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Volume 13 (No.1), CREATION EX NIHILO, Technical Journal, 1999, pp.29-32
and recent news of the world record.

In this article, the view is presented that Jay Gould's book, Life's Grandeur, though fundamentally astray nevertheless has some telling points which should awake some of the old earth creationists to their position.

Now doubtless such creationists should be awakened, as seen in The Shadow of a Mighty Rock - SMR, Ch.2, That Magnificent Rock Chs.1,7 and elsewhere. Doubtless also, for reasons which teem on this site and are often referred to, Gould's book is fundamentally astray in its evolutionism. However, the link is the point. There seems little in the review of Gould's book which gives EVEN a plausible ring to its gullible seeming contentions at the level of progress. Gould is against the concept of evolutionary progress, in order, it appears, to foster the nice, religious position that atheism so likes these days, that it is meaningless and so forth (the rebuttal of which, logically, appears in SMR Ch.3 et al.).

It is pleasant and congenial, it seems for such as Gould to remove the hinterland idea of progress, so that a pleasant philosophical panorama of meaningless do-anythingism can appear on the surface of barren history, like meteorite craters (no doubt with a peculiar appeal to some!).

However EVEN THIS  - even on Gould's generic world-view where casuistry replaces causality - is not so. (As has been shown generically for this type of position in SMR.)
Let us examine the position here a little more closely.

According, then, to this critique in Creation, Technical Journal,  the wonderfully sophisticated seeming position is made by Gould^*1 that there is not really a record of increase in complexity, no not even in size, from the past, as the message to the present.
 
 

Really ? It is true that the single-cell is highly complex; it is also true, as Denton points out that there is not the slightest evidence of any cell evolution. They, the cell tribe, come starkly superb from the start and show no ways of variation upward by convenient (or even inconvenient)  increments. They are UP already. It is however true that multi-cellular creations have to possess not merely the singularity of their complex marvels, but the addition of team-work facilities.

It is true that whales and huge creations are in size splendid, and man is smaller; but size, though often for some reason, brought in as some evidence of the unevidenced process posited by evolutionism, is not the point. A child can make a huge paper aeroplane which is nothing compared with the work done on a silicon base in a micro-chip: it may be millions of times bigger, but that is not impressive WHEN and IF we are looking for something which could be called PROGRESS.

When a bevy of creations then appear, with various aids, such as consciousness,  reproductive facilities, or instincts embedded in programs which exhibit marvels of mathematics, which would take colossal efforts far beyond any known capacity, for man to duplicate even with the greatest teams of scientists, then there is obviously an array of new features which in team-work require ever more sophisticated, wise and ingenious provisions for their synthesis. Our constructive enterprise, ludicrously beneath this even with the splendid equipment we possess as humans, could not manage this; but IF we could, it would require FAR MORE to create.

When emotions also bedeck the scene, and rational thought, personality and the analytical capacity leading to prediction, verification and refinement, to the whole mass of integrated, cogitative, observation-related synthetics, called science, but really just a form of knowledge relating to a formula of method: then far more is needed again. The very creation of the freedom: freedom  to be aware of principles, to express them and to redress them, to perceive guilt in failing them and experience ecstasy of aesthetic thought in doing them justice, as we have often seen in this site, is of itself so far beyond anything merely programmable as to be stunning to conceive, at the creative level: that is, if one were to seek to create it. Man does not do this - that is create it, however much he may try. It is as far beyond him as the realities of his spirit are beyond the arts of psychiatry; and more.

There is - if one allows even a modicum of the concept that first there was the single cell, then multicellular bodies, then multi-functional models with ever-increasing total synthetic powers - undoubted progress. Now it is true, and this point is worthy of stressing, that the progress is not in all features. Thus cells are cells, however specialised they may become; enormous ingenuity is displayed in earlier phases. The Creator has always been wise (cf. SMR Ch.1, That Magnificent Rock, Chs.7-8). However the total synthesis of paradigms, the array of concerted capacities undoubtedly increases; what was not there, comes to be there, functionally, in dimension and depth; and what is moved into place is also moved into collaboration with other specifics (see here SMR pp. 329ff., and 140ff., with That Magnificent Rock, Chs. 6 and 7, and A Spiritual Potpourri, Ch.6).

