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CHAPTER 4

GOD ONLY WISE

but many seek to spend wisdom like children's pennies, on muck

News 299

It would be a hard life if one could not have a sense of humour. On this see, Laughing Stock!

For all the tragedy the illiterate concept of organic evolution brings,  ignoring logic, empiricism, scientific method and anti-verifications to the point of the utterly ludicrous (cf. SMR Ch. 2, TMR
Chs.  1,   8, Wake Up World! ...  Chs. 4-6 for example), it still brings a lighter touch.

THE SAGA OF THE SAGACITY OF THE TV GUIDE

(The Advertiser, December 10, 2003).

Today, in a TV guide, we found a reference to a 'Nature' program. It held these pregnant words (like the swelling some gain when it is not a child, but wind and hope, or some such combination): "after 3.8 billion years, life knows what works." As to time, see TMR Ch. 7, Section E, including the latest references to the changing scientific concepts of the velocity of light, which vastly affects time measurement. With the uttermost authority, one can readily show that the ONLY sure measurement of the date of the origin of the earth is UNKNOWN, prodigiously so, in terms of science. The ONLY combination of ALL evidence that this author can find, and it is a large array, refers unequivocally and consistently to a young date. The fiasco of sure dates when the number of philosophical postulates involved have always been great, is a testimony to the fatuity of man, when once his spirit is alienated from God, a fact to which God also gives testimony (Romans 1).

Ignoring their manifest Creator, says Paul, "professing to be wise, they became fools." It is not however about this particular verification of Biblical truth, in terms of the false and now comic assurances of 'science' about 'nature' in the past, that one has most interest at this point. We have often followed that point, at times in considerable and substantial detail; but there is here a specific joy for the humorous, that Punch magazine (alas a thing of the past! but what a past...) might envy.

The truly delicious fallacy is one already expounded in some depth, but here given a most intriguing expression (cf.  SMR pp. 211ff., *28). In the SMR page, we looked into 'patriarchal molecules' equipped with literary personification, and via this charm with efficacy reserved for persons, a new form of science! Here however we learn that given time, "life knows what works". Now a moron, given time, would not. Someone brainless or without the equivalent mental facility, would not. Life however is something which apparently has know-how, and can estimate and consider, construe and approve, approximate and rehearse, find and know things. It is in fact just like a person. Strange that a non-person should be equipped with the necessary and sufficient ground of the mental apparatus of a person! It is of course begging the question via analogy.

A more hideously humorous gaffe it would be most difficult to imagine: Construct a literary figure, assign it to something, and then have that something act as if the figure equipped it with the imagined article. How easy! You do not need to know or understand, or even have capacity for understanding; you do not need to show ANYTHING EVER which you do. It is all attributed to you, as if you inherited a billion dollars and all your servants vied with each other to see how wise you must be! How ludicrously irrelevant can you get!

This world NEVER and under NO circumstances shows ANY power to impart information, except by explicit and definable intelligence, and yet we are being told how without anything of this kind discernible in action or in operative equipment under any terms over any known time of investigation, we must ASSUME, ALLEGE, activate our thought and direct our minds to ASSIGN this to what we personify! Here is Arts and Science in unison, to the death of the latter and the shame of the former!

Has life then learned NEVER to be observed when it imparts new information ? for that is the current position empirically. It is never seen doing it. Has life then learned NEVER to be observable in the apparatus of intelligence, which can learn ? so that it is hidden, like Jew gold in Switzerland, in numbered accounts, but is not seen ? How clever of it to find such vaults with intelligence and to store with intelligence the things it never shows operative with intelligence! How much more clever for 'scientists' or in this case, quasi-philosophic preachers who are in some scientific discipline as well, to induce people to believe in this invisible activity of 'nature' and of this invisible facility by which it does what it is alleged to do.

MORONS ARE GENIUSES
COMPARED WITH THIS ORGANIC BUFFOONERY

Imagine now a moron, and give him time. Will be understand Einstein, and show in time that he has learned how to do ANYTHING! No, but why ? It is because he lacks the symbolic mastery, the mathematical skill, the world of symbols in his mind and the though in his heart which can what it takes to have an integrated, operative, symbolic correlate to this world, and to try it out and apply it, to verify it and adjust it as the case requires.

This is a specialised work of mind, involving many facilities and powers, thought and logic, and it is ludicrous to imagine this, and much more so, than it is to imagine that a barn left in the sun for a million years would of course manufacture a Rolls Royce. Of course you cannot see it EVER bring ANY new data to the point, and you find no equipment which would do it in any case, but it is to be assumed. Why ? This is not science but magic mythicism (time to invent a word for such extraordinary magics), the production of myths by derring-do (we will define it).

It learns, however, what WORKS. Its power to learn like its power to exhibit its power to learn being alike ZERO, we know find that not only does it learn, it learns to make a distinction. Some things work, and some do not. But work what ? When you work something, there has to be something to work. You do not work on nothing, for it is not there to be the butt of your action. You have to work on something to learn about something. On what then do you so work in this case ? Why you work on nothing ... ? says one philosophy who happens to be a scientist. We have weighted and considered this fable in some detail (cf. TMR Ch. 7, with Barbs ... 29).

Let us start, given the advantage of some intelligence, at any rate, to work with nothing. It is by definition without prospect (something with prospect), potential (something with potential), capacity (something with capacity), an entity (something with entity), relationship to an entity (something with relationship to an entity), and in fine, whatever we attribute to it must be denied, whatever therefore we could DO with it, must be denied, for then it would be something with which one could do something!

On the other hand, without nothing, you give no account of the cause of whatever-it-is, merely skipping the reason. In all science, this is inadmissible. In any nexus of causes, this is impossible, merely vacuous erraticism. As to the CAUSE of any nexus of causes as we know them, this has to be adequate for their construction. Whatever is listed, then, other than nothing, which having no future, does not produce us, and so is irrelevant, it has to have its cause. Ignore that and you ignore reason, and so are invalidated in your own use of it in any way whatever in the proceedings. Follow it, and you need amazing mental dexterity, power, and corroborative constructions in material and mind; and for that, you need far more of either than we have, who show no power at all comparable. The possessor is called God, but you could as well call this One the Creator.

Further, starting with nothing, PLUS intelligence, gets nowhere. Then you still need the source of the intelligence, which is either 'arising' which is to escape logic, or caused by one adequate and hence beyond our intelligences. Moreover, even so, you need things as well as intelligence. What sort of things ? Why orderly things.

