W W W World Wide Web Witness Inc. Home Page Contents Page for Volume What is New
CHAPTER ONE
THE LORD OF LONGSUFFERING,
PRINCE OF PEACE, CHRIST OF COMMAND
Eternal Basis of
Prescription, Inscription, Description but not Conscription
The Conspectus, Configuration
and Competence of Command
CONSIDERATIONS OF CREATION
AT THE TRANSMISSION-RECEPTION LEVEL
CREATION BY COMMAND
Commands differ from indicative
statements in this, that no more are they mere configurations of grammatical
rules, definitional details, conspectus of communication criteria, but they reek
with purpose, and to be effective, relate to achievement methodology, knowledge
of or construction of the systems for reception and realisation, with information
technology based on symbol interpretation and interpretability.
Physically, in fact we are made by command. That is what God said in Genesis 1-3. The realm of the terrestrial, of the astronomical, all came by command. It was not a Board with Chairman that did it; we are not to imagine cultural exhibits as if they were binding. It was however an authority so competent, so creative, so commandeering, so inventive, so brilliant in conceptualisation and staggering in implemental power, that laws that scientists try to find and interpret, these were made as a man makes a path. Eternal competence transcended the material, the mere implemental means, and indeed made it enshrined in the laws that constitute its environment for efficiency. Sufficiency was the basis, efficiency the result.
There is no need in dealing with macro-objects to imagine that logic ceases. If it did, then argument about any item in it would be an antilogy, brimful with model-collapse. Mentality makes the mentally investigable, and magnificent mentality brings constraints of many kinds to secure the architectural formations, formulations first, forms second. Houses built in dreams are easy to imagine; houses to live in with their abundant statable characteristics, these are beyond dream, and require creative work, mental, purposive, impactive, tending power for the temper of things, forces for the containment, controls for the functions, by such assmblies as art may seek to imagine, and engineering secures in reality. It takes work to institute this world, as in all that arises from what is not there, to be put there; it is not a world of dreams.
Indeed, our very capacity to dream, to foster in imaginative ways what is not realistic, is part of our construction, otherwise called a free and roving spirit; but with our OWN construction with such facilities, not dream but doing was the basis, and the assignment of the multiple informational bases back of each human body, and the architectural and engineering specifications visible in each nucleated cell in man, this came not in the inarticulate roar or other, of something that is not there, but from pure competence, itself eternal in nature, and NOT a by-product of nothing or anything else incompetent for such results. It is time man's style of thought came back to earth from the ungrateful stars which shine on his anti-theological impudence, as on the reckless assignment of gods without glory or attestation alike.
Both of these adventures into irrational dreams are merely the juvenile substitute for thought, the intellectual arrest which makes an art-form of magic, minimisation of reality and reductionism like a swaggering bully, parading about with nil regard for the contents of the shop.
But what of actuality ? Command that institutes is able to be inspected in learning centres for inspection, and ultimately in the cellular learning centres inscribed in our very constitution. It is written not on the parchments of man, but in the protoplasm that is found in him. DNA deposits: confined, delimited, bounded, operatively consummate reality at the technical level, so that what is found by research is bounded and not confounded by these orders that made our universe, commands found by man as time moves on, with more and more precision, in their sublime intellectual artistry, programmatic immovability, inter-relationships of versatility, and fashioning power to contain and make characterisable the creation.
It is what is found now. Words order it, and in the DNA case, they are to be seen within their symbolic kind, as code. It is estimated that 1000 volumes of encyclopedic writing would be comparable with the ordered content of our DNA, like a Sergeant-Major issuing direction, like a bank, supplying certified information, like a Space Centre, though microscopic in size, conveying means of action, silent as the grave and yet abundant with life.
Operational artistry is refined by a competent series of sub-systems, ending in individuality itself richly equipped from the physical side, with a magnificence of complex characterisability in the cell, where man's technical facility is astounded, and taught to be humble by a far greater power, in terms of which indeed, he is able physically to operate himself.
Back of his decisions and actions, at the physical level, there is thus something far more imposing than is any United Nations, for it is the united command core and centre, which instead of botching jobs as man specialising in doing, confused, contesting, conning, seeking in disordered enterprise as is the UN, and many an international body, proceeds with a flourish of action, vernal witness to the eternal which made the temporal, and imparted not form nothing, but from adequacy, all that is.
Here is its own interpretation, language for ordering and the reception of orders, achieving over millenia, reliable expedition and sequential activation for the result. Thus it is super-systematic in the origination of the contents of the commands, the code-systems and the conceptual bases for such symbol-bearing language as we have, with its multiple directive units found in the once misnamed 'junk' DNA*1. It is in this area, in fact, that coded labourers are found to be more active than the rest. There are even, we learn, little motorised vehicles which can travel up and down strands to check for faults and repair them, with a mathematical marvel of sheer simplicity, maintaining complexity, that Eternal's exhibit in time, of clear thought and flamboyant programming.
It is multi-systematic in the congregation of units, connections in functional bliss of almost incredible complexity*1A, in the unifying code-concept-performance triads abounding: for symbolics require assignation of meaning both for the sender and the receiver, a fact which the presence of continuing programmatics merely emphasises. This is that domain. To say that it is only this or that, is like saying that an airliner is only several kilometres of wire, and aluminium, and seats and struts (on and on for quite some time).
That is mere confusion. There are elements of its design, construction and constraints; they are not what it is. It is a flying machine. These are commanded into association, symbols are given assigned meanings, and used to effect the same; they are made assimilable to one overall symbolic system, at best, as is the advanced case in the design called the body of man.
He is not protoplasm and nerves and stomach, and circuitries of nervous systems of various inter-active complexities and so on almost ad infinitum. He has these only as elements.
What he is - it is a talking, hearing, speaking, thinking, moving, baulking, conceiving, constraining, imaginative, speculative, wisdom-seeking, God-wrought, command originated, command making, environmentally operable person of spirit and mind and body. The rest in terms of assembly units (not in man placed neatly as in an aircraft, but home-grown by command and subtly interwoven like a logical garment), is a matter of mere contrivances to arrive at this. The immaterial is his nature; the material is the provision for action in a world of physical, chemical, astronomical, instinctive kind, depending on the components in view. Thus he thinks and DOES. He considers and ACTS. He struggles with symbolic mastery and INSTITUTES. These are not material things, whatever the means of facilitation, being cogitative, intentional, invisible, unweighted, uncoloured, intangible.
