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Time Magazine (March 8, 1999) has once more excelled itself in confusion in the topic of creation.

Indeed, while dealing with it, it is hard to find any biologically relevant reference to it, on their part.

The great, fascinating topic is the 'evolution' of woman', and this is supposedly scientific.

However, amidst some of the best arm-chair philosophising one can recall, every kind of hallucinatory abstraction appears to be  indulged in, on premises of the most blatant and as normal, it would seem, undefended, and certainly indefensible kinds, it moves from one set of topical, typical, cultural obsessions about women, to another. Of these,  none are noticeably Biblical, ethical, moral or of the stature to which a human being is often seen to approach, and to which so much in conscience and psychiatry (cf. The Shadow of a Mighty Rock - SMR - Ch.4) so eloquently testifies, in those abstracted silences where nothing speaks so loudly to the stricken soul, as its emptiness, its lack of truth and of form and of savour, or its guilt, so well exemplified by Lady Macbeth. Nor does anything, as Jung indicates, so much as its need of authority, or indeed as we might put it, truth. However, Jung (op.cit) does not realise the necessity of TRUTH FOR authority, and so has a difficult scenario, even from his own point of view (loc.cit.).

We hear of tribes doing this and that, in this edition of Time; and we might indeed watch indeed the tribes in the New York centres doing this and that; yes tribes, for although it is customary to refer to people in this category as if they had to be dark-skinned or live in some wilderness, the concrete jungle is only one more aggregation of culturally pounded people, and again, some escape and many do not, the facilities for conformity to various evils which rule from time to time and place to place. As to trying to find out what one OUGHT to do (so that feminism might have some call and cause, for example), from such statistics as Time evokes, such imaginative scenarios and virtual impresarios, it is a priori impossible, hopelessly misguided and a lost cause. What one ought to do comes from the Maker.

As to that Creator, He has shown it in so many ways, in different places in history giving more and more attestation in practice in some of the areas where the word of God has in fact been practised, and by such contrasts with its ignoring, that it is a wonder Time did not think, in good time, to try those statistics. Yes even Time has to think, for time does not do it for them, or evolve thought for it.

Yet even they are not to the point in this respect - for example the statistics which show, as recently reported in the newspaper, that marriages which do not begin with 'trial marriages' tend to last longer relative to divorce. Helpful as that may be, it does not make it 'right'. THAT must precede. That is not normative, but directed; and it is usually normal, as Francis Schaeffer pointed out, to choose the sin path, which makes the statistics about as useful for morals, in the last analysis, as a keeping of tabs on gangsters in prison, to find out their ... customs on the use of drugs.

It has been noted, indeed if one recalls, in Time Magazine, that some of the Kinsey Report statistics (in days of yore) appeared to have had a selective base, not in accord with proper surveys. If so, that is very bad; but it is far worse to imagine that statistics make morals at all, or that one can lampoon, criticise, evaluate with some appearance of a correct point of view, what people did/did not think in terms of actual norms of behaviour, about women, about men, about relatives functions. THAT is history, not truth. History can exhibit the lies of man, and the forlorn follies of philosophy, but in itself, except it be the voice of God, it is quite dumb about what is right and wrong. IF you want this or that to be ASSUMED as a base at ANY time or ALL the time, well ... but THAT is a priori morality also. IF there is NO this or that at the head, then statistics merely reflect any folly, wisdom or pagan secularism, inhumanity or misconception, as the case may happen to be from time to time and place to place.

Do we find that necessary buttress for the absurd follies of evolutionism at all, that it should even plausibly be mentioned, far less highlighted here  ? Alas objective facts seem ill at ease, in this plethora of statistics and philosophy, inextricably intertwined, like great vines on a jungle tree.

But what would you ? If the real material to the point is absent, what is to be used ? That is one of the trials of being a believer in evolutionism.

The transitional cases where highly programmed (let us face the facts now and again, at least) information sources, equipped with directive capacity and incredible sophistication of mathematics and coding miniaturisation are seen to glide from one technical marvel to another ? Where pray are these ? The incessant miracles of mind which invent the transitions, as if Boeings were to update every now and again, slowly or quickly, it is perfectly indifferent, except that time tends to disguise the irrationality a little better, these appear in the mind. It is a wonderfully creative function that the Creator has given us.

