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CHAPTER 7

SETTLING OF ACCOUNTS

News 297

The Australian, October 29, 2003

 A PRELIMINARY LOOK AT HABAKKUK

You read Habakkuk and you sense the rushing of events on to their appointed climax, sentence and judgment. There is no attempt to minimise the evil in the world: in fact, the prophet puts to the Almighty, the Lord, the point that men use nets to catch each other, that it is gross, gruesome and ungainly, and where is it to end ? Is not God above such follies! Often, says he, strife and contention arises, and the law is powerless.
 

Since the Lord is "of purer eyes than to regard iniquity" (1:13), what then is the solution, the resolution of the matter! What is the answer, why is so much outrage tolerated, and where is its confrontation ? Of course we already know that the Lord (Proverbs 16:4) has a PLACE for the wicked, a point in the program:

"The LORD hath made all things for himself: yea, even the wicked for the day of evil."

There is a work for weeds, to exhibit the curse (cf. Biblical Blessings Ch. 7 and Genesis 3:17, Romans 8:18ff.); there is a place for confrontation in the interim before final judgment  as indeed with Sennacherib of Assyria earlier, that relish of misrule( cf. Isaiah 37:26-28), that agent of arrogance, who was removed as a bull by his roped snout! Again came the Chaldeans in Habakkuk's day, and once more the mighty,  this time Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, being high in his mind, vast in his enterprise, was brought low, as in Daniel,  personally to illustrate the futility of misusing God's power from creation, both in one's spirit and in one's flesh. Even while his empire flourished, the king was abased, as Daniel records.

Like some vast tree, acting as if it were its own, on its own account,  he thus was made an example of lopping. Eventually his city, that Babylon,  became a mound, just as did Nineveh, that assault force, that al Qaeda if you will, of its day, that grisly strength and cruel nation.

The actual Lord cannot be lopped, though He may choose to change His format to a vulnerable one for the work of love which man's condition requires; but lordly mortals are most susceptible to such desolations!

Lopping was the prescription for Egypt likewise, with this difference, that it was to become broken and a litter to the earth! In Ezekiel 31 you see this reminder of the gutter for the grandiose, again except in this case that it is a natural gutter, the mere strewing of its greatness about the hills, a gutting of grandeur, as metaphorically with Hussein's palace, now brought ignominiously from its fallen folly to its task of more democratic rule.

Why ? Ezekiel 31:14: "So that no trees by the waters may ever again exalt themselves for their height, nor set their tops among the thick boughs, that no tree which drinks water may ever be high enough to reach to to them. For they have all been delivered to death, to the depths of the earth, among the children of men who go down to the Pit."

In the following verses, the Lord makes it clear that He fully appreciates the lamentable side of such a fall, but that it is for all that, a necessary jolt to lofty thoughts, that make of men gods, of of earth, a haven or even some approximation to heaven! (cf. Ezekiel 28:9, Psalm 82!).

Where truth is concerned, He does not like pretence; where man is concerned, He does not like pretension, indeed pride is an intolerable burden to reality. Did however the world learn ? Assuredly Egypt was forced to keep to the prophetic scenario from Ezekiel, who not merely from the word of the Lord, traced its (then) coming fall, but its more lowly future as a nation. That's what it was given to be by the word of God; and that's what it has become, in the business of history.  As always, these, they match!
If it were not so, it would not be God who is speaking; and this, it is but one of the criteria which distinguishes the God who HAS to power to make His will known, and those godlets who don't because they cannot.

The control of history, so that your every word is fulfilled, it is not an easy thing; but for God, it is a matter of simplicity, for He not only KNOWS, but disposes of the braggart, the fool and the inveterately crooked, as He will. Moreover He knows the heart of man, without exemption of any part! His word shows it, for if ONE single events misfired, then a whole litany of 'disturbance' would follow; but history marches as directed. How puny those gods who want acceptance, not on 'faith' really, for what faith is that which does not check on the sender! It is rather on rashness and derogation of the actual deity, that such also- rans  are suffered.

Now Egypt's turn is seen.

Thus in Ezekiel 29:11-15, we find these words:

" ... 'Neither foot of man shall pass through it nor foot of beast pass through it, and it shall be uninhabited forty years. I will make the land of Egypt desolate in the midst of the countries that are desolate; and among the cities that are laid waste, her cities shall be desolate forty years; and I will scatter the Egyptians among the nations and disperse them throughout the countries.'

" Yet, thus says the Lord God:

'At the end of forty years I will gather the Egyptians from the peoples among whom they were scattered. I will bring back the captives of Egypt and cause them to return to the land of Pathros, to the land of their origin, and there they shall be a lowly kingdom.

'It shall be the lowliest of kingdoms; it shall never again exalt itself above the nations, for I will diminish them so that they will not rule over the nations anymore. No longer shall it be the confidence of the house of Israel, but will remind them of their iniquity when they turned to follow them. Then they shall know that I am the Lord God.’ "

History, as has been pointed out in detail, with the various and numerous conquerors in lowlinesses has kept Egypt, compared to her former glories: thus as Ezekiel forecast, it would REMAIN  a lowly kingdom. SO accurately has this been fulfilled, than many contemporaries might feel that this is just what it is, so what is so marvellous about such a prediction! However, when it was for many centuries of years, a place of imperial majesty, not to say some magnificence, having maintained a potent profile, for it thereafter to be lowly, this is the astonishing thing. So is the judgment presaged which will  eventually come to all, except those insulated by the DIRECT  and DIVINE mercy, not some imaginary one, of the One whose word is self-attesting, whose Son is incomparable as a matter of empirical  fact.

What however does the message of Ezekiel, shown above, go on to provide for our instruction ?

It is this, and  thus is the message expanded: the evil, in the sense of divine judgment, nor moral evil,
that is the catastrophic events to come to Egypt, these are not only to show ONE generation the need of being realistic about creation, history. It helps sobriety in considering  who one is and why. This howwever is not all: it is to demonstrate to ALL generations, these moral realities. All  are to be so informed from such events through the enduring prophecies of those like Ezekiel.

But why is there a NEED for such rigours ? Pride and arrogance are one of these needs, as elaborately shown in the surrounding chapters of Ezekiel. Why should they not have more scope, since freedom is essential to the very nature, to the being and works of man ? It is because they already have ENORMOUS scope, as you see from those from Pharaoh to Hitler, from Genghis Khan to el Qaeda, considering themselves above law, following laws of their own, which, evidence free they attribute to their god! (cf. More Marvels Ch. 4).

Consider Habakkuk 1:5-11: for as it was in folly, so it is in devastation.

                    Ascribing this power to his god."

Here in Habakkuk you see the divine derogation of the arrogance of mere ungainly power, and the divine judgment that sits on the folly of "ascribing this power to his god".

Why do some go for so long ? that the pit may be well dug! The laboratory of history has some events which take a little while; but the end is sure, and the end of all beginnings comes; the audit to complete history is on the way.

Many would suffer from the Chaldeans, including those who had so provoked the prophet by their violence and guile, their guilt and their arrogance; but the Chaldeans would surpass their mission, and recognising what was not-God as if it were, would be given the due divine rejoinder for their folly, just as was the USSR in its disdain for God, telling Him to depart. It was however, as with Babylon, the USSR which departed, not the Lord! So does justice prevail, in the interim, until the final assizes finish all words with works, and all pretension with actuality.

Many suffer in these confrontations, but those of the Lord, though they be even killed, yet they savour and continue,  equipped for the purpose, unblighted in spirit, even if sacrificed in body. Moreover, the Lord is able to extend their savour to attract to Himself, the chief need of man.

Thus in Psalm 94:12-15, we read:

                    and all the upright of heart will follow it."