He purposes and IMPLEMENTS. He hates and seeks evil; he loves and seeks good; he evaluates: he has a basis and he argues about what it is, because despite the DNA precision, spiritually he is lost. In conflicts often, in charlatanage frequent, in mini-missions of confusion not a few, man continues sailing on reef-laden seas, like a drunken pilot, confused, contaminated and without adequate control. He has put aside his books, ignores the signals, refuses instruction from the Voyage-Mater (Matthew 23:8-10), and fights interminably as a result, mostly about things wrong on both sides, at times more gloriously; but there is no peace for such an assemblage. Small wonder Christ indicated that the 'prince of this world' has NOTHING in Him! (John 14:30). This is obvious when neat power is contrasted with inglororious machinations:
When Jesus Christ came, creative works abounded for thousands, in healing or otherwise, at His word, the one the world recognised in creation, and when so instructed by Him on this earth, by DOING what He said. Although as in SMR, it is provable what man is and whence he is and where his instructions lie, yet he is racially inclined either to seek to duplicate, bury, blight or alter these, and to act accordingly, which of course is sooner or later impossible, as the means of upkeep, order and procedure are continually being violated, not only by millions of murders, of enormous lèse-majesté to God, but of vast psychic impact on the race itself, directly. Moreover, his glorious genes are going down, in the implacable pulse of the Second Law of Dynamics, for all his brave talk*1B .
As a result, for the most part, he does not even know where he is going; but he is still going. He does not know why he is going, but he still takes steps. He does not like to settle even on what he is, but he still keeps being it. He is a person with multiply codally constrained equipment at his disposal, who has lost his Creator, and usually prefers, at least in some domains of education, to think he does not even have one; which of course is a cursed condition*1C, like that of a starving man who refuses to believe that food is even relevant.
Yet however lost, he has objectively viewable equipment, behaviour and powers of thought and evaluation. Neither codes nor configuration make themselves, for words are symbols of configuration and signification, and they relate only to systems correlative, equipped with interpretable facilities, whether directly or by program, potting thought. A complex configuration of symbols and significations is not the work of an ordered series of objects simply equipped with their own powers to be chemicals or physical; it requires additional relevant powers with the capacity to do what it takes to manufacture such mutualised, mentally construable systems, constraining configurations and symbolic appetites. This is the world of constraint. Command is like that.
In us, indeed, it is the word of command which is abundantly found, the precision of which, to the untold billions of brain cells, to form and then to operate, is a call to being and then a usage datum, a direction. It is one in its myriadform multiplicities, vastly at variance with the sloppy silliness of the vacuous dismissal of the rational necessities of its source, competent in all the domains and necessary for our multi-systematic and free construction: each dimension at its own level. Thus, in our case, there is not only constraint but formal command, which requires purpose and understanding of a high order at this level, if it is to have coincident control, and is diverse from mere maintenance of law.
These are instructions for what is to be done inside laws, characterisable features of things material, chemical physical, mathematical, inside these multiplied systems, using language to culminate in the symbols' call, their requisition. Here must arrive, and not merely be named, preciselyl what they signify in their sophisticated, created codal*1D concepts! You do not see code engaged in an act of writing itself*2, far less in the most sophisticated visible apparatus on earth with the most amazing results of all. It does not happen: except of course with intelligence, since words mean signification of thought to decided servants, in a setting of dictionary totality enabling comprehensibility, whether by thought or its constructed implements (cf. Jesus Christ, Defaced, Unfazed ... Ch. 4 )*3.
It is in the formerly misconstrued domain of intensive symbolic oversight, the 'junk' DNA, we learn, that enormous vitality exists to constrain and operate in oversight dimensions on simpler transactions, in a sense like a dictionary, or manual, except for this, that this ALSO is programmed, so that there is an additional program to cover needs of programs beneath it, so that they are caused to conform to multiple tasks with principial purity (cf. *6 below). YOU do not have to do even this, as you would with a new computer, made independently of you, but NOT to enable operation which is also independent! Arduous indeed may be that task, still remaining on a continuing basis, for the operator!
Indeed, THAT may cause you much trouble. With this oversight DNA however, this too is automated.
The reason is simple: it involves specifications for what is specified, from what is specificative: that is, from mind, not matter, from the originality contrivance which interprets, describes and assigns tasks for matter, and not from simple, generic continuity such as matter displays (cf. SMR pp. 80, 307). It requires no less the conceptions logically prior to the same, and the purpose logically prior to that, that such work be performed. There is need for the commandment of commands that they be commanded. As often noted here, nothing does not create, either in a lump deposit, or in the provisions of systems, vocabularies for power or modes of thought, let alone interpretive resources to maintain purity and functionality. It is simply not able. It does not do it in stages, or all together. Paint one painting or an art gallery full, as in the case of the equipment of man: it is all one. The readable realities of art are from mind to mind, and the ability to read any of the modes and art forms means a condominium of concept for viewer and painter.
Failure to realise this contravenes empirical observation, domain specification and logical requisition; it is of the nature of the fanciful, the mythical, where effects do not require rationally construable causes, and fairyland, where simply marvellous things happen because the fairies feel like it, en bloc, or from various imaginary royal fairy figureheads.
We are creatures of the Command Configuring Competence, of the Mind-Using and Making Maestro, and the Purposive Prince of Life. If the Author of Life were some other Being, then that would simply be the one in view. There has to be one. As to this Being existing as one, and not as part of a structure of personal powers with minds and purposes, it is irrational to overlook the nature of the situation. If there were many distinct, particular gods in co-operation in a system, it would not answer the logical case; for if that were so, then you would simply have the rational need to find the source of the system itself, which being a contrived, imposed thing itself, with its own credentials, not the work of components, would be the Author. What simply INHERES in a system does not create it. To do this you need the unifying communicative medium, grounds of consisting. For everything, there is a cause (cf. Causes, SMR Ch. 5, Predestination and Freewill Section IV).
There is one who is the One, eternal. Thus, without anything to start, there is nothing to finish, since nothing has no effect - if it had, it would be an-effectual-something, which is the opposite of nothing. You cannot opt for beggary and end with a meal in the refrigerator on your property with electricity attached. It seems some do, but this contra-model confusion.
The Configuring Competence is thus eternal, with no limits, constraints or call-up consequences. It is beyond nations, beyond earth, beyond constrained and delimited nature, beyond death (which being a constraint in type, is contra-conceptual contradiction). It is beyond birth, which likewise implies a setting and situation beyond it. It is contrary to change, since time is merely one of the criteria of our world, with its space-time constraints, REQUIRING waiting and so limiting from outside itself by its imparted nature. What is ultimate has NO constraints. Time in which change is evoked, is a creation, and this is an implement, not a part.
