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CHAPTER TWO
THERE'S NOTHING GRIEVOUS ABOUT THE WAYS OF GOD
HE DECLARES HIMSELF ON ALL SIDES
Apologetic Method, Mental Marvels and Spiritual Bliss
DECANTING KANT and AVOIDING the CANTABILE of any such DESCANT
Let's be reasonable about apologetics! About what ? Why, about a way of demonstrating the truth of the Christ as in the Bible! That is, more precisely, Biblical Christian Apologetics. What is so special about this kind of apologetics ? Just this: it is the field of the only demonstrated lifeline to God for man. That brings up three areas: man, reason and God.
People often love to twiddle and fiddle with reason. Immanuel Kant*1 and David Hume*2 were amongst the worst, sensationalistic in the latter case and soporifically lulling in the former.
Take Kant. Oh no, says he, in a way people have loved so often to imitate since, but which Eastern religions have taken in another way, with much the same result, for centuries. No! you cannot trust your inspectorial powers, your rational proclivities, the plain workings of your own mind. Instead, you must take lessons about what you are and do from Immanuel - Kant, that is, not the God-with-us Christ, but Kant's first one. Each name has an historical currency, but on very different grounds. What of Kant's ?
First look at time and space and criteria of this kind, such as causality. These, among other things, are ways of looking at the visible universe. They are but surrounds to the picture, tools for investigation, facilities for functioning in investigation. In principle, says Kant (way past anything like optical illusion), these are intrusive, elusive, but not conclusive, says Kant. They are make-shift apparatus, glasses through which you see. What you see, let me, Immanuel, tell you! he intones. The ACTUAL thing is noumena, behind the phenomena, more unobtainable than the world of the occult. It is systematically hidden because of the way we confront physical reality. We peer through a set of glasses, a manner of seeing in the broader sense, and this stops our seeing what is actually there.
n, the attribution of causes for happenings. Why did it happen ? : for this reason! is its paradigm. Kant is up in arms about it. He Let us then examine just one of these: causation has a carefully prepared theory about a world out there, but beyond the apparatus of inspection, and he is not talking in this regard, of spiritual things. The physical world is hidden beneath a veneer which is created, he tells us, by our own conditions of discourse, our minds, our space, time and causation concepts. But this theory of Kant's represents is a sombre slip into the self-contradictory.
It is all so ridiculous. To TELL us what we CANNOT know (as he is quick to affirm in his noumena approach) is quite a feat; but it is a comic side-show, not serious business as indicated in SMR Ch. 5, and Predestination and Freewill, my Melbourne University M.A. thesis in philosophy in detail*1 .
HOW can you know what you cannot know, and bear in mind enough to tell us about its existence, of what kind it is, and of many of its features ... its impenetrability to our equipment, its strange, muted but imperious call to our convictions, as he asserts, its ultimate nature for reality, and so on. It is a veritable gold mine of features, though it be unknowable. In particular, the concept of an endemic causality - that is, a manner of thinking in which we think and talk in terms of causes and effects - is simply dysfunction. It does not work.
You cannot logically get away with this sort of distancing of the concept of causality; for in the effort to do so, as Kant does, you contradict yourself. You CANNOT account for the existence and procedures of causality, the assignment of causes in terms of reality, without using it! If you say how it happens, how the concept arises, then you USE it. If you CANNOT tell us how it arises, then you can give no rational ground for believing in it, and are merely making a mouthful of words to no point. It cannot be done. Causality laughs back at its would-be detractors.
Let us ask a few questions. HOW does Kant know about this ? How can he tell that this causality and the like, intervenes between the unknowable and us ? It arises, this thing, this pair of glasses, this intervention by things other than the actualities.
Very well! HOW does it arise and in what terms does he introduce this pointless concept into his thinking ?
He tells us HOW and WHY it works. It is part of our mental equipment, we're born with it, says he, and such is the case with many of our conceptual precursors, the terms and categories in which we think. How very clever of him to have seen this, though hemmed in like the rest of us in his own view, about these unknowable categories! How brilliant, to have escaped their burdensome intrusion, their implanted spectacles category, and for his part, really to see beyond them. What an effort has he made, in that he sees the CAUSE for the effect of causation itself, in our minds, and sees it for what it is (in his theory): namely, a mode of working.
Let us ask a third question. What causes this idea, this manner of thinking in terms of causes, for man ? We find, in his theory, that it is a conceptual apparatus with which we come when born. Thus he can tell you the cause of this conceptual confusion, or illusion, or limitation, or exclusion from reality, tell it in real terms moreover, and logically, with OUR logic, derive for us this adventitious causal-concept coming into our misled minds, assign it the office of intervening between reality and ourselves, indeed ANY reality.
These mortals, alas, in effect says he, they do not see things how they are; they see only what they are made, what they are caused to see, by this inbuilt drafting, orienting series of concepts. They obtrude, step in between what is really so and what it seems is so. He has told us the very truth about these metaphysical glasses that limit our sight to the phenomenal, not penetrating to the noumenal; and he has visited the noumenal realities of what is really so, in order to bring out these actual facts, and tell us. Moreover, he has USED a pair of such mental glasses in order to find out all of this. He has USED OUR causality to find his reality, even though for the rest of us, according to his theory, such a penetration by merely causation is out of the question. He has gone to reality, to the absolute, to draw a picture in its terms, even though as a man, this is like visiting the Antarctic in a loin cloth during a tempest, only more impossible than that.
What then ?
The cause of causality, in principle logically, MUST be asserted if you are trying to analyse it out and account for it, in order to make any such theory as that of Immanuel Kant, this other Immanuel. You cannot explain it away, logically, this causality, in order to make your theory even worthy of consideration as an argumentative position, unless you ACCOUNT for that same causality, the objective significance of which you are, even in terms of a category, rejecting. If you use what cannot penetrate, does not reach reality, in order to instruct us concerning it, then you are merely breaching your rejection of the objective validity and operability for reality, of this very thing.
It is the same with all those theories which seek to bury truth behind some theory, applicable to all. If you bury it, then you cannot know it. To come up and show it becomes an exercise in a model, for which this is impossible. To be the pregnant informer, rich with this news, you have to see beyond the blinkers you invent for others, and bring back the news, in one way, imitating someone arising from the dead; except that this is a matter simply of adequate power; whereas in Kant's theory, it is out of the question.
Where are we left then by this potent German philosopher (at least, in terms of his use by so many for so long with such all but unutterable confusion!).
It is here ... IF you do not account for causality, then there is no rational theory about it, and its advent, nature, nurture and being, what it is, this remains undismissed. In that case, you just talk, irrationally to the air. It on the other hand, stays just as it was.
If on the other hand, you DO account for it, then you must provide us, in your grounds and reasons for this affair and your idea, whether it be religious or metaphysical*3 or of any other sort, with the cause of the situation which you assert to be true. You have to tease out the origin of this pretended situation, WHAT has brought it to be ? HOW do you account for it and HOW do you know ? It is customary in any rational endeavour, if you wish to show grounds for a theory, to trace out the way it is supposed to operate, and to do so without self-contradiction, just as a start. That done, you have to do it adequately, and so that none of its implications contradict the theory, its methods contradict its claims, its assertions contradict what it purports to investigate on its own terms.
Oh well, comes the laggardly answer, and it is a type of irrelevant answer, in place of reason for all such theories, the actuality of the matter is not as you see it, but like this. Thus an unknown, systematically unknown and assumed reality, without test, unconfirmed, and found out in contradiction of the assertions of the very model you are presenting, becomes the criterion, and you retire from the situation in logical tatters. You can then rely only on the irrational, just as may those whose minds are gone, and who invent what they please.
Thus the claim is this: Here is the reality, hidden from your scrutinising eyes.
How do you know it is like this ? comes the response.
The reply to this just question ? It is like this ...
It is because, you see, there was a procedure which made it the way it is. This happened and this was instituted, and when the whole was set up like this, that thing which is being asserted (in this instance, Kant's invasive built-in concepts, but it is applicable for any other such idea) arose. It became operational. The theory is based on this. It is an explanation and so wishes to be rational; but it is showing the cause, the basis, why the thing is so.
It is in this interesting instance, daring to give the cause of causality while denying the objective validity of causality. It shows us its cause, while denying that this type of action can EVER get to reality. It thus becomes worse than a dream: in its OWN terms, it is a futile gesture, a self-contradictory sally. If however causality is illusory in any claim to objective reality, then so are those theories which use it in order to show themselves. They are as vacant as their model depicts; and we cannot without being both irrational and begging the entire question addressed (that is the nature of causality), purport to show that cause! It is an anti-model excursion, a direct denial of the theory in order to establish it.