What does this simply signify ? It is, precisely as in the intimation to Abraham in Genesis 15:15ff., that God has plans and permissions, allows developments but when time is up,  cuts them off. He considers the liberties and the laxities, gives vast opportunities to learn, to repent, and acts decisively in His own time, having given the nations 'pre-appointed times and the bounds of their dwellings' (Acts 17:26ff.), in which they might seek Him. Some flare up, to decline; some endure for a season, and erode; some continue and grow, but are corrupted. Yet there are, past all the programs of men, the people of the Lord, and these continue as before, while history sunbakes, or sneezes, has convulsions or congratulates itself until its folly is perceived.

As one sees in the case of Nineveh, to which Jonah was sent, though at first he feared ridicule because of the well-known divine mercy, the Lord is most keen for the arrogant to repent of this foppish imagination about the gifts God has given him, for the cruel to learn mercy, the expansive to cut the heat in the gas, yet there is a TIME WHEN judgment flows.

Sadly, the actors in history, national or individual,  very often will neither listen nor learn.

Episodically in events great and small, as the Lord forecasts, He has done (cf. SMR p. 713). He does it also with theories, philosophies likewise (cf. II Corinthians 10:5), allowing man the OPPORTUNITY to boast in godless folly, or distorting corruption, OR to seek the Lord. The nations pulse into presence, and grind to a more lowly state; people and philosophies have their day. The word of the Lord and the hearts of His light continue, for what is untrue is only in the end garbage. Love seeks its extradition, but God does not force (Matthew 23:37, Luke 19:42ff., Ezekiel 33:11ff.).

He does however know PRECISELY what He is doing, and that is WHY His prophecies are all fulfilled! Otherwise it would not prove possible...

It is not only in fact possible, but visible as much as material reality could possibly desire, or more aptly, those who vacuously worship their platform and forget the play, could wish.

What then of Habakkuk and his question ? The answer  is told with two major propositions. The just shall live by their FAITH (despite the appalling abuses of liberty in loveless discord which proliferate like a plague), and that the Lord will in His own time institute UNIVERSAL judgment, not merely episodic and tutelary, but final (Ch. 3). To these things we plan to return, but for the present, let us survey Pharaoh in this regard, and then become at once more contemporary.

PHARAOH and Co.

in the rough, well off the fairway

The Pharaoh of Egypt was of course involved in one massive, historic, amazing confrontation with the Lord, who had him in mind for just such a demonstration lesson (cf. Romans 9:14-17), and all his magicians and wise men were happy initially for a contest, but when sleight of hand and naturalistic ideas failed to meet the Mighty back of Moses, they were canny, and sought to persuade Pharaoh to stop the contest before the whole land was ruined. First they realised the danger (Exodus 8:18-19), then they began to see the end of the matter in utter consternation: :

"And the magicians did so with their enchantments to bring forth lice, but they could not: so there were lice upon man, and upon beast. Then the magicians said unto Pharaoh,

'This is the finger of God':

and Pharaoh’s heart was hardened, and he did not listen to them; as the LORD had said."

Eventually, as we read in Exodus 9:16ff., there comes the enunciation of the procedure: God is USING Pharaoh's lawless follies to show His power and deliver His people (Exodus 9:16ff.):

"Thus says the Lord God of the Hebrews:   'Let My people go, that they may serve Me, for at this time I will send all My plagues to your very heart, and on your servants and on your people, that you may know that there is none like Me in all the earth. 'Now if I had stretched out My hand and struck you and your people with pestilence, then you would have been cut off from the earth. 'But indeed for this purpose I have raised you up, that I may show My power in you, and that My name may be declared in all the earth. 'As yet you exalt yourself against My people in that you will not let them go. 'Behold, tomorrow about this time I will cause very heavy hail to rain down, such as has not been in Egypt since its founding until now. 'Therefore send now and gather your livestock and all that you have in the field, for the hail shall come down on every man and every animal which is found in the field and is not brought home; and they shall die.'   'He who feared the word of the Lord among the servants of Pharaoh made his servants and his livestock flee to the houses. But he who did not regard the word of the Lord left his servants and his livestock in the field.

"Then the Lord said to Moses, 'Stretch out your hand toward heaven, that there may be hail in all the land of Egypt - on man, on beast, and on every herb of the field, throughout the land of Egypt.' "

(Change of colour is purely to assist recognition of the relevant passage.)

So judgment followed till Pharaoh's armies had a watery STOP sign, and failing to heed this, had a vast maritime 'accident'. (Cf. The Exodus Escape.)

God used Daniel in a parallel performance in the court of Babylon, when not the magicians so much as the Chaldeans, those who harboured the corrupt philosophy and rootless religion of many-godded Babylon were the butt of divine exposure, though the Lord was merciful through Daniel's mercy, to those futile 'wise men' of the court, even to them. In the end, Babylon like Egypt before it, fell and did so to such a degree that it was long hidden in the dust, never to regain its place as was predicted (cf. Jeremiah 51:34-63, Isaiah 13). As one writer said of it, "the mound that was once the most splendid city in the world."

As we have so often seen, love cannot flower without liberty, and liberty gives scope for iniquity, and so the history of man continues, judgments to remind, chastisements to expose, patience to enable, mercy to deliver, moving on to the massive redemption when the very heart of God made the way for man, by mere repentance and faith in the living God, at last, through His Redeemer, and in His plan of salvation. From then till now, in two millenia or so, man has shown much interest, much fickleness of heart, and in our own century, such an arrogance and self-trust, such immorality and immolation of the young in senseless philosophies, which not merely aid the obnoxious character of man's misdeeds, but give TEACHING to aid such things, that the end is drawing near.

It was so NATIONALLY after Habakkuk, with a little interval for thought; it is so INTERNATIONALLY NOW, with a little interval, but how long ? We do not know more than this, that the SETTLING OF ACCOUNTS is near, because the return of Christ is assuredly near, by all the prophetic criteria, that is criteria which empirically, NEVER miss! (cf. Luke 21, and see Answers to Questions Ch. 5, SMR Chs. 8 and 9).

THE CHALDEANS AND MAGICIANS OF MODERN MAN

For the 21st century magicians and chaldeans, imbibing the follies of naturalism and the dedication to its mystic miasmas, illogical, eruditely meaningless, like those of old in their own dreams, we have many contestants both in secular religion not recognised as such, and irreligion masquerading as religion, for all is topsy-turvy (as in Isaiah 5). What is not-God (as defined in Deuteronomy 32:31), mere fantasy, more or less naturalistic, sometimes the pure concoction of roving imagination, is being exalted in sect and secular philosophy alike, always imbibing divine attributes for lost causes, not recognising the source, but merely abusing the truth.

We have seen it in the purlieus of naturalism (Wake Up World! ... Chs. 2, 4, 5, News 68, Aviary of Idolatry, Spiritual Refreshings Chs. 6, 13, 16, SMR Ch. 2, Earth Spasm... Chs. 1, 7, Secular Myths ... Chs.  7,  8), with its dazed seeming desire to bring out of what lacks all sign, symbol or equipment for creation, to do it anyway, in the very face of the First and Second Laws of Thermodynamics, which exactly fit creation and nothing less, in the very teeth of logic, wanting something for nothing, and even that with less and less pretence, so that 'nothing' itself is even invoked to the death of definition, as the source of all!

It may apply only here! they scream; but only what we have is the empirical. Are we then to have a new discipline, NON-EMPIRICAL SCIENCE. What will its degree be ? A Bachelor of Widowed Science ?

Yet even with this nonsense, we have to regard logic or deny the validity of the thought that would do so, for the elimination of causation is the removal of logic (cf. SMR Ch. 3, Causes), so that without the adequacy for the creation of that trilogy of mind, spirit and formulated matter which is man, you either do not have him, or resuming logic, DO have God. Fantasy is a feature of our century. It is those who are here who are saying all this, as if they could even be evacuated from the globe altogether, and still make such shocking casualty of all logic. Were they however gone, so would be their words.

