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CHAPTER THREE
 

RESULTS REALISTICALLY CAUSED OR EXOTERICALLY INDUCED

Messages, Forms of Manipulation and Facts of Faith

 

WAYS AND MODES WITH MAN

MANNERS AND METHODS

There are many methods of manipulating people, especially in crowds. None are sure-fire, since as the subtlety of the deceiver or director, so that of the victim or client. Apart from that, there is the question of the motives of both, to be deceived (for 'peace of mind' or having a place in some group that is comfortable for example), or to deceive or direct for some motive. It may be ostensibly to help, by placing people in what is really deemed to be best for them, or not. The directive process and means employed do not depend on that, in structure.

In function, however they do so. When truth is not the major presence, as to actuality or motivation, even if some species of goodwill may be, then the bases of these things work. The devil is the father of lies, said Christ Jesus the Lord, and the beginning of it. He will also be present at the end of it (Revelation 20:10). There is no torment like aborted repentance in divorce from the truth, the shambling sinking of shame BECAUSE of what was needless and wrong. That is just one reason why the Gospel of the glory of God in the grace of the Gospel is priceless. There is no need, to take the worst of cases, to share with Lady Macbeth...

Thus behind truth is God and behind lie is the devil, WHATEVER be the reason for using one or the other. Indeed the Spirit of Christ is even CALLED the Spirit of truth. One finds in one's investigations in the confirmation and defence of the Gospel (Philippians 1:7), alongside its presentation, that there is a sense of immediacy and impact, authority and even beauty about the truth. It may have sad elements, but there is a holiness about it; there may be delectable elements, like honour and integrity, spiritual power and love: but these are transfigured in the light of the ultimate meaning of creation and redemption, their cost and their consequence. Not least with these delights to the heart, is the attitude, the divine attitude, of Him who having made all, would have all come to a knowledge of the truth, and having made peace through the blood of the cross, would have all to be reconciled to Himself. What a glory is ultimate authority!

Manipulation is not akin to truth; it is doing what (maybe) seems best for some people in such a way that at worst, they are frankly deceived, and at best, led to a dream world not wholly true, where they rely on your presentation, when it moves from the Rock, from the word of God, especially when the name of God is used with it, like sugar in your tea.

Crowd control is a staggering thing. A little admiration, praise, empathy, a lot of skill, words of infectious appeal, and behold the people may be induced to agree when, with the mind fully operative, they would not agree. They may come to agree with sweeping propositions, when in cool practice, they might make at least some vigorous exceptions to rules being given, generalisations being made. They may be lulled or mastered or simply comforted to a mind quietus, perhaps awakening later... perhaps not.

The purpose may be beneficent, maleficent, kindly, cruel, intimidatory, or liberative, but the movements of the spirits of people is for all that, in such cases, not controlled by truth.

There is a world-famous violinist, whose platform production one once watched. It had some of these qualities, though very probably animated by a kindly desire. Yet there the crowd were deeply affected, some profoundly moved, in terms of music, in such a way that a lot of differentiae, that is questions and principles, were simply bypassed and a concurrence of spirit seemed almost to emanate from the people. Here there was no question of anything horrid, except questions of truth itself. Matters of profound importance were sidestepped, as if they were not there.

The same is found in a popular evangelist one has noted. The crowd pleasure and control seemed astonishingly, as to method, almost identical, an amazing concurrence of technique. Points in common were stressed, needs were emphasised, aspects were universalised, items were expanded, realities were isolated and emotions were high, with enormous interaction between pulpit (there wasn't one actually, but it was like a moving pulpit for all that) and pew (also absent, but the seating almost glued the whole mass together, or in vast segments joined in spirit).

There is, to go further, in the so-called post-Christian world (people who in addition to being slightly world-weary, in many cases, are utterly Christian-weary, and are looking for something to give a lift to a lot of seemingly desirable things), a mode of ignoring truth for convenience. One can think of little more horrendous than doing just that. Truth is to be marred, even crucified, for the sake of joining together with a sigh of spirit and a sense of torpid advance into the unknown, what is vetted and make acceptable, together with mystery, till you do not know where or why you are. This is spiritual immersion, leaving you coming up dripping in no very mysterious way, with a lot of uncertainty and presumption, as all kinds of things are left open, where the Bible has some open, and some decisively closed.

Without in the least making such individual cases to be defined, since here the question is method, as to intent or torment ultimately, here is the sort of procedure that the anti-christ may use to have a prepared platform. MUCH that is revered may be used (as with Romanism much early cf. SMR pp. 1032 -1088H). Then much is both added and subtracted. Rome was explicit. In the end, there is another type of crowd control, one far subtler which for long may avoid any inquisition, the better in the end to control with purse and political power, using information technology to move masses this way or that (cf. Revelation 13). There is in the little horn of Daniel 7, a clear comparison with that of Daniel 8, the former for the end of the Age, and the latter for a past period in Israel's history, each in its setting. Thus the qualities of the former become an index to features of the second, at least in spirit, given their placement in empires and the use of this stunningly special phrase in the midst of crucial action*1.

It seems good now to turn to a particular example of crowd impact, in no way determining the intention or the thought motion, but merely for observation of method. On the other hand, there is opportunity to note some of the doctrine involved. This is not a survey on that topic, but a view of certain features in doctrine on display, which give pause for concern, and ground for an extreme caution, as well as a distinct notation of pushing past the word of God.

On request at the pastoral level, I have checked up on Louie Giglio and his methods somewhat, including his apparent endeavour not to confront the gay movement, instead  keeping it low-profile and distinctly non-confrontational, unlike the case of the apostles in dealing with appalling departures from the faith as in Acts 3-4, and Galatians 2:4-5.

Marvellous methods distinguish the neo-evangelicals. His method of  talk, however, has no small resemblance to that often found in the Pentecostal movement (cf. A Question of Gifts).

However another placement is also mentioned, that he may be classed as in another movement, which some call neo-Calvinist. Whatever name, it is well ahead of neo-evangelicalism, often seeming to mouth rather than conform to the Bible. That appears to be left somewhat behind, for in this case, the relationship to the Bible appears,  in what has been heard, more by mantra than text. Nor is the mantra the biblical words themselves, and even if it were, that could readily if repeatedly used, become a vain repetition! However that is not the nature of the mantra heard.

 In the presentation of the INCREDIBLE message, the sensationalist and all-inclusive style was off-putting, as such generic wowing savours too much of mere sensationalism; and it appears there is no aversion to the use of loud music in some of the meetings. perhaps as a psychic conditioner. I listened to a lot of another sermon of Giglio on the valley of the dry bones in Ezekiel 37, and found the testimony again like much of Pentecostalism, light on Gospel, heavy on personal involvement, strong on being exhorted to hear the voice of Jesus, this in the form of a spiritual necessity to get going with God, rather than as a divine privilege, that is, the manifesting of Christ to the believer as in John 14:21ff.. A grace shown to a believer when God so wills is one thing; a need for entry of a non-believer is entirely another.