What He is about - always brilliant in His compositions - is a gradation at once monumental in functionality, in abrupt advance, and a diversification, in principle ingenious in its plasticity, within kinds which produces the prototype stability and the ectype diversity, the latter buzzing like bees about the hive of the prototype. Not only so, He TEACHES with His principles as well as with His productions, for WE should also be exceedingly distinct in our obedience to basic principles, stable and fixed in kind, but very mobile in our applications of them.

Further He TEACHES even through the scope of His productions, some of the ugly walruses which lie bloated on their islands, with harems and bulk, indicative of the grosser possibilities for human settlement, while their skill in the waters reminds us that all is not always as it appears; the ants show their indefatigable diligence and attention to duty even at sacrifice, the bees their communicative splendours and team-work, the stag its nobility, and man ? He shows the incredible seeming scope of the human SPIRIT for squalor and delicacy, for service and selfishness, for sacrifice and sequestration, for wisdom and folly, for worship and idolatry: a production of a magnitude of brilliance which can in itself be brilliant with reflected light from the Lord, or tarnished like something hurt, harassed and humbled within.
This then teaches us a further element of direct relevance in our current survey.

Not merely are their functional diversifications, then, in the steps of abrupt creation; there are the overall results, the product type or calibre as ONE WHOLE.

Thus, the TOTAL, integral result is NOT ONLY this increase of FUNCTIONAL sophistication; it ALSO occurs in a unit of amazing and all but incredible capacity, as one whole. MAN, to return to our example,  pirouettes in precision, thinks in depth and envisages with wonder: the mere fact that he is so philosophically muddied and intellectually muddled about himself notwithstanding. If he is pathologically woven into the witlessness of sin, this does not diminish the calibre of the thing caught. He is like an accident with a Jaguar motor-car: climbing the lamp-post does not dignify the car, but the way it threw itself at it was impressive, as was the preliminary jaunt before it was caught. Now and again, when it is not at the panel-beaters for some particularly mad 'accident', like sharing World War II with Stalin, against Hitler, it produces tomes of extraordinary brilliance.

The point which really needs to be distinguished is simply this. IF there were sufficient cause for the thing you get in this world, namely in terms of observation and logical prerequisites, a result; and IF this basis or producer or productive facility were working away merrily (or sadly, I suppose, the emotion not necessarily being determinative of the functional powers) within something or other (not seen of course), where it took up abode incognito (for just as it is never seen, so works from it are never seen, but there you are, this is what 'science' for some is becoming!), then of course it might slip up and fail. It might similarly  take it into its head or cognitive apparatus or whatever other mystical site imagination might supply, to go backwards (from this or that point of view), or for pure contrariness. It might be regressivist in tenor, temper or trend. It could not be witless, since wit is what it invents. It could be perverse and annoy progressivists. That is prima facie, but in logical actuality, it is not a possibility (SMR Chs.1,10).

• However the ideas of some principle

 
• (which merely denotes a law, the cause of the law being still to be determined by the sufficiency required for the thing itself, the procedural reality back of it, of which law is the verbal statement)

 
• doing all this are merely a contradiction in terms (cf. SMR pp. 159ff.).

The idea of some hidden something doing it, when it is paralysed long since and never located or evidenced in any slightest way, is otiose, a sure contender for Occam's razor. It is an explanation with nothing to explain.

When we get back to what it takes, as demonstrated repeatedly and in particular in SMR Chs.1-3,10, then this is a Spirit called God. God made things in progressivist mode, not bandying about His terms in facile futilities, but in myriad abundance, as Genesis 1-3 indicates, and as to life, with decisive, non-manipulated fixity OF KIND. That is what we see of course, and those who do not like God as a being, or the idea of such a being, always tend to try to avoid the fact; but it - like its cause, the Creator, remain where logic has indicated and where works evince.
 

GOD WAS PROGRESSIVE in the creative stages, not in mere complexity, though that is involved in the synthesis of ever more advanced mental and spiritual specifications ending in man; and the evidence is of course just that. Oh it is true that He cursed the rebellious contraption called man - a marvel and a wonder when without sin, but a heaving disorientation when ruled by it, like a lost child with various penalties for the performance; it is true that THAT was not progressive; and we are not extrapolating, as if God HAD TO (He is necessarily free - SMR Ch.1, That Magnificent Rock, Ch.7) make things which went upwards in synthetic compilation. It is true that this was a FALL and indeed more, a DOWNFALL for man. Yet this merely in this context needs mentioning, since the issue is the advance in things made, not the corrections and penalties of their obsessions and regressions and rebellions, an operating matter, not a matter of creation per se. In this, the creation, then, God the Creator exhibited a certain progression.