Where do they 'arise' Mr Scientist ? From a suitable source of course. Good. Let us have one. Now let us have a source for the intelligence we are using (for you need that and the things to get wings in this creation business), and so let us have intelligence source plus thing source. If you say,  NO, you do not need intelligence, then perhaps you would explain how non-intelligence proceeds to deal in symbolic logic, and how it proceeds to institute, shall we say, codes and contrivances! This is a realm of thought and symbolic dynamic. You need to have one. We find neither this  nor what uses it in  'nature'. We find only its fruits. We are looking for roots.

Let us too, have some imagination, for if you do not have this, you cannot meet the criteria of massive and stupendous imaginative facility and agility shown in the Burgess Shale deposits, so dear  to the heart of Stephen Jay Gould, where to his mind, some 10 times the present design deposits are to be found near the first of things! (Wonderful Life). You cannot have a whole WORLD of ideas without thought, or a whole teeming multitude of designs without design capacity. Where is this capacity ?

WHERE IS WISDOM ?

Where does it reside ?  (cf. Job 28:20ff.). Where does it attest its innovative power, its span and scope of adventure, which is so well attested in its fruits ? Is it in matter ? a pity it is never seen (cf. SMR pp.  80ff.). Is is seen in chatter, as one generation goes to another, inventing new things ? Not really, only re-adjusting modes.

We need intelligence and imagination and non-nothing. We need it, that is, unless we have a source for something. If you have something (helpful to work WITH if you want to work), and a worker (useful when you need work to be done), and intelligence and imagination, and have these all separate, then you need the orchestrator. If you have this plus intelligence plus imagination plus initiative, then if you have the POWER, you can MAKE things. These, material objects, have the code and contrivance of logic in their highly sophisticated controls in their inner workings, and so cannot be the originals, being made, being constituted, having requirement of GROUND for their existence. So then intelligence and initiative and wisdom and imagination and orchestration, or if you like, controlling perspective, and power, are to be wedded and go to it. Who however performs the marriage ?

We need a celebrant, an institutor of such things, for factories do not assemble themselves, far less personal initiative properties and purpose. Always we need this and that, and the power to integrate and control, and dispose. If you insist on a GROUND and a POWER and a SUFFICIENCY, then in the end it has to be what has all, and needs nothing. It is customarily referred to as God. From nothing comes nothing; what comes in terms of mind, matter and spirit, has to have the causal basis sufficient not only for each of these things, but all in unison. Hence we look for a non-material being of precisely these powers, or more, in that anyone with less, could not do more than the powers attributed can perform, and so fails as a basis.

'Nature' is not this, since it is imprinted with laws, and ways, and symbols. That imprint requires a cause, and if 'nature' were that cause, we would scientifically have to show in what place this cause is operative, and if it operates only sometimes, in what way it would operate if it did operate and WHY it would operate.

Since no one shows in what place it is, or how it operates or in what way it would operate if it ever did operate, we are left, scientifically, with a complete exclusion of 'nature' as its source. We act on what we find, discover in intelligent, supervised, careful, cautious step by step procedures, and finding, test, and testing find confirmed.  Since nothing whatever of these things is to be found in 'nature', we conclude that non-nature invented nature, and has all these features at least.

Non-'nature' is of course not 'non-nature', since the nature of the Creator is merely here defined as not what is found in 'nature'.

If I write a book, however,

to take a creative parallel since we are dealing with the phenomenon known as creation:

	while it does not have my nature
	(it cannot think for example, and while you might be tempted to say that since it shows a degree of facility with symbols, therefore it must have this facility in its own pages, yet you would never find this originative facility in the pages, only the result of it, precisely as in other creations in symbols),
	yet it may expose something of it.

Thus if I were a précis specialist, always inclined to minimise verbiage and thought, then this might appear; or the opposite. Yet these characteristics of mine could be shown ONLY to the extent that the RESULTS, the book, warranted AT LEAST just such powers. This is scientific. You look for what might be the cause of a thing, and when you do not find it where you thought you might, then you simply look elsewhere, and if you find it there, then that is the model in view at that point.

In 'nature', this categorical creative facility is not found: what IS found,  as in a book, is only the result. Hence you look for non-material entities, not 'nature' for the creative cause of 'nature'.

Here we are helped greatly by the fact that our thoughts about 'nature', being subject to error, are other than material nature as such. They relate to purpose and hence to error between purpose and performance, and this may be found in practice or in word or in both. We have a spirit, an error prone, thought competent, symbolically imaginative, texturally manipulative capacity, other than that of matter (cf. It Bubbles ... Ch. 9, Little Things Ch. 5, SMR pp. 348ff.). This is not controlled, but controls; and even though it is far from unlimited, yet in its vagaries and vacations it is able to find things most different from anything seen, and then make this visible by subordinating the things used to the ideas and imagination and vitality in one's life.

If then we look to a Spirit to make matter, and imbue, each step in its own way, various creations with various instinctive, symbolically controlled powers, and finally man with the power to imitate to some extent the very symbolic creation and material subordination with which he is endowed, and which he exhibits in his own being, we are looking where quotidian custom shows. When further we look for the testimony of specific creations (my volume 2 is not a byproduct of volume 1 through gradual change, and while it has much similarly, it has far more information added), we find just this.

Diversity is the rule, comparability is found, as is so frequently a product of imagination and intelligence; but immersion of one basic type or kind into another, this is not found. Indeed, when  we look for the testimony of constant and continual upward change across the great divides of type, we do not find it, as we saw from Denton, who declared that "The concept of the continuity of nature has existed in the mind of man, never in the facts of nature." ^*1

Continuity is found only in the mind of man, in this regard. It is simply so.

Imagination in man is constantly saying, No, this turned into that; but it does not fit the facts.  Variability is implicit within the range of the type made, or by damage; but creation of new kinds is not found. Results of the creation of new kinds is not found.  Facility for the creation of new kinds is not found. Gradual upward movement from scratch, in the creation of new kinds is not found.  New information coded from the air, or somewhere faery queen style, or elsewhere, this too is not found. Simple cells which are not amazingly complex things, these too are not found as Denton so vigorously declares within his delicate and intimate knowledge of biochemical working.

It is time imagination in man looked to the spirit in him, and through it, to the testimony that non-nature made nature: just as man by thought constructs what it is non-man, what is no part of man, while bearing some attestation to his powers and prowess. The concept, indeed, that in time Life learned what Works, when its learning is displayed so abundantly at the Burgess Cambrian deposits, is not only meaningless scientifically, a particularly succulent excursion into logical invalidity, but it is empirically outrageous. If you are striving by magical means to MAKE something in some odd way which means no power is to produce results, then at least you might avoid having a MASS of FLAGRANTLY diverse designs, different ways and means of accomplishing ends, come in a profusion of imaginative genius,  all at once,  and  according to current geological norms, all near  the first.