Again, finding that God believes in you (explicit teaching) even if you don't believe in Him is inventive theology,  an addition to what is in the Bible. Indeed, in general it all appears, like the big bang approach, a way of viewing Christianity through culture, just as Rome views it through a medium of tradition. In both cases, it is found to figure as a distortion and an addition, so that the emphasis turns either to the Church, or your psyche, and the wonders for it, when you lean on the "indescribable" God, as He is designated in the presentation INCREDIBLE, with its starry emphasis..

It reminds one very much of the philosopher Immanuel Kant*2. You never quite seem to get anywhere, though he  seems always talking about the unknowable when there is something he want to get across about it, the rest conveniently disassembled, unobtainable, a matter of mystique. I think it not inept that the Watchman series refers to it as a form of gnosticism, special knowledge which tends to overshadow the actual word of God and its conditions, message and truth, Gospel and the ultimatum of God that forms part of it.

In fact, the way Giglio treats the gay question seems just the same. It might seem to follow this principle: Don't say too much about it, talk mysticism and see what unknown and marvellous things will yet come your way.

 

THE 'INDESCRIBABLE' REVEALED CATEGORICALLY

BY REASON AND PERSONALLY BY HIMSELF


As to the "Indescribable" emphasis re God, that was too appalling. When someone, again thrashing about in human culture, says that the entire creation, which he speaks of conjointly with  God as if it were one thing, is amazing, wonderful, or such words, while showing magnificence in pictures of the stars, and then declares this of it all,  the same thing, "indescribable", this of the lot, specifically including God in this coverage, one at once knows this is far from biblical truth. You are to look at the wonderful pictures of the creation, and then talk of God in the one breath about the whole thing, calling out the name God repeatedly and directly, making it all indescribable in some awesome sense.

IF it were really indescribable, this magnificence, this presentation, the whole orb and grandeur that is beyond us, with all its basis, yes, the same applied to GOD expressly and repeatedly, then we couldn't describe God who made it; and that is not too far from the whole feeling of such  presentations as this. It appears all about being STUNNED, hearing mantra repeated. Sin is minimised in confrontation, foolishness is maximised. In the Ezekiel 37 sermon,  presentations, redemption did not seem to feature even in an overall kind of coverage that one could audit. redemption did not seem to feature. It is not about the past and sin, cancellation and pardon, but about the future, with no certain basis for it. A foundation is needed for the removal of the former things, and for building of the new things; not a desire and an awesome indescribability.

The audience seemed to be induced repeatedly to taking off, waiting for the voice of Jesus, and having a meditational avenue for the necessary divine action of  personal revelation of the VOICE. What God could do for you was the theme, so that you might be amazed in an incomprehensible way. Avenue for entrance to the matter: voice of Jesus. In fact, God manifests Himself in His own way (John 14:21-24), at His own time, this being a highly personal matter, and not a door to Gospel entry. Using it in this way is minimising the actual Gospel and maximising a point in its fruit, making a not so magnificent confusion, and opportunity for illusion. Root and fruit, foundation and superstructure are NOT the same. Confusion here leads to the sort of buildings that topple in an earthquake; and of these,  spiritually, there are plenty. But the Rock never changes; it does not move, the vibrations do not alter it, nor the stability of standing on it (cf. Isaiah 28:16, 33:6).

Man's ideas and God's thoughts are the one, lower, the other higher to the point of needing exposition from the divine mind, as in Isaiah 55. We don't have the option of making a mix of inner thoughts, our idea of their source, the vague use of the word 'God' and the word of God as proclaimed (I Thessalonians 2:13, Matthew 5:17-20, Isaiah 34:14-17, Jeremiah 23:15-22, Galatians 1:6-8, where the Gospel is confined to what Paul has preached, I Corinthians 2:9-13, where the unique apostolic kind of reception of the word of God is described, down to word-for-word accuracy of content, the words not taught by man and his limits, but by specifically by God without any!), and Proverbs 30:6, for example where there is the category of  God's words, and that of adding to them.

The latter, limited and irrelevant to divine authority for mankind, MUST NOT be added. They lack the divine knowledge, precision, infinite depth and height, perfected knowledge. Indeed, they may well be just as vague, and sensationalistically woeful as those in view in this oddly indescribabable type of diction. The best that can be said of this furry version of the sharpness of steel, found in the sword of the Spirit, the word of God, is that its very vagueness and inexpressiveness in direct and testable terms is precisely what may be said of the word of men, dealing with what is beyond him as if it were his own. It is religious experience. The word of God to man is not thus. It is, as Proverbs 8:8 tells us, not contrived or contorted but plain. Sickly psychology and psychic rambling, even personal impetus, is not the same as the word of God to man.

But let us return to the detailed case before us.

The thrust in the Ezekiel message seems to be:

You poor foolish beginners, God has great things for you, believes in you (explicitly stated), so find out all about it by waiting for the voice of Jesus, this is what you have to hear, for the indescribable to become actual.

This is the way of mystical indoctrination and parity revelation, His word and our experience conjoint, as distinct from the manifestation of Christ based on the ACTUAL word, and not mere mention of it, in the way it prescribes: not 20% faith or any other number. The man who believed but wanted his unbelief to be helped, DID STATE that he believed. He was not an unbeliever as to his own specification of his category (Mark 9:24).

Yet there were dynamics in his midst which he acknowledged, but to which he did not submit: so that being equipped with. 20% faith is not faith. Faith is trust. You can see it in a dog. You do or you don't, as Elijah made so very clear: If the Lord be God, follow Him; if not, then Baal. That was the conclusion in the midst of confusion, and it proved utterly decisive when the NAME of the LORD was directly taken with all that it implied in His revelation through the prophets. It was this in its fulness, or else that of a naturalistic substitute, an alternative presented as if there were any option. WHICH ? not twitch is the point. God gives knowledge, man strives to obtain what God has as a gift, the knowledge of the holy and the understanding which is no part of the natural man (cf. I Corinthians 2:14).

God acted supernaturally then through Elijah, when the issue was clearly put, as He did later in sending the actual Messiah, Jesus Christ. This matter, it was not left in the clouds. It was not a potential, a possibility to be exhorted into but as explicit was the incarnation (Philippians 2, John 8:58), and as distinctive as His own doctrine, which was not His own, but specially given by the Father (John 12:48-50), and to Him in view of His Messianic intimacy with the Father, with His words and actions for man. In John 5:39-47, we find the idea of your revelation, words, ideas, and mine, receiving honour from one another (let alone taking honour to oneself, explicitly condemned), is an error in method, in reverence and in reality.