For law, form, order, for sequence, structure, assimilability of information to codification, symbolic thought and its coded expression in speech, for liberty of will even to the point of error about will, being unprogrammatic, even to the point of intentional error for effect, you need not a material base which is wholly diverse, wholly incapable, wholly unequipped for all of this,. Your logical need is for what has the thing required: non-material power to create material law, so that it is accounted for. It is not for magic so that the universe, unimpressed, does not bother to arrive. Moreover, you require what is the interval from matter to man as well, in causative power back of it, for each categorical phase of the extraordinary synthesis, each part a marvel, the whole a prodigy.

While all this is mere simple coverage in overflight, yet there is nothing simple about the chaldeans who insist on promoting what is lacking in all scientific empirical expression, the means of performance indeed as well as the performance itself. It is always excused, as with any inept magician, trying desperately to impress. Why we even had one, Dawkins by name, who in a videoed interview was asked if he could depict ANY ONE case of an increase spontaneously occurring in information, over a span of a generation, and he COULD NOT. Two or three times he gasped as if about to lay the answer on the table; but as with the empirical lack, so the logical lapse, there was NO CASE CITED.

Far worse came. His answer, in the distress of the duress, was this: Ah but if you had been there when it all happened, when the new things arose, the new divisions and so forth, THEN you would have seen it! Imagination, then, must 'see' it all 'arising' since all else fails to attest it. This is romance and not reality, a theme of which H.G. Wells was a master, though he did end writing, not surprisingly really, "Mind at the End of its Tether."

That was the thrust of this video from the Creation Science movement, now Answers in Genesis.

Now let us consider this. We make an imaginary situation for noetic review. We construct a little play.
I shall play the bewitched.

I have a test-tube. The examiner asks me to mix specified things and get a specified result, to see if I can handle the equipment. I do it, and he does not see the desired result.

Ah! say I, but if you had been there when it happened, you would have known that I could do it.

When ? he asks, when did this happen ? Oh, I reply vaguely, in former times.

Could you not then let it happen now ? he asks, since THIS IS WHAT SCIENCE REQUIRES OF YOU, the empirical fact.

Oh no! I reply, for you see, sometimes science just works by implication.

He thunders: By what kind of implication are you now going to impress me that when you are supposedly able to do something and DO NOT DO IT, inference or not, that it CAN HAPPEN.

Oh, I reply brightly, it is known as theory, don't you see. If I am right, and the reason why things are what they are is correct, then it MUST have changed when it was done sometime in the past: otherwise we would not be here at all.

Seemingly inspired, I add: and we are here, aren't we now!
 

After time out for the examiner to be delivered from immediate heart attack
at such numb indifference to reality, he asks me one more question. 

In this ... ah, former  time to which you refer, perhaps there were some specifiable - you know, actual, not imaginary, ingredients which DID the thing you claim ?

Oh yes! I reply with irenic kindness in my eye, bent on his shrivelling form.
Oh yes, but of course.

Well, then, he asks: WHAT WERE THEY!

Now before you reply, he insists, BOTH TELL ME THIS and then, after we have collected them for you, MAKE IT HAPPEN.

Inspired again, I add to his words. Of course, I declare, no one actually knows.
 

So, he observes with increasing coolness from his former heat, no one knows the magical substances which you claim did or do what you say, and the mere fact that you do not know them, merely imagine them, cannot do what I ask, is in some way supposed to answer to the name of science.

Well, I reply, that is the way we were taught evolution.
Isn't this right, then ? I blithely add.

He then makes a damaging attack on the irrational teaching of organic evolution, in schools, and seeks a generation who will follow science and not romance; who will listen to logic, and not invent magical things which would do what they say, if only, you see, you could find them, or make them work the way things never do work now.

We have treated all this in more logical format in SMR Ch. 3, but this may help some to realise the oddity of using magic in science, as if you were serious. Attention has been given to the failure ludicrously misanalysed by some at one time, as if it meant anything to the point, and we find this in A Spiritual Potpourri Ch. 9, *2. Not with the highest intelligence, and not even with UN-natural aid, does man make life, not even with the highest methods of intelligence does he do it; he merely manipulates what he has (cf. News 153,  166, Sparkling Life ... Ch.  6).

Not by the most astute observation, does he find more than information exchange, or adaptation according to inbuilt provisions and procedures: yet he insists that this is how it goes. Not by the most careful omissions, can he remove the amazing scope of vast and multi-designed, advanced structures of life in the Cambrian times, suddenly coming, and now decimated by decease of styles, not increased, as Jay Gould so well attested in his "Wonderful Life", of the Burgess Deposits (cf. Spiritual Refreshings Chs. 6, 13, 16 with Wake Up World! Chs. 4,  5, and 6). What a wonderful architect is this 'Nature' which loses what it had, and shows no way to get it anyway! Small wonder the Greenies mourn, for if they do not seek creation where it works, there is indeed only residue to relish, and less and less of that. How monumental is the delusion!

Empirically, not only Darwin, but logic-exempt followers appear addicted to his ludicrous efforts to have complex, multi-dimensional, coded machinery and its architectural accompaniments come bit by bit, without coded impact, without integral meaning, so that there is NO POINT in any point, since only the sophisticated is to the point, for the end in view. Accordingly, we find, as Denton so highly emphasises in his Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, ONLY complex cells. Simplicity in any cell is NEVER FOUND.

	With then for organic evolution,
	anti-verification at every point, as we have overall so clearly shown,
	and verification at no point;
	with imagination the basis,
	and an outré desire to avoid God at all costs,
	even if He alone is indicated in the minimal requisitions of actual empirical science, which does not contribute anything to the point for the creation of what now is merely maintained, before our eyes;
	even if 'Nature' is in vain for creation EMPIRICALLY,
	and logically, as well:
	yet even so, they want NATURE for their MOTHER.

It cannot be done scientifically, but as to the psychological desire, this might be met, with myth, and in organic evolution, this is precisely what happens!

Thus when - as we saw in the new era for VIKING style force, within a democracy, Professor Dawkins in England is insisting on school teaching of such fantasies (not by that name of course), and appears from report to be threatening with rhetoric those so disabused with these mystic mysteries of naturalism, in their schools, (cf. Beauty for Ashes Ch. 3): we cannot but be reminded of Pharaoh and his men, of Nebuchadnezzar and his, and of all the ferment of gods and goddesses of nature, even if now they wear white coats in the imagination, rather than have the sartorial surrealisms of the past.

Gould for his part seemed to be content, after the invocation of straight, strict progress upwards from nowhere, for the cause of the universe on the part of his contemporaries, to have an evolutionary mentor who wandered about, with no particular thing in mind, since it did not have one on this model, or in this line of conduct. Thus you get an actual creation from something which actually does not go any particular place^*1, but could wander into creation or out of it, in this way or that, with no particular reason, since it does not have reason.

This is astonishing good comedy, but nothing to do with reason, wit or science. Jay Gould acknowledges the ludicrous character of Darwinianism, which does not even have any point in being so much as considered.

"But if we examine the Burgess fauna honestly we have no evidence - not a shred - that the losers in the great decimation were systematically inferior in adaptive design to those that survived^*1."

The survival of the fittest is NOT a design incremental thing at all. Logically it COULD NOT BE SO, for code does not come from the mindless, nor correlative systematics from the incoherent, nor yet successive usable dynamics from what must proceed to the unthought, the unknown and the sophisticatedly diverse from what was before held in the interstices of the wholly diverse and largely undeveloped,  as is imagined for the Darwinian lottery.

It could not be. As a theory it is ludicrous: choosing the least of all natural hopes, the most of all
fetishistic fabrications. It is the OPPOSITE of what a scientific theory should do in many aspects.

