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CHAPTER 8
MORE ON THE VISION AND VIRTUE OF VITALITY
from Chapter 1 above.
The Area of Personal and Characterisable Vitality
A
REVIEW AND REHEARSAL
In Ch. 8, we came to the point of considering vitality astray, askew, up for judgment. Let us rehearse this before specialising a little more on what vitality is, in those creatures which are capable of any understanding.
The thrust of vitality can become distorted; and it has been distorted in the realms of animated nature, as a divine thrust of penalty on creation (as in Romans 8:17ff., 5:1ff., Genesis 3). In this way, much that lives can become a virtual parody of man's spiritual pomp and folly, and a non-caress on its intemperance, godlessness and evils, seduced, seductive, seducing, spiritually vain. Thus it serves both as a restraint, a caution and a rebuke, a hampering of fallen man's advances to godlike pseudo-status, that work of illusion.
In man, it becomes an evil often devilish, and its train like that of a monarch, flows behind, worthy of such evils. Romans 8:17ff. describes the matter, and the inability of the utmost striving to survive to achieve any improvement in life, is a testimony to its futility. Restoration is by regeneration, not attenuation. Endless 'moral' and 'amoral' and indeed immoral procedures based on man, are like basing cure on disease, and about as effective.
Man, DNA and all, is going down, as designs do, but it is far worse then merely through time, since THIS time has been subjected to a measure of judgment, reflected in the Second Law of Thermodynamics. It is through misuse and deterioration of the genome, of what is thereby built, of the mind and spirit of man that this has come; and the more he falls, the more he arises in a temper of self-will once more, self-sufficient to assert himself, as if a god! as if he had made the universe and its laws, who is himself, in much, subject to these same laws.
Earthquakes can crush (and their proliferation is forecast in Matthew 24 just as are the raging seas in Luke 21, together with the hideous sights forecast to become a contemporary reality), but for the spirit and life of man, there is a holy helicopter, yes an instant cure, as if one were post-mature and in the womb, and suddenly there is deliverance: ONE IS BORN at last!
Thus, the difference lies in this, that there is escape other than escape velocity for what is flung from this earth (Hebrews 2:1-3, 6:19, 4:11-16): there is the provision for restoration through redemption, to God. There is, not will be, but already complete (Hebrews 9-10), the saving work of the Messiah, long foretold and fulfilled in every particle of prophecy in the Bible*6, and it done. The kingdom of heaven meets the case for man but entry is by transmutation, because of deterioration of heart and mind and soul and spirit (Ephesians 4:17-19). It is called regeneration (Titus 3, John 3).
There is a cause for vitality, correlative with what it is: there is a source of thrust, vivacity, vigour, pursuit of vast projects (as positionally in avine migration, or propositionally in Shakespearian plays), of mental power and rational rules that work (cf. Predestination and Freewill Section IV, Causes, SMR Ch. 5), with the desire for them: and it is what is sufficient. The particles and the particulars: these are one thing. The vitality itself, this is another. All require informative formulations which are functional, not wild rushes into the exotic non-pareils, the nonsense ideas that have neither experimental verification nor observability in 'nature'. In man, nor indeed, even at the outset, rational survival power.
Thus, when man through those deluded, argues, based on nothing, for nothing, in his torrents of rebellion, orphaned from truth by his own model, while he purportedly spouts it , in that lair, in that lair and in that imagination, there being none, but only simple reactors immersed in being, with no outside for perspective or assessment: then he merely comes to nothing. That is what he comes to, just as he would ascribe it as source for himself, or something else for no reason, with vital dynamics from nowhere, at once or by instalment. Thus he is using the creator-power which makes design, with its synthesis and criteria, characteristics and definable character, knowledge of what it is about, while with it, he denies it of himself, affirming what he denies and denying what he affirms. In divorcing the realities of divine creation and availability, he assumes truth both willing and available - so that he might both have it and spout it, while he scorns it. It is time for man to wake up, for HIS D-day is coming as it OUGHT to do, for there is indeed, sufficient CAUSE for it!
Why wail in a stricken world, that it might be stricken the more, unworthy to exist, defiant in destruction, complaining in non-compliance, and mocking its source, its salvation and its weal with ever-imperious requests, Give us more!
Such is the restless and imperious tenor of it, as man blasts off into the meaninglessness of his rationale, so irrational, and his spiritual evasion, so rebellious (cf. SMR Chs. 3, 10).
There has been an incident, an accident. It is time for man to go to the Hospital for Holiness, and have mended his broken heart and his dizzy head, rich with the extravaganzas of incurable folly: incurable by 'nature', but no by no means by its Maker; for His is power illimitable, and it is over all things, eternal before all time with its projects and rules, eternal for all time with its passing modes, available for all who seek Him in heart (Psalm 145:18ff.), and come on the way. He invites (Matthew 11:28ff.). This invitation, it is as clear as the command for the body in the speech of DNA; and God has written it in prophecy, fulfilled it in history and underwritten it in the blood of Christ, the just given for the unjust, given in love to bring us to God (I Peter 3:18, Romans 5:11-18, 3:23ff., John 3:16-19).