The word of God (as for example through Moses, or Paul, as in I Cor. 2) is not to be trivialised as if it were knowable or judgeable as incomprehensible, when God declares that it is all clear to the one who understands. In principle, it is EXACT OPPOSITE to the extreme Pentecostal notion, the vagueness and I, type of program. It is to be judged as comprehensible, clear, and through the work of God, explicable; indeed in Proverbs 1, God undertakes to teach it to the repentant sinner, though not to the co-author. You see the extreme error of the vague immersion idea in Jeremiah 23:29-30,33-40. The lax practices of compiling the 'word of God' from experiences and then proclaiming it (as vague or whatever else), is given a hammer a rock for grinding for its upkeep. It is presumption personified, hated of God. This is a fact of which He here makes us aware. It is good to listen.

It is true that Israel was a theocracy; this is not; but the issues were just the same and Christ and the apostles do not vary from this startling clarity, precise confrontation, exact knowledge and irreplaceable singularity of the word of God. DECISIVENESS in terms of precise divine revelation and CONFORMITY to it is the issue; not talking about this revelation, and presenting something more or other. The conformity does not earn salvation, but it does express it (James 2:20). Perfect Christians do not exist on this earth (I John 1:7ff.), but the intensive desire for this does (cf. Philippians 3:12-14, 2:1-10), in, with and through Jesus Christ as Lord  and Saviour.

Faith is the issue, repentance is the first step towards the door (Luke 13:1-3, Acts 26:20), drawing quite close, and the One believed in according to His word is the definition. The instruction from Paul: "repent, turn to God and do works befitting repentance." This does not include playing with the word of God, saying the word of God or straying from the word of God as Jeremiah so emphatically asseverates.

No repentance, and there is no approach. Except you do that, you perish.  Again, let God judge your heart, for it is not we but He who is the judge; but to repent means an  entire change of mind, disposition of heart,  a simple endorsed detestation of your sin in view of the supernal salvation and superb nature of the Saviour, what He did and why He did it. We all know what that is: you cannot believe that you could do or feel or think such things, and recoil as if bitten by a serpent. NOT this, but the Lord and His way is for you the path, as wires defending it and confirming it, as in Philippians 1:7). Neither trusting nor repenting are strange subjects; but common experiences in many things, Paul exhorts us to imitate him as he imitated Christ (I Corinthians 11:1). Here it concerns the LORD!

There is no mid-point, nor semi-faith, or demi-semi-faith, nor is one's standing when a non-Christian, that of one in whom God 'believes.' Scripturally the position could not be more different:

"You were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked 
according to the course of this world."

Believed in ? Before salvation, they were without God (Ephesians 2:12).

Such in Ephesians 4 are described as

"having their understanding darkened,
being alienated from the life of God,
because of the ignorance is in them,
because of the blindness of their heart..."

There are spiritual codes and classifications re unconversion, and they are not at all hopeful. They are at first. of "having no hope and without God in the world," (Ephesians 2:12). As a whole, the entire group of those unconverted is by no means divinely believed in. Nor are corpses believed in. They need life and its conferment is by majestic divine action (John 1:12), not consent. The will is not irrelevant by any means (John 3:19), but it is not operative in this arena (John 1:12). Indeed, God foreknew His own before man or sin of man even began. He is infinitely above us and took a vast step to inhabit our created world, not to disperse God into vagueness, but to confirm His sacrificial love and exhibit it in redemption, and fulfil each particle for His mission of saving work.

 

From all such confusion may the alert Christian be delivered. Playing with fire is not wise. I personally abhor such prescription and presumption, mergers with creation and voices as basic.

 

WAYS AND MODES ASKEW

AND REALITIES ANEW

 

UNIVERSES STARTING FROM NOTHING AND GOING NOWHERE

AND SINNERS BECOMING CHRISTIANS

FROM THE REDEMPTION IN HISTORY PROVIDED BY THE MESSIAH

 

1) WAYS AND MODES ASKEW
 

To be sure it was all worked out in foreknowledge, the principle of the love of God for the lost being inclusive (as in Colossians 1:19ff., John 3:15-18); but this is not believing in all, as if God had faith in them, who are faithless. It is finding some where, in His illimitable kindness and wisdom, His love reached. The distinction is crucial. The love is there; the divine believing in all is not. What is believed of all is this, that if they believe they will be saved, and if not the wrath of God is over them.

That is the proposition. There is no other total classification. Nor is any better because the matter is foreknown, even before creation, and without regard to any works (Romans 9:11). In fact, none being better as none were there sinful, but held in the eye of eternity, the foreknowledge being logically prior to the fall of man, all are in the same boat, regarding the sea of mercy, whether or not to float in it. That is a pre-sin envisagement in the divine foreknowledge of Him who WOULD HAVE all, but not as particles, but persons, who may in the last analysis, prefer darkness.

God does not accept faith that is not there, but trust; does not believe in all, but rather all must believe in Him. The confusion of the edges only brings weeds in the floral triumphs of the gardens of grace, and allows hybrids to luxuriate through msinformation. Presentations along those lines mislead, misdirect and mis-state, are contrary to the Gospel and readily induce vagueness and shame, with sham at hand to add to it.

 When one further hears that the Big Bang may have been a form of the start (supposedly 'science', though there are multiple collisions with empirical fact as Professor Hartnett points out in detail in his work, "Dismantling the Big Bang", for example), when in fact mere massive assumptions by no means solve its gross inadequacies, and that to this naturalistic irrationality, the onset of creation is much nearer than might appear, that moreover the creation may have been a big bang in some sense, what then ? It is then that one knows the wires are crossed. The preacher concerned appears again, trying to reconcile opposites, and to make a third way, that is neither science nor Bible. That certainly is the direction of the presentation, whatever the intention. It is a jelly-like substitute at this level, for both the word of God and the ways of science. I recommend checking science and scripture, for the former constantly confirms the latter, and truth is a pre-requisite. Yet mrging the two by some abstract concept merely makes both fuzzy. Instead, avoiding both this sense of false mysticism and the customary abuse in religious areas, that is becoming fashionable in  empirical science*3, truth and reason demand due exercise of diligence. What is poles apart: let it stay that way. Truth cannot be moved.

The Big Bang is a foolish idea, trying to ignore God and make a singularity of immense pressure to a point, without hurting anything, which bangs out and makes laws, order and designs innumerable; and all you have to do is ignore the astronomical evidence (referred to above) to the contrary, and the need to have someone set it all up in the first place with the extreme problem of having things nicely ready for turning as by magic, into what is wonderful, with no reason to start, or stop, or way to induce what is wonderful from mere time and space and pressure to a point beyond points, and all the rest of the question begging nonsense which neither has a reason reason, nor provides one for what is to follow.

