In Chapter 13

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CHAPTER 14

CARELESS FUDGE FACTORS AND WRONG ELEVATIONS

in History and Science

In Chapter 13, we looked at a combination of sequence, significance and splendour in the world episodes in terms of the divine plan.

Although in this site, there have been many presentations on Isaiah, and its careful exegesis, in Israel and its place in biblical themes, and the Gospel in its application to the entire history of the earth, it seems good to present yet one more overview, this time of a composite variety, since these areas are scenes not only of an immense and intense theological confusion, vastly aided by slavery to this or that opposing tradition, but because this is diminishing the intensely valuable light in darkness of which Peter speaks in II Peter 1:19. For this, prophecy has been specifically intended to provide, with no cut-off to be found in the word of God to its period of application, for who shall limit the Lord!

His word of prophecy obviously includes material to the very end, with preludes to judgment including marked bodies for destruction, extremes of horror and essentialising of the Gospel and its application, and designation of the entire time in which Jerusalem with its courtyard is to be trampled by the Gentiles as in Revelation 17-20, 11, and the era of its deliverance following that, as also in Luke 21:24. This ends as in Revelation 11 and Luke 21:24 and Israel the nation dispersed is specifically restored AT that end of the Age, for then the time is "short" before Christ's own return as Christ in Luke indicates.

Do not, says the Lord, add to His word, lest you become a liar and He rebuke you. Add nothing, follow everything, be a blood-hound for Christ, not tangling with His word, but using this as basis for understanding, not for addition, subversion, intrusion or the like.

Platitudes abound; philosophies extend; but the word of God is being crushed, like Israel itself, without realisation that even some Presbyterians, to name but one, are actually working against the scattered, spattered people of Israel, as if giving land to the Palestinians for which they responded by inhuman, rocket firing provocations as if it were life blood, not death immorality to do so, and by then seeking to penalise Israel for seeking to protect its people from antagonistic racial or doctrinal take-over by the many bodies angling to do this.

Show them, say these assailants, that we would like to be anti-Semitic in the Israel sense, by attacking their commercial enterprises. How gloriously pitiful, realistic and thoughtful of those who having been given land freely, used it to make domestic rocket attacks on the small residue left. This, too, by those who in 1947 would not accept an internationalised Jerusalem and Israel kept to small pockets of land!

The danger of doing this foul thing, a persecutory model grieving the heart, use gift to make mayhem, and all such associated provocations to delete Israel, as expressly sought by many, what are they like ? They are like the molestation of a child, this tiny plot of Israel, alert despite multiple UN betrayals, on what is left of the multinational wars against its tiny scope. Such assaults are noted in such scriptural sites as Zechariah 12, Ezekiel 38-39 at a climax, and move into the realm of fighting against God, to use the word of Gamaliel, in this connection also. That is how the thing is depicted in Zechariah, in that in this case the Lord would help them as if God fought. How can such blindness endure ? One reason is confusion of concepts; but as with other such cases exposed by the Lord, there is an underlying reason for this.

CARELESS FUDGE FACTORS

How often we hear, in engineering locales or astronomy discussion, of fudge factors. They include things which are APPROXIMATE to the point of confusion, CARELESS to the point of overlooking the entirety of the matter in view, and cover-ups for inaccurate and unwarranted additives or constraints to be used in terms of various theories or ideas or perspectives or accounts of data.

THE NATURE OF NATURE

Hartnett points out that on one occasion, it was admitted that the main thing missing in the naturalistic account of the universe, by one contesting party, was that now all was known about the nature of the universe except for a few small details, such as questions, What are dark matter and dark energy ?

Hartnett is unimpressed by the reported speaker, Nobel Laureate Stephen Chu, since he points out that these items cover in widespread current theory, about 95% of the universe, this WITHOUT any demonstration. They are just seen by invention based on NO verification, a matter of guesses like prescribing oil for an engine running hot, when the oil itself is only envisaged. This is reportedly the case precisely in the realm of the imagined dark matter and dark energy (Evolution's Achilles' Heels, p. 224). Hartnett has elaborated a similar point elsewhere. In mathematics it is a very comical type of thing. You cannot find the answer to a a problem, so you say, AH! if only I could make the answer come in some way, all would be well. HOW may I do this ? Aha! all I need to do is imagine that several factors, unknown, untraced, were working or to be assumed, and it would work.

