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CHAPTER FOURTEEN
TRY MAKING A WORLD AND IF GULLIBLE,
CHANGE YOUR TONE TO MEET YOUR TASK:
IT IS NOT DONE BY ARTLESS INTONATION
BUT INFORMATION, POWER AND PURPOSE
Think of a world. It has to be governed by laws, specified in speech for living matters, co-ordinated in instructions, mathematical in undergirding controls, supervised in their operation by a further set of controls, sequenced in patterns, in material things made up of tiny pieces, frequently far too small to be seen with the naked eye, but in macro-format unitary in overall function and co-ordinated in degrees of further unity, as the plan levels move up, till as in the human body, you have to find atoms moulded into molecules moulded into bio-chemical kindreds fashioned into organs of correlated capacities, integrated into a whole of functional co-ordination, manageable in part by mind, similarly operative through billions of units, composed into an ordered system, subject overall to the direction of spirit, equipped in turn with imagination, conceptualising power, analytical prowess to read the specifications of the systems of its own body, with a logic present both in the mind as a discipline, and available in the spirit, but without compulsion, and in the inward natures of the things investigated, propagated in logically readable format, read in the same, whether by parts relating to other parts, or the person for whose use all of this is available, whether with provision for participation by will, as often, or not..
You have thought of such a world as this ? Now make that world, at least in principle. Do terms like chaos occur to you as the nature of the combination, you plus matériel ? What is chaos if it has persistent features describable ? It is then a type of uncovered system, in which that aspect can never appear (for it would then be less than chaos), where the systematics are evanescent so that as soon as they would begin to come, they would be gone, like a dream in the night, not available for recall; except that this would not even have happened, the extreme dream, so fanciful that it dare not come even into being as an event!
Does it occur to you that undisciplined thought, irrationality as a method, law as an intruder, language as an alien, orders as an exception, construction as a procedure, sequence as an exclusion, synthesis as an enemy, analysis of irrelevant, anticipation as a precursor, that this is the nature of the case ? As well make darkness the hidden nature of light, and light what obscures! That is dealing NOT ONLY in submissions as theory, as ground for this world, as contrary to requirements, but asininely and flamboyantly, indeed perversely an expedition into a fancifulness so complete, as to resemble not the ordered thought of a scientist but the gleeful obstinacies and wildly sensational wild ideas of an inventive child, glorying in the ridiculous and making fun of it all with the wildest casts of contrariety. Imaginative children can be gleeful in such thrusts of utterly ungoverned imagination, so that they can begin to live in another world, one that they have made in their thought, comfortingly easier to handle or adventurously divergent from the one we have. Romans 1:17ff. explains how this comes to be, so that brilliance in some things becomes almost divergent from even basics in others. It is not a propositional fault plain; it is a personal one of the spirit of those affected, we read. You get much the same frequently in divorce, and in lapsed friendships at times.
I say, imagine a world that you have to make, one with the specifications given, and would you in all earnestness start with the very opposite to the apposite (contrary to the norms of scientific method and the constraints of logic, which would seek what is satisfyingly nearest to the need, and comprehensibly as well as comprehensively the least you would need, were you actually to set about it) !
Similarly, if you had to make a trip to Mars, you would not delightedly find the best way to dispense in thought with every conceivable need you would have, as if perversity, and not provision, wildness and not wisdom, were the game. These things you COULD not either responsibly or rationally do since the task of making a world or such a trip is so challenging, and so linked to means, that you would find this rather an oddball fancifulness, and perhaps enquire as to the adequacy of the education and indeed life-experience of those on any such team, who seek to persuade the mission to act in such a garish and flamboyant seeming manner, to make the world specified.
Approaching authority for specialising thoughts and powers likely to make your task easier, you would want sophisticates in means, where imagination is not out of control, as if discipline of thought were inanity, if not a type of profanity! You would not want to be harassed by irrelevance, and supported by caprice, logic a captive tormented by what then appears to have the characteristics of erraticism and a wild surge.
Not like a lordly millionaire of universes, tossing them about in thought because THEY ARE ALREADY there, as though it were literally child's play, but like a beggar looking an unyielding necessity would you proceed, since without what is necessary, you will not make your universe, or your trip (cf. THE GODS OF NATURALISM HAVE NO GO!). Remember, we are considering what it would take to make one of these, you and what else ? you plus what means!
The relevance of means is correlative to the necessity of meaning, as you seek to endue a world to be made, with reality, and the meaning with purpose, and the purpose with intelligence, and intelligence with patience, and the patience with persistence and that with power.
The Being needed is normally called God, His powers and their testimony being cited in that book and shown in this world, which as it happens, you do not have to make, since it is already made. You have to learn, instead, how and why to live in it, its meaning, its purpose, and YOUR OWN! For this, since it is all already there, you have to find what EXHIBITS the same qualities in writing TO your mind, so that you can apply it WITH your mind TO your heart, and find of course the peace and rest and power and meaning intended. As this universe is already here, so is its interpretation. God, having everything, needs nothing, and having all, gives, not to satisfy ineptitude and need, but His creation.
It is not that it is so very profound at this level: man is sick and needs healing. When sick he often slaughters, against which there is no healing; and having provided what is called salvation (being helped out of a mess which is beyond yourself but provided for by Him), even personally (the beings made, called man kind being of that type, fit for fellowship with God, but lacking it naturally), God does not force, but is available to faith through a channel, not a secretariat, dictator or Council, but through the One sent to save, able to save, utterly demonstrating the same in overwhelming measure, never shown wrong, whether when on earth or afterwards, never whether in word or need, however deep, crafty or captious, meretricious or Jesuitical the challenge.
You don't have to follow these directions, whether in the Old Testament where the explanation and solution first appear, or in the New, where their testable culminations and requirement for deliverance are set. If you do not, however, the sick remains, whether the inhuman humanity left chooses to murder your body, intimidate and manipulate your mind, or savage your soul. It then becomes necessary for those who have received God's salvation, in His chosen incarnate Messiah, to work as ambassadors in a foreign world, and in the love of God, which is expansive and in its operation most expensive (John 3:16-19) to seek to bring salvation to the souls of those who so far, either have not heard, or will not receive it.