You have to give it existence first of course, on the naturalistic model, through some nature of being trying or moving to organise it without being there to do it; indeed, you have neither existence nor organiser nor laws on this scenario, just a mystery surprise bag, as at a Show. It costs nothing and does nothing and has no cause. Thought is free. Universes are not so. Reason supplies only two options here: the first, have an Eternal Being, with imaginative power, engineering facility, mathematical supra-genius, intelligence beyond all contemplation, mastery over matter,  ground of its laws and of our minds having the same logic laws as it obeys, thus allowing scientific progress. Causation then is not denuded, obliterated or ignored. The other: bring on the demise of causality at the outset, having no basis for anything, existence or order or program or information or sequence or complexity from the first of life, or synthetic, syncretic mazes beyond wizardry: just order it on the magic tray.

Causality insists on a basis for anything you care to mention that is not self-sufficient eternally, whether it be sin or substance, thought or contained spirit, critical ability or intellectual facility. The ONLY escape from the natural order is its inventor; and the only site for that function is in the invention of nature as a creative work.

You abandon reason or naturalism: there is no room for both. Abandon reason and then you abandon any consistent power to reason in argument: in any disputation, naturalism is ousted therefore at the outset, and is worthy of no thought, except for the enlightenment of those snared by the dancing of the fairies of thoughts, all seemingly inebriated richly. You get people trying to make matter from energy, despite the lack of anti-matter, supposedly and experimentally coming in equal quantities with matter. You get  "energy" as a supposed basis, without any attention to the question:

Energy to do what ? Energy, the capacity to do work, is not associated by nature with a question of energy to do what, for what, in what constraints, with what capacities ? Human life illustrates this, but even physics, though able to make abstractions with the best of them, cannot have a  capacity to do work without that capacity having some basis, environment, facility in its containment. If it were PURE energy, it would have neither time nor space nor form nor format: a matter of imaginative conception.

Energy may be in a motion facility, or a mental one, or in a matter-thrusting one, or moving fingers dextrously and nimbly as in a  music artist on the piano: but if it lacks all else, then there is nowhere to express itself, and nothing on which to act.  If on the other hand it has something or somewhere, then it is no longer a matter of pure energy, the concept.

If you want to move mental objects, you need ideational energy, if matter, you need a system for impact, if spiritual energy, then you need a spirit. It is rather like saying that you need petrol, the great, concentrated energy source. However, it has energy that can be deployed only in certain manners and environments, and has no relation at all to many others. If you need worlds, then you need an energy linked to what has the capacity to make worlds, with their thought, ideas, concepts, laws, spirits,  minds and the rest. Energy cannot do it. It cannot even think or reason, and needs all the facilities for its exercise, in order to deploy. 

The simple fact that the anti-matter for a closed circuit deployment of energy for mass production, does not present itself experimentally dashes what conceptual analysis has already debarred as an inadequate and unprecisely

You have people who prefer to ask for quantum mechanics, or balances with gravity, with specifiable kinds of conceived SYSTEMS in which these phenomena may occur, as if they simply forgot that the entire system which contains ALL the ingredients specified for this transformations, hidden potentials and sudden existentials, is once more, have you guessed it ? simply an illustration of begging the question. That is a schoolboy howler, perpetrated by people who ignore the circumstances, environment and entire range of systematics which are required before anything can pop anywhere.

Who made the system which allows the popping ? the machined-type ingredients to pop, their characterisability intense, though their discovery in such tasks, is zero. Imagination is used to conceive this and that motion - none verified - from this to that as if in a vacuum, with no need for the mathematical situation that enables the potential to have ground for action, or the other ingredients of the totality of specialised force-interaction with form and format. ALL is always needed.

Hidden format, or potentiation in one form relative to another, from the inoperative in one form to the operative in another, is mere transfer, however exotic. Transformation of what exists in system, even if hidden in form, is nothing to do with invention of system in which this occurs, of transformative capacities and the forces to balance this way and that, according to the REASON supplied for what is thus a REASONABLE system. Movement from the visible to the invisible, to this form or to that, from latency to patency is mere motion within a singularly sophisticated system, in need of production FIRST.

The actual creation logically starts with the eternal God who being SUFFICIENT for all, is EFFICIENT for each part and the combinations, expressions, forms and formats, logical interactions and legal paraphernalia which becomes 'nature', in fact MANY natures in highly specific forms of the inert and the vital, the closely controlled and the voluntary. It is this eternally extant ground which MAKES and accounts for time, space, design, sequence, logic in everything so that you can investigate it and make sense of it, and is a matter of authoritative deposition. That is precisely what Denton says of the micro-biological structure for classification in life: it is hierarchical*4 (Denton, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, p. 290).

How you can have hierarchies when there is neither law nor form, thought nor capacity, the listable or the listing capacity ! this is just one more element in the romance story which ignoring reason, is sought as stable diet for the deluded, scholars subjected in effect, to forcible injection with the delusive squirmings of which Karl Popper well said:

"Can there be a law of evolution ? ... I believe the answer to this question must be 'no',"

as noted in SMR p. 145.

There can be no law of evolution because law enables prediction and verification, and evolution provides no basis for either, never pointing the way.  It is a system to beg the question of system in the first place, causally inert, and it cannot apply it in the second place, since it is not systematic, not even able to have its own law. Free of logic from the first, it is mystic to the last, and misses conformity with facts systematically. Matter does not make a good God, being inept for all this, and materialism does not make a good start, being dependent on the validity of mind for its very notion.

What then of the force-fed students in the State educational system in this regard ? Can one even conceive of the brutality of not letting them, at least in many circumstances, even articulate their divergence from such misnamed science in Class ? In South Australia in science, this is the case. Can you imagine not letting them argue decisively outside the Science class, but in these areas, moving to what reason requires without conditions. Yet it has happened. For those who like red noses, a cultural icon here, this is a spectacular case, without controversy.

Its actuality, the investigability of matter and the investigative logic of your mind match, not by magic, but by construction and instruction, causally adequate for the result. But let us return to the scene itself. 

Once you have realised the necessities of logic, and ceased making illicit immigrations into your thought of all that is needed for existence and progression, life, mind and spirit, without acknowledging it, and ceasing smuggling, and so consider the Almighty, there is still reason to apply, and further investigation. Thus, rationally, you don't try to find God in matter, for God is Spirit, SO THAT flesh and bones are wholly contrary to Him AS Spirit, as Jesus Christ pointed out. Spirit has one nature; matter has another. The invisible governs the ideas of man, informs his purposes, in terms of truth, beauty, love, mercy, duty, responsibility, ambition, deceit and the like, all master programs. These have a different kind of weight, being logically or psychologically assessed. Matter for its part cannot do otherwise, in whatever manner the system be conceived. What it is, it does.