If only water were in the beaker which I, in dire thirst, am imagining, it would be well.

Perhaps; but the point is that you do not have it, and guessing is neither God nor something that goes. ADJUSTING fudge factors, calling them into being as if they were when they are not even in harmony with existing data, let alone required by it, and making this to be affirmed MOST of the universe, in fact, almost all, is a ghastly exercise in fudge factors. Perhaps it is the worst ever in terms of measurement and attribution, except for making nothing the author of all.

Such thrilling pageantry of imagination has of course nothing to do with science, where the DATA move you to theorise and compare with various other realms of data in order to explain a result. In this, instead, the unruly data which WILL not even begin to allow interpretation, have to be assisted by imaginary things providing no data that they so much as exist, so that not what is here is the basis of thought, but what if it were here, that would make what is here comprehensible in terms of theories which mix what is found with what is NOT found, and act as if it were ALL found, confirmed in results, competitive in presentation.

Competitive with what ? Why, with what rests on the data without sweeping in what you feel like having so that everything on your heavily adjusted basis, may to some degree begin to work out.

What is it like ? It is like having a murder suspect whom you cannot nail with evidence. It all looks so likely, if only you could find records of earlier misbehaviour, evil actions and the like, but they are not to be seen. You are harassed, and your little scene prepared for the courts lacks something. It is normally called evidence. You just simply CANNOT give up your hope that the right criminal is this one, but you equally cannot get what it takes to show it. You COULD have found this evidence, but it WILL not come!

So you show how perfectly, in court, the case would fit if you had evidence for your thought, when all you have is a incapacity to look elsewhere, because of prejudice, and a lure to make impressions king.

Your case would be thrown out as imposture, a flight of fancy, a gross injustice, and people willing to FOLLOW, and not manufacture evidence, would be commissioned, if justice were to be done.

IF you do not have the ingredients for basing a theory, then you need to explore until you do; but better, you need to follow what IS explicatory, DOES work in covering the case and sedulously avoid mere inventions, as an athlete should avoid a fat stomach if doing hurdling. It might impact with the actual hurdles. You have to take no for an answer, and this is a worthwhile premiss. When you at last find evidence which compels and impels to a resolution by a theory which meets its demands, then is the time to bring in the response.

Until then, you simply look for what does explain the phenomena, such as the idea that the universe did not come by itself, did not make itself before it was there to do it, did not find nothing a good basis, or something not self-sufficient its origin, or some part of it; for that is to part with the difference between cause and effect, and to use begging the question on a multiple scale, using imaginary givens, smuggled imports, as if you could build on the air of fancy, not in the domain of what is warranted, so avoiding the dilemma, magic or logic.

But it is one or the other: just HAVE what you want and impel or stop it, at your imaginative will, and let it produce all, and so explain nothing, a Disney production the magical enterprise, wrongly billed. Otherwise, account for it in what is coherent and adequate, satisfying every branch of logic. In the latter case, you need to precede nothing with something, and this needs to be eternal, since if ever it were not there at this level, nothing would or even could be. This requires an eternal adequacy, more often called God with independent attestations (cf. SMR).

To GET an effect you need a competent cause, or else to eliminate causation which is impossible, since thought to do so, depends on it^*1. That is antilogy, the denial of the very principle of your operation. If you account for causality, to explain it, then you use it to do so, and so cannot escape it. It is logic, not magic, all through for explanation. It is so logically, it is so practically, experimentally, observationally.

If it is not to be explanation, then when this is the target, that is simple failure. When however you have as basis a sufficient cause, and so avoid antinomy, then the impetus and actuality, whether in stages or in direct invention (we ourselves make things creatively all at once, or by building in stages which may be quite rapid as in Genesis' time scale of depiction), then your endless conundrums and ad hoc inventions do not replace evidential reality. Then what is being said is no longer to be found in surmises, let alone ones that do not fit all the evidence, tied in perpetual knots endlessly involved in negative impacts (cf. That Mighty Rock, Ch. 7).