MAN is not progressive, since in the muddled muddiness of his musings of this 20th century he has shown the utmost determination to run away from the obvious, the necessary and the essential. The world has whirled away and man's mind has whirled and whirred with it, a source of such confusion that it is all but unbelievable. Thus the USA, having looked after Taiwan for some time with eminent displays of force, and having, as it would seem, allowed China to grab sensitive technology of rocketry (very possibly in part by Presidential decision, in a commercial setting, according to report),  and likewise to acquire more sensitive technology of neat little atomic bombs (by the reports of some, through artful 'intelligence'), cute weaponry hard to detect and destroy, now finds what ? Indeed having protected  Taiwan rather dramatically as recently as 1996, US politics now seems more at home in the straits of Taiwan nautically, than those which occur politically.
 
 

July teems with the news of the confrontation, excitation, protestation and estimation of these things: not least,

• Taiwan's robustness and the fragility of fine China;
• China's robustness and the vulnerability of island Taiwan.

• Bluster and fluster, fury and policy, strategy and liberty: all are embroiled. It provided the nth degree quite neatly, of the Biblical trailer of the contemporary scene:

 
• wars and rumours of wars, men's hearts failing them for fear, with the forecast that evil will grow ... yes, in effect, like Topsy (Matthew 24:6,-12, Luke 21:8-11) in the scenario of which the present is the counterpart. We note it, but do not for the sake of verification, gloat over it; for it is a terminal illness for the world, the antidote being supernatural, though naturally expressed, in the person of the only Saviour Jesus Christ (Acts 4:10ff.).

• 'Oh no! how really naughty these children are, talking about 'two nations', in the case of Taiwan and China. Taiwan really should do better than that! This makes China explosive, and explosion is not good for commerce: it can obviously hurt it. We do not NEED to unsettle existing vocabulary: it is surely, two political entities within one nation.'

It is however simply to note that when a totalitarian, mainland regime (more so than Taiwan now, by a very large measure indeed), with a diminished economic situation (compared with Taiwan, taking the income per person in each case) would like to co-opt a body of its nation which escaped its violence, it would not seem obvious that the two should be ONE NATION.  It would rather seem that anything less like one nation could only be sought in the case of Russia and the USA during the cold war.

If now Russia has said, 'Look US, we were together in the war, and hence we were really one people at bay, so let us stop calling each other two nations, but rather two political entities in one nation' : then that might be more ludicrous... But would it ? Perhaps not: for in that case, they really were on the one side at one time - in World War II; but now ? In the case of China (what was left on the mainland) and Taiwan (what escaped the atheistic butchery shop), they were ENEMIES before the separation! Let us be fair: the killing was perhaps in some cases ideological as well as atheistic, and history was in some mystic communist way perhaps deemed to sanction the slaughter. It is just that they died anyway, and those doing it were not at all gods... Moreover, one can rejoice with poor China that part at least of her has escaped the authoritarian scourge of man playing God, without the ability or the right, which is exemplified in communism. (Cf. SMR pp. 127, 656, 707-708, 750B, 849-850, 862, 925ff., 971-972, 1077.)

This distant attitude to Taiwan, the Communist aspirations there and the cost implied, merely illustrate the guise of disguise, the princely deceptions or self-deceptions, and the all but incredible efforts which seem to emit this principle: truth subordinated to convenience, whether biologically or politically, socially or academically.

• Is this true then, for many in the muddied muddle, in all things ? for some perhaps.
• But for many, it is mainly where the truth hurts, like a rebellious shoe.

After all, as we see in Joyful Jottings Preface, pp. 1-2, researcher Dr John Ashton notes the zealous preoccupation with philosophy in the area of evolution, despite refusal of the facts to co-operate; and indeed, in his article there noted, after referring to the Law of Biogenesis and its implications, he declares: "When I read this, I understood why many millions of dollars were being spent on search for life in outer space. Without making it too obvious, scientists knew that for the theory of evolution to survive, they had to find evidence that life had come to Earth from outer space. But this discovery still would not save the theory of evolution." Moreover, "this discovery" has not occurred! It is a 'discovery' which is mandatory for folly and exhibits its character. It is needs-based!
 