Laugh! So life learned what works ? Where is its intelligence found ? if you please; and where is the evidence that it 'learned'!
 

THE FORGOTTEN SCIENTIFIC METHOD
LANGUISHES FOR ITS DESPITEFUL MISUSE

Coming back to the facts, we find that on a scientific method basis, living things have certain features in common: they are not 'life', but diverse designs with various self-propagating capacities and facilities (cf. Life, What is it ?). Living things require creation from 'non-nature' - remember it is not what lacks a nature, but what is not, in its nature, the created thing.

The author is not the book, but you may come to know something of him from the book. 'Nature' shows non-incremental wisdom in the sense that it is not botched at any point, uses high sophistication at every point (where we like the 'curse' or not) and has some of the most imaginative designs, fully operational from the first (in terms of geological norms) deposits of its action. It is a development in the sense that each layer is fascinating, no layer is requisite for the other, except in terms of the custom made part type, such as a 'cell', and there are various astute and acute relationships between the layers.

Like a car assembly, but this is the scope of creation, it has parts which are put in place, irreducible in complexity, disdainful of simplicity, evocative of artistry, constructed with system and method, complex in themselves, exquisitely mutually correlative, meaningless without each other, susceptible to purposive use at the end, man, in integrity of the totality only. These are the criteria of intelligence, as is the deposition of so much so soon, proceeding to an end, making integration more than composition: rather individuality and design for an overall outworking as one whole. Bits making themselves are not only not seen, but not relevant, and not furnished with any means. If they were, they would fall useless multiplicities needing the architect, the assembly line, the specialist biochemistry and commands using the same (our DNA has much of this) and the editorial capacities to correct errors.

Such considerations of self-construction therefore are a collage of incomprehensibility, a network of irrationality, a sentence on scientific method and a woe for wisdom. Literally incomprehensible, is star Professor Sir Fred Hoyle's well-earned tag relative to such inordinate and erratic imaginings.

What we find is simply this, that a non-Nature being has made natural things, including living things, and formed them in profusion and ingenious diversity, using some parts in cleverly sophisticated ways, which relate to other parts in integrations of design to institute life purpose for living things. In so doing, it is showing and practising in large measure what in his (relatively) small way, man does in his own adaptations of design to this and that purpose or contrivance: without being in any way LIMITED by the fact of a design, in alternative uses, or options to be found.

There is nothing in this earth able to learn in terms of making life, but man. Man cannot do it. Even if he eventually learned how to adapt living elements to diverse tasks, it is not the creation, but the utilisation which is in view. Moreover, man's  spirit is totally beyond his making for the very simple reason that it is not fashionable from parts, but is a symbolic logic agent, wedded to imagination and intelligence, will and purpose, which is non-programmatic at the ultimate, though it uses many subordinate programs to institute so great a liberty.

Liberty man tries hard enough to obtain, being blighted by rebellion from its Maker, seduced by sins innumerable which disable and distort vision: without even touching the concept of making it! Statistical 'learning'  is mere indirect programming to the will of the human inventor. There is no liberty in this; only in man (cf. Licence for Liberty).

That life

- which cannot learn in itself,

though man who is alive can learn -

never yet showing how to make life but only to correct errors over the thousands of years of its existence in this material, spiritual and mental world,

should learn:

this is one of the most futile statements ever made.

Man who is alive can learn, and lesser creations may learn somewhat. They do not learn however, any of them,  how to make life. They simply learn how to live with the life they have been given. Life does not learn. It is the name for an element of creation, and like the rest of it, it came from One who does not need to learn, because He knows already. This is our playground (though hard work has man made of it, even rejecting the new facility of faith in grace's gift in Christ), and it is we - not our Creator, who show the power to learn, we who are subjects, not some vague object.

Our learning however is not even relevant, throughout all of our past history, to making life, or making improvements on its techniques, or showing it what to do. We merely at best seek to correct it where it has been miscopied, or join elements together which make for a more profound result for some purpose or other which we have, utilising what is already made. Accordingly, we find things in fossil terms going back to near the beginning, repeatedly either larger, or virtually identical with what is here now. Of such and many other detailed features,  we have given account in detail, but now we overview.

THE KIND OF COMFORT THAT IS MOST KIND

It is comforting for the Christian to realise, then, that though his or her life NEEDS TO LEARN, often fast! yet the Creator, in terms of scientific method, shows no need to learn, shows virtuosity without limit, even the power to discipline, as in the flood, and to predict as shown in such sites as SMR Chs. 8  -  9, Answers to Questions Ch. 5. Therefore whatever is needed, HE is sufficient for it. This makes life in Christ, within the received solace and strength of the Creator, to be gloriously delightful, for there is never a hole that is unfillable, a gap unmet. Suffering may come, but inadequacy goes (cf. James 1). Wisdom is currentlly available to such a life, by promise.

If then wisdom and strength is here, and you are with God by invitation on His terms, then His promises avail. This is exciting, delightful and at times a matter of enormous hard work, since if HE commissions you, you work! Yet it is His grace which makes the work work, for He has always known, and known your need (Acts 2:22ff., Ephesians 1:11, 1:4, Romans 8:;28ff.). What a wonderful gift, the power to learn, and above all, to learn from Him! You do not have to use it however ... It is precisely this error that was made by a recent assailant on the ways of Christ. You do not turn into a mummy in order to life: that is death. Life is for the living. You turn into a friend of God, and with Him, use all you have to the uttermost point! With Him, it is amazing where it can lead ... You go with Him, as His, most freely.

Liberty has enormous value; it is not a matter of mere authority, and the Lord has given to man this glorious capacity to learn, not only in reflex, but in spirit and mind and in principle and to articulate what he has learned. He has even given to man what he NEEDS to learn in the book of the Lord, alone valid (cf. SMR Chs. 1, 3, 10, TMR Ch. 5, Barbs ... 6  -7, It Bubbles ... Ch. 9, with Spiritual Refreshings 16), so that his capacity to learn from experience might not be invalidated by mere misconception and so rendered otiose, inoperative, futile. The fact that so much of man's history however, has been PRECISELY of this degraded character, is totally correlative to man's departure from the book (cf. Ch. 3 above). God even goes to the point of showing, as in SMR  Chs.  8 -9, what will result from man's doing so, in detail.