Ludicrous is its nature, as with Marx, who would like to have vast movements of some reality which moves man and makes him tick, and yet KNOWS this for his part, coming like some diver from the forbidden depths (that is, by the theory in question), to tell us about them. Nor is it different with Freud, or any such psychic theory.
Thus it happens, they say, but REALLY let me, from my theory, tell you about the actuality which the system keeps from you, so that you can learn about the basis and ground of your thought. Yes, here it is, the cause of your condition, controlling or impeding or keeping you from reality; and here comes the theorist, fresh from the unfindable, regaling reality from the control zone, the site of actuality to explain the situation which by this theory, we address.
Consider it ... So you tell us the cause of causation, in the Kant instance! But what do you use in order to tell us about it ? Logic! and how not, since this is a rationally directed argument, set forth in order to convince by reason and to show that it is the most reasonable answer in any endeavour to understand our knowledge as mankind.
If then it is by logic, and you are accounting for what is, by what you assert to be back of it, that is to say, noumena and our conceptual pre-conditions for thought, our spectacles for seeing and understanding, and so of necessity you give reasons, you invent causes for what you speak of; and since with Kant, this includes causality- the whole contrivances of thought in which this is the cause and that is the effect- then you are giving an account, a reason, a basis, the cause of what ? Why of causality. To be able to be rational about this thing, you have to use it to get your picture of 'reality'. It comes about in this way, and because of this, we get that. You assume what you subsume in order to argue for it.
Let us reiterate. If then, to achieve a reasoning about the production of our concepts of causation, you need to use our concepts of causation, this is what is commonly called 'begging the question.' More simply, it means that causation has to be around for you to get set up to put your theory on the market. It is the means of derivation of the concepts about it. It is denied objective reality, and thus all from its exercise, including the theory that tells us about it, lacks objective reality. Noumena in this instance, lack objective reality. Therefore the theory is simply wrong, hoist with its own petard.
As to objective reality, it is beyond thought, on this model; yet you USE what makes it so, the cast of your own mind, to explain it. You explain what is on this model, systematically unreachable by the causal concept, BY that same causal concept. If this had not been used for centuries by multitudes of the unwary, one might not need so to present the matter, this way and that! It is a tedious disincentive to the journey to actuality, by its own pollution, its owns self-contradiction. It is time humanity had quiet rest from this ogling ogre, this tyrant against truth, and thought again. That is by no means to say that ALL, or anything like all have been enticed to its delusion.
It is however to state that its spread has been wide and long, and that it has influenced minds in so many influential places for so long, that there is a danger of implications of that theory (as of course of similar errors), so surrounding teachers and thus many of their students, that other secondary delusions appear. Thus the post-modern philosophic and theological arena, jaded and without truth, moving this way and that in the tedium of strange enterprise, confined by its own systematic ineptitudes, builds on precisely such areas, though in that case various spiritual and moral grounds may also complicate the position; but it is a barricade for many, a blight for all who use it, and a caveat for those who so divorce themselves from absolute truth, by their own illusions.
Man without truth is like a tiger without paws, an elephant without a trunk. He becomes a delusional operative, trussed in ropes that paralyse his main fields of enquiry, interested in getting somewhere or having something do this or that, as if mesmerised beyond recovery by the pragmatic, poised above the abyss of confusion, demeaning his vast soaring mind to the schema of schemers, willing suicides in the very arenas of truth, drop-outs before deity.
If consistently applied, this becomes, for any realm involved in this basic method of discourse, inescapable. So limiting man's enterprise for truth, by making his methods, his equipment, his power to see, part of the pattern of thought, of a control which operates beyond and before him, of the dynamic result of types of blinding, and using this for thought to account for a theory about its ground and basis, is to add futility to dreaming. It is to HAVE the unblighted, the unlimited as equipment, FIRST in order to USE it so that you can make up your theory. THAT is precisely the availability the theory denies. It is a case of muddles in puddles, instead of moving under the open skies in the vast oceans of reality, and finding their ground.
What then ? NO such theory is other than self-contradictory; and in this our present case, it is making causation such as we use, an invention of the mind, and then using this subjective illusion to make a theory about it. It is like saying that Communism is deadly (which it is), and then setting up a Communist government to show it, by the valid way it operates!
GETTING DOWN TO EARTH WITH HEAVENLY MATTERS,
WITHOUT BECOMING EARTHY
Very well, leaving such infantilities aside*4, we use what we have, not casting that aside, which has been used so far to account for external reality and its workings by law, investigable adroitly over millenia by reason, but using it to find out what we can. If you are in a desert starving, and you come upon food, you do not spend time wondering if your digestive system is really illusory, but eat, since that not only works, but has done so in your body ever since you knew it or anything, and in humankind ever since history has been known! You SEE what happens on normal ground, casting aside confused myths, and working to the result, to test it without prejudice, let alone self-contradictory prejudice.
Now in this prelude to apologetics, we are discussing its method, its plan of operation, and it is to this we are coming. As to more than method, the tracing of the steps of reason in its search for truth, for God, for reality, this has been done in detail before. Our task now is to look at the way it is done: method.
The actuality, then, the step by step work having been wrought in detail in SMR, for example, with TMR, we move in review of outline. In method, then, what is the next step ? Next you proceed to show by reason that God exists, is almighty, source of truth, without whom there cannot be any, is personal, is omniscient and is incapable of lying.
Those steps occupy in this way or that, directly or indirectly, in verification, validation or operation, much of SMR.
But some may question this last point, and so we pause on this once more. Incapable of lying, it is this that you have reasoned is true of God, as you proceed to find where the truth is to be discovered, and then from it make such an assertion, indeed make it anyway. God has to be like that ? THAT, you say, is a limitation, and for a limitless being, I demand no limit!
God does not have to be anything, as far as HE is concerned. But in terms of what is shown, this is one of the features of such a being. I do not have to have a nose; but given what I am, this is one of my features. It is not an oppressive intrusion, but an actuality for such a being as I. Were I without nose and the correlative lungs, I would be a different sort of being, that is all. It is part of the nature of being what I am.
But it IS a limit, an interlocutor may insist! It IS.
The answer is not hard to find.
It is this... Not at all! If you say that a flying machine cannot fall, that is not a limit on it AS a flying machine, but an actuality in the case, IN THAT it is a SUCCESSFUL flying machine. If you want to conceive of it as a limit, it is one which is wrought by the nature of the case. If it were otherwise, it would be LESS of a flying machine. If God lied, it would mean that He contradicted His limitless wisdom and knowledge, countermanded it, vitiated His vision and operated contrary to what He has willed that realty should be. He would become a sort of spiritual schizophrenic, under the limitation of having a divided mind, acting in power to make reality and acting in word to deny it. That is not only a limitation, but one that contradicts His power, for if all power both affirms (in one way) and denies (in another), there is mere vacuity left, one aspect simply annihilates the other. That is the nature of having all power. You cannot go both ways, opposite, with all power, at your own will, without annihilating both.
It would also mean that either the deity in view did not know what He was doing in the first case, a contradiction in terms for the One in view, of whom we speak, or else that He changed His mind, which implies the same, a limitation on knowledge in time; or it means that He had a plan, to see things in one way, or present them in one way, and then for fulfilment of His will, to see them in another way. If however, He saw them right at first, there is no other way. If on the other hand, He saw them wrong at the first, then He was not omniscient.
If He only pretended to see them this way, and then that, by change, so that the one contradicts in precise point the other, in order to delude others, then it is still untrue that HE has changed His vision or understanding or construction. He has not; others have been misled by what, in that case, the one called deity set forth, while knowing it to be false.
In other words, the only way this could occur would be by an effort to deceive someone, in the full face of known truth, in an absolute manner; and it would also mean that having known the one in question, the person to be addressed, to whom th elie is to be put, not only before, but also during and after all these developments, He selected deception as superior for His purpose, than known and exhaustive truth.
That would mean that the realities did not serve the all-knowing God as well as fiction, and that therefore reality is unreal, is less operative, is something which has less force and potency than what is not the case. Reality on such a model becomes a figment, a delusive invention, and thus changes places with truth, in a verbal mix-up, and slide in the definition of terms.