Let us just note five of the enormities in order: It gives from non-observation, things which do not occur in that field, a presentation for what must be. Again, it gives CONTRARY to things in the field of observation, what must be. Further, it gives without the MEANS in the field of observation, of what must be. Again, it gives the empirically unduplicated in the field of observation, of what must be. Even more, it gives in stark contradiction of basic scientific law, what must be. It is not just a poor hypothesis; in terms of scientific method, it is a farce to be expected from kindergarten. That, it is no testimony against brains, for there are great ones on either side; it is an expression of the pillage of science by alien forces, and those,
they are NOT, decidedly NOT from another planet. We have them right here.

Thus in method, it is wrong; in matter, it is captious;  and  again,  EMPIRICALLY it IS NOT SO.

It leaves, as Gould says of design progress by such means, not a shred to show itself. Building a major hypothesis on not a shred, seems rather too substantial!

Again, as Denton points out, DISCONTINUITY (cf. Repent or Perish Ch. 4), is not only found in designs, so multiplied from the FIRST, and in CELLS, complex evidentially from the first to the uttermost degree, but in types of proteins, in categories without transition like the rest. Let us cite from the above:

As to test, I shall share just a little here. One of the interesting things Denton makes clear is that NOT ONLY is there an irrepressible leap from design type to design type observationally and palaeontologically, but the same occurs in the appearances of codified sequences in proteins: the protein amino-acid sequences. These are distinct, distinctive, individual, non-sequential from one kind to another^{*2 (}Denton, op.cit. pp.289-290).

Actually, the same is true in languages: there is no sequence from 'primitive' to modern in terms of complexity being gained; and the same again is found in cells themselves, the most simple being all but incredibly complex and most challenging indeed to comprehend fully, when you go to the DNA! (SMR 1031C, 13ff., 114ff., 120). We shall pursue the cell case shortly.

Naturalistically, the answer to creation is ZERO. It isn't here, says the cell, nor is it here, says the protein; we have not heard, say the the phyla; news to me, says the language, and so with the DNA:
we do not know.

Ours is not to make, but to do! they cry.

When will you turn to the creator from the creation for its source. Do plays write themselves! they ask. Is language self-formulating! they cry. Why do you think the material is the source, when it is already codified and comes in loads, like all creations; or why do you imagine it did not need creation, when it is reeking with laws, stipulated in form.

Is science gone berserk, or has thought become terminally ill! they cry in a sort of chorus, or is man become besotted that his theory about matter, which rests on a valid mind, puts it above the mind which formulates the theory ? or that ignores his own lawlessness, in the face of its composure ?

Is causation the new excision, like taking fat from too heavy stomachs ? But this, it is the heart!

Like Balaam's ass, if it could speak, they would have much to say.

You see, even they know better! They WILL not contribute ANYTHING to the forsaken theory of transition from within without cause, without ground, ex-the-machinery for it, ex-the dynamic for it, ex-the-imagination for it, ex-the-simultaneity for it, ex-the-mutual-conformity-of-all for it and ex-the evidence for it.

Nevertheless, faced with ALL the features of creation, and NONE of the features of continuity, the cry is for Continuity! Such is perversity! (cf. Romans 1:17ff., for God does not fail to explain all things, and that of course, that fluency from the right source, is one of the confirmations of truth always).

It is rather like a perfectly hopeless sporting team whose barrackers, whose supporters drown the stadium with irrelevant noise, lifting their useless heroes to the heights, are yet wholly unable to read the score! Scientific method is breached in its insistence on verification, collation with other theories and laws, exhibitable features, not once, not twice, but pervasively. It is an hypnotic phenomenon, and in the end, as it proceeds in its anti-personnel ways into TV and politics, hysterical. WE WILL ENFORCE IT! says the Minister of Education's official. Enforce slave labour as well!

In all secular theory, NOTHING is the only answer, and Davies did it the justice of actually NAMING IT! (cf. Barbs, Arrows and Barbs 19). It is all a laughing stock (cf. Earth Spasm... Ch. 1, with Secular Myths ... Ch. 7); and yet serious life is to be in this intellectually inebriated state and children MUST be taught it to the exclusion of lucid reason!

THEORY MAKETH FACTS ... BUT NOT REALLY!

As we see from Gould (*1), there is nothing like a case for the construction of vast, amalgamated, diversified designs of brilliance in short order (relatively^*3) in a system which never does it again; or indeed, in any way whatsoever. It is dissonant, not consonant; it is diverse in method from the need,
not concordant; it is wildly irrelevant, not articulating the necessary logical surfaces which are dominant
in the end, as at the first in the interstices of matter, action is governed, controlled in its own way.

What then of this ludicrous pantomime of having the world's most famous biologist saying there is no shred of evidence for Darwin, that this sort of progressivism is entirely irrelevant to the point that it does not even arise for consideration in view of the empirical evidence, and then force-feeding that poor 'beast', the student, with this inane substitute for thought, as though the tradition of hating God, or changing Him, made total depravity of mind an essential ingredient in any curriculum ?

What it must be confessed that it is truly MODERN! It simply doesn't care, and prefers hot air, rich in overtones of deep feeling, reverential perhaps, awesome, and then goes to do something else to sustain the double income living style, or to continue the lack of food, as the case may be. It is rather like some plant diseases: the leaves become flaccid, the plant droops, there seems no point in it, no heart, no life. Perhaps then this could be called The 21st Century Disease, and become medically tagged.

As in II Peter 3:3-5, so does the ennui, the aversion, the distaste, the artless negativity protrude like a particularly nauseous bunion.

HOW can you articulate what is diverse, uncontrolled, ineptly related, irrelevant to the ultimate design, in bits! HOW can you govern the machinations of these things, with codes that command, in bits that bounce about! HOW can you imagine what is the precise opposite of our own efforts, with vast effort, to do just such things, when the METHOD in view is neither structurally, nor symbolically, nor procedurally, nor in time sequence, what is needed! Gould is not wrong. HOW can you have the results before the causes have time to operate ? in effect, he so rightly asks. "In heaven's name" he remonstrates, how CAN you! But even he, though significantly more straightforward than many,  does not accept, for no known reason, heaven's sublimely simple and empirically unique answer.

How can man be so inane ? It is simple: HE WILL NOT HAVE GOD, so either

	a) he denies Him indirectly, and so changes him to a god of forces or some other convenient abstraction to cover his own violence or vileness as in Islam or Communism, or various Nature Worshipping religions, of which Organic Evolution is a depersonalised variant: in this case, sometimes giving the name 'god' and sometimes not; or else
	b) he denies Him directly, and at leisure, makes something else that does not do what is required, like idols: or else something such as mankind itself, and seeks to make what is in some was deverbalised, so that it cannot be annoying to the anomalously autonomous man, who WILL  not have ANYTHING or anyone over him. When you make your own, like robots, robotic-gods, then you can make them say ANYTHING!
	It will have no power beyond your own, of course.

In either case, the worshippers of 'Nature' in one form or another, or something which knows not objectivity, or of some invented god with a name to match, continue to confront the living God who not only created (as some admit), but acted for the redemption of His creation (as none other permits) by an action as liberal as that of the original creation, and by a power as profound. They want either to have Nature do the creating, or (their own part of) nature doing the correction, the redemption or the deliverance, so that it is all so 'natural', even down to the invention of gods who are not there, as the Bible declares and decrees: "that which is NOT GOD" (cf. Secular Myths... Ch. 7).

Alas, man is set to make himself his own god, and as that, he, and there will be a leader to this folly to sum it up, essentialise it as people love in sport and culture, he, let us be clear, will be

FAR FROM DE-VERBALISED. What dictator ever was!

They may be wandering gods, or purposeful ones, but they are all divinely indicted: WRONG WAY GO BACK! by the One whose word matches the need, in precision, in projection, in performance, in antiquity and modernity alike, in isolation from all competition, whose Son, the Redeemer likewise is without competition in all history.

