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Chemical substances do not show a power to translate themselves into high order affairs. Their propensities, powers, capacities and characteristics are all what they are: true, there is no book of management, or servicing attached to each chemical, but there might as well be. What they do, when, how and (to the extent science discovers it) why, where, in what circumstances, it is all there. You find, collate, interpret, hypothesise, verify or otherwise, integrate theoretical notions and the like, sometimes with a saltation: that is, in your own mind, when you find that a new approach better covers all the facts. But the chemicals do not saltate their characteristics. They are substances, not acrobats!

Experiments exist which certainly allow the inherent capacities of simple chemicals to exhibit themselves under devised circumstances. Intelligence on material things can really do quite a lot, as any architect will tell us. The materials themselves may do some things too: as when copper roofs acquire verdigris, or flocculent precipitates show their wonders of design. However all this is inherent in, and forms part of the characteristics list of the chemical, as it were, from birth. It does it if you give it a chance. What, however, it does not do, is acquire a new design and device schedule in which a new set of listings appears. What it is, it does. That is the way it is.

Some chemicals, to be sure, when exposed to a set of circumstances, rather like some computers which display important bugs under certain sets of circumstances, will produce for you interesting exhibitions of inherent, inbuilt capacities. Thus amino acids have a proclivity to be formed in the presence of certain chemicals, provided you drain off what would produce a negative reaction to the contrary part (see The Shadow of a Mighty Rock (SMR)
pp. 129ff., 171ff.). Certain arms, proclivities, inherent actualisabilities if you like, are there. Combinations can be quite interesting and illustrate the amazing depth and delicacy which chemicals possess. Combinations, however, they are, not new designs. They do not encode!

They do not proceed to make the necessary left-handed proteins, or indeed proteins at all. DNA does not fall effortlessly, or in any other way, from their growing shoulders. They remain the contrivances of human intelligence when chemical intelligence is used; but at that, they stop dead at the limit provided by that intelligence. They do not arise to become some new take-off machine of chemical engineering. They go back and forth as situations arise and depart.

The Second Law of Thermodynamics traces out for us the trend of such overall reactions without external power-assist, here, beyond the universe - down. The notations of our observations exhibit the limitations of inbuilt reactivities.
 
 

Codes do not arise from non-codes; contra-circumstantial elements like left-handed protein structure do not arise by some magic; they tend to sort themselves out in terms of ordinary non-selection statistics. Life with its codes and specialised selection procedures of course is something else. It has provisions which - like any other machinery - are set up by what is adequate to utilise "nature", to obtain intelligent results, apt for a purpose, dependent on inserted structures. Programmable procedures lead to desired productions. This is nothing new. The latent potential for reaction in the materials and the patent program together do the architecture, whether in industry, computers or "nature". .There is no difference. It is just that apart from the living high-end, there is no intelligence in "nature": simply the evidence that it was used (cf. .SMR pp. 252E-N, 316D-G, 130-131, 135, 210-211,

224, 329-332H; and Magic Moments, in The Kingdom of Heaven...).

The structures, like human intelligence, DNA and so forth, these do what they are good at, secure what they possess attributes to perform. In our case, the misuse of intelligence vitiates those effects rapidly. However, in the abstract, we do have intelligence and what it can do, this we know. It can build on the basis of an understanding of other things, so that in terms of the power of the intelligence to create and conceive, and the materials to be used and manipulated - very strictly in accord with their powers from 'birth':

this or that can be "produced" ... or as in the case of war, reduced!
 
 

The spirit of man can soar and deploy intelligence in ever so many intelligent ways, depending on the vision, the perspective, the understanding, the cast of thought. It can - and to a large extent doubtless will - reduce designs here from 'birth' by a form of anti-celestial madness. This is true, and is being experienced, like a disease, in which not an individual, but humanity itself, is the recipient. Not all have contributed directly to this destructive, non-developmental warp; but all are in line to experience at least some of its ... products.

It is all so well summed up in that old verse: "That that is, is; that that is not, is not. Is not that it? It is." Matter has what is the unintelligent, reactive state, though the production of that state is riddled with evidence of intelligence. Mind has what that can do in conceptualising and analysing, though the way people's minds are used is in the case of millions, as much perhaps a measure of needless incompetence as of capacity. Such is the spirit of man. Spirits in turn do what they have power, from 'birth' to do: they turn and envision, probe and imagine, create and co-ordinate, sometimes displaying an insane desire to be like god, with results ANYTHING BUT divine!