At this point, then, we paused in Ch. 1.
B
THE SHEER WONDER OF VITALITY AND ITS CONSUMMATION
What however of other aspects of vitality ?
Thus there is both character and individuality in some of the more personal animals, creations, and this helps us understand the place of man by differentiation as well as by elevation.
Thus in addition to the DNA and the concourse of lower elements, RNA and cellular structure, and organic linkages, in the sense that as with the jet-engines in an aircraft, they contribute substantially but BY NO MEANS give to the craft its individual distinctiveness; and it is the same, perhaps much more so, with a horse.
An aircraft may be a joy to pilot, seemingly sensitive to both need and necessity, as it meets the pilot's eye and thought, so that there may come to be a sense of oneness, togetherness, even mutual participation in a total whole, in which the consciousness is conjoined with the means to effect its purpose and to interpret its intended motions, being so made. The aircraft, like the horse, but in a different way, may become more than a mere instrument; it can become an interpretive agent, though the designer's skill, the pilot's interpretation and the joint capacity to meet the elements with this give-and-take.
With the horse, there can come not merely a sense of comradeship, as when both realise there is a problem to surmount, ane consciously or unconsciously or possibly both, move to meet it with a combination of motivation and fluency, mobility and resolve, that has definite outreach, the one to the other. In case it is felt that this is to romanticise the horse, it is not; but in the case of some horses, it would be worse than that. It would be comic. With others, it is no less than that, because of an entente which may not be written in a manual, but is merged into the atmosphere of one's heart.
Even a bird can have what some might call personality, a term which in such cases has meaning but which may mask the specific ingredient by taking hold of a special field of man. However, it has a character - and once again, one is referring in this analysis to the more susceptible birds, like magpies, lyre-birds, doves. In the eagle, as one well knows from mountain hikes, there can be a very clear nature, character, and in an individual bird, it can be malign, secretive, tactical in disposition and intimidatory in intent. It may wish to surprise, frighten, incite, cause stumbling to ready for its attack, breed consternation so that one retreats with satisfactory realisation of its majesty. It can be accepting, when the tactics reach stale-mate, though not entirely without some reinforcement, perhaps to prevent abuse of privilege!
Such cases are nowhere near as interesting as the friendly ones when these involve sharing, as when a lyre-birds gives, almost as if scheduled performances, an a mound humanly built for the purpose, and presents the array of genius-like mockeries, imitations, representations that make up its repertoire.
These have more character, less constrained by simpler motives; and can become highly individual in a given rapport, as with horses and riders.
It seems good to find some vocabulary to attest such things without using what is susceptible to even more definitive elements, like 'personality', where the full scope of human susceptibility and ability may be involved.
Thus you can have a form of vitality at this special level. It has not only the remorseless vitality common to life, but a specialised character which is more than a series of response-typings. Not only is there here a character for the KIND, but for the individual. It could then be called, at this special level, vital idio-type. The first word covers that combination of consciousness, reciprocity and discover of meaning, on the part of man and bird or horse, or cat. It is understood to have life, but it is one susceptible to idio-type. That is, it not only has a TYPE, as does much else, a KIND, in terms of which it is ABLE to deploy what exhibits its special, overall, composite, comprehensive character; it has a capacity within that, to be a distinctively individual one, through a conscious correlation, even at times, a decision to trust or oppose, a discerning disposition to enable entente or not, or various degrees of it. Cats are notable for it; dogs can be most charming in it, having a faithful love, at times, even to the death. Horses can express it more indirectly, but at times powerfully.
Always, from a mechanistic folly, and a materialist romancing, as if one could escape what one is simply by shutting the eyes and becoming irrational as an occupation without therapy (cf. Repent or Perish Ch. 7, Christ Incomparable, Lord Indomitable Ch. 2), there is the tendency to dismiss the data, and let the barren theories replace even observation! Hence vital idio-character provides a phrase for an index. Vital idio-type could be used more broadly, as for the lesser relationships, but where there is an almost personal demonstration, then the full reaches could be indicated by vital idio-character.
LIFE*1 is what is in common. Susceptibility to response in considerable depth to personality is the feature, and love, faithfulness and understanding, are ingredients in the affair at its height. It is one of the transcendent features of the natural creation.
When it is not a question of man developing various elements of inter-relationship in this way, downwards, that is, to areas and arenas where there is evidenced less of personality than he has, yet where something like it may be evoked, but is a matter of responding to what is above himself, to the One who can induce a beauty of holiness in man, a testimonial of faith and love, even to the death, of delight and even rapture because of the affinity and the proclivity to share it and the desire to find it, then we come to the relation of man to his Creator, that everlasting Spirit. It is He who is the mentor of mind and the contriver of character, the author of liberty (II Corinthians 3:17) and hence of meaning for man at a level far above what is his mere mean of conduct, his mien of living.