Now the various forces that operate are categorically distinctive as RESULTS, and their causation accountable, so that they might even exist, becomes a matter of what is in type, not hype. It is not by any means limited to the current operations, any more than a manufacturing plant is limited by the way a car now works. Yet this disparity of creative means and consequential ways of working is far greater than this analogy would suggest. In this case, the issue is the ENTIRETY of the universe, as distinct from it not being there, the word for which, if ever it applied to anything, would be creation.

Creation is not slave to maintenance. Facts are not slave to imagination. Negative results of imagination are not masters of thought, but evidence of its beggary. Dismantling the Big Bang (Hartnett and Williams) is far more procedurally correct. How ? It is so in that it insists on results that mirror the theory or hypothesis, and takes issue with what in the usual aberrant way of simply imagining things based on some supplied element or other, exhibits too well the indigestion of such naturalistic theories, just as logic cannot condone them.

THE NATURE OF ISRAEL

Now much of this has been treated elsewhere (cf. Chs. 12 and 10 above), but here is used as an illustration of fudge factors, that is things that would make something almost acceptable, if it applied; while in fact, it is neither in itself accurately formulated, meaningfully applied nor based on any supportive evidence.

It is so with the concept that Israel is not Israel, that any reference to the nation which comes in the present Age is really the Church, in prophetic scripture. In fact, the case is far more complex, and yet not enough to harass any thoughtful High School student in the last stages at least, of school. Israel meant the nation; it is like other words capable of use in imagery or metaphor. It normally is not so used in its national days, especially when history is being reviewed; but in a special case with warrant from the context, it could be. Textual fidelity in each case is always crucial, and vapid generalisations based on nothing but philosophy and its embellishment have no place in replacing context with concept of the reader.

Later on, after Israel has crucified the Messiah, and many prophecies in the Old Testament envisage this happening from centuries or even a millenium before it happened, it is as in Micah 5:1-3, excluded from the tidings of salvation theme, as also under the general provisions of Leviticus 26, even from its own land. To all this, it is to return, in a time culminating in its spiritual conversion; and the Lord will, as in the Exodus, deal with its insurgent enemies, its own strength now inadequate for the task. Thus, its spiritual exclusion (Isaiah 30, 65:13-15) is a determinant till conversion later comes to the nation; but this has little to do with the Lord's use of symbolism with the term, when He so chooses. He can speak at will, by context, of it after its conversion, before it, and even make use of the term as a method of referring to a spiritual concept or remnant (Galatians 6:16), if He chooses. In each case, it makes the case is clear, except to the muddy waters of some traditional exegetical pre-emption.

All that is needed is to consult the near and far context, and watch with care to avoid fudging and fiddling and ignoring the evidence with high-minded disdain, such as the Gentiles are warned against in Romans 11:18-19.

Israel assuredly is restored in land and faith, as a nation, albeit a remnant. This is where correctly dividing the word of God again comes in. Having been fearless to follow what is written, one is not thereby insulated against going to the other extreme. Thus Israel is not shown per se, as a regally glorious national body which, vindicated, comes into its own. To be sure, its return will be used to clarify everything, so that as in Ezekiel 37-39, both Israel and its enemies will realise what has been happening over time (39:23,28): that is, that Israel went into exile for its sins, and is brought back for the fulfilment of the promises of God, of the word of God in His mercy as in Micah 7.

THEN as in Romans 11 on an equal and Gospel footing without fiddling or change of any type or degree (Galatians 3), Jew and Gentile believers become as one, though Jerusalem itself, not for racial elevation (all of that long deceased as provided for in Isaiah 65:13-15 and 30:8-11), but for the purposes of signifying the singularity of the Lord and the reality of His redeeming work wrought ONCE in ONE place by ONE Lord, becomes a centre of divine authority. It is the Lord, there crucified, who has it. The actual power and majesty is vested in the Lord. This is not, as if by a fudge factor, to be made to mean, ruled by ANYTHING. The Lord is NOT anything.

It means that whatever He values, desires, deems singular, sufficient, indicative of reality, to the point, in tune with His characteristic thoughts, THIS will be done. It is not a case of fusion, or confusion, but diffusion of what He STATES will be the case for this period, following His return (as in Deuteronomy 32, Micah 5-7, Psalm 72, Isaiah 60, 65, Revelation 19-21).

