the ways and wiles of the will of creation, whether in suppurations of the spirit or confrontations of the flesh.
This has been shown on a number of occasions on this site and is apparent, since the travail and suffering of this life as a result of sin is one thing, but when it is deemed to come in the very act of creation of what is thus NOT YET HERE TO SIN, being only partly made, then it is the result of deity. The Bible makes it clear however that IN THE CREATION, the good God found only good, and that vanity and suffering have come from the fall (Romans 5:12-21, 8:20).
The conceptual failure to realise this fact, even a willingness to begin to contemplate God using such means as evolutionary thought proposes, to create has its parallel in Romanist history. This increasingly attested failure to understand or even accept biblical creation, and to endure the implications, is indeed coincident with the methods of the Roman Inquisition, which proceeded during several papacies, over hundreds of years, inflicting unthinkable pain, anguish, mental, spiritual, moral and physical and countless people including juniors. It not only did not HAVE to do this; it was forbidden (cf. John 18:36)! The God who could perform such atrocities is not the God of the Bible, whose tender mercies are over all His works, and who is love. He neither suffered from His word, the Bible, such inhumanity nor created with such forces at work. To imagine the contrary and write so: it to libel the Lord.
NO NECESSITY can ever dictate to Him on whom all the worlds and their whirlings depend ultimately from the first, who is the first and the last, and declares the end from the beginning (Isaiah 44-46).
WHAT IS necessary is to turn from this sort of abuse of the glory of God and of His name, back to the Biblical text (as in Let God be God! Ch. 12, and in Thy Word is Wonderful Ch. 6 with SMR pp. 179ff., 482ff. - cf. The gods of naturalism have no go!).
Let us however proceed with the detail of the case.
The Third pontifical utterance, in the series being reviewed, is found from the current Pope Gregory who, we find from Mail on Line, dated October 2007,
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-447930/Pope-Benedict-believes-evolution.html
holds such views as these.
'Pope Benedict has aired his views on evolution for the first time - and says he partially believes Darwin's theories.
The Pontiff said science had narrowed the way life's origins are understood and said Christians should take a broader approach to the question.
However, he did not adopt a strictly scientific view of the origins of life, believing instead that God created life through evolution.
He said he "would not depend on faith alone to explain the whole picture".
As well as praising scientific progress, the Pope's views, published in a new book 'Schoepfung unt Evolution' (Creation and Evolution), did not endorse the creationist, or 'intelligent design' view of life's origins.'
The article continues later, with some oversimplification:
'In the book, Benedict defended what is known as 'theistic evolution', the view held by Roman Catholic, Orthodox and mainline Protestant churches, that God created life through evolution and religion and science need not clash over this.
I would not depend on faith alone to explain the whole picture," he remarked during the discussion held at the papal summer palace in Castel Gandolfo outside Rome.
He also denied using a 'God-of-the-gaps' argument that sees divine intervention whenever science cannot explain something.
"It's not as if I wanted to stuff the dear God into these gaps - he is too great to fit into such gaps," he said in the book that publisher Sankt Ulrich Verlag in Augsburg said would later be translated into other languages.'
Here the "dear God" is so dear that He is not even allowed to ACT to create the information for the gaps, being more Aristotelian, away from it all. The contrary is obviously the case, as in the incarnation and crucifixion, yes and in the bodily resurrection; and we read in Isaiah, "in all their afflictions, He was afflicted." To imagine that this God was so distant that He did not even create the main types of physical being, on this occasion and that, is the opposite of Genesis 1 which tells us HOW He did this, and confirms in Genesis 2, that this is the way in which it was achieved.
The confusion of the discipline of the curse on creation as in Romans 5 and 8:17ff., with the creative work of God, which none saw and He characterised as GOOD, is a fallacy of intrusion into the biblical teaching which is as unnecessary as ungainly, as ungodly as reprobate, and insult of the most immense proportions invented by man.
Thus Rome has made its peace with evolutionism, and is as heretical as the others, contrary to and contradicting the biblical depiction no less or more than the facts of VERIFIED science (cf. Scientific Method, Satanic Method and the Model of Salvation). It has moved past the encyclical allowing Darwinism as credible, to the speech to the speech to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, on to the Book, Creation and Evolution, in which intelligent design is obscured into dismissal, theistic evolution is found quite acceptable and Darwinism is given enough place for there to be declared no war between science and religion, on the basis of this type of 'evolution'. In other words, the appalling anti-verification horror of the cruel modality is the first error; the failure to see the point of application of intelligent design and the confusion of 'science' with the views of some competing components in the scientific spectrum, as if scientific method did not reach its acme and perfection in creationism: these things together show a confusion wholly compatible with the other error, the heretically asserted capacity for infallible declaration on the part of the popes.