Such however is not the case with reality, which BECAUSE it really is operative, wins the day. If REALLY you are richer than another, then you can buy more. If you are wiser, you can see more of what is the case, and hence have room to prevail. When however the case is this, that God Himself is in view, then not only is He better and more realistic in some things, as if it were the limit of an admittedly superior vision, but He can see ALL. There is no crinkle, no crook, no sudden advent, no mode of misinformation, no trick, no trap which can surprise or overtake Him. His knowledge is so total that the truth can only serve the best. Reality being known, chance operations in the sense of a sudden move that makes the opponent fail in surprise or temporary fatuousness, is impossible.
To lie*5 , therefore, in the case of the Almighty, is to combat with such knowledge at hand, one's own efficiency, to limit one's own power. THIS IS a limit, and it is a contradiction of power in the Almighty.
Further, to lie would mean that what has been made by God, in His entire creation of all things and events and all modes of possibility, can be governed by illusory manipulation better than by knowing wisdom. It would be as if a mechanic pretended the engine he was treating was not like this, as it is, but like that, as it is not, and yet acts with better results than the other, all else equal, who is misled. In fact, when all knowledge is in view, a lying deity possessed of all might, could only do worse with fiction than with fact, the derivative of His own creative power. His will could only be worse effectuated by operation on such an illusion. Perhaps it is because man is used to seeing things in a limited power situation*6, that the confusions in this realm impend so readily.
Moreover, it would mean, were deity to lie, that what He had by His own WILL devised and decided, so that it would operate in this way or that, was deemed best regarded in some other vein, manner, sphere, context of operations, or with other data. This would be to contradict Himself, which implies lack of wisdom.
If it be said*7 that perhaps He would enjoy contradicting Himself, to prevent boredom, and things of this psychic kind, then this implies in another anthropomorphism, the concept that He LACKS the psychic or spiritual stability and means NOT to be bored, and must go outside His almighty domain of power and wisdom, to achieve satisfaction. In that case, His psychic domain would be imperfect, incomplete, dependent on outside things for its nurture, and in that case, the 'deity' in view would, by implication, be a PART of a totality in which giving and taking is a mode of life. That is precisely what creation is, and not what the Almighty Creator is, so that it means that there has logically, been a 'slide', so that the subject having been changed, from God to creation, the talk about it is now wholly irrelevant. Remember, in this method survey, we are talking about what is shown in SMR, and that is the almighty God, on whom all depends, without limit to His power to do whatever He desires.
Perhaps the simplest and most impactive way of putting the point is this: God is the only possible source of truth, being without limitation of any kind through interaction, reaction or limitation, and is the active basis for anything that is not God, whether directly, as with man, or indirectly, in making man free so that he could elect, so abusing his gift, and moving to the evil which he causes in this way. It is not the fault of the Creator that liberty, necessary for love, can be so misused; but it is a feature of the cost of such productions as man with his mind at liberty, that he may even elect to deny God, irrationally, if he will. In fact, the Kantian theory is just one of the ways, some emotional, some mental, some procedural, some directional, volitional, in which man may set his face against his actual place before God, denying Him either in word or deed or both; and often, making excuses for this, as if he had no option! But what does it resemble ?
It is this: it is rather like the school-boy who arriving late at school, because of some failure, elects to make now this excuse, and tomorrow that one, in order, not in actual accord with the truth, to make an excuse for late-coming! The facts however, of responsibility, do not actually alter for such evasions!
It does however simply illustrate the point Romans 1:17 makes, about man holding down truth, seeking to suppress it as in a wrestler's grip on his opponent, and turning from the knowledge of his Creator, to substitute items, such as other parts of the created realm than his own. In fact, he may do this with particles (as if bits of what is lying around were the cause of themselves and all else), or forces (as if forces of what is operating about, were the cause of themselves and other results), or psychic forces, as if these would account for his mind, and for themselves. It is the bit procedure, the bit parade, which wants to make the cause of all, some part of it!*7A
TRUTH, MAN'S PROPER INHERITANCE
Let us however return to rationality.
Truth is what God is and does, as He knows it. Its flow is as He has planned, including all outcomes of such things as liberty donated in any measure, to any of His creations. Though certain to come, these are not necessitated by mere constraint, as in dictation, though the result is as sure. Rather, they are foreknown and assessed, with such actions of His own moving within them, like a current or wind, as He chooses. The result is actualised by the use of such good functions as freedom, which operates in love, and is spoilt where not love but hatred or odium or anarchic autonomy is chosen by man. Within this, His knowledge and truth, at times He may elect (as in Psalm 1 in the reference to chaff), to allow natural causes to operate in order to achieve some result, such as a rebuke to those who trust only in themselves (as notoriously in the case of the King of Assyria as outlined in Isaiah 10:4-23).
Here the Lord appoints Assyria (10:5-6) to judge the inveterate evils of Israel; but the king becomes wrapt in himself, in his own estimates of his invincibility, a power over all gods, a comparative religion specialist in many gods, and asserts his own glory, being confused as to his power, place and destiny and its cause in the grand sweep of the Lord's intention. THEREFORE God, noting He had appointed Assyria as the "rod of My anger" for a judgmental purpose, and that that same King "does not mean so, nor does he think it in his heart", that is, that he ascribes the situation to his own power and glory, and is not at all aware of a specialised purpose for which he is divinely appointed, indeed dramatising himself, saying, "I have gathered all the earth, and there was no one who movd his wing, nor opened his mouth with even a peep." as if his own autonomy ruled all, acts.
Thus first the natural way of the King of Assyria proceeds, so that his power works in much, and indeed the Lord has enabled this to be; but when his place in the divine schema becomes independently exalted to the very heavens, as if he were a god, then the course is changed with no less drama. "Shall the axe boast itself against him who chops with it ?" He declaims. Will it be permitted to appear as if "a rod could wield itself against those who lift it up!" Under all this vainglory of Assyria, then, "the Light of Israel shall be for a fire, and hisHoly One for a flame. It will burn and devour his thorns and his briers in one day."
So in fact Assyria was smitten (Isaiah 37), suddenly.
In principle, then, there is scope for liberty and for its formulations, forces and schemas, in the natural setting of things, and there is divine oversight, turning evil intent to judgmental purpose; but when this natural part has proceeded to a tutelary point, where divine action will expose the truth, then God may elect to act suddenly, and in a moment the wall falls, the devastator of 1941 faces the devastation of 1945, Lenin's death is followed by that of the USSR, Hitler's racial pomp becomes wreckage in Berlin and Napoleon's glory in ruling the world, becomes apparently a case of being slowly poisoned by arsenic in his wine, while he lives in captivity.
Rome flies high in its Empire, and then is pitted with invasions against itself, spread in empire to the East, even that capitulates, moves into the Holy Roman Empire, fierce in the persecution of the saints, and this collapses at the hand of Napoleon. It moves on, successively despoiled and arising. It menace dwarfs itself. Then the EU arises as foretold in Daniel 7, that same Empire partly strong and partly fragile; it debates; it is unsure, it grows, in the same milieu as predicted. In these ways, whether by sudden desolation, constant attrition, predicted pathways, the Lord both allows much liberty, as much exposes with deeds, its real nature quite contrary to what it says (at first), often in much conformity to what it says (at last), and history becomes a dissertation on liberty and design, an expose on evil and goodness, on the authority of God and the immodesty of man, like billiard balls impacting indeed on this and that cushion, but this only to fall into the pocket at the end (cf. The Pitter-Patter of Prophetic Feet Ch. 4)..
Thus divine knowledge is not merely that of a voyeur, nor a dictator. It suffers much for the reality of man's liberty of mind and thought, yes and action; but is intervenes, not to demolish the reality of liberty, but to expose its errors, and at times, to bless its prowess. Past the exposés and the confrontations, the permissions and the draftings of this and that by many in their wild flesh on the rampage or in their false glory, there is their end; for the will of God is effectual, whatever liberty might elect to do in His creation, and in oversight and foreknowledge, He is not outwitted. On the contrary, in imposing majesty He divines all. It is His own being which so comprehends all, and comprehending, is truth over all, for all, to all.
His word is truth. What He says, He does; His knowledge is illimitable, His power the same, His love, mercy, peace and grace inimitable, available, but not for sale, not for manipulation. He speaks and He does, and He knows and over all His truth has neither butt nor buffer. As He is, it is.
What then ? For God to deny what is in all respects His own action, operation, made by His own expressive and actuating word, with whatever grounds, reasons, directness or indirection, is thus to deny what He is. Truth denies itself! but then it is truth no more. The idea falls at that same moment that it arises!
Someone might say, But it is not the case that He IS truth, for He is only the basis for it!