That, however, is just what happens when you act as if mind, matter or spirit in any given display and array, is what in fact, it is NOT! The dream bites the dust and the dust bites the dream! Do the same in chemistry if you will. It will not change because high-minded notions are brought to play. The chemicals will go right on displaying their natures, as from 'birth' till its all over. That's how they were made; that's what they've got and so that's what they do!

For figs in nature, you need fig trees or seed, for intelligence you need mind-potential products, for spirit you need mankind, and above him, the intelligence producer who acted in the various phases of what is, which as we have noted, gets right on with being just what it is, for that IS what it is. Evolution in general, and efforts to gain life from non-life, or to get higher order from lower order always run into the same old downfalls. What is higher, in design and in intelligence input level from 'birth', is not obtainable by twiddling the dials of circumstances on something that is lower. You bring out its so very interesting features and qualities, its properties and propensities - and so ?

This is to display what it IS, NOT what it is NOT! And what it is, has been well enough named in the categories to which each kind of production belongs. Nothing has nothing to do with anything, and will stay that way, by definition; matter has much to do with inter-material actions, and will go on being what it is; life is fine in inter-vital relations, each according to the degree of height or craftsmanship with which it is 'born', and human life likewise, continues in its inter-personal relationships, which are usually far from being triumphant.

This is the only real challenge to thought in all this. WHY! Why should man with his exalted combinations in his trilogy of mind-matter-spirit, make such an incredible mess of inter-personal relations, when the personal is itself such a craftsman's paradise of invention. Making freedom, creating it

(cf. SMR pp 18ff., 30ff., 65ff., 88ff. - *22, 92ff. -*27, 254-302, 303-304, 307ff., 314-316B, 347ff, 403ff., 423-432),

deploying even limited but genuine liberty is a wonder, a marvel, it leaves computers as strictly utter child's play - though the children are so very wonderful, one is forced to admit.

In creating, then, some significant measure of liberty, God performed a complex prodigy

(cf. SMR Chs.1,3,10; That Magnificent Rock, Ch. 1;

A Spiritual Potpourri, Ch.4, section 4, pp. 34-39; The Kingdom of Heaven, Ch. 5).

But what has man done ? What moreover is he to do!
 
 

The answer is however obvious, not because of intelligence, but through the grace of the Intelligent Spirit who made it all to be what it is, which it goes on displaying in those terms of WHAT it is. Man has to the most profound degree found it desirable to ignore God - not in theory, for it appears by far the majority of mankind believes there is a divine being - but in application and practice. IN theory, man tends to downgrade God to god, to various types of construable, conceivable and very often manipulable by-products of his own thought. That of course does not account for things and is merely a sort of ingenious game*¹. Like all games, however, its results are real enough.

ANY failure to deal with actuality as it is, is fraught with peril. It is like driving blind at 100 m.p.h. on a highway that is not there, at night. Results are - to be sure - assured! When it is with the One who gave to what is here, its 'birth' - yes its creation, as distinct from not-being - when a person tangles with Him, theoretically and personally, by deriding, degrading or 'dismissing' Him, then of course the results HAVE to be profound. To have a tangled mess of thoroughly misconceived and utterly incredibly stupid human relationships at our own level is then virtually a sombre certainty. One says 'virtually', for it would not be at all amazing if this spiritual ONE saw fit, with intelligence, to quench the enterprise, limit the damage, or indeed simply damn the impudence of the voluntary madness of His liberated subjects.

That of course needs to be weighed. If this happens to anyone, there is really no excuse. It would not be unjust. However, the ineluctable evidence, as we have seen in SMR Ch.1and elsewhere, is that this ONE has had much to speak to mankind, just as His intelligence was likewise exercised in the construction of the chemicals, the matter, the universe, the mind, and the spirit of man.