Yet this is not the same as having no character. Character may be conceived in terms of various philosophies, but in and of itself, it means a certain settled, signified, nature which is not merely ephemeral. That the Eternal Being, the Almighty, should have a character in a situation with no limits for Him, no controls over Him is one of the requirements for a sustained creation, which otherwise could change at whim, incompetence, weariness of withering purpose and so on, leaving laws in tatters, contrary to fact, power without governance, manual without fulfilment, prophesies in vain, contrary to fact, liberty without meaning, man without spiritual connection, a thing aborted, contorted, not merely forsaken, as much is now, but a product from a source incapable of death! Indeed, this death, it is a change in, of and for time. Thus omission of maintenance in misery and existence with its delimitations in our universe, without support or sustenance is not the case.
It is not a logical option. This being contrary to itself, to the model, to the necessities for the Creator as shown, it is not a situation to be considered, except for its reductio ad absurdum character.
The curse however is; just as the remedy is (cf. Reason, Revelation and the Redeemer). In some ways, for what IS a curse, some of the problems of non-supervision apply. If man refuses God, in some things, indeed, he does without him, and some of the features noted above become SELECTIVELY applicable to him, for the sake of dismissal of the divine, and you see this traced in Romans 1, and Psalm 1. He becomes like chaff in the wind. Why not ? If he refuses the post of grain, then the other part is as it were, the stalk, due to be cut up.
For GOD, the exclusion of change and death, in His own being, is a result of the fact that time being a creation of His, therefore He is not subject to its criteria. One of these is a waiting for realisation, a finding of new grounds for alteration, a weariness of being the same, leading to experimentation for the sake of new experiences, and all such things. However, beyond time, over it, not limited by it, having constitutively created it, the Eternal One is outside such parameters. He knows all, and all depends without limit upon Him.
The character of the Eternal One continues. So does the character of the curse observable in its predictable character, on earth. So does the remedy instituted. In time, it has its place, and divine grace has its place; but not forever. It is only life which lasts, being created for that purpose, and given redemption as a cure. Where cure is with all the heart sought, from the One who created this along with the universe, in the end there it is brought (cf. Ephesians 1:4, Jeremiah 29:13-14). His word and dealings in accord therewith, do not change. The testimony of that word accordingly like the laws prescribed for the universe, but more directly, continues to exhibit itself.
CREATION BY THE CHANGELESS ONE
What then ? Change in Himself would imply the contrary to the very manifest nature of the Creator. In such a case as that, FROM time He would find this and that and so react concerning His ignorant self. Ignorance however is merely one more limit, and contra-model, and model is propelled by rational need. Knowing this-and-that, and all, He has nothing ever to find which could influence Him to alter. As the Bible declares, He knows the end from the beginning and indeed IS the beginning and the end (Isaiah 46:10, Revelation 1:17). Moreover, He is able to DECLARE it from the beginning (cf. Barbs ... 17). To change the disposition of events at a given point, may relate to plan and purpose, neither adventitious nor intrusive. To change, however, who or what He is, or both, this means dissatisfaction with what He is, which means a coming to realisation, and that ignorance, and that an initial limit. It cannot be.
It might be said that He might like to have an alternation of character, but then that would BE His character, so in view before any alternation, since He has no limits, but does make such purposive thrusts as He will. As Psalm 115 puts it, He does what He pleases in heaven and on earth; and as Ephesians 1 has it, He does His good pleasure. That it is good, is one of the immutable characteristics.
Any alternation of change planned outside time, is nevertheless an entrant in time, for to change at ANY time, as for a creation, is to be governed to that extent BY time. If it be said, that this is not so, that it would merely express a self-government IN time, then it still would imply an extraneous influence of time, so that in this medium to foster change is to occur. However, if it be further presented that He might DESIRE to be subjected to an extraneous influence in time, then the mere subjugation would be the use of something made to alter the Eternal,and express a dissatisfaction, an incompleteness, which would set Him in a system outside and with power over Him, so that the being in view would not be God, but a figment of undisciplined imagination.
Thus, in that case, He would be incomplete without it, and not not really Eternal at all, but a Being involved in His very nature in the affairs of His creation, to the point of being so impacted by it. He would be devising, before time, impact of time, and hence incomplete in psychic satisfaction before time began, and a growing being in the woof and warp of creation, and so not God. If however one realises time is creation, then beyond it is so that time for change is importing a mere irrelevance into His own composition, on contradicting it, a mere exercise in impossibility, that is, self-contradiction.
Being by nature beyond time, God is not alterable by time. Could He be alterable by eternal desire, past time ? This again would indicate an ontological inadequacy, since He would not be satisfied as to Being with what He was. Inadequacy however argues limits, and this what limits, which is God, so that we would simply be discussing the wrong Being. God does not change.
This is moreover found in James 1:17, Malachi 3:6 and Psalm 102. From everlasting to everlasting He is God, and He swears by Himself that He does not change. Again, if He were to do any such thing, then His word would be worthless, because what He IS would be so variable that other things might be resolved upon, when the new look, Mark II being arrived. If it be said that He would foreknow what the Mark II would desire, and so adjust what He promised or premissed in advance, and conform His speech to this pre-cognition of change, then Mark II being accordingly so thoroughly known and cognised in advance, would represent a dissatisfaction with the original, based on knowledge; which would merely enhance the defect, that it was a deep one, involving the putative change.
God does not change. If at any time, actual or envisaged, He wanted to do so, dissatisfaction is the key, whether it be envisaged as contemporary with change or prior to it. That in turn would mean that prior to the change, things were not as desired; and that again, means delimitation, and computation, creation from outside; and again, such a Being not being God, would be irrelevant to the point, a mere mistake in identification. We return to the immutable Almighty. His word is truth. ALL that happens passes through Him, whether the creation of freedom in various aspects and dimensions, as in man, in His image, though of course as a creature, this not without limit.
That is, man by the nature of the case CANNOT be an eternal Being like God, since He begins in time and in the domain of time, which itself begins, as we know it. Man may indeed be elected to PROCEED ON to eternity, from a given point in time, and this is the biblical case. This is with what receives life which has these features, in the way the One whose it is (cf. I John 1:1-4) has provided, by faith in His Person and work (John 11:25-25, 5:24, 6:50-54), with repentance for one's own lack of it (Luke 13:1-4), and wrong work Isaiah 53, 55), and what THAT from which it duly proceeded!
Now let us look at the diverse,
dynamic, irretrievably acts and commands of God, in conveying information, and
characterising it, concerning His way for man.