Spirit however, a facility which mankind enjoys abundantly (cf. SMR p.  348, Grand Biblical Perspectives Ch. 7, Glory, Vainglory and Goodness Ch. 2) can abort systems on purpose, even that in the human body where the brain is used. It can imagine other systems, the source of systematics, and check out the validity of such matters*5. Matter shows no power to make itself (cf. SMR pp. 80, 307ff., 284ff.), and energy shows no relation to this universe as a basis, since the anti-matter pairing for such a procedure is not found. The theory is not verified and hence has to be removed, until one is found that is verified*5A.

The Biblical depiction has always been verifiable, having no contradiction or self-contradiction, in terms of evidence. Many, various and at ascending levels of operation are the statement in the Bible and the evidentially relevant operations in the natural realm, including man.

One of these is this: God acted and stopped, as His biblical word cites. Amazing issuances of information are THERE. They are not, without intelligence, being found to be made now, let alone in prodigious thrust of integrated volumes of it. It is like that with creation: one begins and stops, one has a task, and co-ordinates its elements; one provides what is simply no longer being put there if one stops, and is not extant at the first, unless one starts. When finished, the pen, intelligence, no longer moves. It is a job done. It is over. Such is the case in experimental resultants. To this limit, the natural realm conforms, when not subjected to intelligence, to creative activity by what is now in it.

The information in the natural world now comes from informants equipped as mini-creators, or from what was made in the past; to self-production free from such agencies, it does not. Nature is not like that. So far from making itself before it was there to do it, it does not even engage in such spontaneous or non-intelligence direction or action even now. Before intelligence was part of the unfolding production of the universe, what was needed produced; and intelligence was one production. Before its arrival, the ground pattern had one basis, and nature was not it. It never shows that it has what it takes in terms of information production.

As to that, it is scarcely surprising, for information involves survey, understanding, selection of data for a purpose which is sustainable, when made, by a method apt for its containment, modes of semantics for its meaningfulness and in practice, methods of application so that the objectives for its work, can be attained. That is another reason why it is so important that fouled up information techniques are not found in abundant profusion, to attest the blundering attempts of unintelligence to do all this. It was, quite simply as the evidence again confirms, not blundering that achieved this, but an adequacy, intensively technical from the start, even to the lowliest cell. There are, in such realms, as Denton attests, no intermediates.

What was placed in the natural milieu was an attainment; but this being so, it is not now being done. There is no way found to turn such things off or on, or to observe this work of mental arduousness, to happen without a suitable worker. It just does not do it.

What is IN IT, has now duly ceased, is of that mould which does not without intelligence so act. It is useless trying to put mind in matter; it gives no evidence of being there, nor do natural processes at that level do other to the point, that attest mind, by the quality and level of the performance, and by the cessation of works of a prodigious character, making human mind itself, a secondary thing. What is attested logically, with no jars or bars, is a job well done. Further,  there are other things than creating: for instance, using what is made for the purpose in view. Mind is like that.

There was a reason for action, there is reason for reason being the successful method of investigation of the universe therefore, by mankind, and there was a reason for creation stopping, found verified in the non-disclosure of information making itself without intelligence. HE with thrust, purpose and mind stopped this particular creative exercise at that institutive level; and that is WHY it has stopped. He started it, finished it, and ceased from this line of work in the universe.

Put differently in terms of output to the point: He SAID it, nature SHOWS it, He in His word and power, being verified as always. Evolution is left with its nothings and figments and non-verification and non-explanation, speaking, its exponents speechifying for no good reason, never to the point.

What then ? Particles*6 have nothing to do with His Person, any more than a pen does with a human author. He uses it. Thus these concern only His creation, infinitely less, though usable as we direct a pen or a plough. We can if we will, even change the way we use it, or make multiple ways of using it.

Big Bang and creation are as far apart as finitude and infinitude, atheism and worship of God. There is no point in seeking a mutual accommodation; and that with the devil is as devious, for these are truth and rebellion, not susceptible to composition, let alone any form of synthesis.

 

2) REALITIES ANEW
 

THE DIVINELY PROVIDED MODE FOR MAN:
THE GOSPEL OF GRACE

The dissimilarity is that between magic and logic, eternal competence and sudden competence and existence, 'arising' out of nothing,  coming from nowhere, with everywhere supplied for no reason, and time; with no cause to start or stop, mysterious because misconceived. It abuses causality in having this energy-lowering thing (Second Law of Thermodynamics*7)  begin without ground, and then using it in talking about results as if it could suddenly be brought back from exclusion to inclusion in a mixed bag of nonsense and refinement that is like a dream. When you find the empirical results do not match the theoretical hypothesis, then logic is thrown out altogether. It is hard to get rid of logic by logic; in that case, nothing helps. Talking about logic does not replace it. It has to be shown how it works; and what avoids this is beyond repair, and not even fit for argument. Dreams are like that very often; and discipline lacks.

This  however is not a good place for dream. Indeed, the words of what is speaking as if the truth, when it is not from the Lord, not according to His word, is CALLED DREAMS in Jeremiah 23, with no small contrast with the word of God! (23:9, 18-29).

It is almost like a night-mare. In this theory, then, causality ostensibly operates in all the results, though denied access for the start. Remove cause and you remove the power to characterise, for the basis in the nature of a thing is shown in the results of its being there, and so coherence and logic being lost, the result may well  become 'indescribable.'

This category of thought ends up as troubled nonsense, and any foolish efforts to combine culture and command, matter and spirit, orders and events are unworthy of attention.

However, one must warn and expose for the flock's sake, both particulars and generalities, as the need a rises, and so acts as a servant of the Lord for the good of the Church and the help to those who hear.

The Messiah, Jesus Christ, both Author and Judge of history, needs no help in His speech, which stands, or in His judgment, which coming from God who became man, has man well understood, even more if possible, and intensively so. Ageless terminator of the world He created, Lord of glory, He is no inanimate principle, but Prince, and the only Prince of Peace there is.

That is why there is war without cease. The ways of the Lord have led to the declaration of salvation (Isaiah 52:7ff.); but without it, like snake bite for those refusing antidote to the venom, there is only one way. Certainly it is broad; but its back is broken, a slithery highway, without enough ground for its very existence, but serving very well through support of the make of the Lie, lordly in manner, but lacking in substance!

Best leave all that alone; and seek Him who is God alone, who is not lonely, being Trinity, with His own fellowship, needing nothing, loving much, free for all, inviting all, the Rock superb and supreme, source of blessing, lover of mankind (Titus 2 -3).


 

PRELIMINARY NOTES AND RESOURCES

Part I

 

*A) SEE ON LAMININ

http://creation.com/laminin-atlas-moths-and-gay-brains

(referred to in para 3 in Part 2 below).

 

*B) See Article as supplied below. .