They do not however appear in the world of evidential fact. Small wonder. What would you have, but mountains of miracles, marvels of construction, including the facility to be changing their programming specifications in the most astute ways, precisely as engineers labour with sometimes bewilderment, and then increasing authority in concert: yet without any engineers at all. For this, the language of logic again miraculously, is to be spoken without speaker, and its application made with a wizardry of effectual skill which makes our best look like schoolboys.  The mind of the evolutionist invents these things, or what requires them; but 'Nature' is NEVER seen to produce any of them. Life is not like that. You do not codify by accident, for chance is no mother to law. You do not imagine by lack of imagination, for mindless matter does not chatter, far less make elegant use of symbolism, logical, directive, creative. Words DO have meaning, and specifications DO require what is capable of the domain in question.

Thus even TIME itself, one means the Magazine, cannot create the endless lacks, the necessary lacks, the lacks which only God could have filled if He had a mind to do so, but which He did not fill, for His creativity, more like our own in this, did not keep scrapping the buildings in protoplasm which He made, in order to re-organise them into wholly different kinds, or even substantially altered ones. He made in their kinds, NEW ONES.

Creation has this facility for us all, according to its level. THAT is the way it works. WHAT we see in 'Nature' and in ourselves, it is precisely the same. Continuity of concepts, discontinuity of their application; new short stories, new machines, not obsessive waste of time in endless recasting of metals and reorganisation of complex procedures; but simply! voilà, we create what we have IN MIND! It is one of the most fundamental observable facts of the universe. Such imagined constant remodelling of what is already made ? That would be  an ENORMOUS task, like endlessly INSISTING on moulding and adapting the most elementary Wright Brothers aircraft, even to the point of the Boeing 707. It is the MIND which continues; the fashionings, the simpler models which may still exist for various purposes, are not so much plastic for children to mould; they are intelligent contrivances, which the apt and able mind makes for this and that, just as it sets out in construction anew, for wholly diverse but related goods!

Indeed, for anyone with ability to create direct, the horror of having to reconstruct with all the allied systematics and re-moulding of highly specialised functionalities, models first made to fit the topic and the task in the first place, or some quite different situation, is not to be desired. ONE of the evidences of mind is precisely this readiness to adapt within limits, use modules in different sites, and to re-commence as far as the models themselves are concerned, the REAL continuity, being that of the mind of the inventor, not the models of his making. And what pray do we FIND in 'Nature' ? Just that. Limited facility to alter within mind, and abrupt discontinuity beyond it; but modules fitting in different places. That is just one of the indications of intelligence, staring man in the face with a long stare, which the mass of academics in this field seem determined to return as if hypnotised to blindness. Let us however hasten to add that there are THOUSANDS of highly qualified academics NOT so blind, including men of the highest intellectual calibre in science, and of course, some of the greatest geniuses of all time, a point made elsewhere.

No, Time has nothing to say where there is nothing to be said in this case; and while that is, of its kind, a virtue, it does nothing to fill in the gap for all this 'evolution' which we are gravely told in headline type that woman has now been found to undergo. 'Organic evolution' does not mean intentional, purposive change; intelligent response; changes in ways based on custom, convenience or conscious oppression.

Not at all! The phrase intends the concept that the thing is developing of itself; except for theistic evolution, which in SMR (as also in Ch.1, That Magnificent Rock - TMR) we show to be totally contrary to three things: the Bible, the empirical facts and the logical necessities. What does not evolve does not have a theistic ground for not doing it.

It simply does not do it. Neither logically nor empirically, neither by observation nor by sustainable intellectual experiment does it stand; it falls only (cf. Repent or Perish, Ch. 7, End-note 1, and TMR as above).

Thus this marvel of modern 'science' about males and females over time, it is being authoritatively decreed from statistics, which even if slightly resembling the overall facts, are highly selective and utterly irrelevant. 'Evolution' is being seen in variation of custom for which mankind has the intelligent facility, moving backwards or forwards in moral terms, frequently - and where worse than in this century of stylised hate and idealistic carnage; and for this 'evolution', the ground is an abyss. What does counting tell of the comparison of moral qualities, the DEVELOPMENT of HIGHER and BETTER ways ?