As we have just seen, the distinction is invalid. It is based on the concept that there are two domains: what God is and wills, and what is other. If this were so, then God would be embraced in a duality of which HE would be but one part. To leave Himself and His will and way, when all has been done by Him and for Him and through Him, is mere self-contradiction (cf. Romans 11:36).
All things are before Him with whom we have to do, and there is no domain in alternate life and effectual direction of its own. M Moreover, nowhere is there room for the concept of self-satisfaction through denying Himself, in His total and absolute dominion and action: for such an idea is based on limitations of power and wisdom, and being and nature. If He were capable of being dissatisfied with what He is, and of having need of extraneous grounds for satisfaction, He would, once more, being both systematically inadequate in Himself (like an aircraft flying, needing a mechanic hanging onto the wheels, to keep it in the air), and part of a mutually-dependent scenario, entangled in inadequacy. It would be wholly contrary to what He has been shown minimally to be (as in SMR, TMR). In fact, this once more simply changes the topic while examining it.
It moves to a dichotomy, as if God were unkinged, His will unhinged, His decisions unfixed, His ways brought to ditching by a contrary dynamic, so that what might have been His knowledge becomes but error. In such a domain, anything might happen, but for Almighty God there is no such domain.
Hence God cannot lie, as Titus 1 tells us. He is, as Romans 1 declares, exhibitable as having a divine nature and power. Only by the suffusion of confusion is it possible to think otherwise.
In SMR it is shown that given such a world as this, in manifest collision with or collusion against His truth, one where lies are endemic or at least pandemic, where injustice, a misuse of His creation, one part by another, a transgression of His creation ownership of all, is not only permitted by rancorously riotous, there is necessity for His speech, not as something anyone could bind on Him, but for a very simple reason. This contradiction of Himself means either that He is not there, or that He answers it. The concept that He would perhaps like to be contradicted, finding it a nice change from boredom and so on, is subject to the same refutation as before, being merely an extraneous anthropomorphism, drawn from the regions of limit, which mankind but not He, finds for operation.
That of course is to ignore the other option: to destroy mankind. This came near to happening, and man was taught something in the flood; but it has not been done. However mankind is not destroyed, so divine speech is a necessity as surely as He is. This reality He affirms with some caustic impact in Isaiah 45:17-19.
"But Israel will be saved in the LORD with an everlasting salvation: you will not be ashamed or confounded, world without end.
"For thus says the LORD who created the heavens, God himself whoformed the earth and made it: He has established it, He created it not in vain, He formed it to be inhabited. I am the LORD; and there is no other.
"I have not spoken in secret, in a dark place of the earth: I did not say to the seed of Jacob, Seek me in vain. I, the LORD, speak righteousness, I declare things that are right."
He did not make man to be sulky or silent in heart, but to know what is what, who is God and what He requires. He did not hide it all in some secret location, but has broadcasted to the earth (not least in the Exodus, pre-eminently in the Cross, in His death in human format which Isaiah foretold, impactively in the Gospel, foretold and based at Calvary, which followed the writings of Isaiah at the time specified by Daniel in Daniel 9*!).
Hence, just as there has had to be some other solution to the contradiction of Himself, His principles and truth in this world, since the destruction of mankind has not occurred, and there had to be speech, a remedy proclaimed and available, so divinely has God acted. He did not permit, would not consider the entanglement of truth with treason, philosophic flappings with actual fact, to go uncorrected; nor would He suffer man to be continually immersed in a muddle despite all he has done, without a Light. This was the Light which shone through Israel, through the prophets, was concentrated absolutely in Jesus Christ held up for one and for all who receive Him, His word searching the world like a searchlight on the night skies, in the Gospel.
THE
DELIGHTFUL TREASURE IS FOUND, NOT MADE BY MAN:
IT IS MADE FOR HIM
AND ITS PROVISION IS
EMINENTLY REASONABLE, DESIRABLE AND NECESSARY
It is not too difficult, as one reviews religions with a view to finding which one DECLARES ITSELF FROM GOD AND HAS THE REMEDY FOR MAN CONDITION FROM THE MIND OF GOD.
If God did not declare it*8, then it would not be the answer to the conflict and contrariety, but a mere delay and partiality. Moreover, what is the good of remedying things for a being like man, when you do not even make it available for action, but hide it (cf. Isaiah 45:18-19)! A remedy is not to be found that comes after a delay, following man's creation through liberty of his slide to sin. It is needed to be made appareant at the outset (as in the protoevangelion in Genesis 3:15). If that were an omission and had not come, it would be less than what all might can do, less than broken principles require for One whose they are, and who refuses in anything to depart from the truth. As it is integral in Him, so it is inescapable in His deeds.
A remedy likewise cannot be what merely expresses what is fallen, since it is the fallen condition which is the manifestly horrid situation. If a car is immobile through fault, or a man's heart is erroneous in concept and nature, through damage, making it do more in line with its own error does not constitute a remedy, but rather an extension. No work of man can be the solution, the remedy.
Man is the problem, his nature defiled, his ways too apparent, his Assyrian type grandeurs and self-glorification too vile, his spirit to entrammeled. Man is full of works which are his own solution. In all this, there is no remedy. There is no part of man which can imitate God or reach His standards. His nature necessitates what his deeds show apparent: a divine remedy of the power of Him who made him, understands him and will make up the gap. If man is not gone, then it is this which is to come. He is not gone, so this was to come, and it has come, and it is verified and validated in actuality both monumental and overpowering, public and longstanding, unchanging and both charging and offering to man, first what is his due, and secondly what is his need.
What has a remedy from God, where His power is used to meet the manifest defaults, defects, deficiencies and total inadequacy of man to meet truth and reality and all that is godly ?
It needs to be a gift, a provision, and a remedy for the divine anger at man's presumption in playing god, as he usually does, electing either not to believe in Him, or to be a basis for making ridiculous gods who did not create, or who are mere humans in visionary dress, or whatever other thing is poetic but not practical, or defiled and not divine.
What has a remedy*9, not delayed but present from the fall of man from the God who created him, so that he differed from his Creator so fundamentally in principles and practice, so explosively, so damagingly, with such social horrors to match! It is found in only one place. It is called the Bible, as shown in SMR. What moreover, shows its contents testable, so that man, created with a mind, can make sure he is not being deceived by some power or practitioner, like a spiritual quack! Once more, the Bible alone does this. There is at this level, a divine voice with remedy granted, no competition. There is much for man to use his powers, nothing for God's use of His own, in providing the remedy Himself. The Bible then has the monopoly, another way of stating that God has made it clear past question.
That is the first step.
In that case, we first verify this result of reason, by testing its factual data, supreme despite time, and not faulted by knowledge, and then proceed to the third step.
What is this ? It is validation. Any step which attempts to TELL US the TRUTH, in a model for thought in which there IS NO TRUTH*10, but only relativistically construable data, is irrational and self-contradictory from the first. That excludes much; and it focuses such a book as the Bible, just as its remedy makes it unique. We test further.
To what then do we come ? Proceeding by reason, in a consistent and non-self-contradictory model, we find that it locates ONE result, the Bible as again, shown in SMR (our present Chapter being on method, and survey of method). This is the rational mode, the outcome of search by reason in the evidential field divinely provided; and what denies either reason's objectivity, testability requirement, or truth's existence is automatically a loser in any such debate. It is irrational, in a contest of reason, to the finding of a solution, and hence irrelevant, as if one were playing baseball in a billiard room, using the table for the pitch.
Thus, to find the Bible as the word of God indicated by reason, this is step one. Yet, when there is rational demonstration, as is done, of the Bible as the word of the Almighty God to man, then in all conscientious procedure, it has several tests. Is it verified ? Does it contain a remedy, does it have a claim to be from God Almighty, does it proclaim the word of God as the truth ? If so, are its data correct, verifiable, testable at all ?
If so, are they in fact verified. If so, there is still the question, for granted this contextual magnificence and munificence, we might even go a step further. IS our use of reason, as given to man, is the employment of rationality, which moves in a model which includes of a place for actual truth objectively, is this not merely productive of only one verified answer, but is it adequately validated ? Is it something that works and comes into operation and fulfils itself at the required level, a thing which shows that reason with all its built-in nature in man, as at creation, DOES meet the case, DOES show the word of God, to meet all specifications ? Is it shown that it has indeed led us to actuality itself.
What then ? It works. It is internally harmonious, it meets all known facts; but is it the truth ? It stands alone, there is no competition, and reason requires it, but reason also seeks validation of the result, at its own level; for it is no mean thing to identify the word of God Himself!