Thus all is covered, and God has given man power to learn, and knew what He was doing from the first. If He had not done so, we would have seen the results which in such a case, universally 'hide'; and it would mean that we were not dealing with God at all, since then HE would have been given the potential, inscribed within, by what IS God. In the end, God is the all-sufficient source, and on His being, all depends, and ... needs to learn. It is because from the first He knows all, that He is able at any time, even millenia in advance to predict with amazing fidelity and wonderful detail, such things s the date of the death of Christ.

ONE thing going astray in His conceptions would readily ruin, as in mathematics, all the rest which flowed with it! NOTHING must therefore be unknown to enable this empirical fact of His advance coverage in this way of history.

In particular, the spirit of man needs to learn not to mock God, with inane personifications of 'Nature',  making of a word, a figure, of a literary device, a power which is absent to experience, to experiment, to testimony. It is better to use reason, and avoiding both magic and literary substitutes for reality, to realise that God always was wise, and man rarely is; but that he can be made wise by finding the wisdom with which he was created, where it resides, in the non-Nature, Maker of Nature, who, not surprisingly, has given attestation most clear, most public, most bold, most enduring, most unchanging, of how He is to be found.

Seek, says Isaiah, the LORD while He MAY be found! (Isaiah 55). It is good advice. If you do not, then you continually seek where He is not to be found, or what is not there to find because it is not God, but merely a particular 'book' or creation which He 'wrote', devised and instituted. Meet the Author at His house, and do not search, therefore, the pages of creation as if it could tell you what it does not know, cannot learn, but  merely exhibits of Him whose it is.

                          And it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it."

(Colour added for clarity.)

That, it is extensively verified, intensively attested, invariably fulfilled. But who is this "Commander" ? When you have read Isaiah, you see in Isaiah 2, 4, 7, 9, 10, 11, 22, 24, 32-33, 35, 40, 42, 48-55, 59, 61, 63, 66 and so on, pervasive in integrality, incisive in revelation, that there is one figure^*2 who (Isaiah 48:16) is God sent to earth on divine Mission, God the Word as in John 1. Not a mere book, but the very executive of the Godhead, the agent and ultimate of the Lord's own being, is sent incarnate, to capture sin for those who receive Him, and grant instead of death, eternal life, Himself the sacrifice to cover the sin, and the power to overcome the death.

THAT is something to learn from the God who is Spirit, the Creator; and so does a person find the way home, not to some book, as if one book in a library starting worshipping another book or imagining that some other book wrote it, in the limitations of its fantasies: but to the Author of all creation. HIS book is HIS way to find Him, and finding to know Him, and knowing to relish the words He has accorded us, continual parameters of wisdom, guides of heart, promises and purifications. As the Psalmist puts it (Psalm 56:4),

"In God, I will praise His word."

In the next CHAPTER, we shall plan to pursue the light of our way further yet.

See also Secular Myths ... esp. Ch.  8,

Ancient Words ... Chs.  9, 13,

Spiritual Refreshings Ch. 13.

See also Cult of the Forbidden, concerning the blind spot driving of the coach of calamity,

a forsaken and obliterative method, beginning in prejudice, ending in solecism.

This comes near the close of the following except from SMR pp. 141-151, though some of these is excised in the interest of brevity, and need for our present review. For convenience, this is placed here to enable ready reference. Should any hyperlink not be operative, it can be found in the original text by the hyperlink above.

EXCURSION leading to the CULT OF THE FORBIDDEN

 
  EXCERPT from SMR
(abbreviated)

What is present implicitly in terms of the native powers of any given arena of action, such as that of matter considered by itself, has its own parameters. It does not become, per se, equipped with mind, or spirit. What things it has, it uses, and uses according to its power. For matter, ability to initiate design is not one of these; the operation of whatever design components are already fitted to it, however, this is in order. Nor is intelligence one of these available fittings, for matter; and hence intelligent design is not one of the products of matter. It evidences its definitional components however within matter; and its source is accordingly sought elsewhere than in matter, in an appropriate design source, equipped immaterially, as shown in an earlier chapter. What then ?

As Jesus Christ so beautifully said, You do not get figs from star thistles. It is not a matter of chance; the functional action of a component does not occur without that component; and if it did, it would merely show that that component was present. That of design initiator however is not evidenced in matter.

In mind, however, it is; just as with the spirit of man, you also see evidenced the power to counter the counsels of mind, through pure will, hate or what you will. Man can confront in this way concepts and analysis of his own mind, of other people and - though finding the attempt deadly - those of his Creator, by that masterpiece of liberty, granted man, which he can if he will, turn to a maelstrom of licence, to the entropy of indulgence or to the vacuity of personal pride.

Now in life formatted on earth we see, when we dispense with philosophic and unscientific fantasy, the existence of several fascinating features. In this chapter, we have considered some of them, but now let us seek to define life and consider its increments, for simpler awareness of the topic which we are facing.

Looking at what is to be seen, in life (cf. A Spiritual Potpourri, Ch.6)

What then is life ?

It might be initially defined as a correlation of functional organs and integrally disposable results, capable of initiation and cessation as a co-operative whole.

Even one cell, as we have seen, has conferred on it such powers; thus it conforms to this definition.

Then there are overlays, design extras. It is like the movement from a push-bike to a Volkswagen, to a Jaguar, to an aeroplane, to a Boeing 747, to a spacecraft. Each has, especially near the beginning of the series, some clear correlation with the other. Even the first and the last have decidedly distinctive ingredients in common: travel, movement through space, responsiveness to humanly directed impetus and so on. Yet, for each rising member, there are, more or less depending on the case, provisions of greater conceptual power, made for greater travelling power. There are successive rises in the input of

i) intellectual power
ii) conceptual finesse
iii) knowledge
iv) correlation of concepts
v) higher, decidedly and definably higher objectives.

With life, there are similarly, though they are effected with the biological finesse which is a specific and quite special craft, many layers.

There is the cell layer of micro-organs, such as the energy producing organ which, whatever else it does, does that: the mitochondria. This has its power to be commenced and terminated; to act with correlation of organs; to achieve certain objectives. Then there is the tissue area, where strata of cells may interact with some overall perspective not seen by them, but relating to their operation. It is what we call a design, when components do not know at all what they do, but nevertheless are constrained to do it, in terms of relatable concepts, which are discernible in the interstices of the components, overarching them and operative through them.

Then there are organs, such as the kidney. Here layers of different tissues are closely related to each other and to other (sometimes distant) layers of tissue, which in turn have their own internal organic totality of function as well as individuality of operation; and these exhibit conceptual correlation, inter-organic as well as intra-organic. Then there is the correlation of systems, such as all the internal organs and their net product; and of others, such as skeletal musculature and locomotion as the outcome, or manipulation; and then again, there is the power to observe, relating to the senses, to categorise, relating to the brain, and to will, relating to the spirit, and to imagine likewise.