Does arithmetic invent what is right ? Does custom assume the crown ? Which and why ? ^*1 Diverse concepts of action tend to arise in the exercise of intelligence in the human race, as also  in response to need and the use of opportunity. HOW this is resolved will depend, not least, on morals and concepts of God, or rejection of them, and which god, and what the moral characteristics of the same are deemed to be. Some of the most revolting pagan customs of old like the sacrifice of children, have not ceased, but merely changed some of their ingredients, we find, as we watch the greedy wars of oppression and desire.

We have used before the term meta-religion to attest the situation where the religion is factually robust, evidentially sound and logically necessary.

As shown in SMR and TMR, for example, that is the exclusive domain of the Biblical religion

• which focusses on Jesus Christ:
• as the son of the living God,
• eternal and express image of His (spiritual) Person,
• and incarnation definitive and unique,
• of God Almighty;
• as the One through whom the creation was made
• and in whom its salvation is attained,
• His work now finished as Redeemer, though many are yet to receive it,
• whom He foreknew in that wisdom in which He first acted in the universe

From this base, one can in a just sense, scientifically (for after all, as shown in the above volumes, scientific method is met ONLY, in these areas, in the Biblical depiction -  in the creation-evolution field)

• survey the various aberrations,
• assess their historical causes (if facts are abundant in any given case) and
• see the transformations upward, backward and sideways,

as the various assumptions are made, or the word of God is applied.

Where, as in one instance, it was asserted in the religion often found in one race, that women had no soul, then one might expect rather soulless ways of treating them to be evident not a little; and so one has tended to find in such a case. Where the tenderness and grace, the social skills and linguistic abilities often found in women in person-to-person matters, such as are in the first instance needed in dealing with children as a specialty, are to be seen as valued, then of course the usefulness of these qualities is a value-added to any such civilisation; whereas when this facility  is discarded, disregarded, then this value is in part aborted,  and the children show it.

The complete panorama of personality with its subtle differences however,  can provide, in a loving and truth-girded home,  more of the depth and dimension at the human level, which can bring more humanity and less brassy brashness or timid reticence. Appreciation can then more readily occur without fear or programmatic dismissal of what is there! Further and crucially, the awareness of God in particular, can where founded in the presented path from Himself, give a certain fearlessness and strength, allied with love and serviceability, where the Rock of Ages is the ground, and the dynamic of the Maker is available, as well as His pardon, so that the cap-stone and completion of it all, is no more missing.
 

Studies which have been noted elsewhere (cf. The Weekend Australian, Sept. 27-28, 1986) have certainly been of great interest on the early childhood trends in female children being more adept or alert socially and male ones spatially; but the combined capacity to note social and personal developments and to express them in detail and with finesse, one has in four nations found to be almost uniform in their centring in women. Shakespeare was a man; it is not a preclusive option for the female; but there are involved more than words: it is a combination, a synthesis of these and delicacy of perception and intervention which, however often misused, as are likewise the qualities of millions of men, nevertheless show themselves distinctively in many pastoral situations. We speak of trends, and on many sides, these appear.

However, it is not our purpose to be specific on questions which are of the utmost interest in their detail: merely to note that whatever be the way men and women assemble, interact and respond in their services, duties, responsibilities and tasks, what precedes is a whole structure of value, or morals and either religion (including the pre-emptive strikes of anti-religion which can thunder with 'authority, like any Mt Sinai, but with less evidential support) or philosophy or both in unholy wedlock, frequently subjected to sudden divorce and confusion.

It is not evolution but variation on an original theme, sometimes lustrous, sometimes murky, depending in the end on what is believed, and that - whether it be that might is right, which confuses the statistical with the moral, or that engenderers should be given much support in their vital and exquisitely delicate task, or any other moral consideration, from whatever source (and however illogically or rationally, from any source): it is this which is evocative. This, it does not evolve; it merely mirrors what is the light involved; and when that light as so often nowadays, is darkness, how great is that darkness! as millions of young babes before birth are mercilessly slaughtered as if life were a plaything. Certainly if this be evolution, the word means debasement, lack of spiritual perception, disregard for others, and its development is death. In fact of course that is nearer to it, and its capers have never created one visible thing, except a pitiless garbage can for flesh.