• The discovery which has occurred is found in Joyful Jottings 26, The Space Race was Over Long Ago. It may also be found in A Spiritual Potpourri 5. When you are interested in what IS verified, what IS logically required and what CONSTANTLY INCREASES THE SCOPE OF ITS VERIFICATION (proper subject of science), whether it be in the field of prediction or of confirmation of concepts, and ask for this in a deposit of some thousands of years of age, in order to make the thing unique, the answer is the Bible. That is shown in SMR, That Magnificent Rock, and elsewhere, in detail over many fields, not least those of logic and scientific method.

 
• But man ? He is very disdainful of late, perhaps because of his world record ? Mysticism for misery seems to be the formula, whether the obstructionist fallacies of atheism or the miasmic inventions of New Age (SMR Chs.1, 10, together with pp. 979ff.; 867ff)..

 
• You know of that, the world record, don't you ? The record in seen not least in China where religion is increasingly taboo (even if it claims not to be religion, as in the case of  the multitudinous Falun Gong movement ), and oppression has this name: the PARTY MUST HAVE CONTROL (no 'party' as it would seem to the free!)... It is found, this world record, in Rwanda, in Biafra, in Kosovo, in India-Pakistan, in China-Taiwan, in Kashmir, amid the Tutu and their associates ... in South Africa where Aids is blooming, indeed in the sub-Sahara continent according to the latest Time, to the point that experts are amazed at the apathy about it all ... but why increase the litany. It is NOT a subject for praise. The world-record needs recording but it is not impressive in its moral tone, spiritual attainments or level-headed facing of facts about the inhabitants. Where then IS there due and true topic of praise, unalloyed and uncounter-manded by folly ?

 
• If you want, that, look at Christ, as in SMR Ch.7, pp. 582ff., and Ch.6; and the Bible in its immense resolving power for chronic human philosophic problems, as in Ch.5. Then look within, and do you find Christ ? It is time, you know, that you did (Romans 8, I Corinthians 5:19-6:1). Time does not stand still; history progresses even amidst its regressions; it moves; and the current regress has a termination point (Matthew 24, II Thessalonians 2).

 
• You may wish to revisit A Spiritual Potpourri, Ch.1 here. It is placed below. If you want the whole article, this too is available.

 

 
 



NOTE - A Little Excursion: Care to Join us ?

LIFE WITHOUT "WALLS" IS A MORTUARY, WITH THEM IS A PRODUCT

*1
It is true, as the Creation article suggests, that Gould has something of a way with words, but it is essential not to be mesmerised by the slim logic which often goes with the acute observations of data. This is not uncommon: specialisation in capacity, and when spiritual things are concerned, it is more common yet, to abort the findings with the philosophy, alas unsubtle and unsound.

The concept, as reported, of "walls" which are a boundary is of course wholly diffuse and unsatisfactory for any open universe.

In a completely open and meaningless universe, there are no "walls" from which to bounce only upwards, no directional constraints, no forbidden alleys, no no-nos, no convenient exclusions, no elevations by surreptitious invasion of phrases. It goes anywhere; and that of course in this universe - the one that is here, the one that science investigates - did not do. THIS one has multitudinous walls, and walls require building (cf. SMR Chs.1,10).

What this universe does do - being visibly complete in synthetic thrust upwards - is to slowly run down, fail, lose diversification in distinctive biota and physical features, whilst retaining much of the splendour of the original splash of law and energy, design and machination, as it goes. It was not made for a day; nor yet for eternity. Its energy is limited.

The universe - the one to which data relate, as distinct from other ones which are constructions of our imagination and hence relate more to that faculty than to actuality - decidedly apes the plight of our own products, though it is better made, being a temporary housing for eternal issues, as we learn from the demonstrated truth of the Bible (SMR Chs.1-3,10), and not a little by observation of the 'lessons' handed out to the 'students' who surge through history, with the inestimable privilege of being able, if willing, to watch what happens! As to this actual universe, the sheer magnitude of its colossal scope of invention and extent, does nothing to mask, in order, the simple directional fact of its creation, subsequent desecration, and now as a vehicle, its continual decline, aptly summarised in an observation-based scientific law - that of entropy.