We have built up here on the basis of the world's greatest evidenced design, the human body. However we could as well have chosen a different route.

We could well have considered

the animate cell, and then
the instinctive creature, and then
the conscious creature,
the emotional and motivationally conceiving creature and
the analytically purposive creature, and then
the morally aware creature,
the code-creating imaginative creature and
the spiritually perceptive and innovative creature and so on...

coming thereby to the spirit of man, to the powers for which the body is implement, and indeed, ultimately to that God who made it, for which the spirit is 'hands' for ready grasping: that is, the immediate basis of communication. But let us revert.

There are layers which it is as futile to seek to reduce, the one to the other, as it is to ignore, in their inter- relations. It is quite similar to the case of a space-sensing, automatically reacting space-probe and a humanly directed bike; or the case of a humanly directed space-sensing probe. None is the same; all are related; and with us, the relation is especially the inventive mind of man.

You can of course say, to return to the mechanical analogy, that there is much the same sort of mental ability involved in constructing this system for the bike, and that for the spacecraft; but the point is that the one involves whole further layers of conceptual thought, for its institution, at different levels of creative imagination and with divergent purposes involving different mathematics and constructional features and so on. It is mere confusion to imagine that because they are all creative and conceptual that therefore the creative thought and the conceptual engineering for their construction is homogenisable and in one plane. That would be mere analytical blindness, contrary to fact. Thus there are these similarly placed conceptual levels, and there is no magic whereby life ceases to require their operation; logically there is no difference. The only difference is that this process is unimaginably more complex and demanding because the programming and correlation is so immense and intense. More is required therefore.

Now before we summarise, let us extend a little on the topic of instinct. It is not merely something automatic. It can have access to and in part be an accessory of intelligence. This is well illustrated in the painstaking observations of Dr William J. Long in his fascinating work, The Spirit of the Wild.

At times, for example, a beaver would respond automatically to the thwack of the tail, the distress signal of another beaver, the time-to-disappear symbol. At others, it might be given as a test to see what would happen; and at times it would be discerned by some beaver, that this was so; or again, it might be given by some animal not as yet appreciating the finesse of the situation: for example, that the author, Dr Long, was perfectly harmless, despite his deceptive appearance. Variations relative to an assessment of a situation could occur in some complexity. Again Garth Christian in his meticulous Down the Long Wind ponders (pp. 38, 43-44) how a bird in vast migration routes can pin-point a return to the same garden, or young without parents can enter such return routes: citing experiment and positing brilliant, celestial navigation facility in the birds.

It can, this instinct, have access to conscious awareness and discrimination. It need not be so judiciously disposable. It depends. Again, you could call the automatic part, instinct, and the other intelligence. It is merely a matter of words: we are interested in the facts to which the words refer. Certainly some instinctive behaviour is non-decisive, merely suggestive, and the presence of guile in parts of the animal kingdom, the arresting of 'normal' and sometimes highly complex patterns, is a matter of observation. Beyond this, however, acknowledging the variable impact of intelligence in some animals, there is the underlying directive quality which attaches to so much of the behaviour of many animals, like that of the spider which lays its eggs on a leaf, sews the silken cord to nearby attachments aloft, and then, on the drying out of the web cord, has the eggs lifted comparatively safely aloft also.

Sometimes, as with the bombardier beetle, elaborately considered by Dr Gary Parker in his Creation The Facts of Life, there is an engineering device of great complexity and sophistication which is simply
built into the creature; sometimes it is
a behavioural device, sometimes a constructive or at times
a defensive 'module'; and at times, these are
capable of override,
as with our own automatic gears where the manual may be chosen instead,
to achieve the purposes of a (relatively) discriminating intelligence.

The engineering objectivisation of thought, frozen construction, and the conduct form of it, frozen thought, allied with the variable input of intelligence and imagination on occasion, a contrived over-ride: these are elements of a complexity of life which has one very simple basis.

The point is this: He, the basis, is pre-eminently intelligent, so intelligent that He has made us with our powers (machine tools with personality and capacity for analysis- this is only one component of our construction of intelligence). He has even provided for the mockery of our pretensions, the challenge to our follies and the exhortation to our industry or lack of it: as in the ant and the sloth, the peacock and the pouter pigeon, for example, the weasel, the bulldog and the rabbit. God has done this so well and wisely that a fascinating and detailed treatment is given to this topic. This is seen in the keen observation of character sketches, animal studies in a well-drafted book from the Institute in Basic Youth Conflicts.

The divine mind has a library of works, as it were, for ready learners and for the thoughtful. It has an array of elements of consciousness, thought and analysis, of imagination and discernment expounded in flesh, until He presents a being with what has in many ways a minimum of the frozen in thought, and a maximum (for a derivative being of this kind) of disposability of mind and spirit: that is, man... God has done this work with such magnificence that man can be quite insanely inept, despite much intelligence, if he will, through sheer, arrant or even arrogant pretension.

Let us return from this little excursion to its point: a convenient, initial definition of

TERRESTRIAL LIFE, so that our thinking might be helped thereby. We saw it as:
 

A CONSISTENT CORRELATION OF FUNCTIONAL CELLS, ORGANS AND INTEGRALLY DISPOSABLE RESULTS, CAPABLE OF INITIATION AND CESSATION AS A CO-OPERATIVE WHOLE . . . We could now add this:

LIFE OCCURS IN LAYERS OR STRATA OF COMPLEXITY, RENDERED IN SEPARATE ENTITIES AND COMPONENTS, WITH CONCEPTUAL LEAPS APPARENT IN THE PURPOSES, PROGRAMS AND PROCEDURES,
TOGETHER WITH CROSS-REFERENCE
OF AN IMAGINATIVE AND UNPREDICTABLE KIND
FOR THE VARIOUS TECHNIQUES USED, AND THEIR STYLES.
THESE ARE NOT MERELY TECHNICAL, BUT PURPOSIVELY DIRECTED IN TERMS OF ULTIMATE LIFE-RESULTANTS, BOTH INTEGRALLY AND FOR EACH BODILY MEMBER.
THEY INCLUDE ORGANIC INTERACTION, APPLICATION OF EQUIPMENT
TO VARIED PURPOSES,
AND PROVISION OF SUCH INSTINCTIVE (frozen thought), EMOTIONAL, CONSCIOUS, CONCEPTUAL, ANALYTICAL, MORAL AND SPIRITUAL FACILITIES (with various operational correlates),
AS MAY BEFIT THE DIFFERENT CATEGORIES OF LIFE.