The DNA CODE in man is speech in material format, and the BIBLE in language is speech in verbal format. It enables MIND-to-mind communication direct and in assured form, between God and man (SMR Chs.1,3,5,10). It signifies the new position. It is well worth reading since one's destiny, what happens to the sort of being that one is, is as assuredly revealed there as in any other field of verified observation, is the outcome shown for that matter.

Here the outcome is hell, or heaven. It is all inter-personal at this level. It is indeed a magnificent additive to the divine masterpiece in creating man, that even here there is creation.

The structure of salvation, available to man, has a beauty reminiscent of,

but starkly transcending the other beauties in the created universe.

This deals beyond the limited applications of mind-matter-spirit, in a fourth dimension -

Divine Spirit to human spirit:

the genesis and the essential outcome alike for man.

The Increate, eternal Creator,

having made for man a created format,

took one Himself,

to bring peace to all who receive Him.

He even descended to the womb,

and ruptured the tomb.
 
 

God has, in this FOURTH dimension (cf. SMR pp. 348ff.) then, created a way to INTER-PERSONAL peace. It is so with Himself, the Trinity, and it is so with others to whom His Son comes, those who receive Him. It is, from the infinitude of the Creator, never Himself without trinitarian fellowship, like an export by incalculable grace, to the mere level of creation, of the incomparable felicities which are His. It meanwhile elevates man, in the persons of the redeemed,  to such communion with God as was to be his, from the first, before he fell. It involves a DIRECT personal action on the LORD's own part, in which IN THE PERSON of His WORD, His SON expressed in human format, He provides for remedy, rectification, reconstruction of the spirit of man. (Cf. The Biblical Workman Ch.7, and Benevolent Brightness or Brothy Bane 87 and Repent or Perish Ch. 7.)

The design, in plan, as with so much of the DNA code, is simple in principle, but profound in practice.

The person, whom history has found for due observation in Jesus Christ, was predicted, and His qualities were predicated of Him in prophecy for some 1500 years, or a little less. Then He came and did all He had to do, and not the most refined disbelief has ever then, or since, been able to show in any ONE detail, a failure to keep the specifications listed (cf. SMR Ch.6). This was made manifest, performed, despite the fact that there has from the first been enormous motive to prove some error, for God had been in confrontation with the Jewish nation in vast measure for long (Malachi, Isaiah 30) and had predicted their rejection of His Son (SMR Ch.9).

These identification specifications for Him included:

• the healing of the sick in exuberant felicity and utter power,
• His own death, resurrection at the stated time, and at the stated date,
• the GOSPEL or good news of what He would do to enable the reconstruction of the spirit of man in detail - something which involved PARDON as well, since we are persons -
• the fact that the Jewish nation would reject this and HIM, and
• that many, including Kings in the other nations (Gentiles) would accept Him gladly in this magnificent inter-personal program. (See SMR Ch.9.)

Christ said: "I have not come to call the righteous people, but sinners to repentance" (cf. John 9:38-41, where He said: "If you were blind, you should have no sin: but now you say, We see: therefore your sin remains."). In other words, those who are too good in their own eyes to need pardon and reconstruction personally, these are too opinionated and self-secured (albeit on nothing) to be savable. They refuse the necessary 'operation', and hence are not subjected to it, or to Him.

Now it is true that HE is far deeper than this might suggest. HE has a FOREKNOWLEDGE, as we reasoned in SMR Ch.1, and as we read in the Bible; and He KNOWS those who are His, and will ensure that these take the operation (II Timothy 1:9; see Love that Passes Knowledge, in The Kingdom of Heaven...). Such are HIS inter-personal capacities - indeed they are unlimited - that He is quite able to do this without either violating the reality of the will of the person concerned, or allowing mere circumstances to do it.

The ONLY ground cited for condemnation in view of this available radical therapy, this death reversing arrangement, is this: "LIGHT HAS COME INTO THE WORLD AND MEN HAVE LOVED DARKNESS RATHER THAN LIGHT" (John 3:16ff., cf. John 15:21-23). That is the beauty of it all: those who in HIS knowledge are so disposed, get two things: WHAT THEY DESERVE AND WHAT THEY PREFER. Those who, despite being to the utmost depraved, if so be, undergo this therapy, get what HE GIVES. That ? It is eternal life (John 3, Romans 6:23, I John 1:1-4, 5:13, Romans 5:5-11).
 