That is the revelation as distinct from the imagination; ordering by what displays itself, this time in the Bible, and not what is thought of as fulfilling the desires of this or that heart, which is NOT GOD. Let the Lord speak for Himself. If you prefer otherwise, you still will not stop Him. It is all there, expressly written.

Whether it be the facts of revelation or creation, it is necessary to be self-disciplined and to avoid meticulous reliance on merely inventive thought, WHEN ostensibly interpreting what is given. If you want simply to imagine, then this must be stipulated as having no basis, but perhaps useful in considering how things might be; but it has NO power to persuade by argument, merely to depict in characterising what IS given, to prevent illusions falsely drawn from it.

Is it complex ? Is it complex to find that nothing does not work as a basis for everything, and what is inadequate does not work to define and account for what is here, and that creation is not the same as subsequent operation, just as a pen in its fashioning is not the same thing as a pen in its use as given, when finished, in order to write.

Is that hard ? Is it too difficult to see a chosen vehicle for information on this earth, being a nation which is a shop window exhibiting to a rebellious people, the nature of its God ? (Isaiah 43:21). Is it a dizzyingly difficult to find that it eventually failed, that God took extreme measures, came in the Person of His word as a man, and died for the sin of man, thus fulfilling justice and confirming His love to the uttermost.

Is it hard to see that the nation that failed Him, even to the point of crucifixion of its own Lord thus in flesh, as foretold, and STILL would not believe in Him when they had finished, would be in a special case category ? So it would be until it DID repent at last and return to the Lord (Micah 5:1-3, Isaiah 32:12ff.).

Is it too laborious to accept the word of God that when it did so, things would change as in Zechariah.

Is it difficult to understand that THEN that the Lord would show the difference at the national level, and prevent any racial imaginations of folly and pride, on the part of the Gentiles, to kick it about as almost usual, or on the part of Israel, to exalt itself, she who had slain the Lord. Each and every part has been disgraceful, utterly so, whether you read Matthew 23 of Israel, or Matthew 24 of the nations.

Whether or not it is hard to imagine that the Lord in His own time, having finished all instruction in His own way for a suitable period, and will then judge one and all, whether called at first to Israel, the prelude, or at last called direct to the Messiah, the epiphany, all by one criterion: the Gospel! ye it is unwise to fluster here!

Compared with government laws, this can be joy and simplicity itself.

FOLLOWING THE WORD OF GOD

IS NOT THE SAME AS TRANSCENDING IT

One God, with one creation is there (cf. SMR): the latter made as and how He wills, with whatever evidences after its finish, of how it was made, at His pleasure, as in the case of any creator and the degree (if any) of how he came to write and form and formulate and objectify his work into a book. There are similarly not fifty two, but two agencies of note in the incoming input for the people of the world, and the formulation into the darkness of its rebellion, epitomised in the flood.

Who are these ? They are Jews as a nation and Gentiles as many races. Each plays its part, dividing and rejoining, as God provides the means. In the end, the bud and the bloom, Israel and Gentile alike, are found in the garden of God (NOT in the rebellions residual in this world) to be but one plant. It is not a plant of the devil, but these trees are planted by God, whether typical or topical (Matthew 15:13).

Is this too exacting or exasperating ?

Is it hard to divide the word of God on the basis of what it SAYS and not on the base of fudge factors which both dictate to the evidence and deny it ? It is not too hard for this is a requirement ( II Timothy 2:15).

Thus to imagine that Israel, though indeed vindicated in much, and restored in land according to promise and to the Lord as in the premisses (Hosea, Zechariah 12:10-13:1, Ezekiel 36-37, Micah 7, Deuteronomy 32) is to become a majestic ruler of all, this also runs into collision with explicit parts of the word of God.

Tweedledum and tweedledee have too long fought, both extremist in approach, neither watchful enough of each and every context, and its message, jointly making the clear statement of the totality.