Psychological desires to the contrary are mere phrase-mongering; in fact, they operate as substitutes for salvation, which however for its part requires remedy, and like the universe itself in its origin, work! It is indeed fortunate for us who need grace, that it is available; that THAT work, like the first in creation, has been done; but it is far more than that. The ONE who made us, has it, the remedy; we need it and this adroit assemblage of need and provision is no accident.

WHAT we are and WHAT HE IS are related as creation to creator, and in our own case, as image-bearer - persons in parallel - to original, so that our infamy as a race is matched by His sublimity. Yes, work had to be done to rescue, and this - like that for the construction of the universe and ourselves at the first, has been done. It is that of Christ upon the Cross, and in breach of the tomb; and all the superb wisdom and righteousness with which he crafted, created by action through wisdom, the way of salvation in and through His life on earth, fulfilling the counsel in heaven. Not with prayer-wheels and physical exercises does this come, nor with moral self-congratulation or that of one's fellows; for God is not man, that He should be impressed with imperfect projections of pride, self-will and perverted imaginations which idolatrise man, his methods or his madnesses, often expressed in vile theories contrary to all reason and fact alike, whether social, political or biological.

To take one of them, we observe that chance as king has no subjects - the concept being self-contradictory at its apex: chaos needs something to work on, that is not chaos, in order to have anything characterisable at all, and the correlative privilege of existence (cf. SMR Ch.3 all - esp. pp. 264ff., 284ff.).

God has pronounced man 'dead' in the sense that his cause is hopeless, his ruin assured, his malady incurable: EXCEPT in terms of the work which HE, GOD Himself,  has done. It is a one-stop shop, salvation, and the PRICE is already paid as well. As in the first, the creation was not billed for its having been created! so at the last, we are not billed for the construction of the bridge from sin to salvation. It is built. Christ has paid in full by death for the judgments to be revoked willingly by justice, that mercy might rule (cf. Psalm, 85:9-11, II Cor. 5:19ff.).

Yet this bridge, though beautifully built, still has to be crossed; and while structurally, this is simplicity itself, for it is  stable and sure, convenient and accessible, yet failure to cross it produces just such marvels of imagination as befuddle man, and reduce his plight to ever new depths of confusion. Accordingly, how often in philosophy do we find,  in desperation, concepts such as this concept of walls from which things are to bounce upward only, by designs which announce themselves from nowhere, with a power to think which is not there, and conceptual displays which are to come from no mind.

The bridge ? WHEN it is crossed, then the second free action of God is completed for the person concerned; and the passage is not merely free, but assisted through the grace of God, who being love, and never exhibited in the wild morasses of self-driven wars which pollute our globe, has an interest that is gloriously rich in mercy, for those whom He thus rescues. Thus,  He calls saying: "WHY DO YOU SPEND MONEY FOR WHAT IS NOT BREAD? AND YOUR LABOUR FOR WHAT DOES NOT SATISFY. LISTEN DILIGENTLY TO ME, AND EAT WHAT IS GOOD, AND LET YOUR SOUL DELIGHT ITSELF IN FATNESS" - Isaiah 55:2-4.

He proceeds to speak of the One given as "a witness to the people, a leader and commander to the people", of the Messiah predicted to come around 30 A.D. (SMR pp. 886ff.), who accordingly did so, on time,  as is the rule in the word of God and its fulfilments. He then calls: "Seek the Lord while He may be found, call upon Him while He is near: Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him turn to the Lord: and He will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon" - Isaiah 55:6-7.

Thus remedy, duly announced, has followed on creation, from which in turn came sin. It is all covered, with this wonderful difference, that while the creation is designed for a temporary period, the salvation is eternal: "Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and look on the earth beneath: for the heavens shall vanish away like smoke, and the earth shall wax old like a garment, and they who dwell in it shall die in like manner; but my salvation shall be for ever, and my righteousness shall not be abolished" - Isaiah 51:6.