PRESCRIPTION, INSCRIPTION,
DESCRIPTION BUT NOT CONSCRIPTION
It is an inscription, in this, that AS made, made has this as a potential. The heart is relevant to the written call into spiritual cleansing, contrition, sensitivity to the word of God (cf Hebrews 8:7ff.).
It is a prescription in this, that FOR such a one who is made, a creation, there is this provision of salvation, not this time, in written instructions, though this is present, but in genuine acceptance of Him who gave both them and Himself. Thus this salvation is not optional, except on extreme pain of exclusion from the living residue of the human race, in a cloud of obliterative shame, that has no issue (John3 :36): everlasting destruction.
Thus it is required, as is an oil change for a car. Acts 4:12 tells us this, that not only is there no other name but that of the Eternal Word of God (as in John 1:1*4 and Isaiah 48:16), given to man for salvation, but there is no other option but to be saved. If despite this, man being made free in such dimensions, which by their nature are a necessary prelude to the capacity also to love, this by nature a free thing and not a controlling constraint, as various types of lust may be, WILL NOT, and wills not, to be saved ?Then what ? Then it is simply a matter life denied in the face of the One who made, acted to relief and deliver it, so that the realm of destruction comes perforce, a spiritual glower undesirable to dwell on, a dimness of exclusion in which the prisoner used the key of deceit to evade the truth, being most successful in this strange and strangling venture..
The nature and name of the destruction, then, is additional information, such as eternal destruction. As C.S. Lewis pointed out, for a thing to be eternal destroyed implies a certain mutuality of thing and destruction; and how this works out is not a matter of great interest, as it involves eternal shame (Daniel 12), and the loss of privileged dimensions given to man, which makes it a misfashioned thing, the result of a will that wants and gets what it wants. It is like a grave-yard without hope, where the only occupants refused life (cf. Proverbs 1).
Inscription and prescription for man, in terms of this dowered eternity, is also a description, being specified as to essentials in such sites as Revelation 20-22, 7:13ff., John 4:14, 7:37, I John 3, I Corinthians 15. Thus things either in continuation from now, for those once saved for ever (John 5:24, 11), in times that know no end, or in consummation of the present, in a state which completes what is now well begun (II Cor. 4:16-5:5), are as described.
However there is for this eternity available to man, NO conscription. Thus one translation in Psalm 110, concerning the followers of Christ is this, that they are volunteers in the day of His power (110:3), who Himself is seen in this light: "In the beauties of holiness from the womb of the morning, you have the dew of your youth." In other words, the Lamb of God will not now have hauteur and an oblivion to compassion and tenderness, to the very nature of what He has created, but will in a kindness of condescension , "drink of the brook by the waysid; therefore He shall life up the head." As in Psalm 72, His nearness though of the Lord, is never in the oppressive sense, something lordly like the leaders of Gentiles, beyond it all as if men were but minions. THIS Shepherd is committed to being far from that (Ezekiel 34 spells it out in detail), and has already shown Himself to be so in nature.
There is something both delicate and grand about a bloom what does not fade as the grass, and pass away (Psalm 110:3). Its conception, architectural configuration, delicacy of design, strength of endurance for its own day, glory of combination of scent, appearance, bringing news of loveliness and wonder: all these are emblems, artifices, expressions as in all art, of the Author, the Painter, the Sculptor. Like a picture of botanical beauty hung on a wall, as with some of the works of French impressionists, so it stays. However, when it comes to life in the bloom destined to fade, it normally does NOT do so. It cannot stay for it passes.
The painting but not the bloom, remains; but in this case of consummation of life, as the Head in His likeness, so the children of God (I John 3:1ff.). Though He be the Head, yet His life flows to His body, where mortality no more flourishes (I Cor. 15:42ff.). Thus the final form for the believer DOES remain; and that is the distinction between time and eternity, the expression of opportunity by the artist, and the reality, as in the words of Jesus Christ concerning eternal life: it wills up continually. It shows also the ground for importunity, the acute desire that this be gained without delay (Psalm 107:9, Philippians 1:23, 3:12), to enter the open door and avoid the shut mind, indeed to pursue the quest of pilgrims in the power of God with relish for Him whose consummation completes the wonder ( I Peter 1:3-7).
But what lacks may even glory in it lack, with a self-sufficiency of sinuous proportions, architectured in hell, and scented with its seduction (II Thess 2:4-10). It is because God refuses to force man in spiritual things, that Christ wept over Jerusalem as in Matthew 23:37 and Luke 19:42ff.. IF ONLY, He mused in the latter case, those concerned had realised while the door of opportunity was thrust open for them!
If they had realised it, and so acted, then history would be reshaped; but the grandeur of the offer made to them, and the door of opportunity so painfully opened to them, was as if to a lost tribe, hidden in the jungle and preferring its darkness. Yet it was self-induced. It was hidden from their eyes (cf. Matthew 13, Luke 19:42ff.), for a shameful reason. Closed eyes are like that (Matthew 13:14-15), and this delivers to those concerned precisely that lack of vision which proves fatal.
It is necessary to
 |
open the eyes, be available for logical reasoning, where this is the concern, |
|
|
be ready for spiritual education, when that is the point at issue, |
|
|
and open as sensitive for impacts from observable sources (John 7:31, Mark 2, John 11), |
|
|
as in the day of Christ and beyond (John 14:12), in all the workings of His Holy Spirit, |
|
|
and to wrestle against that spirit which seeks to usurp truth, as if it were a villain as in Romans 1:17ff.; for such is the way of the world. |
The light of Christ is necessary for salvation (John 8:12, 9:4-5, 14:6). Humbling is a pre-requisite, and what refuses reality becomes an enemy of it, like a cancer, sporting along contrary to design. If energy is used this way by will, it is like a self-induced cancer, and deserves not the same pity as those externally afflicted.
Nevertheless, for all His power and passion, payment sufficient for all, adapted to all, God does not conscript. He does not place ransom where there is no place for it! (Matthew 20:28, Proverbs 1, Romans 8:32). Offered to all, He is delivered up for the saints.
If He did so, if indeed He were to conscript, He would abort love and make it become something else: imperious force. He is imperial, not imperious. Hence Christ also wept at the time of the tomb of Lazarus. Death is the result of breach of life, and without mercy and salvation, there is an endless end. However, life is the result of the Configuring Competence, Originating Architect, and Specifier of All Created Things, without whom they do not even exist. In making life He was aware of its self-subjugation distortion through sin to which it was vulnerable, and of what would be. No less was He aware of His response to come in time, in the domain of time which He Himself had created. Above all, He Himself would be that resonse as in Ezekiel 34, Isaiah 40, 7 and 9, Hosea 13:14.