Man has naturally sought this in many ways since creation and fall, just as a sick man seeks hospital or health in some way, or a man of a wounded marriage seeks health and sobriety, faithfulness and love, despite the malady that has attacked his domesticity. He has sought God in ways vehement, as if to learn martial arts to subdue others and play god! He has sought Him equally amiss, in trying supinely to let anything go, in a more Buddhistic acceptance modality. He has tried to smash all restraint, as did Muhammad at Mecca, the attitude of imposition of primacy over secondary beings often so loud as to be like a dictator, or as did Mao in China, or Hitler in Germany, or Stalin in Russia. Mere deaths are nothing. The SYSTEM must go on, and to the extent that it has no real relationship to the living God, mere force may even emptily be used to secure some measure of acceptance of the 'faith' which someone or other decides to foist or father onto man. The incredible-seeming vile violence often used is hard to believe. Men often become like devils, far below anything from animals, wretched pumps of agony, lakes of tyranny, like those of boiling oil, let loose with a sense of mission.
It is God who is to be found, and to verify Himself so that there is no POSSIBLE doubt, except in the realms of the pathological. As noted in SMR, TMR, Deity and Design ...,(2) Light Dwells with the Lord's Christ, His testimony in the Bible as the sole authorised word of God to mankind is readily demonstrated, and from this is the equally ineluctable testimony of Jesus Christ. Why is it demonstrable ? It is because the loving God of creation put it there, and it is rationally impossible to miss it ( cf. Romans 1:17ff., I Peter 3:15, Isaiah 41, 43, 48). In turn, it is by the Spirit of the living God, that man, once His regeneration, reconciliation to God, repentance and redemption is clear, so that he has the state of being mouldable with joy and amenable to mercy with peace secure, may be wrought into more and more likeness to Jesus Christ, God incarnate, so that as He came down to lift us up, so it is (II Corinthians 3:18).
NOTE
For definition of life, see Life, what is it ? and for its purpose, see What is Life ? There is a further aspect which follows.
LATERAL RELATIONSHIPS at the SOCIAL LEVEL
In passing from conscious co-partnerships of man and lower creation to that with the Creator, an infusing character to liaison on the one hand, and a suffusing and elevating one on the other, we have for simplicity and pointedness, left out that personal inter-relation for good or evil, between man and man, or any sub-varieties such as man and woman, man or woman and child. In this thematic context, though passed by, it may simply be noted here.
There is a scope, in what has been made with provision for divine companionship (like a ship which is made with maritime provision, though you do not HAVE to sail it, you can keep it on the land), to avoid this, just as most keep their spirits far from God, and many then complain of boredom or 'chance', a name for the loss of direct, divine relationship on a promise-and-covenant-basis in a world thus made alien, beneath a heaven unknown. There is also, in mankind, a facility that lies not only with what is above, or below, but with fellow man, one to be found laterally. Thus there is scope in man, not only to avoid the maritime, a figure for the divine, for what he has been made, but in the lack of the romance and reality of the water, to pound one another.
What is correlative, can therefore become instead of a site for love, understanding, mutual good-will, the thrill of companionship of co-creation in fields of courage and imagination, between man and his fellows, in terms such as are commanded by the God who made that facility for brotherly action, but instead there may be a fouling, foiling or failing at the co-ordination between members of our race. This is at a spiritual level which is voluntary, instead of necessitous, as is the case between the parts of any one human body: and thus a helpful social configuration is traded for blight. Accordingly, there may be judgment by one who is evil, of those who are born from above, and while not perfect, far from the thunderous denunciation often given to them, in purely suppositional or on categorically false grounds. There can be vengeance unthinkable for real, exaggerated or non-existent grounds. Self-assertion can even become a thing to be taught, even in some kind of a church, so that a good understanding becomes a loss account, and gain is attributed to push, if not putsch.
Yet on the other hand, here is a fertile field for human endeavour, sometimes in measure strangely stirred in a war or a contest, as in World War II in the midst of the mutual directness to foil the enslaving Hitler. At a yet deeper level, here is scope for a blessing for mutual enhancement from psychic different configurations, modes of personality which together, when untainted, can led to a richer and more varied inter-personal diet. It becomes like a single instrument compared with an orchestra. The conductor however is crucial; for if his mind or hers, be warped, insensitive, vagrant, personally ambitious or merely capricious, seeking solace or sovereignty and not function and sensitivity, then the baton can become a baton rouge, with the red of violence, violation or imperiousness.
Back of this excellent provision for inter-personal co-ordination, correlation and comradeship, there is the need for the restoration of heart, the cleansing of spirit, the restoration of mind, the redemption which releases and realises the truth without which man so readily becomes vulgar, vicious or self-absorbed, so that the lateral field of relationships may abound and bonds of relationship may be delivered from bondage, of which physical slavery is merely one expression! There is never ANY escape from reality, from the Lord and His salvation, and efforts to do so merely expose the sheer effrontery of philosophy, die-hard of many schedules which do not work, at one extreme or another, leaving out what is vital and wondering that the 'solution' that lasts is never found. If you INSIST that not only does 2+ 2 NOT equal 4, but that it MUST not, and make it an offence to say so, or to act on such a basis, then you are apt for trouble, a contortionist or abortionist of what is good. Useless to complain: if you refuse a necessary operation, what would you!.