Before we leave this fascinating topic of creation from which so many seem to have fled, chased by a rabbit disguised as a lion, there is another feature which is arresting. It is this. Einstein (see SMR pp. 299ff.) has produced some marvellous evidences of uniformity, law and pattern in the universe - something in which he firmly believed, the pattern, order, disposition by mind in what is visible - and while his E=mc2  is a wonderful effort in showing something of the mathematical mental marvels to be found by looking in the universe, the ageing professor did not manage that entire integration of systems for which he looked. This is one of what may appear, prima facie,   baffling features of this universe, for many.

However it is perfectly comprehensible when you look at the FACTUAL REALITY of what creation is. It is not a matter, as we find as we ourselves create, of making everything come out of something, in terms of features, facets, principles or procedures. Part of the very essence of creation is this:
 

• the marvellous liberty, the soaring facility, the aspirant freedom
• to inject, intrude, involve, disengage, re-engage,
• acting with the vision of spirit,
• to produce principles that were not seen,
• move from this to that setting and area,
• invent areas indeed.
• These are some of the things we do when in the throes of creation - literature, drama, plans and theories.

Creativity is neither PREVENTED from using things in different ways, by making them, as it were, modules for insertion, nor REQUIRED to do this; and may with that exhilarating liberty which is one of its chief features, relate some areas with constrained and certain form (as in using some metre in making certain poems), while then discarding these, then use quite different modes of constraint, format and form in dealing with the same or different topics. That of course (cf. SMR pp. 252Lff.) is precisely the outcome as found in the wider creation, which stares us so gravely in the face (cf. TMR Ch.7).

Thus Einstein might be exhilarated by sharing with the Creator some of the uniformities and patterns He deployed and employed (to the extent, that is, that Einstein got it right) ; and then frustrated because some different approach is used in some other facet of the universe, showing indeed the oneness of the Creating Personality, but not the homogeneous fixation of His HAVING to do it all the same way. He, Einstein COULD NOT reduce it all to one comprehensive synthetic format. There were formats, penetrating codes, astonishingly regularities, but not all of the same kind, merely all integrable in the same mind. THAT, it is the essential difference; it is THIS which is found, and not the other. That of course simply verifies the theistic reality, and as always, the discontinuity so fatal to naturalism.

The inter-relation of order and pattern is able to be construed if one knows enough in a given setting; but it is no foregone conclusion, where creativity is involved, that the oneness will be more than that of the creative personality which delights in "making witty inventions" as the Bible expresses it  (Proverbs 8:12   ...). It is NOT in the end a question of having, ancient Greek style, all from water or fire or any other more or even less sophisticated (electronic, quarkish) feature. It is rather that the inter-relations, like those of sonnets and iambic pentameter styles such as Shakespeare so loved, will show beyond these variations, what ? It will exhibit the calibre and quality, the intelligence and wisdom which relates to the particular artist or scientist.

Life is broader than mere pattern; but uses the patterns here or there, with a uniformity which is not at all predicable. That is what creation evidences itself to be with our race continually. It is one of its features as one watches lower forms of life, to the point that such considerations are relevant, in the programmatic input; and less controlled in much,  as one goes further towards our own spiritual specifics and functions. To enable these in space and time, there are of course all sorts of cerebral integrations and correlations, the underlying equipment which thought uses, as a pianist uses a piano (cf. SMR pp. 316D ff.).

So the creation attests its Maker's creativity, showing not the MISSING uniformities of materialism, or evolutionism, the gradualistic ascents so wilfully fabricated by the unseeing eye of the observer, as if it were constrained by what was first made: no, not this (*2), but

1) the order and law on the one hand, and

2) the flights of fancy, if one may put it that way,

3) the similarities, and yet the divergencies so great as to constitute a totality not derivable in any part from another, but derived from the same mind which made all the parts, and to these imparted the partial, the place in the team as it were, the focus needed and desired.

What is made is not magical; it does not become a creator of itself, and increasingly we are seeing the methodical structures and strictures with which the Creator has endued living things, to react within kind. Yet what is made is diverse, and involves, as Denton emphasises so greatly and so well, a DISCONTINUITY evidentially, which has never been breached. Creation bristles with individuality and permits no sight or ground of mere continuity in which all the wonders merely merge in some sort of vitamiser and create new and more wonderful exhibits of life.