FOR MAN, CONCEPTUAL, PURPOSIVE AND IMAGINATIVE INITIATIVES,
BASED ON SPIRITUAL REALITIES,
ARE CONTRADISTINCT FROM, AND INIMITABLE BY
THE CONTROLLED CAPACITIES OF COMPUTERS,
JUST AS THEY ARE ALSO CLEFT FROM THE UNDERIVATIVE AUTONOMY OF GOD.

IN GENERAL:

THE SINGLE MICRO-BIOLOGICAL PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE EMPLOYED,
WITH ITS PROFOUND DIVERSITY OF RESULTS,
IS WHOLLY SIMILAR TO MAN'S SYMBOLIC LOGIC AND EXPRESSION,
AS IS THE CORRELATION OF THOUGHT, DESIGN AND EQUIPMENT,
AND ITS ADAPTATION AND VARIATION IN TERMS OF PURPOSE.
INDEED, AS TO MAN WHO SPEAKS, HIS LIFE POSSESSES LANGUAGE
HE DID NOT SPEAK,
INTIMATELY AND INEXTRICABLY INTERWOVEN WITH THE VERY CELLS OF HIS BODY.

Since man is made in the image of God, this is merely what one would expect; though as we are consistently finding, it reflects an exuberance which is beyond meagre imaginings, but instead, fulfilling to the vastest hopes. It is as if, constantly, we check to see if there is money in the bank; there is - but there are billions. This of course is in itself a verification of the transcendent magnificence of God, who while not less than wonderful, may evidence Himself as far past all expectation, as He pleases. It is verification forte! (See also p. 88 supra, pp. 252 B-C, 349A ff. infra).

Since man is, though marvellously endowed, far lesser than God, the sheer brilliance of method, discernible when sought out, even in the simpler forms of creation, is again in full verificatory agreement and concord in particular, with the Genesis statements and indications of:

1) Who made it all; and 2) How man relates to Him. Man, the conscious communicative, rational and spiritual creation, can seek understanding of the scene, conscious participation in the scenario and to learn as creature from the Creator, of His works; as reader, of His will; as servant of His directions and as friend, of His friendship. It is indeed a categorical change to look to his source rather than to His other works, about him; but failure to do this is to have a car that is never put on the road, loitering in the showroom which, indeed, has many fascinating vehicles; but their observation merely is not the purpose of the production of the car.

Human life that stops at this point is justly deemed, in the Bible, dead, an oxymoron in one sense, for yet it lives; but a reality in another, for the life of such a tired and retired retrenchment, is dysfunctional in its main facility. And that? it is its capacity (given the divinely ordained means) to communicate, co-operate and have comradeship with its Creator. (Cf. p. 316G infra.)

This was of course epitomised in the incarnation, an advent from the Creator, establishing the pattern, exhibiting the perfection and enabling the ground of such fellowship in a world of sin, which like grit, left alone merely abrases the surfaces until the sheer weariness of humanity without God becomes both pathetic and ludicrous, in the face of the gift from above. This, stupendous as is the gift of creation at all, rises in the scale towards infinity, for it is from there that it comes (cf. Micah 5:3, John 8:58).
 

 

Thus: Marvellous and astounding as are our gifts in creation, for communication, aspiration and spiritual fellowship, these have been consummated from the Creator in a wonderful way by His taking the step once again from above, in the incarnation of His eternal word in the form of a man, giving opportunity for the dismissal of the guilt of sin, of the oppression of its results and the chasm created in place of comradeship with the Creator which its dark devices have occasioned. As example, pattern, testimony of perfection and exhibition of the sublime in the very place of the malign, basis for pardon and channel for all needed blessing, the Messiah, Jesus Christ, has come in this, our very form, yet without sin .

How well chosen, therefore,  is the rejoicing at such an issue from such a past for this race, enabling for those who come, a future as blessed as the present is outrageous, grave and fit for death! It is seen found within Isaiah 9, set to music by Handel, in his Messiah, a glorious singing which starts with with a prelude from Isaiah 60, a chapter which fitly likewise leads into further prophecy of the Messiah in Isaiah Ch.61. Indeed, it is one cited by Christ of Himself (Luke 4).
 

EXTENSION C: On Scientific Method

(Cf. *22 on pp. 208 ff., EXTENSION on the Force of Fact, Chapter 6; EXTENSION 1, of Daniel File, pp. 931-943 infra; and pp. 81-88, 58 ff., 107 ff., 102 ff. supra.)

Creation and catastrophe, in the form of collision of alien concepts with observable reality... with special reference to the Cambrian 'Age'.

This represents:

A startling illustration of scientific method... by its omission, and an illuminating example of: methodological vagrancy.

Karl Popper, Professor in London University, and of world fame in this area, makes this statement in his work, The Poverty of Historicism, pp. 197-8:

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

But why not ? It is because such a law enables neither prediction nor verification, says Popper: and these are essential ingredients of scientific law. (This he presents at length in his Conjectures and Refutations, pp. 36-39.) Indeed in his book, Objective Knowledge, p. 267, he declares:

Neither Darwin nor any Darwinist has so far given an actual causal explanation of the adaptive evolution of any single organism or any single organ.

The reason Popper is cited is not because of his views on the topic of creation. He is in fact an evolutionist! It is because in this matter of science he is basically right. 'Evolution' is a lawless 'law'. It does not do what laws must. You cannot say - this is what will happen to the genes in these circumstances of nature (where the law is supposed to apply). Evolutionists simply do not do this.

In physics or chemistry laws are expected to perform! There can be no exception here if scientific method is to be followed. If it is not to be followed, let us cease to pretend the matter is science. If it is, let us start predicting and getting results. Surely the request is both simple and legitimate; but it is not followed. No, evolutionary practitioners do follow this request! so we do not use the term 'science'. The reason is simple. It would be misleading.

---

 

---

The fact that many who cannot produce the goods, do use the term with all its appalling pretension in this case, is merely evidence of their extreme desire to have things the way they are not; and of their inability to perform, in the case of this hypothesis, this dream of organic evolution.

In this Popper is the more interesting because he admits that evolution is a kind of religion to him; but it is not science.

As has been presented to you (see e.g. Chapter 1, Section 1, Part B supra): whether it be religion, or science or anything else, a failure to stand up to reason is scarcely an asset. Reason is a gift which it IS unwise and dangerous to cast away. Of course it can be misused; but carefully used, it is a test of no small value. It is of course ridiculous to disparage it, and then use it to attack someone else's position. (See cartoon on page facing.)