While this does not mean that a Romanist MUST believe in evolutionism, it does mean that the hierarchy of an intensely and uniquely hierarchical 'church' has committed itself to peace with evolutionism of the body, even at a total level as to method, and certainly to moral approval of its modes. The recent pope's extremist position of virtually ignoring design in its totality as reported, is mere affront to the designer whose methods, inputs and brilliance of mode, morally, physically, intellectually, as to plan and purpose is all things precisely what He wills and arises from no other source, sin apart. Nor can the results be matched by the most artful machinations of man.
Sin however is post creation; and now is NOT apart. As Revelation shows, the curse is in some ways cumulative, and how it has been so well worn for so long is an extreme attestation to the forbearance of God.
Thus, judgment has already set in, as from the first affront to design and designation wrought by mankind; and this onset is to an extent staggering in its mercy, in view of the constant affront to fact and faith alike, practised by so many so-called churches and states, educational authorities and others, who from time to time acknowledge as Refuting Evolution, amongst many, so well and ably illustrates and documents, their confusion or failure.
The first of the three declines on this point, that of Pius, as noted, is in the form of an encyclical and according to the Catholic Encyclopedia, its standing is as follows:
"Although it is only during the last three pontificates
that the most important utterances of the Holy See
have been given to the world
in the shape of encyclicals,
this form of Apostolic Letter has long been in occasional use."
Rome's use of evolutionism in schools is so endemic that the antichristian document of the SA education department, given in 1988, even cites their SOLUTION to the question as a model! that is - they cite with approval, the dedicated discipline of evolutionism presented by the Catholic educational bodies so that there would not be a clash for the students, after schooling, with authorities and teaching of other views!
Providing it ? presenting it! The SA practice of so presenting it that rational argument in ANY field is forbidden in the creation-evolution field in classes, outside evolutionism's ways in itself, is merely an extension. There is no presentation of creation in a scientific, codified, fortified fashion so that teaching skill and tools of study are equal! There is discrimination of such a dimension that the continual refusal of SA Premiers, Ministers or Shadow Ministers to face this issue, when challenged, and to meet the case when their departments have been confronted with call for debate, over decades, is understandable. Their conduct is indefensible (cf. Government); debate would merely illustrate their implacability and intolerance.
While therefore, in the face of the insurgent irrationality of evolutionism as shown in its various forms (cf. The gods of naturalism have no go!), there is much to be said to the credit of the publishers of the Journal of Creation and its companion magazine, Creation, and the work done by many in it, this wandering into accommodation to a degree prohibited within the Bible, this tendency which these two illustrations exhibit sadly, to ignore the biblical depiction of conduct towards idolatry, and to palliate what is categorical, even permitting inadequate apologia from Rome, is deplorable.
As the work is public, so is the response.
But let us pass from this combination of joyful praise and sad lament, to the fact that what is revealed concerning Rome, is just one more part of the holocaust of morals, even debiting the glory of God with the overall decision to use such a foul and warped thing as the imagined physical evolutionary modes in creation, so that not only man but He is engulfed. Since the God of Romanism, however, diverges categorically from that of the Bible (cf. SMR pp. 1032ff.), it is not He who is impugned, but their own creation in the realm of god, the idol which is unbiblical with the Christ who is made to match the desires of Romanist dogma and force.
Nevertheless, since billions of persons are alleged to give some kind of allegiance to Romanism, this is one more savour of death to a world which is working its way, like someone paying his way on a voyage, to ruin; for the end of that voyage, far from the God of the Bible, is unillustrious, such works having no end in the God of all truth, mercy, pity and goodness who does not willingly afflict the children of men (I Corinthians 6, Lamentations 3). The preparation for the entire world in its massive array, seeking to oppose God to His face as in Revelation 19:19, is not far off.
With the return of Israel to Jerusalem (cf. Luke 21:24), it could not be long in coming! It is precisely here that there is a fascinating pointer. Jerusalem, relative to the prophecy of Christ, is INDEED back with Israel, no more trodden down by the Gentiles; but now there is a strong move to have East Jerusalem for the Arabs. According to The Australian, October 21, 2008, Israel is giving deep thought to the Saudi peace plan which would give East Jerusalem with much more, back to the enemies of Israel. Ohlmert has already spoken in terms of 'realism' and not dreaming about restoration of lands at last gained, when Israel, betrayed by the UN, was not given the Palestine the League of Nations and victorious powers of the 1914-1918 war had pledged, but fought for and won some land, a small fraction of what had been marked for it, but denied it.
Now Defence Minister Barak is saying it might be time to pursue an overall peace deal with the region.
However, although such moves were close once before, they have never closed in! In the meantime, as since 1967, over 40 years, Israel has had the control of Jerusalem, giving what she will for the reasons she will, for the use of others, as any nation or city may, which has the rule. Jerusalem please note, is not at this point, and has not been at any point for the last 40 years, a gap of a generation, under Gentile sway. Note and collate with Luke 21.
It is a wise thing so to do, to heed the word of the Lord.