It does this, in diversity and originality and brilliant difference; but while it does this, it likewise shows the overall constraint of imagination and method, in its place, with diverse realities deriving from the continually attested ONE MIND of the Creator, who neither makes it all reduce to one something (HE is personal, not a quiddity), nor divorces it all from the one source. Therein lies the empirical fascination of life, of creation. It is not wild and erratic. Nor is it constrained and fiddly, feeble and without vitality. It exhibits the power of the creation and its resource: it has the method and its constraint, and at the same time, it flings itself out from its source, untamed by the blindness of philosophy, unintimidated by the philosophic assumptions of some scientists, but expressive of precisely what it is, CREATION. As to creation, now, THAT is the way it goes. In every field you see it, and not least in the creations of the mind and imagination of that creation, mankind.

Incidentally, as men and women, the two versions with their gender difference:  in their amazing diversity and similarity, specialisation of so much that would be useless until consummated into reality: they too express this totality of similarity and divergence, a most wonderful thing. These differences, delightful diversities of enduement of the man on the one hand, and the woman on the other,  often have they been exploited on either side, for the one or for the other; but this difference is one needing respect and delight, so that what it is may be both appreciated and utilised in both cases, for the man, for the woman, for the boy, for the girl.

These differences of gender (and for that matter of age, as between adult and junior), they are not a matter for  vying, ungrateful emulation instead of harmonious co-operation. It is not a case for frenetic speculation, with bitterness from past abuses, but rather for contemplation with just and mutually advantageous delight at actual differences on a common theme. It needs love, life, and that indispensable enduement of the Creator which is also according to His mind as we see in His word: a pardon, a regeneration of life and heart, to enable the perception and function to be alive and alert, thankful and co-operative in growth within the image made, according to righteousness and truth.

Without this ? Then - let us say it, these ingredients of family, they readily become a horror without love, as are children; just as is politics when contributions from various sources turn into artful manipulation, load boasting and feeble deeds. Love: it  is fitting where sin does not fit, and when it is found, then these delightful differences are as with so many flowers, what makes the garden.
 
 
 
 
 

NOTE

*1
There is an almost delightful, but certainly bizarre irrelevance about the concept of some arithmetical huddle, with people counting, oh counting, how grand! In this way, morals are born, right is discerned, appears to be the assumption: even though in a materialistic universe right does not exist, merely a compendium of preferences, according to its own moulding. We see by this mathematical means how progress is made, though we know not on its basis, where progress would go, or how it could be determined. Yes, oh yes, by counting how many times men or women do or have done this, advance can be recorded to BETTER, when what is GOOD is and on this basis, CANNOT be known. Now, THAT, it is certainly creative; but not logical.

Absolute morals enabling determination of UP and DOWN in the moral scale are derived somehow from the void, and evolutionary advance can be found, or imagined in the delusive preoccupation. Here lies the corpse of materialism with all its worms: you CAN trace an upward trend in the social life of mankind by MEASURING what some people do and have done, how much time being spent alone, together and so on! MARVELLOUS, but what is UP when nothing MEANS anything, no SCALE exists (for this philosophy) and IF IT DID, it would mean that the philosophy had been abandoned! So dies the tyrant that meddles with anything, understands nothing simply because it abandons any criterion by which to understand, in the miasmic sea of misty facts. In fact, on such a basis, they are merely reactions, but even if facts, they never could or would create obligation, righteousness, what ought to be. Why ? It is because WHAT IS is merely descriptive, and WHAT OUGHT TO BE is prescriptive. WHO puts in the rule, the command with which to prescribe ? Certainly not this statistical obsession.
 

2. Denton thunders on this point, as an expert and exceptionally well-informed micro-biological academic, in his EVOLUTION: A THEORY IN CRISIS, pp. 353ff.:

"Like the centrality of the Earth in medieval astronomy, the principle of continuity has come to be considered by most biologists as a necessary law of nature. It is unthinkable that it might not hold. To question it is an offence to all our basic intuitions about the nature of biological reality."

This, he says on the cultural oblivion which shrouds so much of the current academic earth in its new medievalism in this sphere. These are in the area of the conditioned intuitions of the many, as we see as he proceeds. (However, at that, evolution has by no means the hold that might be imagined on the general populace, the belief in creation, for example in the U.S., being immense statistically.)