On this and similar questions, you may care to look up

http://creation.com/qa

 

*C) A critique, not entirely on song re Bible teaching re personal manifestation of the Lord,  but largely so, is provided by the speaker's summing up of the sermon on the bones in Ezekiel 37, by Louie Giglio, and is as found at the URL just below: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeWWeyj0S3Y&feature=player_embedded.c

 

In covering this, it must be remembered that while ANY ADDITION of doctrine to that in the Bible (what it says and what is demonstrably derivable from it) is like the wrong signature to a cheque (Proverbs 30:6, Revelation 22:18, Jeremiah 23); yet this is by no means the same as Christ Jesus MANIFESTING Himself in any way He chooses (John 14:21ff.), without added doctrinal content. That is, what is prohibited remains; what is stipulated is His own area, continues. Thus, "the spirit of revelation and illumination of the knowledge of Him" (Ephesians 1:17) is not limited in the way of understanding, enlightenment, perceiving the hope of your calling, the riches of His glory inherited in the saints, and the greatness of His power toward us who believe, as He works in His mighty power.

Set a limit to these personal equations in the industry of His people and the shepherding of His sheep, and you effectively become a competitive Shepherd; just as leading in doctrinal additives makes you, on the other side, a false prophet (Proverbs 30:6, II Cor. 10:12-13, 11:13, Ephesians 2:20, Jeremiah 23:22).

Always and abiding, the doctrine that is given to all, however, on which all are based, is always the same. In that sense, as in the explicit teaching of Ephesians 2:20, the Church has already been built on the foundation of apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ the chief corner stone. The tense in the Greek very is PAST. As in Galatians, the foundations are finished, the Gospel has no more creative traffic in it except that provided by accursed people, who are not good pastors!  (Galatians 1:8). Variants are bogus; not options! Sand yields; it does not support. The narrow way has no room for imagination - it is built; that soaring gift has other usages. But what of the pursuit of additives in some new fangled home ? Appalling in lordliness, they inherit only shame, whether now or as in Jeremiah 23, or in any way. God is offended; man may be reconciled; God determines the basis for this, and knowing His own mind, needs not only no help, but no arrogance!

He has come and left His words; apostles have come and inspired, have left the word of God, they and close associates (John 14:26). Though His Spirit works till He comes, His own coming again as the WORD OF GOD, occurs only to rescue and to rule. Then it is all direct from Himself, and the interim is concluded. Paul himself meanwhile cannot influence God for any change in Gospel; it is he who influences men with this immutable Gospel, to follow it! (Galatians 1:10).

Those prophets and apostles, in Ephesians portrayed as already there, come only at the resurrection! It is finished as in Revelation 22:18-19, even all the THINGS concerned. The words may not be removed; the things may not suffer additions. It is over, till He returns. Be therefore faithful, in line with His faithfulness, to be a faithful minister of His grace. Be you whoever you are with whatever motives, another gospel gives an inheritance: it is a curse. When it comes to God, the differential between His sovereignty and man's presumption is infinite.

Guidance and visions (as in Acts 16 and Acts 2:18ff., in the forecast to the end of the Age), will come as HE wills, and this phase is not to be controlled by the fact that doctrine is complete for our Age, and that it already includes "the deep things", as in I Cor. 2:9-13. They are different things; not to be confused; nor is either a ground for meddling with the other!

Again the Spirit of God freely witnesses  to "our spirits" says Paul of Christians, that "we are the children of God," Romans 8:16. This is not limited by something someone said a few hundred years ago; nor is it ground for additional doctrine, itself contrary to Scripture for our Age. The Bible is chaste; the Lord is loving, shepherding and merciful; and that is the way it is. How He shepherds is His business.

Thus in the Book of Acts in such sites as 13, 16, we find directions coming in this way or that by divine revelation. This is God's prerogative and what denies that was is written is for our instruction is simply making an opposite error. You can limit what God can do and where, by your own opinion, or someone else's; but unless the BIBLE declares He WILL not do this and that, such qualifications are like personal traditions! Limiting God is outré (Psalm 78:40-41); but at the same time, adding is presumption. As in much, there are lines, there is a biblical way, and extremes can merely divide, turning to vapidity and nebulosity, or a clamp on Christ, forgetting that He is still alive, though immutable (Psalm 102, James 1:17, John 8:58), and dynamic, though always acting in the fulness of wisdom and sagacity. 

FOLLOW what is there, as written and provided for, whether to heights if He so will, or to depths; but do not proscribe or inscribe upon it: let His word speak, and His Spirit endorse, seal or apply as He will, in His name. HE does not speak of Himself (John 16:12-13), but in accord with the Word Living and Written, the latter the criterion of His ways, and test of His desires. Follow this way (cf. I Cor.11:1, Galatians 1:6-9), the Gospel and Word of God, as given, watertight to variation in revelation to mankind for this entire Age, till He personally comes! the leading of the Lord as free within His own stated conditions, as the wind which blows from whatever source. THIS source, it is the Lord!

 

*D) The source appears as:

http://www.donotbesurprised.com/

 

*E) At the URL,

http://the-end-time.blogspot.com.au/2013/01/part-2-discerning-gnostic-conference.html

you have the material noted in Section 2.

 

*F) More material is available on the Big Bang myth, which may be found in my

That Magnificent  Rock, Ch. 7

at such sites as:

http://webwitness.org.au/thatmagrock/modelsandmarvels.html#prediction and

 

http://webwitness.org.au/thatmagrock/modelsandmarvels.html#cosmos2

 and

http://webwitness.org.au/thatmagrock/modelsandmarvels.html#supernovas

 

What follows below is taken from what appears a blog site and is presented with its URL for inspection and selection from among its points, as reviewed. It is the work of the presenter and as such a useful reference point in surveying the situation, and relating to these points, one at a time, as one may, agreeing or not.

  

Part 2: Discerning a Gnostic conference

called "Passion 2013," Louie Giglio, from

http://the-end-time.blogspot.com.au/2013/01/part-2-discerning-gnostic-conference.html


Louie Giglio is a 54 year old pastor of Pastor of Passion City Church in the Atlanta area which he founded in 2008. Prior to that Giglio was a pastor at Andy Stanley's North Point Church for 13 years, itself an emergent-leaning church with a mystical bent. He is Speaker/Founder of the Passion Movement. The Passion Movement is most publicly seen in the large conferences held at the first of each year and is so named after the year. Passion 2013 just concluded this week in Atlanta, Georgia. The Atlanta paper reported that 60,000 youths attended.


Mr Giglio's main ministry began in and continues to be aimed at Christian youth- especially college aged students through young adult.


More than 170,000 people from more than 130 countries watched part of the Passion 2013 conference online. His "Laminin" sermon has attracted over 3 million views on Youtube. If you would like another take on the Giglio laminin sermon, I point you to the essay Laminin and the Cross at the science-oriented website Answers in Genesis, where we are specifically cautioned against looking for signs in the world OR in science via Mr Giglio's laminin doctrine.