(Cf. Aviary of Idolatry,

Repent or Perish Ch. 2,

Christ the Wisdom of God, Chs.  6,  8,

It Bubbles ... Ch. 9,

Spiritual Refreshings Ch. 9,

SMR Chs.  1 -  2,

Little Things Ch.5, )

But what of the non-gods ?

That some of those not-gods are alleged to create direct, and some in ways too ludicrously long to encourage residual mirth, is part of the pantomime for older children, though it appears it is an acquired taste, and they are starting on the Primary School now.

Perhaps, at first, the young feel it is a fairy sotry, which it is. It is unwise however to confuse fantasy
with reality. Reality does not, because it cannot, act like that: created reality. It is CREATIVE reality which creates. We have it and do it and know it in measure, and are always at it. OUR Maker has it infinitely more.

Discarding the exhaustive testimony of all things, man is becoming a sort of manic-depressive in large numbers, manic about the magic of evolutionism, humanism, secularism, relativism, chauvinism,
and depressive about the facts of spoliage, water, pollution, radioactivity, psychosis, neurosis, sexually transmitted disease, hunger and so on. Reality does not smile at this; but grave humour does exist. It is so like Psalm 2, where the Lord, having noted predictively, a millenium before the occurrence, the rejection of the Messiah, and the effort to discard God altogether, LAUGHS!

If you cannot see that judgment is near, is necessary and is sure, as was shown to Habakkuk when FAITH in  God's supervisory completeness and due justice is required, when children are treated in this anti-personnel fashion, in this dehumanised test-tube of junk, then examine just HOW near it is,
according to the Man's Manual, the Bible, that self-attesting and continually verified Book
(cf. Answers to Questions Ch. 5, SMR Ch. 8).

OVERFLIGHT OF THINGS OVERLOOKED

The weary, bleary theory, it is very simply being put before the fact: it is rationalism, not empiricism, and irrationalism in the sense that the rationalistic dreams, defy the facts. They would like another universe, so that they could have empirical bases (Wake Up World! ... Ch. 5 , Secular Myths ... Ch. 7);
but they find it not; and if they could find it, logic would decease, and mind would be irrelevant,
since there magic is maestro, causation is a casualty and imagination rules. Thought is impossible; theories are noisy sounds.

Not a shred of support for such Darwinesque^*4 theories, says Gould, not even up for consideration. Correct! But then his own, though impressively superior to this dross of Darwin, in that it at least pays some attention to the empirical evidence, progresses by indirection, has no reason to go anywhere, and yet goes everywhere, as life in a meandering sort of way happens upon the very systematic, symbolically constrained, non-meandering marvel, which makes the punctuation^*5 theory of Gould as ludicrous as the making by breaking theory of Darwin. One goes by breaking up the old, with no need for the new; the other goes by meandering to mission. Is there any doubt that Darwin is dead ? Why even his undertaker is dead as well!

In fact, Naturalism is dead. The whole idea that without idea, ideas could be sown, and their equipment to have them in man, on a basis with no idea about ideas, is not ideal! It is in fact irrational rubbish, postulating as if it were in some remote sense 'science', what is contrary not only to the 3 major laws of science (cf. TMR Ch. 1), but to ALL empirical evidence for ANY gross change, in ANY dimension, or ANY information increment, in ANY case, while watching inertly, as MOST of the inventions, and FAR MORE than now exist, are spread in what is called the 'Cambrian era' near the first, in rank profusion of design, that made Gould marvel at its sheer virtuosity.

They watch, likewise, as inventions decrease, and the biota evaporate.

What is it like ? It is like a miser, watching his riches evaporate, but always re-assuring himself form his dreams, that they increase (cf. SMR pp.  252A, 252H).

Yet whoever heard of a virtuoso who wasn't there, playing in ghostly form, from the ruins of  annihilation, to the delight of concert goers. This sort of romancing is the contrary of scientific method, uses theories instead of facts, makes theories contrary to not only facts, but to law, and is inseparable from irrationalism, while arguing ostensibly by reason, for its own unreason. Alice in Wonderland would need classes on confusion in order to qualify, if she wanted to feature in this flimsy film! Chance, the mere omission of purpose, is the exact LACK in any system which exhibits in constant schema, the integrity of purpose, the unity of purpose, the comprehensive arrest of inferior realities to fulfil it, and does so with aplomb far past any need in competition, even if competition could create what is not there! (cf. Ancient Words... Ch. 9 and 13).

Not only then, are we being told that the reason for things is the absence of reason, but that the observable nature of things is 'going down', and that the greatest design irruption was near the FIRST. What then is the drift of it ? Theories that systematically ignore all the criteria have all the appearance of hypocrisy, for we might as well face it: they are mental rebellions, and since the only possible cause of such 'natural' containment is the not so natural misuse of will, customarily called spiritual, we are faced with the facts at last. It concerns the spirit of man, astray, wilfully, crooked as a stick. What is the cause of this ardent ferment, this acme of aberration, this fateful heart ? How CAN it be so free, and so foolish, both!

Man's  spirit is explained by the Spirit of God, secure in His own capacities, without limit or enduement, dowering this bounty to a creation, so that not program but personality can proceed. Freedom, including rebellion, is not a consequence of law, or order, or relationships of entities encoded (cf. Little Things Ch. 5, It Bubbles ... Ch. 9, SMR pp. 348ff.). It is beyond such little things. Its source, as we saw in SMR Ch. 1, is the God who made spirit, and law, and mind, and synthesised the trilogy called man.

The sheer folly of man's invented religions, sometimes the very stuff of fantasy, at times mere cultural accretions, or means of domination or dominion, or some combination of motifs may inhere, sometimes cruel, sometimes suppressive of what man is: this is the confirmation. When anyone's quality of work is vastly below his attainments, we know there is a problem within, of the spirit, unless of course some vile disease is rampaging in his midst.

But here it is very often the wealthy, the rich and the powerful who lead the folly, as if their own desire to be done with what they are, creations, feeds the flame of imagination and that madness which is destroying the world, not only predictably, not predictedly! God is always ahead, and rebellion is always behind; and this too, it is what one would expect when God is concerned.

To Him we therefore must return, author of personality, maker of liberty, that matrix which man strangely turns to an instrument of rebellion, most potently seen in the discourse above! Man even exposes, one man another, the pure folly of it; yes, and even some who do not believe in God do so, since the case is so ludicrous, so extreme that even they can hardly believe that men are saying such things!

When it does ? In much it is rebellion, while the world seeks ever new excuses for ignoring its Maker.
Yet it comes back only there, to the very spirit of man. Where it all began,  with the Creator, is where under guard of our own reason, we are conducted. Since we were created, that is hardly surprising!

When, to take another illustration, therefore the Moslem from many quarters clamours for attention, then, first the use of force to favour faith and cover more of the globe with its ways - the clenched fist, precisely as in survival of the fittest irrelevance, as Gould correctly deemed it - shows its irrelevance. There is its very outage. Force is not creation, merely the power for it. Force is not faith, merely an ingredient in action. We follow this error in SMR pp. 50ff., 66ff., as in pp. 1186Aff., and More Marvels Ch. 4, Divine Agenda Ch. 6 (which gives much from the Koran for testimony of untruth).

In practice, then, this is all the way of natural things, not the mercy of the Creator; and for that matter, you cannot gain truth for people CREATED with minds, except you can TEST. Scientific method is not an option for examination data. The Islamic religion has nothing to offer in comparison with biblical grounds whatever (cf. ref. above). Moreover, using force from the start of Muhammad's very entry into Mecca, to the various other prescriptions and presentations throughout the ages, is a thing self-contradictory. It is like using a bomb to build a house.

Even more, it fails in making the Old Testament prophets 'sound', while denying their whole message, cf. SMR pp. 1080ff..

Like naturalism, such religion binds itself to what has no attestation, is contrary to attestation; and worse, in using force in the arena of faith. Practically, it denies liberty, and what denies in practice need not seek to resort to theory, since what does not work, is mere words; and what is ORDERED in practice, is its own interpretation.