On the reality of what is empirically there, open for actual inspection, however, Denton says this:

"The concept of continuity of nature has existed in the mind of man, never in the facts of nature. In a very real sense, therefore, advocacy of the doctrine of  continuity has always necessitated a retreat from pure empiricism, and contrary to what is widely assumed by evolutionary biologists today, it has always been the anti-evolutionists, not the evolutionists, in the scientific community who have stuck rigidly to the facts..." (Bold added.)

In other words, evolutionism is not a scientific theory, a fact shown in great detail and various aspects, in TMR Chs. 1, and 8.
 
 



EXCURSION INTO COMMERCE

While we are considering reductionism, the failure to acknowledge vital components of something not understood, or subjected to satire or disregard, in this case man as creation, let us append from 1997, News 22, a small item on the fascinating consideration in the field of commerce, which arises from the obsession some seem to have with profit. The point is made that profit is a useful index, a helpful by-product, but when it is the be-all and end-all, the soul is already sold. In a business, hwoever, whose or what soul!
 
 



News Item 22
Do Companies have Souls ?

BHP examines itself ...

The Advertiser, July 1, 1997

On p. 17 we find a drastic re-appraisal on the part of our premier magnitude company, BHP. It is true that one Australian earlier tried to buy it, but it still goes on as a company that runs itself.

"We want," says one leader in it, "to be the world's best resource company."

The best ? how does a company become one of those ?

Best ? The superlative of "good". But what is good for a company ? Some seem to think that because they are a company of many persons, with different values, religious and other, that therefore there is only one hard-headed, modern commercial mammoth course: get the most you can for the least outlay. "Yes," say some," best for everybody really, that way, and for us in particular." Why ?

Well, if we get the most, there is the most, so that there is more for all, is the line. But what if you get the larger share ? We earned it. Did you ? And do any earn less because of your methods ? Further: is your amassing the best development for all or any ? Is wealth the ultimate, whether in private or public hands ? Is all to be 'sold' for it ? is purchasing power the end and being of all life ? is means of life the main purpose of life ? is living a denaturised product which has no force, point or purpose - except continuance ? Nothing else is like that. Milk must not be bad. Air must be unpolluted. Beauty must reach its acme. Silver is polished. Why is money so different ? Does it not then have a place ? If not, then this is mammon, money worship, which like golf worship, is a disease that sees no place but itself, and seeing too little, spoils all.

BHP, we read, is to look at potential, product, interest and return: all is to be brought to the 11% or so line in due course. Re-structuring is on; many old things are off.

Now whatever BHP does is its affair. The principles however are grist for the mill of us all.
 
 



Does a company have a soul ?

Of course not, but is there no ethos, set of principles, selection of objectives, choice of purposes once people act together in a commercial enterprise! Is PROFIT the only and the greatest commandment ? Obviously not. MANY people, and some who become associated in firms, have principles of equity, earth preservation (it is hard to profit from a spent earth anyway), either for humanistic self-preservation or sense of responsibility before God, or a realisation that we cannot make it, so we had better look after it, or ... other. Such priniciples operate with some - indeed, with many.

There are those, like the famed Le Tourneau of earth-moving equipment fame, who have a creative genius which scorns profit and MUST secure the results, the adventurous and remarkable results that lift performance, achieve wonder and contribute to human development. Money in returns is PURELY INCIDENTAL, though obviously helpful, if it comes.

EFFICIENCY is entirely another matter: is there any need to wasteful in this world of work, in securing a good objective ? Competition is another feature again: is there any reason why others should be kept out of one's preserve (short of patent which is a form of prevention of stealing), and that one should not respond to, marvel at and seek to advance with other minds ? In this universe, it is an observable fact that self is not the centre, and any effort, personal or company, to make it seek so is markedly irrational.

Le Tourneau can engage us further. HE made such a concern about employes that you would think they were human - that is, had point and purpose in this life, other than being useful for companies, public or private. Charles Dickens obviously thought that had, and his evocative novels helped to change the dangerously depersonalising trend in British industry.

Employes, however, or employers (and some governments seem to treat these so badly that it would seem they want them to become an endangered species, which is worse than foolish):

WHAT, said Christ,

IS A MAN PROFITED, IF HE GAIN THE WHOLE WORLD AND LOSE HIS OWN SOUL!