Evolution, it is also pointed out, does not even enable retrodiction. It is not even possible to get agreement among evolutionists on the way in which some one 'stage' is supposed eventually to have turned into the latest, the present. This term means simply the power, practice or process of looking back and seeing, in terms of the 'law', why things worked out as they did. 'Of course,' you might say, 'now that I understand the law, I can see just why, just precisely why things happened as they did. It had to be so.'

Not at all! Even with the advantage of knowing the results of the 'experiment', evolutionists cannot and do not look back and agree on the basis of law, or any other basis for that matter, just how, in what steps, things came, 'arrived' on this earth, as they are supposed to have done. This of course is the height of failure, if science is in view: not even with knowledge of what in fact happened (that is, man is here, simpler things are there), is there a way to tell why it happened this way! If that were a law in a different scientific discipline, it would approach the point of comedy...

Dr Duane T. Gish, famed university campus debater and Ph. D. in Biology, notes (pp. 245-7 of his Evolution: The Challenge of the Fossil Record) a comment of Professor Derek Agar, Professor of Geology at Swansea, Wales:

It must be significant that nearly all the evolutionary stories I learned as a student, from Trueman's Ostrea/Gryphea to Carruther's Zaphrentis delanouei have now been "debunked". Similarly, my own experience of more than twenty years looking for evolutionary lineages among the Mesozoic Brachipoda has proved them equally elusive.

This, taken from the Proceedings of the Geological Association (1976), is of great interest, as it is an empirical statement touching both personal review and the findings of others over time. What however makes it yet more instructive is the fact that Gish describes Professor Agar as a 'fervent evolutionist'. That is, he is not being swayed here by any... desire. His testimony is against what he holds: but he still says it. This is refreshing. lt is also a testimony to the force of the fact which he does not conceal. It concurs in force with the words of Popper.

Popper is further citing 'evolution' as not a scientific law in stating that it is not verifiable (*26).

It is of the essence of science that others, in principle, may use your statements and repeat your findings, thus giving to them an air of public availability and respectability. Without this, science would also, to a very large degree, be without its reputation. It is rather like a sportsman who being challenged, turns around and defeats his opponents in a regular way. He becomes a champion. So verification champions a theory. True, it does not at once prove it true; more is needed. Yet its absence in the face of a proper prediction based on the theory, is the sentence of death on the theory, as stated.

One such absence, duly and properly found, is sufficient to terminate the scientific existence of a theory (often called an hypothesis, to stress its provisional nature).

Why ? It is because the statement of a law is thus shown not to cover the area of facts to which it is addressed. If a law can be found to cover those in view, this therefore is not it. Thus you reasonably look for another, and save time.

The theory of evolution has failed not only once. First the Cambrian (*27) era containing a large proportion of types of living creatures, is near to the very first alleged geological age; and it included a wide variety of complex organs. Each of these points is an anti-verification of the concept of movement slowly up from below, to our great day! Even if you use 'creation' in fact but keep the term 'evolution', and have sudden arrivals of prodigiously complex and brilliant designs, you still have a lot of them at an advanced stage coming together. As Denton points out in studying the microbiological technical marvels and their constant correlation with and frequent surpassing of our technical efforts - the concept of chance is irrelevant. The verification of the theory is not fulfilled, and strictly, that should be the end of it.

Only a new formulation which systematically allows for such a vast and complex array of multiplied creations, over a wide range, with much variation within groups... could meet this case (cf. Genesis 1:21-22, 6:4). But that is of course precisely what creationists, on the Biblical model in this case, said, with self-consistent and rationally competent grounds provided.

That prediction, if you like, that result of the concept of the Creation, is fulfilled. The number and complexity and so forth, is what one would expect. At the level of verification, what creation provides for, is there; what 'evolution' provides for... is not.

Popper of course says evolution is not even verifiable (*28). One can see his point: if it is alleged that things happen so slowly, then we would not be able to see them. However, the fruit fly Drosophila was a great indication of what could be. This fruit fly was found to be changing (*29) in the most extraordinary ways concerning its wings and body. Was this then evolution ?

Found absent was the relevant change (*30), into increase of design complexity, such as would be needed if things happened as evolution so long propagandised - or its proponents! Loss of fertility, or of vitality, or of performance, this instead was the rule, as the changes were observed. There has never been sustained any case where the relevant change has been traced. Yet there surely could have been. If change can and does happen so quickly, as in this case, why not some relevant change ? Some evolutionists, apparently in desperation, have the idea of quantum evolution - a sudden massive integrated step (another name, really, for what we call a 'creation'). Why not then let us see one! We cannot, fortunately, invent what we are to see. It does not happen: that is the epitaph of this unfounded expectation, when it meets, rather reluctantly, with the facts, the evidence, the observations.

Failure in prediction, retrodiction, disagreement on what happened, lack of verification and anti-verification - these are the death sentence on the theory. If it can be changed, let it be. In any case, it has fallen. This raises the last essential point in method: for we are simply taking a fascinating example of the violation of scientific method by a theory oddly referred to by some (but not, as we see, by all) of its followers as scientific.

As to method, you would be expected to start with what you observe, and then try to explain it. Here, we start with what is hoped (*31) to be seen, with theories about what may have happened, and then look for facts. These refuse to arrive in the very area of observation of what is happening - the crux of any science. Darwin himself acknowledged that there simply was not the verification and confirmation of his theory in the evidence (i. e. for transmutation); and, better oriented than many Darwinists, he also admitted that to try to derive the 'eye' by his methods bore the marks of being ridiculous.

Work in micro-biology as shown by Denton, in his Evolution: A Theory In Crisis, merely underlines the complexity, the control, the programming (*32), the language employed in the cells and the billions of co-ordinated elements, complete with editorial correction facilities for reproduction of genes. For one cell it is so; let alone millions of them in some super-integrated series of such cells. RELEVANT OBSERVATION WAS NOT THE START OF THE THEORY. METHOD HAS HERE ALSO BEEN VIOLATED. FAILURE TO FIND SUCH OBSERVATION MERELY EXPOSES THE METHOD MORE.

What we are observing merely makes the unscientific also uproarious.

Making it simple

We see therefore, putting it slightly differently:

Organic evolution fails:

i) to be based on relevant observation (cf. pp. 161, 234, 251-252G infra).

ii) in having no citable law available for normal scientific testing.

iii) in not being verified in terms of prediction from a scientific law.

iv) to provide sound agreement, even in retrodiction.

v) to agree with current observation of what does happen, even in broadest terms.

vi) as contrary in tenor to known scientific law, such as entropy, equally to common sense.

vii) to have the discipline of science, either in past imaginings or present happenings.

viii) more monumentally the more microbiology reveals the human body as the design paragon.

ix) in confronting the intricate patterns of a profound language as a contribution from chaos (the language of life, which is one, in cells) ... Professor Murray Eden relates here.

x) in having two systems (genetic and behavioural-surviving and so on), not systematically related, yet expected to construct what is here (Schützenberger).
 