It is like birth. YOU do not arrange or organise it. It is FAR beyond you. GOD however it is not beyond; and those who are His, He secures, making it very clear that HE WOULD HAVE all to repent, turn to a knowledge of the truth of their Creator-Saviour and be saved. Yet He is NOT prepared to void their liberty; nor yet to allow it to act as if it were a god. HE secures what is appropriate, and the magnificent irony is this: it is not even AT ALL, a matter of saving the best. In many cases, it is in some aspects the worst (I Corinthians 1:26-31). It is a matter of leaving what prefers darkness where it is. If that is to be the PERSONAL nature of those of this category known as mankind, so be it. They were not made to be violated. He secures PRECISELY whom He will, and leaves PRECISELY those who prefer darkness, and HE knows the difference.

God is love (I John 4:7), gives it its name and provides from Himself its place. In this result, then, His love rests content - but not before it acted to the uttermost (Galatians 3:3-13, 5:1ff., 4:4ff., Titus 2:11ff., 3:4ff.) In the end, NO FLESH, no pretension, no self-exaltation in kind or degree at all will be suffered; for all have sinned, and the cost of reclamation is infinite.

You wish it? Receive Him for WHO He is and receive with Him, WHAT He has done, so that personalised for you, it gets within, He moves within, and you and your God are once again, together. Peace is a glorious thing when it is with the right Person for the right reasons...
 
 
 

End-Note

*1
So much is said so ineptly here, that it would be a good idea to use some definitions. Thus cultural religiosity, man-made religions and so forth, could be called, as now, religion, religions. On the other hand, God directed declarations, intimations, announcements to our race, and all that concerns Him, could be called:

"meta-religion".

These would be in the area where there is open test, clear evidence and impeccable logic, so that in nothing does it lack. This is the religion of more significance, beyond the intellectual pabulum of mankind, the imaginative temporary fillings in his mind. It is knowledge of God, starting from His word, His universe and His will as declared. (See SMR Chs. 1, 3.)

Here is the religion which

• attests ITSELF,
• works,
• does what the Speaker says - ALWAYS.

Hence it is the religion where

• when God speaks, it is so. (See SMR Chs. 2,  3, 8,  9, 10; That Magnificent Rock Chs. 1, 7, 8)

 
• when God predicts,

 

 

it happens.
 

The ONLY ONE who could have this record is the One who does have it, God Almighty, declaring Himself and doing what He says; and none stops Him, for none is able (cf. Isaiah 43:11).

• Based on the immediately inspired written word of God,

• it is the offspring of the Almighty.

• Brought from heaven to earth, it is founded on the work of Christ, co-Creator and Redeemer, the Living and Eternal Word of God.

• manages history,
• directs the future,
• declares what is coming, appeals to mankind,
• provides even in the flesh the need,
• demonstrates resurrection and
• prepares for the judgment of those to find then the God who made them, in blessing or reprobation, according to the case:

 

 

and THIS is the condemnation that light has come into the world and men have preferred darkness;
and THIS is the commendation, that those who receive the Lord Jesus Christ are accepted in Him. (John 3:15-19, 5:19-23, Acts 17:31,Ephesians 1:5-6.)

{See SMR pp. 44-45, 88-89 (*22), 92ff.(*27), 313-315, 269, 580-583;That Magnificent Rock, Ch.7, pp. 159ff.; Titus 1:2.
This is a glorious incapacity,
for lying involves a derogation of the minimal majesty that God Almighty necessarily has,
and voluntarily uses, as shown.}

Another definition of meta-religion:

That which is able to both challenge and withstand the strongest challenges of men: as from another category, before which their unaided thoughts melt like metal in the furnace.

One of the demonstrations of The Shadow of a Mighty Rock, to which may be added That Magnificent Rock, is this:
 

that in any contest,

• there is no competition concerning truth, only noise, in comparison with the word of God, the Bible.

• there is personally, an incomparability which applies perfectly with the Son of God, Jesus Christ, the living word of God incarnate;

 
• while the control of God, the prophetically predicted history

 
• comes equipped with what is often a  (literally) painfully obvious presentation, but essentially with a necessary and benevolent one for mankind, continuously attested.