(Matthew 16:26); or

WHAT SHALL HE GIVE IN EXCHANGE FOR HIS SOUL ?

Will he offer its captor something in order to secure its release ? If, filled with earthly cares, he loses all sense of value, and lives only to possess, becoming a sort of complicated cash register, so losing his powers of choice and the choice purposes he might have held: is this gain ? or can he regain his soul by offering some inducement to whatever now holds it a captive ?

What do you give when you have lost yourself ? The people of Hong Kong in many cases, appear to feel relatively content with the advent of the Communist giant next door; some with riches. But what is the power of riches, if your own body is in the possession of materialists who show their pity at Tiananmen ? Have they repented ? Not heard of...

Now then, a company can have principles, priorities and purposes, like any other operative being concerned with people, and to fail tor realise this is merely a tribute to a lost conscience, or soul, or life. Agreement to unprincipled action (in the literal sense of having no principles) is subservience, voluntary slavery. Having principles ONLY if they help profit in no way differs, except in method.

A company might elect the following principles, just for example:

1) Terrestrial - no ruin of the earth. Restoration of what is ruined if at all possible. Choice of the least ruinous methods.

2) Human - care for the lungs, bodies and minds of those concerned in operations or suffering as a result of them.

3) Moral - determination not to break appropriate moral laws: to be honest, honourable, reliable, faithful, to use talents with restraint and responsibility.

4) Developmental - desire to co-operate where possible in such a way that net gain is registered on all sides, not self-centred but contributing high quality with circumspection and sound knowledge.

5) Personal - decision to value workers not for their exploitation-potential, or their legal dangers if they go to court, but as people with whom one is working. Desire to encourage co-operative attitudes, without duress.

6) National - desire to avoid what will prejudice one's own country, without losing sight of one's quality contribution. Thus a nation needs certain industries for its defence stability, certain trades, lest international neighbours become 'tough' and hold one to ransom, as the Middle East oil cartel did with the U.S.A., helping in about one decade to bring that nation from being the world's biggest creditor to the world's hugest debtor.

While the USA's productive potential makes the loss less than fatal, in the long run it may be compromised heavily, especially if it does not acquire the resolve to pay back that debt, and so remains vulnerable to financial market blackmail, and so forth, by international lenders. This in turn could reduce its moral potential on the international scene, as it might be menaced and succumb to 'directions' of a subtle kind. Stranger things have certainly happened.

7) International - this might be either

a) security: if you put a couple of billion into China, and they nationalise ... was it your intention to bolster up their new economy, and is it this to which your vision directs you ?

b) stability - can you contribute to international stability in your enterprises, for the world is very flammable.

8) Imaginative and visionary - does a company KNOW what it is DOING ? CARE where it is going ? have purposes that, allied with production, contribute this way or that to mankind ? HOW does it contribute ? WHY does it contribute ? Is the contribution a vacuum which is always in the end, filled ... with something ? Is an empty head worse than an empty heart ?

Thus, yes, there are principles.

A company does NOT have a soul, but it projects something rather like one. If it CHOOSES to be unprincipled, to make profit the first and only object, to pretend that it owes it to its shareholders or other fantasies, this is only to say that it is spineless. Profit is a good gauge of efficiency GIVEN one knows what one is doing.

One can be efficient in going to hell; hardly commendable, though it does have a sort of latent merit. Biting a boxer's ear may be efficient - for limited objectives. Nothing however removes this question: WHAT ARE YOU AFTER ?

YOU CANNOT, repeat, CANNOT, be the world's best resources company until you are first GOOD. If you mean, the world's biggest getter of profit, best to say so. Nor can you yourself as an individual, or a small company member, evacuate your potential. ALL of life is before you: your principles indicate where you are, even suggest what you are. Is this what you want to be ? IF so, it is auto-classification, not necessity.

If you have not thought it out, best to do it. There is choice on all sides, and pretences that choices have been made for one are often the merely supine substitute for spiritual energy.

Said Jesus Christ, the coherence and beauty of whose life of power, authority and service are befitting for God's only begotten Son:

Whoever will save his life, will lose it:

and

whosoever will lose his life for My sake shall find it (Matthew 16:25).