The opportunity for it, however, like the day of creation, will pass. The Lord will not always strive with man (Genesis 6); and as last time the flood led to a certain evacuation of pollutants from, the surface of the earth, next time it is to be more intense and final, through the fire which is to abound very much as atomic law indicates, and the Bible intimates, though whether the Lord will operate at another level or not is His affair. It is just that what we have learned this half-century is in full accord with what HE SAID nearly 20 centuries ago, that we should be looking for and hastening towards "the coming of the day of God, in which the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved and the elements shall melt with fervent heat" - II Peter 3:12. We have seen something of that already, on a small scale.

To revert to our earlier theme, having looked at essentials and developments as shown in the always verified word of God, proven earlier and constantly a light to explain all things: the wall which we create, the one which should concern us, which was not present in the original creation, is that of sin. Things do indeed bounce from this wall, not in the original, and they bounce only downwards, lacking constructive facility, which always helps when you want to go upward. It is all so easy: going downhill has a certain naturalness about it; and if you love what is natural, this may be for you. It is just that, like the canyoning episode which has disadorned this last part of July 1999, when you play about you need to realise the forces involved, which can swamp you and carry you down to benumbed drowning in your own exploits. To be a glutton is natural, if by this you mean, follow your own inclinations; to be a bore, a political disaster and store away billions in Swiss accounts, so very natural, to a diseased and morally obese nature.

It does not however do any good. The way to life is NARROW and CONSTRAINED, takes pains and progress; HE has created it, YOU need to follow it (Matthew 7:13ff., 21ff.) . The RESULT is guaranteed (John 10:27-28, I Thessalonians 5:9-10)  in the Saviour who made it; but the progress is equally assured, even if chastening is needed from time to time, when fallen 'nature' wants to flex its wing stumps and despatch you on the rocky path.

The 'madness' of man (Hosea 9:7) and his inventions, whether moral, intellectual or spiritual, does not alter, as if by some sort of survey statistics, the precision of the Lord who made us, the necessities of salvation. He is not influenced by masses; He made them physically, and deals with them individually, right down to man, whose composure leads merely to exposure, when the imagination rests, and reality is savoured. The Gospel is as secure, yes and more so, for it is not merely a creation, but constitutes HIS WORD, on whom all things depend, as the rising of the sun. It will not resign, but rather: "If any man preach any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him be accursed. For do I now persuade men, or God? or do I seek to please men ? for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ" - Galatians 1:9-10.

There are many 'gospels' for the gullible (as in II Cor. 11:1-11), but the one that counts, if from the One who has made counting, the Creator, whose word has not been lost or replaced, but knows His own mind (Isaiah 40:11-15, I Peter 1:24-25, Isaiah 59:21, Joel 2:11,32, Psalm 111:7-8). It is time we in our race learned what it is, and following it, found the jewel past all loveliness, the love of God the Creator, whose magnitude of operations does not alter the splendour of His zeal for man, but illustrates the grandeur of His power, whose love is well matched to it, yes, surpasses it.

Meanwhile our brilliant desecrations of truth, environment, bodies and minds of men, whether by philosophic follies, academic duress, betrayal for comfort or gain, hatred and revenge, aggressive self-display, individually, nationally, racially or ideologically, merely ask for judgment, as maggots for the dust-bin. It is better to be in the meat-safe, where the pollutant is excluded; better yet to be alive, in the Lord whose life is so abundant it reminds one of the springs and the surgings of Spring waters when snow melts, cool and lovely, thirst-quenching and altogether surpassing. See Jeremiah 2:13, 8:9, 10:11, 17:13, John 10:1.

*2
See That Magnificent Rock, Chs.2-3, and The Kingdom of Heaven ... Ch.10
 
 
 

It is good to be creative. The Maker of man was so, and hence we, in His likeness in mind, though abysmally less in power, are creative. We create theories, not all good.
 
 

One of these says that we 'just grew', like Topsy, amongst the wilds. However

1) when we look for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence units, or space-men, or XTs, what do we find? None. The expectation relates to the idea that others too, just grew...

2) when we look for Extra-Terrestrial Life, XTL, there is furore, but facts do not co-operate, no not when billions are spent in the search.

3) when we seek supermen, SM, on the ground that some might just grow better in the wilds of our 'cultures', we find disillusion, betrayal, pride wounded and nations destroyed. Hitleresque pictures do not work, any more than do Communist bee-sweat proletariat productions. They never have worked, and never began to work, whether based on race or ideas. What did work was slave labour and ultra-bestial violence in both cases, soon shed, as history goes. It improved nothing but the death rate.