THE VIRTUES OF VALIDATION
In other words, our is result validatable! and it is validated. The others were irrational in this point or that (SMR Chs. 1, 3, 8-10), and this rational; but on top of that, is this ALSO valid. They were excluded by reason, and this works on reason, but is it, in addition to meeting severe criteria, also shown to be not a mere provisional solution, itself alone, but THE solution, final and absolute ? Did our excursion, our adventure in reason, our unfearful zest in using our God-given faculties with expectation and undaunted resolve, not find a testable target! and was it not tested! But in particular, did it find not only a gloriously adequate answer to explain all (and this is shown in considerable detail*10A), but one that stands free from review, further knowledge test and so forth ? Did it find not only an entrant as truth, but what surpassed the criteria of test, even with all the ebullience of truth, unharassed by any, troubled by nothing ?
Is it valid as the word of God, as well as being the necessary result of reason ? Yes it is, and this is the greatest discovery that reason could ever make. It finds the truth; its faculties are confirmed, its work is rewarded, its task is blessed. This does not show that reason gives the heart of God, but that it leads to the place where He has expressed it! He gave us what leads to it, and He likewise provided it. It is there. Let us then oversee the point for a moment.
The point here then becomes this: IF reason insists that this is it, then so far rationality has found a result, as if the map for treasure has led to treasure, there is its casket at the prescribed place. Moreover, its contents surpass the imagination, and that is vindication. It permits verification as the treasure is held glittering before the eyes, and that is substantiation. In this process, one must even stress, the map itself was not the treasure, that is, reason itself in its setting, but the way to FIND it. Many confuse themselves here, but so it is. The greatness of God in the treasure is what it is, not contained and created by reason, but FOUND by it.
To validate you must first verify the contents, what is found in the Bible, and this done, show that the nature of the treasure is in line with the unique requirements sought. It is proper and eminently desirable to show not only that it would do, but that it does what only God CAN do. That is: the illimitable magnificence and marvel and power and inexhaustible knowledge of God, is it shown in this find, in the Bible ? In Isaiah 45 you see God pointing this out, that it is He Himself who alone could do this, and validate what is verified by achieving what is beyond any other. He points this out, positively, and by negative assessment of every other option, in Isaiah 41, 43-46, 48.
DO the predictions*11, which would be ruined if at ANY point the illimitable God were 'mistaken' because of the results flowing in the centuries from any imagined error, stand up ? This would be increasingly important as time flows on. If it were the case that the author were mistaken at some point, in concept, in envisionment, then there would be a systematic wryness, and if were in some one fact, then this with other such errors would in time present a different result, like someone being NOT really the father of someone else in a genealogy, with different grand-children and so on, down the line. It is necessary, in order to make very numerous precise indications of what is to occur over thousands of years, including its point, its principles, its grounds, its detailed data, to know what you are talking about: and in this case, that is ALL*11A.
In SMR Chs. 8-9, as in The Pitter-Patter of Prophetic Feet, for example, some of these things are shown in detail, in principle as from God's own mouth, with history's lamb-like following of what has been said. It is, indeed, as in the field of creation: what has never rationally be shown to be the result of anything other than creation (cf. The gods of naturalism have no go!), this comes from limitless power and precision.
What comes in history, in principle, in procedure, in invention, in unfolding of the times as man proceeds: this comes with the same control, not as if man were a robot, but because ALL knowledge knows in advance all his traits, tricks, deceptions, delusions and actions, and taking account of these, and directing events further as a man might act in the punishment or blessing of a child, or a teacher, God moves to make the final readout. He makes, He evinces as often He foretells His own decision, proceeding to announce for such time or place or person or persons as He will, exhibit the truth of His word against all comers, and befuddle the opposition, since it has never a fact or principle on which to stand. Clearly, the devil would rather die in the attempt than recoil, so it continues until the judgment. Yet as it continues, so does the attestation, and the longer history moves, the more dramatic, emphatic and singular is the divine coverage!
Not only so, but in the majestic deportment of His enterprise, the assured and sovereign character of His assertions, together with the consistency over millenia of what He has to say to those who are receptors, whether in other lands, through diverse languages, or in different cultures, this threesome is testimony that is validation. Here, once again, we merely review something of the structure of method, the detailed data having been presented in the preceding 174 volumes of this theological set. It has its very extensive index of what was some 300 pages, which is growing continually, so that particular issues may be followed. In addition, various subsets of volumes treat diverse aspects, as may be seen in Search. Two of these sets, are overvie works, each multi-volume, one DEITY AND DESIGN, DESIGNATION AND DESTINY, and the other LIGHT DWELLS WITH THE LORD'S CHRIST.
What then is one result of this overview ? We see that in this way, we have moved with NO assumptions. This is perhaps a cardinal distinctive of this presentation. IF you are questioning what the case is with mankind, and want to find out with what you have got, namely reason and its brethren of abilities, then you either USE these or fail the test. IF you use reason, then these are the results, as outlined in kind above. Any model removing reason from objectivity in kind, is invalidating itself at the outset. Here NOTHING is assumed. It does not depend. It is not a comparative method, but an absolute one.
WHEN, then, you use reason and see what it does and can do here, in method, then as shown in SMR, TMR and the rest, you find there is a coherent, multi-task performing result, a source of numerous answers to relevant questions. It is called the Bible, just as its stated Author is called God, and its stated Saviour is called Jesus Christ. The word and the works are before us, and they act as stated.
That is a verification of the relevance of rationality to truth. It would follow from our being a creation of the Truth, and in that, there is further verification, for this is part of the declaration of the Bible: Christ is the way, the life and the truth, and He is the Creator (John 14:6, Colossians 1:15) who has indeed made us in His image, so that fellowship and interchange of communication is intelligently possible, and what He is may be envisioned and found by us. Without that fact, found in the Bible, the truth might be found, but not estimable, and so irrelevant. But this is not so: as it is in principle for man, so it is found in practice likewise in this never-ending series of vindications, verifications and validations
When this truth is applied on all sides, using the parameters, principles, procedures and perspectives found in the Bible, its words, as found by reason to answer the case, and this alone in what both claims to come from God Almighty and is rigorously testable: then what is found ? Discovered there is cohesion for thought, comprehensibility for mind and non-self-contradiction for the species of roving in view. Neither does reason contradict itself in the mode of finding it, nor does the result, the Bible do so, nor does the Author fail to endorse in action what He says. We do not know ALL; that is not relevant. What with our limited reason, we find, meets the criteria of reason for this task, stands, and being tested, is verified, and being considered in principle, meets the special standards of this unique situation, God to man, in every way available, whether by conceptual experiment, physical or life investigation or in questions of non-colliding concepts.
Further, an additional test is this: Does this word of God not only have no irresolvable conundrums, but does it enable one to meet what ARE just that, in the world of fumbling philosophy, without it ? Yes, it is so as in predestination and freewill*11B, and the antics of determinism entangling itself in antinomy*11C, the biblical perspective in this sphere enabling a coherence and scope for view of ALL the known facets and features of man and his world and its relationship to him, in a way unique for philosophy, surpassing all its failures with triumphant coverage of all types of data. Such you would expect from such a revelation as that of the mind of God in the word of God (cf. I Corinthians 2:9-13), and such you obtain, giving validation in uniqueness of scope, power and dissolution of mysteries. It is not just that it provides this answer, but that its perspectives enable it, as nothing else does.
That is, in this same field, it does so in a way which by its very nature, is not only unique and sufficient, but without possible other option in kind *12.
This is then validated in KIND. What reason
declares must exist, is found in one place; what reason's methods insist must be
verifiable, is; and what must pass verification tests, does; and what must be
validated by exhibiting the scope and style and unique facilities and
characteristics of the Almighty, does. Hence the rationality, becomes verified,
and the verification moves into the realm of validation. Moreover, negatively:
all methods which do not work in terms of the Almighty who has both made things
with reason and invested them with reason, including the mind of man, do not
have such a thing as truth to find, nor the means to find it if it were there,
since a relativistic universe bound only by interaction, has no such commodity;
and an intelligible one requires a source for the invention of man to find the
laws he does find, and the coherence, the investigability. You do not
investigate mathematics with a spoon; and even if you did, it would not yield to
it*12A.
REASON, A GIFT, SALVATION A TREASURE,
GOD RELIABLE AND MAN IN HIS SIGHTS, WITH LOVE
What started as an investigation with reason (rebutting attacks on the same as self-defeating and inconsistent with themselves), ends as a finding by reason, a discovery in the empirical world, able to be read, tested, verified and validated; and further, it is one invited and declaring the propriety of test and the adequacy of what is presented for it, as from One knowing the test as well as the result! (Isaiah 41,43, 48).