If liberty is not related to faith, as force implies, then this makes God one who seeks fulfilment in His creation, gaining something from it, disposing and not seeking it; and that cannot be God, but only someone with man in a system where advantages may be gained for what is, one and all, inadequate for itself.

Moreover, in this it makes of such a god the entire source of evil, and author of it, since force is the last word and the invader in any sphere. Such a 'god' is at war with himself, elevating the creation he makes to perish, creating the beings he then desolates in spirit, breaching the nature of man, a pawn.

If on the other hand, force is NOT relevant, then its systematic use shows the inadequacy of the god who is called Allah, who sanctions its use for faith matters, when it has no place. To feed the babies with blood, is nothing at all maternal; to prosper by simple destruction is nothing at all self-sufficient. Yet if MAN is free, and must freely respond, then the use of force is that of a double-minded god, creating a freedom which he merely abuses, making what he massacres, misusing the name of liberty with the power of oppression, maiming his mandate.

Hence comes its self-contradiction (as in SMR pp. 1080ff., and Tender Times ... Ch. 8, *1); its multiplied use of force in faith areas, even starting from the first, and continuing in history. Thirdly, thus comes its incomparably weak performance in prophetic attestation and indeed anything which reason must accept. This is an appalling result for a religion supposedly coming from the God who made intellect.

Fourthly to be found,  is its failure in history, in the empirical laboratory, since Israel for some half century has magnificently overturned all the jihads one could imagine, all the multi-national Islamic forces, all the Pan-Islamic conferences determining its destruction.

Fifthly, is its failure in this domain in the very teeth of the word of God in the Bible, which forecast just such inimical neighbours, just such endeavours to overturn the newly returned Israel, and just such prodigious victories for Israel as have in fact occurred (cf. SMR Ch.  9).

Sixthly, is the simple fact that its central figure admits error (Surah 22:49ff., in terms of an assumed generic^*6), whereas the Christ not merely is statedly sinless, but no one is ever able to make any even slightly reasonable case for allying Him to any sin, while His attributes, power, predicted performance, predictions concerning the coming performance of man, all mark Him out as a paragon of proclamation, a personal exhibit meeting the test-needs of mankind to the uttermost, becoming even one of them, amply, abundantly vulnerable, visible and assessable.

As in the Bible, there is empirically nothing which is anywhere near to becoming a comparison, even in principle!

When you put the personal face to it, you see the thing out of words, into agencies. God is not inferior in agency, nor does His prediction of the date of Christ's death (Highway of Holiness Ch. 4), and Christ's prediction of multiplied false prophets fail to be verifiable in the utmost degree, both in the summary confirmation over all time of interlocking words, of one thrust and one religion, and in the coverage of the one who put himself up, without ANY warrant, in competition with such a coverage, such accuracy, and such forecasts involving the very nature of spurious religion of this sort (cf.  SMR pp 1079ff.).

Scientifically, things must work. Logically they must cohere.

With Islam, as with Organic Evolution, as indeed with Communism (cf. SMR pp 925ff., Beauty of Holiness Ch. 4, *2, Of the Earth, Earthy ... Ch. 2, News 37, Repent or Perish Ch. 4),
there is the same a logical hiatus; there is the same invidious inability.

It does not do what it says, it does not provide test, it is not consonant with the mind of the Almighty to foist to the created mind of man, such a testimony. It is, for that reason, an anti-testimony, an acute failure in verification. It is this both empirically (cf. SMR pp. 1080ff. ), and logically, both in inconsistency and in lack of amplitude. It is so similarly in its violence ingredient (cf. Divine Agenda Ch. 6). The only thing in agreement is the complete and pervasive failure to meet reasonable criteria, the demands of logic, even the requirements of scientific method.

All such theories are self-destructive, trying to account for all either without truth available, mere reckless self-assurance, or without truth found, however available, in contravention of fact, or with idle hypothetical wings, flying into the maelstrom of force. In this, they are again self-destructive for man, since he is personal, capable of credence, error and understanding: hence is this a mere butt for reductionistic folly.

Thus whether it be 'religious' or irreligious, the fancies of men who favour force,

	whether in 'Western' education departments,
	African tornadoes of violence,
	Middle Eastern invasions of Israel,
	al Qaeda threats of violent ends and mess, blood in torrents,
	Hitleresque racism,
	Communistic dehumanisation and derogation of personality BY personalties WITH freedom to think clearly IN a model which denies it because of 'forces' which control all men, and so the theorist himself, excluding him by his own means, from truth;
	or in theories whose self-contradictory premises vainly endue it with formative power over this world, rather than being a means of creation of all after its kind, as evidence insists and persists in insisting:
	these are violences to body, to mind, to spirit, to the soul of man, these imperious mouthings and imperial handlings of man, as if he were the mere garbage of the kitchen, They are imbroiling this world with the evils with which they are themselves imbrued, avoiding evidence, disdaining enquiry, or enquiring without solace from the sight of the eyes, the manifestation of the senses, the verification of the method.

So is it with salvation itself. With man unmasked in his evil hypotheses, his naturalistic embroilments, his phenomenal imaginations, using power and force as motif, or a major motif in all dimensions, more and more the race refuses the action of God as surely here as elsewhere.

What then ? Salvation too, it must rather be as man imagines it, than as God depicts it. Man would like to be 'saved' by savvy, or works, as if his soiled products could enter the presence of His offended Maker. He would like to balance more good than evil, as if this hybrid folly would make it near the presence of the Almighty; or as if it would even work: what! 51% pass, and all under it in hell ? by 1% for eternity! or 3% or 5%!

Or he would make God to be impressed with his little self, as if He had not given the gifts; or make 'Nature' to smile on him, though it has no face; or seizing all, direct the universe, though he cannot even make, far less understand himself.

There is no way for man but the man FROM God, just as from Himself was his first creation of man. NOTHING is provided for man, for his basis, but God as man in His creation. Here, the ultimate self-revelation teaches two things instantly. GOD has made MAN for Himself, so that it is actually feasible for God to BECOME a man, without ceasing to be God. Secondly, this embrace of man's form for deity's expression is far more than revelation, though nothing less. It is for a cleansing of the way which man has fouled, and it means not only that the love of God is sufficient to do it Himself as man, but that His zeal is practical enough to do it unmistakably, irrevocably, once for all, to provide for man for all time, backwards, and forwards by one such offering.

Infinite in value, it is infinite in scope, in illumination: it shows all. There is nothing left, for if this love is so great, and man's scope is so great that God could take his form, and if there is a way so decisive back, then how bad is the way now taken by man, and how good is the transition.

For God it is death on the cross in human form, His spirit returning at once to His Father, who sent Him, His eternal word and expression for this salutary task of salvation. For man it is repentance that such a step became for mercy a necessity, for love an option, and faith where this God is, who did this thing, and return to faith in His creation, mercy and peace, with joy.

Thus it is done IN truth, and so provides the truth, that inestimable marvel, that incandescent light that yet shows all, and its source and His nature. As God alone is the source of it, knowing all, it is from Him alone it COULD come, but in this is the wonder, that it DID so come in such a way that it is so unmistakable and unique among the works of men (that is, firstly unique, and secondly unique in CLASS as well), making Islamic and secular and agnostic and atheist works a pure folly, a gross ingratitude and an awful pest as if to eat the very mercy of God. It also makes those who merely do not want to believe anything, to have everything to answer for, since the solution is plain, bold, historic, vast, far-reaching, answering all and leaving no questions of note whatsoever.