4) when we look for laws by which such progress expectation might be justified, we find none, only the precise and direct opposite in the Law of Thermodynamics, the 2nd. which tells us that specificity tends to reduce, not increase, in a given system such as our universe comprises.

5) when we look for creativity, which alone would justify the expectation of such a law, we find our own tempered but impressive originality - which does not create life, or matter, or mind, as part of our parcel; but we do not find the MIND in the materials provided, which creates minds.

It is curtains and blinds when it comes to man making minds: only servile slaves occupied with man's visions and his dreams and his hopes, these arrive to attest his subordinate status, and sometimes to feed the insane pretences of many. Minds however? no. Spirits? Far from it. They do not come; they do not arrive. Thus is not the state of our case on this present earth.

6) when we look for a line of transitional objects, TOs, from major type to major type in the rich diversity of different kinds of living things, we do not find them. Variety is the order of the day, incredibly ingenious combinations; but no transitional sequences.

7) when we look for mutational episodes, MEs, even brought on by 40 years of X-ray bombardment as in the case of the famous fruit fly Drosophila, we find they do not provide the advances desired. Nul and void is the effort to make impact create design. Increased design specifications do not "arise" however much they are looked for. This is scarcely surprising; but surprising or not, it is certainly fact. Intelligent work and effort is needed.

8) when we look for means of variety production, we find them in abundance, precisely as scripture implies: both in its selection of the term, 'kinds', and its specification of variety, as in the case of giants. But variety is not kind; it does not advance vertically, merely spreading horizontally. Ingenious provisions for variation, as in skin colour and eye shape, are included; and the spice of individuality is as surely programmed into being, as is the basic type on which variation is made, like musical variations on a theme.

9) when we look for Upward Design Increments, UPIs, the 'arising' of superior kinds of things all out in the wild, by themselves, we do not find it. NEVER do we find it. NEVER have we found it, NEVER does law lead us to expect to find it, NEVER could the evidence, law and logic be clearer. UPIs are not there. They do not happen in cars, in Ph.D. theses, in things old or new, high or low. Design by its nature as by its practice, takes understanding, and this is not resident in 'Nature', that bogey-woman of imagination which is crowned, 'mother nature' by the superstitious.

10) when we look for Downward Design Decrements, DDDs, then on the contrary, we have no trouble at all in finding mutational descent, when things get damaged. We knew all this. It is not new and in many cases, not accepted because it is not desired. There is no other reason.

In fact, NOTHING is the result, wherever organic evolution is used. In what could be terms a wry humour, were it not that it is presented as sober physics, Paul Davies then apotheosizes nothing, and says, Well yes, it does seem that this is where it all began! (for details, see That Magnificent Rock, Ch.7, Models and Marvels). For what is not there, that is quite a leap, especially definitionally. Still, when there is nothing else to talk about, one supposes it can serve; though not of course logically.

Definitional dilemmas apart, and amusement aside, there is only one place where the answer is YES. In that place, ALL the answers are yes. In this place, there is NO answer which is 'No!', 'Nothing doing!' or, 'What are you talking about!', as is the case in this tedious prodigy of the nineteenth century, organic evolution.

By contrast, in this select place, whether it be a question of epistemology, of metaphysics, of general logical method, of scientific method, observational data, scientific law: there is only one result. What then is the answer in this place ? It is 'Yea and amen!' for God and the word of God, the Bible, at every point. Let us be clear about this thing. THAT is a FACT. It is verified everywhere, in ALL details as they come up for examination.

Nay and null! However, this is what occurs at every point for the atheist, the materialist, the agnostic who would have it all dashed to ruins in his convoluted thought, which admits no answer.

• The grandeurs of the philosophic fantasies are past. They are insufferably obtuse, diffuse and derelict in all domains.

• Contrariwise: The things of God are incredibly, indeed obstructively manifest, in the same domains.

• That ? It sums up where we are, as shown in detail

in The Shadow of a Mighty Rock,
That Magnificent Rock,
The Kingdom of Heaven...
A Spiritual Potpourri Chs. 1-9
Joyful Jottings 2-3, 5
See especially, The Other News, Appendix 3, on the Vacant House of Naturalism.