He made clear the general nature of this case, as early as Genesis 3:15, immediately after the Fall, coming into the light and exposing His gracious intention before the first parents who were exposed and knowing it, were at the divine mercy. Past the fallen impotence of tricked and sold man, the divine Lord would act through man, to crush the intemperate, bullying and viciously sinuous power of the devil and all that he had wrought. Man acted; and God acted at once, both removing from paradise in its garden, and from any hope of self-trust and effort being the answer to man's self-induced plight. Salvation has been in sight from the first fall.
No 'god' which fails to have the solution from the first can be God. Otherwise, He would be allowing His name to be characterisable as vain and impotent, for He would be permitting an impossible situation, one involving death and end to the entire domain, one involving likewise demolition of truth and righteousness and the presence of the devastating lie, to express itself and to exhibit its cursed folly, without remedy. Breach of Himself without remedy is the same as change. It means a characterisable continuation of something different from what He is.
God, however, He does not change, and the elimination at once of evil would have meant the elimination at once of freedom and hence love and hence the very image of God in man. This God abstained from doing after man's fall.
Instead of suffering distortion, evil to brew undisturbed, the lie to rule unmet, God elected in His eternal counsel was to maintain a world where both the light of salvation and the liberty of sin or salvation, would be. In the end, liberty is vindicated through foreknowledge and love that knows no bounds in its surging desire (Col. 1:19ff., John 3), and freely is man found, never conscripted, never contained by evil, always open as before God, who as sovereign can be hoodwinked by nobody. Heaven will have neither Judases nor vacancies where there might have been life.
What then ? Would sin dominate in its rueful folly and imperious behest ?
This He did not allow. At once the coming of redemption appears. Naturally there is only one religion where this is the case, sacrifice implied from the outset, and shown dramatically as to its nature (Genesis 4). It would come from one who would be both man, and outside the crimping, controlling evils to which man became voluntarily subject. Taking the form of man, He did not take the form of sin, and so taking confessed sin on Himself, He aborted its rule, ransomed its ruin, and made of man a new being (II Corinthians 5:17-21).
So it was to be and has been. Christ came. The architect stepped onto
the premises of ruin, and personally constructed the solution and then made it
freely available to those in the appalling mess which sin had made (John 4:14,
Romans 3:23ff., Romans1:1ff., 5:1ff., Ephesians 2). That this involved the
death of His own body was true; that it would be excruciating anguish (Isaiah
59:1-2), when taken on Himself was also true; but the motivation of love not to
condemn the world but that it should be saved, as declared by God did not baulk
at mere payment. He had been brought into this earth in the
manner and form of man, yet without sin, for a purpose where this was a
paramount consideration. He met it with desire (Hebrews 12:1-4, Luke 22:15).
THE LOVING LIBERTY OF GOD
Like a soldier going to war, so He came; and like one, volunteer, slain in battle, He went; but like Lazarus, having gone, He did not stay away, but returned at the end of the predicted period of 3 days, and could be found nowhere but where He pleased. So the triumphal exhibition of His body by the slavering spiritual wolves, this was a non-entrant into history, and His words were an entrant in every way fulfilled, at all times. Indeed, if at ANY time, they had failed to be fulfilled in the daily ambit of His Messianic Mission, that would have been the end of it, and this applies in all His thousands of healings and sealings and speeches and retorts. Perfection is the wonder of God, and our vulnerabilities, even with this voluntarily taken, did not subdue Him, victor over sin, death and the grave, Lord of life not only by having made it, but shown it what it must be, and how it is to be restored (Romans 14:9). As Lord He is the only One fit for man, and as God, He is the only One there is, a delicious joint coincidence based in reality.
At to His commands, whether to create heaven and earth (Colossians 1:15), or to punish sin, or to provide salvation, in their configuration of speech, relating to the configuration of matter and the laws of the universe, and the divine power to take and overcome the result of any law, for example: these always are fulfilled. It strangles the darkness and is a way to light for the eyes. That is one very welcome test, since man was not given a mind in order not to use it, a fact to which many in various sects seem immune.
It is not only NOT a work of faith to ignore reality, but a work of indolence. Faith may trust in the Lord despite appearances; but these are not the same as reality. Faith goes beyond deceit, but not past opportunity. Where there is mercy on the unchanging basis of the word of the Eternal God, who does not suffer a world of sin to continue without remedy, being immutable, and not subject to what changes His testimony in truth, and maintains folly with power and pretence unmet, there is the divine action. God never fails (Zephaniah 3:5). Deception is not left unmasked, since this would merely be a blanket subsidence of the truth which He is, and a molestation of what He is and hence represent a change. Light of God, it is not something in the hands of man, sin or the devil, or even this world. It shines always even in the darkness, though that does not comprehend it, and shines in many a heart, to induce change back to truth.
Not the appearance, but the reality is crucial: faith takes it. Faith deals with reality, but not superficiality; and its eyes see beyond this by the grace of God.
It is precisely this unchanging grace which insists, that just as sin could not continue without remedy, seen in what He DID, so salvation cannot discontinue, since it is free and depends only on what He has done, supplying free a gift for ever (Ephesians 1:11, Romans 5:1ff., John 10:8,27-28). He does not change, either in the nature of His remedial gifts, or in His word, or in the continuity of the efficacy of those gifts, based in turn on the adequacy of the price He paid for them, to satisfy His own justice and truth, with mercy looking on. Hence having been delivered when on collision course with God, the sinner saved is kept by the power of God, BEING saved. When ONLY Christ's works are relevant to the reconciling, ransoming, redeeming gift, then man is outside the circle in that domain. He receives the gift or not; he does not dip in his little toe in the waters of life, or taste on tongue tip, if to be saved. He drinks abundantly, having repented with a repentance not to be repented of, and been bought with a gift not to be defiled (I Peter 1).
It persists, this mercy and unchanging grace and opportunity of eternal life, till the day closes and the end arrives (II Timothy 1:8ff., Romans 5:1-12, 8:37-39, John 4:14, 5:24, I John 5:12, I John 3:9, 1:7-2:1). Even in Revelation 22:17 you see the continued offer. But when the day closes, then the night comes. Indeed, as Christ declared, the night comes when no man can work. NOW it is not yet, that solemn blight before the dawn of a better creation.
This continuing light applies not only to the day of evil, when in His depth and wisdom, God has allowed (knowing the future as if it were already present, a fact seen in the way many prophecies are expressed). It figures not only in the time given, sufficient for the utmost of the alternative to wisdom, the devil of desire, to gain a significant rule. It applies to the brink of destiny (Revelation 22:17). Love is like that. It does not taunt or haunt; if rejected at last it is still, but it suffers long.