 

This blogger had this to say about the Inadequacies of Evidentialism (i.e. 'Laminin proof'):

And though I would imagine his ministry has been a blessing to many folks over the years, he is one of those type of speakers who will sensationalize Christian "evidences," like the laminin molecule, in order to make God appear to be really cool and neat-o. But this misappropriation of Christian evidence has some hidden dangers that will undo your credibility as a messenger for God.


First, it capitulates to the culture, particularly the teen culture who already think being a Christian is "squaresville." Though there is good intentions with the attempt to show that believing in Jesus doesn't make a person an "L7," what happens when smug and surly Devon goes home after one of these Giglio conferences where he opines on the shape of the laminin molecule, does an internet search only to discover that Giglio exaggerated his proof? All that shows is Christians can lie.


Secondly, the illustration merely trivializes the Gospel. Honestly, does the laminin molecule have to look like a cross in order for God to be a perfect creator? How does a cross shaped molecule help God out exactly? How does it make God more real? Isn't the fact that there is a complex, self-replicating molecule to begin with proof enough for God's hand in all of life? I agree.


So the statistics show us that Pastor Giglio is popular and has influence. The facts show that his most famous sermon is a bit off-center and exaggerated, with a wrong emphasis. With such numbers it behooves us to take a look at what he is preaching to these multitudes of youth, many of whom reside in my own state of Georgia.


The Passion 2013 website says "At the heart of it all, Passion exists to see a generation stake their lives on what matters most. For us, that's the fame of the One who rescues and restores, and the privilege we have to fully leverage our lives by amplifying His name in everything we do."


This is something I have read frequently that Giglio and the people associated with Giglio say. It is that what they do is for the fame of Jesus. On the surface it looks like bringing fame to Jesus is a good thing. But words matter. I say again, words matter. Jesus doesn't need fame. He had fame. (Luke 4:14). Fame is fleeting and fame is fickle. We do not need to bring Him fame. What we bring Jesus is glory.


Puritan Thomas Watson wrote in his sermon, "Man's Chief End is to Glorify God",

 

The glorifying of God, 1 Pet. 4:11. "That God in all things may be glorified." The glory of God is a silver thread which must run through all our actions. l Cor. 10:31. "Whether therefore ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God." Everything works to some end in things natural and artificial; now, man being a rational creature, must propose some end to himself, and that should be, that he may lift up God in the world. He had better lose his life than the end of his living. The great truth asserted is that the end of every man's living should be to glorify God. Glorifying God has respect to all the persons in the Trinity; it respects God the Father who gave us life; God the Son, who lost his life for us; and God the Holy Ghost, who produces a new life in us; we must bring glory to the whole Trinity.

 

Jesus does not need us to bring Him fame.

To continue, Mr Giglio has gone the way of people who teach, preach and expect to hear divine audible voices directly telling them what to do specifically and in individual circumstances. And not that they can expect this voice just once, but often. At last year's Passion 2012 conference, Mr Giglio said, "How many of you heard the voice of God speak specifically, clearly, directly, and personally, to you? Can you just put a hand up? I’d like you to share it. Can you put a hand up for a minute?" ... "God spoke to me.” Don’t let the voice of the darkness, tell you that you are not worth that God would not speak to you. Don’t let him tell you, you don’t matter. God spoke to you."


He teaches youth that it is normative to hear God, and worse, the flip side of his teaching is that if you do NOT hear God, there is something wrong with you. Apparently Mr Giglio has full confidence in his ability to detect the Voice. At a conference in GA in March 2012, Mr Giglio was interviewed by his friend Andy Stanley. Mr Giglio said, "The upside to planting a church at 50 years old – You care less about what other people think. You have more confidence in your ability to hear from Jesus.”

The ability to hear His voice- through the scripture and no other place- comes from the Holy Spirit. Not ourselves.

That was a short overview. Now to the Passion 2013 conference.


I was struck by the catch-phrases Mr Giglio used throughout his session one teaching. He kept saying God is "the God who does of immeasurably more" and that phrase was a main tenet of the talk. I hesitate to say it was a sermon.


By definition if you have more of something you have to already have had a quantity to measure against. That's how you know you got more. But Mr Giglio never defined what he meant by this term. He didn't define it from scripture or use it in context . (It was from Ephesians 3:20). It was not concrete, it was nebulous. More than what? If I don't get more, am I doing it wrong?


 What you find when you listen to scripture twisters, is that they unhitch a verse, or worse, a partial verse, from its context. They then use these well known phrases in their talks so they can sound godly but deny its power. It is a technique that politicians and propagandists use and it is called the tactic of the Glittering Generality.


"Glittering generalities are emotionally appealing words so closely associated with highly-valued concepts and beliefs that they carry conviction without supporting information or reason. Such highly-valued concepts attract general approval and acclaim. Their appeal is to emotions such as love of country and home, and desire for peace, freedom, glory, and honor. They ask for approval without examination of the reason. They are typically used by politicians and propagandists. ... A glittering generality has two qualities- it is vague and it has positive connotations. ... [they] are terms with which people all over the world have powerful associations, and they may have trouble disagreeing with them. However, these words are highly abstract and ambiguous, and meaningful differences exist regarding what they actually mean or should mean in the real world."

George Orwell described such words at length in his essay "Politics and the English Language." He said these words and phrases, "are strictly meaningless, in the sense that they not only do not point to any discoverable object". When used by a preacher unhitching the meaning of the scripture from context, it also unhitches it from pointing to the discoverable object, in this case, Jesus. Orwell continued, " Words of this kind are often used in a consciously dishonest way. That is, the person who uses them has his own private definition, but allows his hearer to think he means something quite different."

When politicians use glittering generalities they do so to appeal to the widest audience possible without causing an offense to as few people as possible. Emergent/Mystical preachers do the same, and in his session one talk, Mr Giglio and his immeasurably more not only was a hit, the phrase is taking on a life of its own on Twitter.

 

 

NOTES

*1

On this, see Ancient Words ... Ch. 10, from which below an excerpt to our present point, is taken. The features of the former little horn (Daniel 8) are listed and relate to the kind of spread of character or guile of the second (Daniel 7 in its vast overview). The devil is inventive; there may be subtle changes in type from the one to the other; but the word of God in this comparison, indicates a substantial similarity will apply; and this is good as a caution for those who will come under fire. In this, it is just as well that if it were possible even the chosen ones of God would be deceived; but that only because it is NOT possible for this to happen, will they be delivered. Do not therefore despise the cautions, any more than wilfully failing to look both ways before crossing a highway!

The same SPIRIT is back of both little horns; the same DEFEAT is present in both epochs, for the Jew as for the Gentile. The same pomposity and personal glorification is present in both. It is far from impossible therefore that the name being similar, the character will not be grossly diverse; and that the "man of sin", that cancer of humanity which is to seek to devour like a rodent ulcer, will come in subtly, move in aligning parts of the opposition against other ones, and seek to make a move which some cannot resist, thus divorcing them from their brothers, and so making a split house to divide and conquer; that cunning will be the modus operandi, and deep scheming procedures, not at all what they might appear.
 