Moreover, since God is absolute, from all His creation needing nothing, His salvation like His creation comes as a GIFT. You do not have to work to be created, and you work no more to be saved. It is all of God who brings the liberty, watches the fall, shows the love and provides the solution for a being so complexly subtle, and so subtly complex as man, his spirit a beauty or an abyss, his mind a tower or a valley, his body a beauty or a cess-pit. There is thus no room for achievement philosophies relative to God, for these merely derogate Him, degrading Him to the status of nature, where a little more this, or a little less is all that matters to seize Him on one's own terms, and all is here a little, there a little, whereas the infinite God is no matter of shades or gradations.

What matters with God is GOD, not some schema of man. HE has His own ways, and sin is not one of them, rebellion is not counted here, and variability of little hearts that scheme and wish and deceive, that congratulate themselves, and see nothing of their spirits, as clear to God as mountains to man: this has no place.

God insists on HIS OWN STANDARDS, for fellowship and friendship, of which man in principle is capable, though so often he sells his soul for some solace from created things, ignoring his Maker. In this, he is often like some berserk car, which could not STAND the service from the manufacturer, or to be treated or governed by the manual.

GIFT is the only way to receive acceptance from God. It has to be at HIS say-so, with HIS approval, an invitation from HIS will, in truth and in reality, not in dreams, dreams, dreams of man's wishing and pretence. How God hates such dreams (Jeremiah 23:23ff.)! What would you expect ? that He would like people to dream themselves into His presence, on their own  terms ? Would you!

" 'Am I a God near at hand,' says the Lord,

And not a God afar off?

 

'Can anyone hide himself in secret places,

So I shall not see him?' says the Lord;

Do I not fill heaven and earth?' says the Lord.

'I have heard what the prophets have said who prophesy lies in My name, saying,

            "I have dreamed, I have dreamed!"

'How long will this be in the heart of the prophets who prophesy lies?

'Indeed they are prophets of the deceit of their own heart, who try to make
My people forget My name by their dreams which everyone tells his neighbor,
as their fathers forgot My name.

'The prophet who has a dream, let him tell a dream,

And he who has My word, let him speak My word faithfully.

What is the chaff to the wheat?' says the Lord.

'Is not My word like a fire?' says the Lord,

'And like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces?'

'Therefore behold, I am against the prophets,' says the Lord,
'who steal My words every one from his neighbor.

'Behold, I am against the prophets,' says the Lord, 'who use their tongues and say, "He says."

'Behold, I am against those who prophesy false dreams,' says the Lord, 'and tell them, and cause My people to err by their lies and by their recklessness.
Yet I did not send them or command them;
therefore they shall not profit this people at all,' says the Lord."

Dreaming is no way to undertake the most important step in anyone's life on this earth, reconciliation with God, knowledge of God, doing the will of God, loving God and finding His actual nature in peace.

Salvation by grace ? by the gift of God, as in creation at the first, by God's own enterprise ?

Oh no! man in millions declares, No! says the world;

	for it what is this world's pleasure ?
	Is by blood in the al Qaeda murder squad,
	or in canny trickery, as with the Malaysian suggestion for 'victory' over the Jew (what, is some of the world not Islamic ? treachery ? would it be needing correction from al Qaeda ? typically using force to secure its RELIGIOUS aims!),
	or in surviving very busily while being the fittest,

that nonsense at which Gould so mocked (Amos 2:14ff.):

	"Therefore flight shall perish from the swift,
	The strong shall not strengthen his power,
	Nor shall the mighty deliver himself;
	"He shall not stand who handles the bow,
	The swift of foot shall not escape,
	Nor shall he who rides a horse deliver himself.
	"The most courageous men of might
	Shall flee naked in that day ..."

Even Stephen Jay Gould poured contempt on the folly of self-designing designs (not self-replicating ones, each after its KIND). What then did this Harvard professor declare: The designs that last are in no way better, says he. This is not the way of it! This is his dictum. Indeed,  how could it be, how would the re-tooling continually do itself, until it all had to be retooled synchronously, linguistically, in specialised parts for the development that works, from the immense quantity of those that did not, left without trace of course in the annals of the earth, as in the annals of logical ground, or the provisions of modes of action, or the experimental observability of what they would do if they were there.

It is a magic, since the ultimates are synchronously to be designed with all mutual systems apt for the actuality of the end! The beginning and the end of the matter is this: that matter cannot do it, does not do it, and logic cannot abide it.

So it is taken to be the truth, even when truth would not exist, in a model without its presence.

Such are the ways of force without intelligence: deploying it either in practice or in theory, and it works as only bucolic brutishness can work (cf. Hosea 9:7). In such a milieu, apart from the Lord, even the 'spiritual man' says the word of God, "is insane: and "the prophet is a fool." They listen but to their own voice, amplified for defiance.

Accordingly, man is delighted in masses to follow illusion to delusion, and to seek to survive, and to act accordingly nationally and in other ways, until the whole concept of truth, and justice and kindness and grace is swallowed up in culturally slanted law courts, re-interpreting the law, reflections of man as seen by pedants and politicians, law-givers and law-officers, becoming his law, so that he becomes a lawless law to himself. His existential momentum, his illusions of grandeur, his godless heart and his guileful ways mark him as a super-brat spiritually, not only sinning in body, mind and soul, but sinning all over again in the very face of the love and way of God, so made available at such cost, and then sinning more still in intemperate condemnation of the universe, or God or something or other, so that he, man will become Mr FIX IT, and so fly in the face of salvation, as of creation itself. It all was to be,  and it is (II Peter 3:3-5, 2:1ff., II Timothy 3, Romans 1, II Thessalonians 2, Matthew 24, Luke 21, Jeremiah 23:20).

If this is not a form of madness, cultural and social madness, what then COULD BE! But this is the biblically depicted PHENOMENON, explained from God by God in His accurate manual, the Bible. It is because when they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, but their foolish heart was darkened, and they worshipped the creation rather than the Creator.

Why is this so ? Foolishness.

But why should foolishness have such access ?

Liberty.

Yet why should liberty do such things ?

Consult your own heart: does it love authority, reality, to find its place as a creation, under the Lord ?

No ? then that is self-explanatory.

Yes, you think ? Excellent, then all you need to add is a desire to be delivered from the sin which makes you ignorant of your Lord (or of course rejoice because it has been removed already in the only authorised Removal Van, the Redeemer, Jesus the Christ, the One in the Manual), to repent, to put your trust in Him, to thank God for your deliverance, following Him by faith and you are saved.

It appeals ? Then do it, for you will not rue it. You dither ? in that case, the stream may carry you down. What stream ? the cultural stream in classroom and TV, in world affairs, in glorifying the creation and ignoring the Creator, in making survival king and self god, instead of admitting the deity Himself, and following Him! The heart of man as the Bible declares, has a madness within! (Ecclesiastes 9:3):

Truly the hearts of the sons of men are full of evil; madness is in their hearts while they live ...

But let us look further (Eccles. 7:9):

"Truly, this only I have found:

That God made man upright,

But they have sought out many schemes."

 

NO - SAYING

The originative powers of man are limited, but they are vast for all that. Man loves to create, and many of his domineering schemes are imaginative marvels, lacking nothing but truth and reality, since in them, man is on a model wholly undivine. He loves to TELL his brothers what to do, and all falling from God, they rule each other with intemperance, the women are suppressed vilely as in much of Islam, which may kill what does not please them as if they were digging ditches, with red rain dropping in from above; but it is decidedly from below, under pressure.

Man is an agent of magnificent dimensions, aptly constructed, amazingly free to depart from truth, from equity, from reality. When then, inflated with desire, lusting for lordliness, wanting ease by theft (as in many political schemes, where the people are robbed by artful laws and wicked wiles), man goes astray, there are many to help him, or even to try to FORCE him to do so, as in this education mangle of organic evolutionism in schools, or as in Saddam Hussein's variety of FORCE, or in Islamic domineering, or any other violation of man's person, as for example in Communism, that ultimate depersonalisation which hides its god in its nature, and makes an amalgam of divine power which is to be seen to be believed, and when believed, disbelieved as it is the work of confusion on fire.