Thus the time is extended as II Peter 3:9 clearly portended. This will test; but if you make a magnificent aircraft, do you not WANT the test to show what it is, and so establish the work done! Tests are not just fearful; they are a privilege WHEN, as here, the gift is secure. Thus the apostles rejoiced to be counted worthy to suffer shame and indignity and pain and ostracism by the people wrongly in power! (Acts 5:40-42).
God has configured not only the atoms He made, mankind which He made (and in The Christian Prescription Ch. 8 we have seen something of just how meticulously wonderful this image of man is!), but the passage of time, so that what it has to say and to show has free access to history.
To be sure, there is a certain liberty in history, since man was made in the image of the free God. But it is not utter. Thus God elects to USE evil as well as good, to glorify His name, show His character, lead people to find Him and teach significant lessons. When mankind has left truth and righteousness, and needs to be led back, many are the means used to help this crucial passage. You see many examples of this in the Bible, such as in Ezekiel 29:18ff., Exodus 9:16, Ezekiel 38:17ff., and on the good side, in Romans 9:9, as on the other, in Romans 9:17. Indeed, the Lord may take action, not of course to make evil, but to direct its outcome so that as in an elegant laboratory experiment, its true nature is the better seen, and the more instructive.
In John 5:14, we see the case of a man healed in marvellous compassion.
"See, you have been made well.
Sin no more, lest a worse thing come upon you,"
said Christ. Here we see the peril of still worse disease if the one healed ignored the realities of righteousness, flickers about like a dazed moth That would underline the nature of the fault, by aggravation. If the man had ignored this, the testimony might suffest indulgence, not mercy. Faith is not a trip to the flicks. Its nature is not to flicker, however sorely it be tried. In the end, it rests in trust on the Lord and relies on His faithfulness (Isaiah 50:10).
Again, the Lord may underline the nature of truth, by having those who love Him take action consonant with it, as with David, ashamed that the name of the Lord should suffer such boasting as Goliath made, against that very name ( Samuel 17:26), and SO acting.
Liberty is a most wonderful thing, involving the weighing of actions by the mind of man, the consideration of priorities in his heart, the pondering of prerogatives, the estimation of values, the interplay of motivation, eventuation, extenuation, mercy, judgment, the yielding to love or to hatred, the dealing with guilt this way or that, the occasion of delight and the value of the same. Without it, meaning does not exist, including the view that meaning does not exist. Without liberty, in essence, man would become like a nonsense syllable, and many in slavery to sin make up ideas to match the pit in which they fall.
It is then mere reaction according to what is and what does. Truth becomes inaccessible, including the view that truth becomes inaccessible, for such is the model in mind. Accordingly, in this model, where this is the nature of unreality, you get insoluble results, and self-contradiction, as with an ill-thought out mathematical problem! It fails! Professor Leowontin expresses this, if unintentionally, in his own field, rather well!*4A
Liberty and courage and love and meaningful involvements and persons and truth are all bound together in a spray of reality, created by God, configured for man in a path of destiny, accessible to be sure, but without another way (Isaiah 55:7). That is the way of it. The mind of God deals with things most intricate as seen in the very construction of man's brain, programmed in multiple, mutually efficient ways to the point of staggerment by the scientists investigating: this is its nature. That is the nature of things designed, that the mental background is investigable by the mental foreground: that is, the products of the mind of the Maker can be discovered in research by that of the finder, whether in science or in other spheres of knowledge. Thus, mental objects are read by mental objects, after the form, manner and function of the same; and the way of the project may rationally be investigated by the mind of the finder. The magnificence of the match is so vast that it occasions considerable attestation as is found in
LIGHT DWELLS WITH THE LORD'S CHRIST
WHO ANSWERS RIDDLES
AND WHERE HE IS, DARKNESS DEPARTS.
Vain it is to try to transmute the evidence. Directive configuration is meaningless without institution of meaning, for the frozen concepts involved in the command structure. One language conveys, receives, one set of symbols is utilised, and further programs institute further configurations of direction, codes of command, so that the whole is an exercise in mutuality, systematic coherence, and studious meaning, a vocabulary implicit, and forethought providing the entirety of many systems, none meaningful alone, all reciprocally realised in one whole, which as with created objects, bears one steadfast character, this time over millenia, and has one name. What design is, and the way it is defined, is what this is*5 . What mentality is not, is not what this is. What matter does, is not what this does. THIS, it is command.
Commands are not grievous by nature. The free spirit which wants NO impediment to individuality, opportunity, future, is still met by the past. That simply IS. There is no removal van for guilt, unless the God against whom ultimately it exists, provides it. He is the offended party, for misuse of equipment of body, mind and spirit, of will and of personality. Salvation by any other means, simply bypasses the one in question, as if someone who killed another man's wife, offered atonement to sea-gulls. It is irrelevant.
Çommands express the wit and wisdom of the Author, the Configuration Coder, the Facilitation Architect, the domain inventor, not this time, the readily understood (by comparison) computer world, but that which uses far more sophisticated means and adds to them will and liberty and love and if so be, shame and guilt and weakness, through dissipation or for testing.
Follow the DNA commands (automatic) and you body is fine (apart from the deterioration over time, Professor Sanford points out*6, which is the opposite of course of imaginary advance! and is in fact, the norm for design). Follow similarly, the word of God in society as from the Bible in general and the Sermon on the Mount in particular, and peace would be profound, and most enjoyable. Purge sin and you come nearer within the peace of living and loving conformity to truth, though still testable without, by a wayward world. Why object to the prince of peace ? He is far better than the ravagement of war, the injuriousness of pride and the plaintive voice of failed autonomy thrusts, so common amid the crazed world of push and power, and oblivion of reality.
Resent commands ? As well resent life.
Would a computer, if able, resent having modes of operation ? If it did, then operations it would not have, being as man is in another pertinent aspect, unable to create itself, and having to be or not be, with nothing in between
It is not COMMAND which is the problem, but the POINT and the PURPOSE of the command. It is only when this is evil, that objection can stand, but what is rather offered in exchange for the love and counsel, peace and truth, mercy and kindness of God is the leisurely devilry of trying to be god without having that station. And from what would the values come for the evaluation of evil, that it might be objected to ? But even if it did come, what objection is there to the reality that one is a sinner, does not consider the God who made one, or has not done so, or love the neighbours as oneself, as one should, being unwilling to presume on someone else's property ?