Israel is indeed NOT to be cast away as a site blighted by both rebellion and discipline (Jeremiah 31, 33), for ever, but despite vast follies leading to hideous desolations, it is to be restored. As Ezekiel shows, this series of events (Ezekiel 37:24) is to be consummated in its restoration, in its very character and midst, with the Messiah as Lord, even the descendant in the flesh, from David, God with us (Isaiah 7, 9). When this time comes, NO MORE will Israel defile its heritage, Lord and office (Ezekiel 37:23). Thus wedded are the terminal situation of Israel, cited as no more to go astray, the nation defined by the foregoing context, and the Israel that is now governed by the Messiah, this being both endemic and eternal for those who come to the Lord, and these are many (as in Zechariah 12).

That is the opposite error to fudging factors, evacuating Israel from the final events. The one wants to make what is MULTIPLE, to be singular, despite the contrary writings and the premisses of the promises of God. The other glorifies Israel, giving it as a nation a centrality repeatedly denied on a long term basis. It is not to become great, but to be graciously restored. Its greatness, if you must use the term, is not intrinsic but extrinsic, given by its example, its showing the power of the promises of God, by His unutterable mercy and loving restoration; but NOT by any type of exaltation.

Avoiding these unwarranted and excluded extremes, we find that the Lord states that He acts so that what involves the restoration of Israel and the destitution of the Gentiles, is to be enmeshed, till both being awakened, there is a conclusion for all, and this on the one Gospel basis as Paul so greatly delights to explain in Romans 11.

An Israel being addressed (as in Isaiah 49), as being the captive of the mighty and prey of the terrible: is this 'the Church' ? Is the 'Church' to clothe itself with its enemies (49:18)? Is the Church laid waste (49:17) ? Is the Church the body which characteristically as part of what it is, has so failed to heed the commandments of God that it is then to be found in Babylon as exiled from the faith ? (48:16-20) ? Is the Church that sinning body which is evacuated from its sanctum, and which has "drunk at the hand of the Lord, the cup of His fury!" Or does the Gospel teach that the slaying of many in a militarily depicted and vengeful setting, is part of the relief of its pardoning presentation! (Isaiah 66:15-17). Do complete opposites have to make the height of clarity when applied to the same thing at the same time in the same respect ? Is Alice in Wonderland to be utterly surpassed ? Is this textual magic ? for it has no place in available logic! If you contradict yourself, in a word, others need not bother to do so.

Is it not the case that VARIOUS elements are in view in the complex battles and incidentals, at the end, as the Age terminates according to the word of God ? Does Act 5 as in a Shakespearean play, have to have only one main element, even if the theme is singular ? How many players are to be "allowed" by those inclined towards fudge factors which neither fit all the evidence, not allow the evidence to speak for itself concerning what is to be! Why imagine when facts are at hand ? If you theory works and explains ALL THE DATA, so that it MEETS this, rather than meets its own ideas in its own domain, ignoring facts, well.

Let however the facts of the universe of creation, and of the domain of the Creator, alone. Learn to learn. It also, this, it is a part of growing up, growing up into the Head which is Christ.

NO ONE is to be glorified in that time, and the ONLY glory being that of God, comes ONLY by its being shed like light (not sourced in what it lights up in itself) from its source, which - as in stained glass windows - does wonders for the interior of the Church. In reality it is now composed of two major systematic sources, all sinners, all saved, some with this context at the outset, some with that (cf. Ephesians 2:11-3, Amos 9:7-8, Ezekiel 16:3,45), none with ANY glory in themselves to carry into the domain of works and wonders (cf. Matthew 22, Romans 3:23ff., Isaiah 2:17). It is the prelude and the consummation, Israel and the Church.

"The Lord alone will be exalted in that day." He is the only one in a position to be so, though some be rewarded, for what, by the entirety of grace and gift of divine righteousness, their wake is, as the craft for life has been steered on His service in the lake of life (Matthew 25).

It is good that the Lord alone be exalted, for His time on earth was

	without impurity or wavering,
	without fault or misdemeanor,
	without lapse or failure,
	without yielding at the level of knowledge or power,
	without breach of the unity of works and words in their connection from His mouth and hand,
	without continuation of ill-fitting sacrifice once the deed is done (John 19:30, Luke 23:43,46, Hebrews 9:12ff.),
	or failure to complete it with grace while it was operational (Luke 23:43).

It is fitting, due, that HIS be the praise (Revelation 5, Psalm 29:2, 96:8).

NOTE

See Causes, SMR Ch. 5, Predestination and Freewill Section 4.