Creation Prevails.

CREATION, LIKE EVOLUTION, IS NOT A SCIENTIFIC STATEMENT. AS WITH EVOLUTION, IT IS NOT BASED ON OBSERVATION OF EVENTS HAPPENING. BROADER TREATMENT OF BOTH IS THUS NEEDED. HOWEVER, UNLIKE THE CASE WITH EVOLUTION, WHEN THIS IS DONE, CREATION DOES MEET ALL THE LOGICAL CRITERIA (cf. p. 161 infra).

i) It does not claim that the process is continuing. In this, it is confirmed by all available means. That is verification.

ii) It is susceptible to disproof ( in its Biblical formulation) by simply showing that the process from which creatures have come in fact is continuing. In this, it is verified, for this is not seen.


iii) It does provide logical ground for the language of life.

iv) It avoids the non-systematic relationship of two systems as a ground.

v) Its clear cut retrodiction is not met with contradiction,and it could have have been. This too is verification.

vi) It is in precise accord with known scientific law, such as the second law of thermodynamics; and entropy is another formulation of what the Bible SAYS, ( e.g. Isaiah 51:6), and implies ( Romans 
8:20-22 ) in that area of formulation!

vii) The nature of mutation verifies it - variation but not transmutation (kinds).

viii) The numerous evolutionary theories (provided to meet even distant facts) by their disagreement, the one with the other, and by their incredible character - creation arriving incognito as in 'quantum' evolution, or the so-called 'hopeful monster' concept - are in a predictable situation. These unsatisfactory theories show what one would expect: multiplication without solution. This is verification of the creation concept, Biblically invariant. That is, it is unchanging because it is Biblically defined; and because what is Biblically defined, does not need to be confined or refined. It stays in the form, function and rightness given. This case simply verifies that. That is what it had to be; that is what it is.

ix) In the Biblical formulation, this situation is also explained psychologically, and indeed spiritually. There it is declared that man is alienated from the life of God and is systematically dimensionally ignorant (Ephesians 4:18-19). Romans 1 even traces the process. This ability to account for the activity of the evolutionary thrust, personally, is also verification.

x) What contains in its ambit most areas, covers them most categorically and elegantly is deemed the desideratum: this is verification at its acme. In general, the more broadly a presentation covers all known facts, explains all relevant data and the more readily it does so, the more it is deemed to confirm itself.

This excursion into scientific theory and its nature, scientific method and its formulation, and current controversy and its analysis is presented to stimulate you into thought. Culture is not a sufficient condition for thought and acute analysis is always in order. It is what can make certain responses more incisive, sharp, clear and arresting. It helps remove confusion. Further, discoveries can the more readily be made when the cult of the forbidden is not followed. Evidence must be pondered and conclusions subjected to the discipline of reality in such a sphere.

The wrong-headed trend to reject culturally, as at one tertiary institution in this State, at which I taught, because it is not convenient, and not because it is wrong, without indeed giving it due rational interaction with those who present it, is in essence a form of cult. Is not what is culturally dictated in the dereliction of duty towards reason and evidence, a cult ? And in how many universities does one find evidence from Staff or students, of this deplorable cultic phenomenon: creation, or the grand issues of reality are forbidden.

What however is the 'cult of the forbidden' ? It is that cultural negativity, fear or subtlety (depending on motive) whereby certain matters are (ostensibly) ruled in advance of all evidence, 'out of court' - the court of culture. Whether it be deemed to be politics, religion or other field, the result is a mental crimping that too readily becomes downright dishonesty if not, indeed, hypocrisy. Certain things are out of cultural bounds, being inconsistent with desire, ethos, illusion or delusion; irrespective of their truth.

With religion, it may involve the detestable folly of pretending that evidential procedures are irrelevant, and, worse still, that it is illegal to be logical and alert with evidence and reason, lest emotions be roused. This subordinates truth to convenience and not for long may one justifiably expect the continuance of such folly, or of any society where it distinctively rules.

Reality is a dangerous enemy with whom to trifle by such policy and contempt. By this means, irrelevant irrationalities and absurdities - such as is organic evolution in terms of scientific method - may be 'allowed', in that by a mythical oversight, their merely mythical powers are ignored; whereas the more scientifically oriented view of creation is 'excluded' as 'religious'. (Cf. pp. 211-222, 226-234, 330-334 infra.) Christianity with open heart and incisive mind is quite freely availab1e for 'inspection' - and meets any intelligently administered critical test with overwhelming results, that are as unified as they are unique; and it alone systematically meets logical requirements of consistency and rationality (Refer Chapters 1, 3 and 10).

Thus this cult of the forbidden has become an anti-logical discriminatory device, protective of irrationalisms and, in educational circles, often excluding the only logical answer even from consideration!

 

 

NOTES

for Current Chapter 4

*1 See TMR, Ch. 8 as marked, for this.

For all the tragedy the illiterate concept of organic evolution brings,  ignoring logic, empiricism, scientific method and anti-verifications to the point of the utterly ludicrous (cf. SMR Ch. 2, TMR Ch. 1, Wake Up World! ...  Chs. 4-6 for example), it still brings a lighter touch.

*2

This figure, this majesty, this power, this puissance of joy and procurer of pardon, this activist of eternity and glory of wonder is seen in intimacy of involvement of each text in His numerous appearances in Isaiah, in consistency of presentation, sometimes intricacy of depiction, in a way which like a cord through a material, binding and exposing its integrality, exhibits its sequence and persists in its overwhelming dynamic. It is like a layer of pearls in a crown, a sequence of diamonds in a ring, all lustrous, sometimes dazzling, reflecting light with ease, demanding attention with a unity of brilliance and at the same time, a fascination of something hidden, now exposed. Its flashes are, like those in a crown, found at any point, as the light rests upon it, and its glows come equally without effort, as in the most magnificent of rubies, awakening now here, now there, resting a while in that light, suddenly flashing at any moment.

Thus do we find written this Isaianic account of The Messiah, so gloriously exposed in Handel's Messiah, a work which is one of the world's most evocative exposés of this wonder. Here in the Evangelical Prophet,  in word as later in Israel and Syro-Phoenicia, in work,  is the Commander indeed (Isaiah 55), the Leader and the Witness, the faithful witness of John in Revelation, the declaration of the very heart of God not by intermediary, but from its innermost self, the Word of God.