... AND INSTRUCTIVE OUTCOMES FROM THE WORD OF GOD

Thus the parallel little horn of Daniel 7, gives some historical WARNING as the first one of the breed; for the Jewish lesson for a region, is now applicable to ALL the world:  the preliminary speaks to  the consummation, and we are wisely advised as we move from  the one who simply went down in disgrace to the one which is to be destroyed by the intense and manifest power of God, leading into the reign of the Lord on the earth, as in Micah 34, Isaiah 2, 65, Psalm 72, Revelation 20, 5:10, I Thessalonians 3:13, Zechariah 14:5ff..

Take nothing for granted, and consider what you do, Take nothing for granted, and
consider what you do, indeed, "Watch and pray" and be careful, seeking and waiting for the Lord, trusting in Him alone (Psalm 72:18, 2:12, 4:8, 143:8, 71:16, Isaiah 26:13, Proverbs 3:5); for the things that are superficial will be found out, and the things that are formal will be shown to lack function, for ONLY the power of the Lord is sufficient protection against these satanic assaults to come (Hebrews 9:28, I John 3:1-3, Matthew 45ff.).

Do not fear: for if the Lord is yours, nothing else can prevail (I John 2:14, 3:8, 4:4, Hebrews 2:14-15, Isaiah 55:1-3); but do not be weak, for the time to be bold as a lion is NOW. As Paul put it, in Philippians 1:20-21 ...

In some more detail, then, it assuredly seems from the parallel nomenclatures for the little horn in Daniel 7 and 8, that

may well be one similar in mode in many features, to the earlier one. That one, to follow some of the features of the Daniel 8 offering, now long past (nearly 2000 years ago, it transpired), is for a time yet future to ourselves, though assuredly near (Answers to Questions Ch. 5); and his criteria could include:

Efforts to manipulate human desires, opinions, hope
in order to gain his own power;
rapid rise as this division is shrewdly set or even moulded (as if to order) against that,
worldly appeal to power and cultural mandates, of various imagined kinds,
progressive modes from audacious

Not into the mists of obscurity (Daniel 8), but into the fire of Christ (Daniel 7:26, II Thessalonians 1:7-9) is this menace to come, with the spiritual overthow in public view by the advent of the Lord to adorn the earth before it passes, and comes to its end as is its final terminus (II Peter 3:10ff. , Revelation 20:11ff.,  Isaiah 51:6).

 

*2

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

 

*3

See for example, Scientific Method ...

 

*4

Denton has this to say.

"It is now well established that the pattern of diversity at a molecular level conforms to a highly ordered hierarchic system. Each class at a molecular level is unique, isolated and unlinked by intermediates. Thus molecules, like fossils have failed to provide the elusive intermediates so long sought by evolutionary biology... At a molecular level, no organism is "ancestral" or "primitive" or "advanced" compared with its relatives. Nature seems to conform to the same non-evolutionary and intensely circumferential pattern that was long ago perceived by the great comparative anatomists of the nineteenth century."

 

*5

See *3 above and *1 in Ch. 2 above.

 

*5A

See SMR pp. 140 -157.

On multiplied and systematic verification of the biblical position, 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

On the present pre-occupation with what is not there, see below.

Trying to Make Nothing Pay, would serve as a placard for much.

Squirming by giving inhabitants to nothing for no reason, and eternity to matter which in empirical fact runs down in available energy (Second Law of Thermodynamics), and is filled with formats and laws, makes for a litany of errors, like people furiously looking through their Pass Books, Credit Cards, Purses and Resources for more money in a crisis, and finding but air; except that in this case, even that is not found.

On trying to give a deep voice to matter, see SMR pp. 80, 307ff., 284ff..  Even when this pantomime is concluded with the normal frustration, you have the ongoing empirical collisions, to match that at the outset in energy to matter non-verification. Empirically the thing imagined is non-verified, and the imagined scenario on the way forward clashes continually with expectations, so that there is the double empirical failure and the rational rejection at the outset, all three in a sort of utterly negative naturalistic trinity of folly, to meet its judgment even from reason and scientific method, before that from the God who despises antics to make things natural the source of things natural, in a causative hiatus as helpful as the brink of a volcano, where all is  smoke and ashes. On the ongoing empirical war with scientific method, see *F above.

The efforts to apotheosise matter with its laws and limitations seem as endless as is unsatisfied hunger. The failures are mere empirical reality. Matter never displays the power to make itself; for. being is entirely different from making: directed effort comes in between. The effort to make it do so is as illusory as elusive, as frustrated as furious, as imaginative as illogical. It shows the power neither to produce itself nor mind nor spirit; but works in its own domain.

What is it like ? this insistence that matter invent itself, or be causeless though contained in modes and manners ? It is like someone always trying to live by lotto, so that it may be spent in a whirl of illusions till the last state is worse than the first, except in the solicitude of seeking matter to give such an answer there neither is nor could be a positive answer, to that it is a vain hope and an empty action. What is it that is desired ? It is an answer for clamour that it produce itself before it is there, or that cause die and so matter can just be there for fun without reason, whichever' but as with the Baals in the confrontation between Elijah and the false prophets, the Baals did not hear (I Kings 18:20ff.). These naturalistic gods did not hear there, because they were not there to do it; and they do not hear now for entirely the self-same reason.

'Nature' has no lords to hear and bear, but only a composition as given. It is the gifted, not the giver. We never hear their voice, only what is in them, because they have no voice. The voice that created information and form and format, life and code, mind and matter, spirit and liberty to think, including that against Himself, an ultimate liberty, it has finished the creation of the universe, as He said from the outset in Genesis. That is why it is not found doing so of itself, all over again.

What He is creating now is new creations in the realm of man, restored to animated life with Himself, as at the first intended, by sin suspended, and now available on application THROUGH the Messiah who, through this His greatest work, is indeed giving information of a spiritual kind, to those who spoiled what was at the first, but are restored by His redemptive sacrifice for the last. As for seeking to make matter king, however, you might as well ask a piano to be the leader of the orchestra.

That is an action that never pays.

Perhaps you you like a good illustration of the fiascos of fervour, the stirrings of the irrational, as if for a summit between matter and man as the progenitor, as if they could between them render matter fertile for the production mind and spirit, and in passing, of itself, in its own ventures from nothing (in fact there is a hidden aspect in much, in an implied multiple system not acknowledged, but smuggled in by naturalistic nothing-people, who want nothing to be productive) ? It has come to hand and may be found in Journal of Creation Vol 27(1) 2013, in a Book Review on pp. 30ff..

 

*6

See on 'bits', Progress, Regress ... Ch. 4, *1A.

 

*7

See for example, TMR Ch. 1.