But if it be said that salvation should not be free, but earned by merit, how could this even BE! If you had to earn it, then the diverse natures which people have would be the container units for the race for merit for the meritocracy. What if some were defective differentially at the start, bearing more of the residues of the sins of preceding generations ? Would that be fair ? And what if God is so pure that this is like asking bacteria to have a race to see which is fitting for aesthetic display in an art contest!
If however it be said, that there should be recognition of good things, once the salvation is instituted, this IS the case (as in Matthew 25).
If it be said that it is too easy to have free salvation, then in view of the condition of the heart of man, where pride and power thrusts alternate unduly and untruly, this merely minimises the offence. There is no point in asking a paraplegic to run a race for recognition of facility or agility or ability.
There is nothing unduly easy about living the Christian life. As Paul put it in I Corinthians 15, "I protest by the rejoicing in Christ Jesus, that I die daily," (I Corinthians 15:31). "I am crucified with Christ," he declares in Galatians 2:20. There is test enough, and indeed profound, in living the Christian life; and if this is easy, what would hard be! True, it can be quite easy to be a hypocrite, but then, this not the point, but the nature of the reality. Yet for all that, there is a naturalness about abiding in the Lord, since He in the beginning made our nature, though sin has defiled it.
Commands ?They institute us and in much constitute us, but they are not grievous as John declares (I John 5:3-4), in the light of the power of God to transform the heart and the Spirit of God to inspire it (Ephesians 3:16), and the wisdom of God to give understanding to the heart and the power of God to enable (I Peter 1:3ff., I Cor. 1:30-31, Colossians 1:9). Indeed, the order of commandments enables meaningful wonders to be attempted, making use of that order, as in roads for cars with traffic signals, by their very presence. They are not exclusive; they are included. They are part of the sub-structure for life; but where the Spirit of God is, there is liberty (II Corinthians 3:17).
It is this lawful liberty which is such an elixir. What marvellous constructions and misconstructions man may make. How astonishing is the power allowed to him; and how vast is the pit he may dig, and the skies to which he may look with potent vision!
Let us then be thankful to
THE LORD OF LONGSUFFERING, PRINCE OF PEACE, CHRIST OF COMMAND
for permission to be where so much is so easy, so much is so difficult, where impossible things for man are freely available, and folly is not excluded: such is the fateful liberty, and the pregnant possibility structure, affirmed by the God of all power, who knows His own, and misses in His resurgent love, nothing that might be saved.
Let us thank God for an easy way
back, and for a beautiful way on,
the highway of holiness, where even fools do not err (Isaiah 35:8)
NOTES
For other components of creation-craft and concept, both superficial and foundational, of which there are many, see:
See Repent or Perish Ch. 7, Deity and Design Section 2,for example.
See:
http://creation.com/large-scale-function-for-endogenous-retroviruses, and
Waiting for Wonder Appendix
See News 82, Repent or Perish Ch. 7 as marked, Wake Up World Chs. 4-6 Wake Up World! Chs. 4-6), and his basis becomes bait for delusion of the wilfully ignorant (cf. Romans 1:17ff., Ephesians 4:17-19.
See for example The Lie Has a Limited Shelf-Life, Ch. 1, which also specifies some of the genome work of Professor Sanford of Cornell University, with reference also to the domain of revelation and its certainty, one however which does not remove as in all knowledge, the need to site it where is, as shown in result in SMR. On the deteriorating human genome, and its rate of decline, as shown by the same academic scientist, see Waiting for Wonder Appendix.
Codal is an invented word. It does have another meaning sufficiently different to delive from any likely confusion. It seems ridiculous and unwarranted to deprive such word of life, and hence, in the creative powers shared with the rest of this created and creative race, one has made it up. It fits, and it is functional, brief and pointed.
Jesus Christ, Defaced, Unfazed ... Ch. 4.
*3 The Desire of the Nations Ch. 2 Epilogue.
EXCURSION ON INFORMATION WITH REFERENCE TO CODE
Just as code does not, without programmatic precursor, write itself, so the case is broader yet.
For that matter, neither do you see information writing itself without intelligent direction for the simple reason that that has to be committed to interpretable code, shared by the interpreting medium, assessable, weighable, construable. Further, the creation and correlation of the information, which is mentally conditioned, involves concepts and underlying conceptions, all of which is mental work which requires to be done, in order that its relevant effects might be achieved.
These in mere procedural terms, may involve mathematical concepts, present, absent, innovative, as well as personal ones. It involves imagination and orientation. There is an abundance to be created.
There are, for work functionally to be done, such things as these, requiring application: what is to be found, how it is to be put, with what symbols as well as in what manner, in what perspective of terms, with what vocabulary, with what underlying world view by which the things involved are assessed, seen and activated into code. Information is not just DO IT; it is also, THIS IS IT. It is not just to supply data, but to choose what the data are, in terms of the underlying construction of such things.
Whatever is to be conveyed, it requires selection, symbolic mode, correlation of symbol and actuality, the same for the receptor, a linguistic basis of adequate scope and conceptual content to enable mental modes to be institutionalised in language, the enforcement of the same so that it has no vagaries, together with conceptualisable means for doing this, since solutions are not laid on like hot water in a hotel, but require thought, understanding and comprehension of the nature of the case, which does not occur without adequate causal preconditions, and capacities.
This is minimal; but with information, there are vast ranges requiring thought.
A smirk on a face for instance, has to be construed as in the smile category, and it may be called a good one or foul, depending on whether one is aggressive or morally sensitive. Words may similarly be chosen to intimate indirectly such attitudinal data. Information requires all that words require, and this being intelligence, yes and understanding, in order to transmit effectively, you have to have persons or what transmits FOR persons as a means (as a tape is a means for giving the opera singer's music), their findings. This does not happen without such categories of power, comprehension, assessment and capacity, qualitatively, any more than work is done quantitatively, without energy.
That is one of the reasons, or in fact those are several, why information does not contrive, like sky-writing, to appear suddenly without the support means. Remove intelligence, direct or indirect, and you lack. Even in sky-writing, though its appearance be sudden and spectacular, evoking wonder and admiration, like all the rest, it does not appear from nowhere, but as a result of a sufficient and relevant cause. This does not involve, to use the words of Jesus Christ, getting figs from thistles, or miracles from what does not provide the same, but keeps to its established capacities.
To adapt the old adage: that which is (physical, mental, rational, irrational, moral), is; that which is not (confusing the categories and attributing to one the functions not found there, but elsewhere as to kind, so making dysfunction), is not. Is that not it ? It is.