Let us put it differently, with the same perspective. MAN is thus shown to have been so equipped, as one would expect of a creation of God who is able to ENVISAGE and speak with understanding of the concept of truth, that with his abilities, so created in him, he can find the remedy for himself, one placed, donated and provided definitively in the world in which he has been set. In what is this remedy found ? It is in this: in what the Bible depicts.
What is this*13, and how does it systematically meet the position of man in a world at war with God, in basic premises and principles, often systematically, and almost pervasively ?
It is in this: that instead of contradicting his Maker and inviting His wrath at theft of His property, misuse of His principles, abuse of liberties given - as in making up irrationally construed gods, and practising fraud, making lies, living as if autonomous, man has the avenue for a different approach, another procedure altogether. He may, instead of this rumbling and fumbling, make at once two steps that are crucial. First he can repent of his errors and the accompanying faults, flaws and failures, in one word, of his sin; and secondly, he may receive the solution, the remedy itself, and so BE remedied, so that he is no more in flagrant collision with the Almighty, a sorry affair. The identification of the remedy is not merely about an idea, but about remediation! It is not a prescription for the ways operations must be made for the defect, but the ascription to God of the work both of diagnosis, prognosis and remedy, the operation free, but not without results!
The solution, like any key to any house, has very specific qualities. If you try to enter a space-rocket by walking up to it on the tarmac and trying to open up a way in, you will doubtless find provisions, appropriate for its cost and nature, to blunt your efforts, if not incriminate you! There are provisions, procedures, there is a way which you have first to meet before any entry is even in view at all! The thing is too valuable for any laxity.
It is a very specific thing, field and intensely valuable; it cost has been great, not only in money, but in application, in intelligence at work, in contrivance and creation. Such is the space ship.
Thus, whatever else, entry to it has to be exclusive of those who do NOT belong in it. It is devised. It is there, and it must be met. With God, the case is this, but far better: application for inclusion is not dependent on education, money or influence. It comes where repentance cries, faith works and merit is despised, except in Christ, the Saviour (Romans 10, Ephesians 2, Romans 3:27ff.).
It does not allow for people to come in (into the kingdom of heaven, that is), and to wallow in pride, saying something like this: I am a knowing one, and seeing a good thing, I took it, and have more than satisfied myself in the process! That is to speak more like the King of Assyria, that you have what it takes, your unredeemed self has the swagger, and the nous, and you made it, good old you! It is however by GRACE ONLY, that the gift is given: it is even called the gift by grace (Romans 5:15), so that not only is the gift a gracious thing, but it is given by a work of grace, the very enactment of the transfer to the hands and heart of the believer.
Thus liberty is protected, for man made in God's image in the first place, so that it does not depend on what is merely intrinsic to any man, but on what is intrinsic to God, and extrinsic to man, his sin being repented of and covered. Nor is the faith found by superiority, for as in John 1:12, it is not based on the blood, flesh or will of man. In fact, God who desires all to be saved (Colossians 1:19ff.), on record in this, does NOT dictate in the matter, for love does not do this, but seeks, and with all knowledge and power, misses none, having foreknown and predestinated according to foreknowledge all who are His (Romans 8:29ff.). Liberty lives, despite man's fall, not only in deed, but in his very spirit.
Thus, as entry is a precious and costly matter, for a space ship, so all the more so, here. What then do we find in further confirmation and validation ? It is this. To enter into God's remedy, you need to know the way to it. This is far from difficult, except for the intransigence and reluctance of sin, in its systematic intrusion into the spirit of man; but it is unique, unequivocal and unambiguous.
It is also a work of unique and total grace on the part of God. It bypasses poisoned will, but is not oblivious of will, for God is not dependent on the pathology of man, but sees beyond it, so that man is in the end responsible, so that in turn, not only does God SO LOVE the world that He sent His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him might not perish, but He sent Him to save the world and not to condemn it (which would have been easy), and further, this being so, His will being such, it becomes true that THIS is the condemnation, that light has come and man has preferred darkness. All this is resolved in principle, true in workable practice, and avoids the antinomies and antics of philosophic confusion which has so destroyed philosophy in this realm for millenia. What man destroyed, God gave, and the site ? the Bible.
What then does the Bible present more specifically, as this remedy ? It gives this perspective.
The remedy is in itself most majestic, eloquent and given in a personally intrinsic fashion, becoming to the Creator (Hebrews 2), whose ways are being voided in mankind: for it lies within Himself. Nor did it stay simply within.
To God Himself, then, man needs to come in order to be an operable entity, at the right level (just as an airplane needs to be in the air, for its operative level). In the result of this remedy, man needs on arrival as redeemed, to be co-operative with God, not of course on his own terms, as if he knew all, but in terms of the created provision for alignment, orientation, correct perspective in the truth, and power, including the provision and activity of inter-personal communion. Without all of this, man naturally goes astray, like an airplane without wings. However, he does not naturally come back, like a crashed airliner, and fly by himself.
All of this is most intimately related with what reason pointed to, in terms of remedy*14, whether by omission considerations or commission ones, the Bible thus not only fulfilling by consummating the requirements.
The remedy is redemption, not sale or destruction. This necessity is paid for, not in illusion or dream or poetry. It is paid for in human terms, where human woe and its cause, is met by divine assignment of the same to God Himself.
Thus, taking human form to do it, incarnate as Jesus Christ, that is the anointed One, He proceeded to meet and affray the cost of sin, so that in liberty and truth, man might be entirely covered, redeemed, pardoned, purchased, rendered acceptable and open to the thrust of divine dealings. God became man to do it; He took the route of the womb to complete it. He took in that form, the plight of sin, to buy back the consequences in His own conviction, not for wrong done, but for wrong achieved by man, to remedy justice considerations for the guilty, peace requirements for the just and provide exhibition of power to the needy.
To do this, He indicates the motivation of love for His creation *15, fulfilment of justice for its errors, payment for its defilements, as the path by which man may be returned to Maker, though it was through no fault of His own that led to His condemnation. It was foreseen, forecast, pre-arranged, the centre of the divine plan of salvation. Thus in Himself, God satisfies the irruption of irreconcilability, rebellion, ruin, clearing not only the books for the guilty, but the power that sin brings to man, to force deviation, from its controlling interest, so making peace, a s it is put, by the blood of Christ.
That is, it is done by His ascription to Himself of annulling the guilt, dismissing the horror, defilement and dereliction that man achieved; and this is done not in some illusory sweep, as if the receptors and the rejecters were one, but for as many as receive it (John 1:12, 10:9,27-28). When the question of reception arises, therefore, He is far from being a blight, but rather a benediction, for it is this which is His divine desire, too chaste to be dictatorial in a thing of love, too holy to be spurious, sincere, just and seeking.
If you REFUSE the remedy, then the cancer stays, the situation is unsolved and the clearance sale at the end, if you will, is judgment. Righteousness is not a dispensable item in God. It stays (Psalm 36:6). What does not stay with it, by refusing it as a gift (II Corinthians 5:17ff.), loses life and becomes like driftwood, like all that is displaced; and in this case, it proceeds to become permanently so, not because of the ship sinking, but because of an insistence to remain upon it, and on refusing the life boat. Repentance changes the issue, faith brings near the remedy, and His reception by it, produces results so simple and profound, so deep and delightful, so miraculous and so merciful, as is becoming to the One who is Creator, in need of nothing, but giving to what He creates what it needs.
As to that, it is not a free world where serendipity comes to insincerity, or peace to pollution; but one where mercy is available for restoration, and redemption is provided at cost, for adoption of each believer, one by one, as a child of God (I John 3:1ff., Ephesians 1).
This is not an extraneous, ad hoc remedy; but it is one which validates, verifies, confirms, exhibits the power and the depth of the nature of God, who does not toss off what is ludicrous, lax, indifferent: but being responsible, and allowing man to be responsible, He adopts for Himself a loving responsibility in His treatment of man. He does not have to love, but being love (I John 4:7ff.), that is, having nothing in Him which in its essential nature differs from it, whether to find man or to remove what is inveterate in disruption and pollution, He acts in love.
As Creator, He is consistent, insistent and not involved in mere productivity clauses. Giving from the infinite is not restricted; but purity is restrictive, and this He seeks, for this He provides and in this, the new creation in Christ, that is the one who has not only been created as man, but re-created through redemption as a child of God, He vindicates His own action and creative masterpiece, in man, a liberty which works in love.