Let us be empirical, logical, and such shams and shames as the self-making world not only do not get off the ground. The informatively creative unintelligent things are never found, but matter does what it is in its own domain. So it is seen, and so definable. That is what it is, and this what it does, in and of itself, by due empirical research. It does not proclaim, but conforms. It does not imagine and concretise concepts. It is a basic unit. When it is used to make life, as a butt, it does not cease its capacities and incapacities. Life then shows its own; and it does not make up new information, unless it be by the application of procedures inherent, so that these are not new, but codal expression.
It may be damaged; but this is no new production. As noted, the results of this are moving swiftly towards being fatal to man, not functional! (cf. *1C above). Hypothetical worlds, with other forms and modes can do what they are made to do. Ours in its rational, causal and observational system, is like this. You get it ? You don't get it. It does not happen. Magical and imaginative constructions for self-making worlds lacks grounds both logical and empirical, and are more invisible than the invisible, which at least is seen in its effects. Coming from nothing, they are good for nothing, and nothing good comes from such romancings.
Two into one won't go, they used to say; except of course by the use of fractions. True (and testifiable by adequate means) into false, won't go, and for this there is no fraction: a thing merely fractious and meretricious remains. It lacks the means, and so hoping for relief is like hoping for rain from a blue sky thousands of miles wide, with no exception, under a blasting sun; except that this might change, whereas the lack of observable relevant action and logical basis, is unrelieved.
Magic continues to be unwilling; what is created continues to implement His word, in things great and small. Verification whether in things natural or written in the Bible, it continues in one direction only (cf. SMR pp. 140ff.). Is that why this is removed by the learned, in a great percentage of cases, when it comes to these areas ? Is that why biblical attestation is to be made forbidden to a science which seeks information testable wherever it may be found, and puts all its cards on the table ? Is it to protect the shut eyes from the existence of light for those not so shut, in its near presence ? Is this a priestly oblivion, shoved onto others, even the young, force-fed nature myths, without provision of material for comparison at their OWN choice! (cf. Ch. 2 in this volume).
And just as this refusal in itself, verifies the word of God likewise (it never misses cf. Ephesians 4:17ff.), so the mythical approach of naturalism is invalidated, like an invalid from the war, but in this case, a corpse (cf. The gods of naturalism have no go!).
Underlying in all information-realisation, whether in code or word more developed, are
 |
preparation, so that the matters
are formed, |
|
|
formulation, to put them into
transmissible and interpretable mode, and hence |
|
|
conceptualisation so that the
formulation is not in name only, but functionally operable, |
|
|
availability of transmissive
medium, with vocabulary and combination of |
|
|
selection of the same, if more
than one is available, |
|
|
reciprocal interpretability on
the part of the receptor, |
|
|
operability so that the
reception is not merely verbal, but applicable, |
The phenomena of mind extensively used here are not available from what does not have mental capacity. Moreover, features are required, depending on the scope of the information, or code. The function of command is to require that specifiable and specified forms, formulations and conceptualisations appear, are transmitted, are received and are effectual. This in turn goes beyond the indicative mode, impressing not only information, but will concerning its use, determination and some type of constrictive-constructive action, whether this be in the field of plus or minus, to make or to destroy.
For happenings, you need far more than happenings. You need what makes them do so. Myth will not do, lacking reality; reductionism will not do, lacking causal sufficiency; hope will not do, lacking means. What is science requires testable reality, and does not make up ineffectual, merely preferred dreams (cf. SMR Ch. 3, Ch. 10, Secular Myths and Sacred Truth, Deity and Design 8) .
In SMR, there was occasion, years before this, to reflect on some of these issues. This excerpt is from p. 307.
This slavery inflicted on childhood, this intellectual serfdom, this pernicious misuse of authority - however little it comprehends what it is doing - is to club the minds of children: a phenomenon as sad as was the genocide in Biafra. That too had its legal side. It is ideologically reminiscent of Tiananmen, where authority, in 1989 there also, before using violence, just... knew! (Just as its 1966 'Red Guards', themselves twisted and then tormenting, 'clubbed' and then clubbing ... knew.) And now this authority, it has wet hands.
Let us then review the broader issues. The gradual elevation of uni-series to substance, of engineered matter in its sophistication to errant human thought, of movement in a line to a concept of a line, and to the failure to draw it right... of awareness to objectivity, processive participation to plenary powers of oversight, of determinism to freedom, of interactive interfaces to supervising systems-assessors, of components to critics, containment to illimitable perspectives, of coercion to liberty and material units into error-prone persons, of forced fragments to foolish philosophising (as mutually often judged) where pundits say what is wrong and hence imply access to what is right; the elevation, I say - of elements prodded by force into persons goaded by guilt, of reagents into agents, jostled particles into judges of particularity, asserting obligation and denying it both in theory and in practice: all this may satisfy 'God' machinists.
It may seem splendid to deity manufacturers, who have nowhere from which to gain all these powers (having denied God). But their manufacture of these gods is one of the most obvious testimonies (*15) to God, manufacturer of themselves, giving them logical bases for such powers, though here they are but abused.
How beautifully scripture sums up so much:
"And just as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge,
God gave them over to a reprobate mind ..." (Romans 1:28);
and again,"Who changed the truth of God into the lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator who is blessed for ever," (Romans 1:25).
Marvellous in multitude, mesmerism (*16) and popularity are the modern aids to unbelief, providing with extravagant seeming liberality, for many a Classroom the means of confusion. The move is biblically and in practice, to that antichrist, the 'man of sin', declaring that he is God; and it is exceedingly well underway. In this respect, the world is beginning to contain some very developed societies...
See The Bright Light and the Uncomprehending Darkness Ch. 10.
See Ch. 2 of this volume, *2.
See The Christian Prescription Ch. 8, with excerpt below, and Deity and Design ... 8 with 2.
Loss is the nature of the evidence; creation is the type of the evidence; design fits the definition of the occurrence. What it is defined to be is what is found (Dig Deeper, Soar Higher ... Ch. 2, esp. here, deals with this at length). Rambunctious seething squalor in intellectual irrelevance might well seem the chief defence of those who want to characterise the matter in terms opposite to logical, verbal and empirical evidence. This, in turn, is empirical verification of Ephesians 4:17-19, about the alienation from reality in what rejects redemption among this sinful race, as of Romans 1:17ff., in the typification of this rejection in terms of suppressing, wrestling against truth. It proceeds to its logical end, as to its chronological manifestation.
See Alpha and Omega ...Ch. 1, and Mini-Messages with Maxi-Impact Ch. 6 as marked. See also *3 above.