In making man able to know and deal in truth, God also gives truth as a gift, including the capacity once more to savour it and to understand it and apply it with joy. In making man in His own image, He has made in providential foresight (cf. Ephesians 1:4), what man needs in view of His (then coming) fall. He has made it adequate. He has moreover made it so that liberty for one made in His own image, is real, despite the ruin. He has it all thought out, wrought out and taught. It is all there, written, in the Bible, in history, performed.
The validations are numerous, inexhaustible.
MATTERS OF ORCHESTRATION, A SYMPHONIC OPENING
Some prefer a method of apologetics which starts with assumptions*16 and contests the ground with others who do, whether they acknowledge it or not. This is another part of the Apologetics orchestra, a musical joy which has has long been presented as such, in this Web work. It is relished. Such a presuppostional approach, however, is neither exhaustive nor necessary as a method; just one of the instruments of grace. Presuppositionalism has its place; it is one in the orchestra. The absolute approach here proceeds without presuppositions. They are well able to complement each other, in kind.
As to presuppositionalism, then, in its distinctiveness, this is not it.
This approach*17, however, is an instrument which rejoices in such others as help any to find God, giving a reason for the faith. Praise God for His multiple provisions, throughout all ages, through many scholars, writers, preachers, for His unfading concern, His ultra-sufficiency of provision, His justice and His truth: things for which man looks, whether in the ardour of dream, the cynicism of failed dream, the ineptitude of scepticism or the insistence of rushing drive.
We thank Him also for this, that what is shown right, is also freely available and for this not least! It is the stated will of God in the Bible, that in Christ ALL might be found, all might be reconciled, ALL might come to a knowledge of the truth; that He is grieved by failure (Jeremiah 48, Luke 19:42ff., Matthew 23:37ff., Isaiah 48:16ff.), has taken steps as high as the very majesty of deity, not in aloof remitting langour, but in flaming passion that meets the very flames of ruin for man, and breaking the power of evil, gives to man the way not of mere reformation, but regeneration. To ensure that none is lost, who might in terms of His own principles of truth and love, be found, He has foreknown all, predestined accordingly, so that His desire of goodness for all might be met with the provision for any who thus MAY be found (cf. Isaiah 55).
On earth and in time, in the experience and experiences of man, concerning Christ we meet various elements according to the case, of what God has already assured before time began, held in mind before the book of life was actually written in history. Thus some, in finding Christ as Lord and Saviour, come acutely feeling the constraints of God pulling, drawing; some come finding access sudden and uplifting, some more than others, are sunk in horror at their own sin, some feeling their own resistance, are mortified, as they move towards salvation. Yet whatever may be the human access, the generic of salvation comes to include conviction of sin, of God's own righteousness and of judgment (John 16).
The result for all who come is one: repentance, redemption, relief, regeneration, restoration not only to the post of being in God's image, in terms of available fellowship with Him, as a creation, but of adoption as children, freedom with its divinely gracious outcome, love with its massive divinely moved intent, all fulfilled.
NOTES
See SMR Ch. 5, Predestination and Freewill Section 4.
See SMR Ch. 3, esp. pp. 262-267
SMR Ch. 3 deals with a systematic collection of these. Ch. 5 shows the ease with which the majestic word of God and its utterly adequate perspectives solves philosophic problems, while Predestination and Freewill shows how it solves one in particular, with vast ramifications. Ch. 10 shows religious and philosophic non-compus qualities in the arena of reason applied to reality. Further on this, see Errors and Sects. For particular aspects, consult indexes. For convenient aggregations, see Index-Mini. See also Deity and Design, Designation and Destiny Section 8 on further systematic faults, common and fatal in alien philosophies.
The point is significant. Rationally ludicrous efforts are often made even by brilliant men, because of preconceptions, misconceptions and mischievous delusions, which follow from the voidance, intentional or other, of the truth, of God from their perspective, so that instead of becoming as is just and fully functional, children of God, each one, their lot varies from this. Thus they become bits without a father, or imaginations without a base, and so losing the domain of a legitimate childhood in and from the Lord, lose that stature of operations graciously given and absolutely necessary. Accordingly, they can lurch readily into the infantilities of philosophic confusion. To be child-like, it is one thing; to be wilfully devoid of father, this merely creates a situation worse than faces the child in his right setting: our own being in God, our Creator and Redeemer.
See also, Sparkling Life ... Ch. 4, Barbs ... 6 -7.
See for example: Deliverance
from Disorientation Ch. 9,
The Majestic Might of the Merciful Messiah,
esp. Chs. 1, 5, 6, and Appendix.
Message of the Words of God to Man in the World Chs. 5, 4,
Christ Incomparable ... Ch. 2,The gods of naturalism have no go! 14
Evidence and Reality Chs. 2, 5, 6, 7
Impossible to Men, Open to God ... Ch. 3,
Dig Deeper, Higher Soar ... Ch. 1,
The Kingdoms of This World and the Kingdoms of Christ Ch. 8,The Holocaust of Morals and the Coming of Christ the King Ch. 3,
Glory, Vainglory and Goodness... Ch. 1,God's Gift of Grace in Christ Jesus Ch. 7,
Helpless Hitches and Holy Healings, Godless Glitches and Divine Dealings Ch. 5, CALL 9,
Spiritual Food and Spiritual Drink Ch. 4,Repent or Perish Ch. 7.
(See also, more broadly:
The Majestic Might of the Merciful Messiah Ch. 5,The Track of Truth ... Ch. 1, 150 4,
The gods of naturalism have no go! 1,
Spiritual Food and Spiritual Drink Ch. 11.)
See *5 above, Deliverance from Disorientation Ch. 9, and Let God be God.
See:
Reflections Ch. 4,
Message of the Words of God to Man in the World Chs. 5, 4,
Christ Incomparable ... Ch. 2,The gods of naturalism have no go! 14
Evidence and Reality Chs. 2, 5, 6, 7Spiritual Refreshings Ch. 13
Impossible to Men, Open to God ... Ch. 3,
Dig Deeper, Higher Soar ... Ch. 1,
The Kingdoms of This World and the Kingdoms of Christ Ch. 8,The Holocaust of Morals and the Coming of Christ the King Ch. 3,
Glory, Vainglory and Goodness... Ch. 1,God's Gift of Grace in Christ Jesus Ch. 7,
Helpless Hitches and Holy Healings, Godless Glitches and Divine Dealings Ch. 5, CALL 9,
Spiritual Food and Spiritual Drink Ch. 4,Repent or Perish Ch. 7.
(See also, more broadly:
The Majestic Might of the Merciful Messiah Ch. 5,The Track of Truth ... Ch. 1, 150 4,
The gods of naturalism have no go! 1,
Spiritual Food and Spiritual Drink Ch. 11.)
See Repent or Perish Ch. 2, It Bubbles, It Shrieks, He Calls Ch. 9.
*9 See Repent or Perish Ch. 1. This shows also the marvel of non-merit salvation, as in Ephesians 2:5-8, Romans 3:23ff., in terms of the preservation of the reality of responsibility and liberty, so that the love of God is not partial, but in principle seeking what will come to it as it is in its own purity. Thus the case is one neither of man's forcing itself in insincerity on God, just as God does not force Himself on those sought, nor one of proclaiming, each his or her own innate superiority. Instead, it is a matter of accepting the diagnosis of guilt that the sinner may be elevated to the presentation of the privilege gained by another, on his behalf (Galatians 3).
This action ? it is that of Christ who
donates His own righteousness in a double transaction of bearing the shame of
the redeemed, and delivering His own right standing as a standard bearer, a
gift, a standing and status presentation (II Corinthians 5:17ff.), so that
reality by the Holy Spirit may work livingly in the hearts of men (cf. II
Corinthians 3:17-18), freely accepted, divinely moved, being sanctified by His
presence (II Corinthians 3:17ff., I Thessalonians 5:23).
See SMR Ch. 3, Deity and Design ... Section 8, Barbs 6 -7.
See
LIGHT DWELLS WITH THE LORD'S CHRIST
WHO ANSWERS RIDDLES
AND WHERE HE IS, DARKNESS DEPARTS
Bible or Blight,
Christ or Confusion:
The Comprehensive Resolution of Man's Intractable Problems
is Found Only in the Bible, the Word of God.
See also Deity and Design, Designation and Destiny,
The Meaning of Liberty and the Message of Remedy,
SMR Chs. 1, 3, 5, 10.
See:
SMR Chs. 8 - 9, as in The Pitter-Patter of Prophetic Feet, esp. Ch. 4.
See SMR p. 973A, *24. This follows.
*24 The selective identikit power of prophecy
is one of the ingredients in identifying the speaker of divine revelation, as seen in Ch. 1. The revelation was necessary, the competition was abysmal and there was only one result: the Bible. The detail for these things lies in Ch.'s 1,6,8-10, but a brief overview of a few elements may help the minds of some. (Cf. pp. 59, 769, 830-831, 936-943 supra, 1082 infra.)
In sum then:
The generic coverage as to historical type of human development over thousands of years; the intimately and exceedingly detailed coverage of the Jewish developments re Christ and thereafter, dispersion and the mode of it, temple non-access, high impact and startlingly sudden re-institution of Jewish State, its products, its scenery, the half of Jerusalem gained, and the whole, the intrinsically amazing nature of the military operations against overwhelming odds on the epochal Jewish return; the world attitude to Jerusalem upon this Jewish return, and this amid a highly defined and distinctive contemporary world situation to be in place at this time, with precise parameters politically, morally, academically and spiritually; the type of amazing gospel, and its detail, to be in broad Gentile operation relative to the to-be-slain Jewish Messiah; the Jewish national and world responses to this same Messiah, with alternations in the response by the time of the Jewish return epoch, becoming notable and distinctive also; action in travel and knowledge, in philosophies and religious and moral attitudes to the revelation of God, in this same contemporary period, again covered like so much of it, thousands of years in advance, with parameters as neatly dissected as if the work of an investigating journalist, currently on the scene; the rigorous and deadly Messianic identikit, likewise given vastly before Christ came, as was the time in history of His (then) coming death; the plethora of phoney Christs and phoney religions predicted to adorn the world as it developed, rising to a crescendo; the continuity of the Christian church (q.v. Index) amid vast dimensions of slide, nevertheless unbroken in its organised testimony: in all this, in detail, in sequence and in developed synthesis, as in much more, we see clear grounds. (See also pp. 58-71, 262-267, Ch. 6 supra, 755-769, 806-809, 1147-1160 infra.)
Grounds for what ? Grounds for identifying far beyond any normal, scientifically oriented recognition criteria, the word of remedy, in any evidential approach. There is simply no competition at this level. As we have seen, that is precisely one of the things the God of the Bible pointed out. It is one of the essential features of recognition of the speaker: no grounds for confusion on any sound evidential approach. On the other hand, there has been shown to be multiple disabling of all relevant contenders, quite apart from their identification-dereliction in this area. Identification of the word of God has only one rational claimant. The rest is religion without reason.
See the six volume set on PREDESTINATION AND FREEWILL, namely
ON PREDESTINATION and
FOREKNOWLEDGE,
LIBERTY and NECESSITY,
RESPONSIBILITY, DUTY and CREATIVITY
See Repent or Perish Ch. 7, Christ Incomparable ...Ch. 2. See also It Bubbles ... Ch. 9.
See:
Marvels of Predestination Ch. 6, *2, will and meritless operation;
Ch. 2 (selections);
The Pride of Life, the Prince of Life and the Destiny of Man Ch. 3, *1
Tender Times for Timely Truth Ch. 11, esp. pp.172ff.;
Great Execrations ... Greater Faith Ch. 9;
His Wounds Opened Eternity Ch. 4 (also contrasted with Islamic deficiencies);
Sparkling Life Ch. 7, Earth Spasm, Conscience Chasm: and Renewal of Life Ch. 6;Scaling the Heights, Scanning the Depths,
Spanning the Breadth: Jesus Christ the Answer Ch. 5;
Gratitude for His Glorious Grace App;Downfall from Defamation Ch 3;
Licence for Liberty Ch. 1
Serenity Not Serendipity Ch. 12 (includes presentation on Trinity, reality, man and liberty).
See Ch. 1 above, SMR pp. 100-101, Endnotes 30 and 31 and Ch. 3, together with Jesus Christ, Defaced, Unfazed ... Ch. 4.
See also Barbs, Arrows and Balms 6 -7.
Truth is not found in merely interactive bodies. To find it, one must look for what is there to be found. This is possible only where three things are true.
Firstly, there is an absolute, one independent of the limitations of mere interaction, and placement within such systems, and with perspective to see over all, through all and past all.
Secondly, this must be able to divulge the truth, and that is true only of the infinite source of all things, to whom no bounds are appointed, without whom there is nothing - since nothing has no product, and through whom mind, matter and spirit must be able to come, since otherwise they have no logical basis. The requisite is an an eternal adequacy or irrationality. Where the latter is present, argument is not.
Thirdly, not only do you need God to be there as shown in SMR, and able to speak, but He must be WILLING to present to cogitational minds, the excogitation of things, the realities. That is an investigable matter, as shown in SMR, and it is there found that He has done so in the Bible, making it both verifiable and validated (cf. Deity and Design, Designation and Destiny Section 8), as distinct from a matter of antilogy and antilogism. Empirically, we would also look for a testimony that not only meets just criteria of causation and creation, but does so in such a way as to surpass alternative ploys of those who forget the foregoing.
TMR in particular shows this, moving further in the direction of SMR.
A just enterprise is the investigation of many fields, crucial in kind, to perceive moreover the independent verifications of the finding, such that on all sides there is persistent harmony with the treasure found, in the triumphs produced. This is to be found in
LIGHT DWELLS WITH THE LORD'S CHRIST
WHO ANSWERS RIDDLES
AND WHERE HE IS, DARKNESS DEPARTS.
In this find, there is found independently, that is in the Bible, that man in his energies of imagination and liberty to decline or assault or seek and verify the reality of God, has broached the conditions of his creation. Hence life is subject to rebuke, confrontation, decimation and death. However, God has acted to provide eternal annulment for these things, as huge cost to Himself, in Jesus Christ. The outcome is called the Gospel which is the only divinely appointed and authorised way of man's ceasing the confrontation and gaining the access to his Creator. This is one more verification arena, since not only is this ambivalence found, blessing and cursing, wonder and rebuke, stability of provision and exposure of vulnerability, both on a vast scale, but the way it is to happen in particular is given such a scope of coverage and so often and in so much and in so many ways over the millenia, as borne record in the Bible, that this too has its own verification, just as it explains man's predicament, and provides remedy, completing the attestation of the competence of God, both to act for truth with His creation, and against lie. No phase or facet, implicit or explicit, lacks.
Such is the intelligibility, rationality of the answer in its vindication of reason and indication of God, that considerations both negative and positive in unison not merely leave no room for rational alternative, but leave such pretensions as a comedy in rout (cf. Wake Up World! Your Creator is Coming; and Secular Myths and Sacred Truth). That is in accord with Romans 1:17ff., and II Corinthians 10:5. It cannot be otherwise, and it is not, a testimony to the God who made creation, the reason of man, and the investigable reality confronting him. More than this, and the reason WHY this reality is now most dramatically confronting man, is the simple fact that man's effort to abscond with the universe, as if it were his, and he had made himself, is chargeable theft, ruinous misadventurism, thankless thumbing of the nose, which justly quivers before the smell which it creates.
See:
The Meaning of Liberty and the Message of Remedy
THE NECESSITY OF THE LOCATION
OF THE DIVINE REMEDY FOR MAN
John 3:16ff., Colossians 1:19ff., Titus 2-3, cf. Jeremiah 48, Ezekiel 33:11, I John 4.
Consult:
SMR Appendix B, and
Ancient Words and Modern Events Ch. 8,
Great Execrations, Great Enervations, Greater Faith Chs. 7 and 9, Ch. 3, and 3 Epilogue.
Beauty of Holiness Ch. 2,
The Glow of Predestinative Power Chs. 1, 4, 8,
SMR Appendix B,
The Uncomprehending Darkness and the Self-Revealing Light Ch. 11
The Christian Pilgrimage Ch. 3, including Appendix;
How Great is the God We Adore! 3, 3 Epilogue.
The Kingdom of Heaven Ch. 3;
To Know God, the Fellowship of His Sufferings and the Power of His Resurrection Ch. 7 (a very broad coverage of many issues with emphasis on the core and uniqueness of it, Peter an expository pivot, Christ the pearl).
See SERENITY NOT SERENDIPITY,
CALLED TO BE SAINTS, NOT RECONSTRUCTED TO
BE ROBOTS Ch. 6.
On this method, used in this site, see for system and detail, What is the Chaff to the Wheat! Chs. 3 and 4.