The potential for man must lurk in the matter, and the law must be imported to it, and all this is presented by the ... beginning gratis, words declining to acknowledge, what daft theory merely implies. Instead of the acknowledgment of God, or seeing it happen, which it never does in Communism, not even a posteriori, there you gain not a heaven on earth, but a hell, the very zenith of reductionism, which makes of man a thing of political parsons, mystic atheists, divine and godless, themselves the gods, reverends in Cadillacs, by the Black Sea on holidays. Such transparency of loot and inane lordship is virtual lunacy to embrace, as if an adder were held to the bosom, not as with Cleopatra for delightful death, but for amorous joy.

Man's way, man prepares for himself: It is to be by metaphysical, political, social or academic FORCE, as in the schools in the Education System in this benighted State, where the most recent comment from the office of the Minister is this: the CIRCULAR to PRINCIPALS will be ENFORCED! That is the one which forbids any theory but that of evolutionism in science (in immediate contravention of scientific method - which is to seek truth WHEREVER it is found, not where it is assuredly NOT found); while in other disciplines, it orders that creation CANNOT be discussed in factual terms. In this way, force, not reason begins to resemble the errors of the Koran in many places, of Muhammad at the outset. South Australia has its own little commands and conscriptions, especially for little ones. It is appalling to reflect on the impact of Matthew 18:6-7 in such a case:
 

	"But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to sin, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of the sea.
	Woe to the world because of offenses! For offenses must come, but woe to that man by whom the offense comes!"

No, say many of the fallen churches which were, and are not, and yet are (that is, were once churches, have lost the reality, and yet continue in their defamation of Christ's words, while using His name). No! they say, we do not worship One who made us by creation, who saves us by donation, whose satisfaction for our sins came on the Cross, without whom we are as the offscouring of the universe, unsavoury, children of wrath (Ephesians 2, 4). Like the Liberals of old, many now want it to be in their own wills, if not their own works, and in their own feeling, and in their own savvy, so that it is THEIR OWN WORK to find, above others, to BE above others, and impressing the Management, get IN, wherever it is they think IN might be!

MORE OF THE HABIT OF HABAKKUK

Behead Paul in his teaching, seems to be the message, murder the message of Habakkuk, his answer to the wickedness of the world, and this secular wayward wisdom, this mundane confusion, it is like an Aids in the soul! Yet for all that Habakkuk has it, as he has always had it. DO MEN use wicked force on each other ? he asks. The JUST will live by FAITH! the Lord answers in Ch. 2.

In Habakkuk, it is what is NOW that is horrifying the prophet. It is not THIS in which he is to trust, for it is from this he recoils in HORROR! In Chapter 3 we find that the judgment will sit, and the justice of the Lord, when all the inventions of man are over and his absurd departures from the living God are self-evaluated in remorseless history: and the Lord with His Messiah (as in Psalm 2) will indeed come to this earth, to end the rash of irrationality, the smirk of 'success' and institute government in truth, till

"the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea."

 

What, however, about the meantime for Habakkuk ? What of his 'now' ?

"The just will live by his faith."

It is nothing to do with God's contemporary action for Habakkuk in this regard, since it is the apparent LACK of this which constitutes the prophet's problem. It is with the faith that God will act as in the entirety of Ch. 3 He shows He is going to act (cf. Isaiah 64:4-5). In the interim, FAITH that He is honourable, just and righteous, that He does love righteousness, and that He knows His saints, THIS is necessary. It is not in acquisition (as Ch. 2 goes on to narrate), in showing yourself 'tough' and canny! It is not in seeking more than you need, to adorn your nest. It is not in physical or cavalier strength, that the way is to be. In FAITH, a man must follow DESPITE all the evil, the way of the Lord, and so live by his faith.

Yet WHAT IS this faith ? It is only what the same book of the same Lord showed from the first. It is just a matter of BELIEVING WHAT HE SAYS, accepting His will and doing it, BECAUSE you trust Him. In Eden, it meant NOT believing the opposition; with Abraham it meant accepting the promise of God concerning the blessing to the entire earth which would come when Abraham got up and did what the Lord wanted of him, and went to the promised land. It meant accepting NOT some atonement from one's own hand, and might, and strength and cleverness, to satisfy the Lord concerning sin, but RECEIVING a DIVINE atonement, as when the ram was caught in the bushes for Abraham (Genesis 22:8ff.), so that Isaac was NOT sacrificed.

Then it was clear that  even what was most dear to Abraham became merely IRRELEVANT as a sacrifice. Perfection alone atones for the perfect God, or makes up the gap, so that the Lord provided the sacrifice.  (Cf.  Psalm 49:7,15.)

It was in THIS way that the promises both patriarchal and spiritual to Abraham, were confirmed (Genesis 22:16ff.), including the forecast of the Messiah Himself (cf. Genesis 3:15, 12:1ff.).Here the light of day shone on the earlier events (cf. Genesis 15:13-21). Here lay the crux for the consummation to come.

Moreover the ram was CAUGHT, and the Lord saw to it that it would be. This is precisely what happened with the Son whom the Lord caused to come to Mary, the Son of God, the UNIQUE Son of God. He was by the determinate foreknowledge of God set there, and by His own will in harmony with that of His Father, He went to be 'caught' and sacrificed, God's own offering of Himself (Isaiah 48:16, Hosea 13:14, Micah 5:1-3, Psalm 2, 16, 22^*7), for sin.

Thus was His eternal word put into flesh, the flesh put into works of love, thus were the works of love for the race given (John 12:48-50), if by any means those caught could be freed by the Saviour voluntarily being caught, for their liberation. Thus would He (and does He) liberate even those wilfully astray, for the will as well as the well of life is corrupted. Thus is the equality, for that which was caught by sin to death, is liberated by that allowing itself to be caught to death, to cover the case. Only God could cover many, and only perfection could offer ANY! The books balance.

In creation, in salvation, God does it. In man's heart is the delusion that in creation as in 'salvation' of whatever kind, it is man who does it, in company perhaps with some visions of little worth, or some works that are proud and hence worthless, presuming to think that they could satisfy the offended Creator, or match heaven's chalice and charge!

Thus does Habakkuk reveal that the Lord -

	in HIS OWN time,
	when liberties have had their full scope of licence, and madnesses of man
	have shown in time, for all eternity,
	their loose follies and unworkable failures -

will act.

He has done so in nations, in individuals, as with Egypt, Babylon, Nineveh and Tyre, tirelessly showing to man by prophetic judgment then brought to pass, the frustrations of grandeur in the grip of foolishness, astray and on its way by gratuitous separation from Himself. He will do so not merely in salvation, as in His Messiah (Ch. 3), but with that same Messiah, He will act in judgment. This has been clear as running brooks from the snow, since Psalm 2, 22, where the sufferings of Christ and the glory to follow were so categorically plain. Freedom is preserved, the spirit of man is given rein; follies are exposed, the mind of man is given instruction; judgments arise, the heart of man is shown the grounds of disgrace: but judgment will come in the grand assizes, the final accounting, the eventual audit.

The BOOKS WILL BE AUDITED. So is it most clear not only to the logically arrested conscience of man, but in the word of God (cf. Christ in Matthew 25, Isaiah in Ch. 2, Micah in Ch. 7, Revelation in Ch. 20, Daniel in Ch. 7 ...  and on and on).The ways and wills of mankind will be exposed. The secret conversation in pride, will be shouted from the housetops. All will be revealed; and how easily is it known, when even relatively puny man, with his computers, can store trillions of data elements, and reproduce so far. The books will be opened.

Meanwhile, Habakkuk completes the work (Hab. 3:17-19),  as the Lord ANSWERS his vast query. Even if there is no fruit, even if there is no spread of 'success' and even if material fruition and productivity appears devastated, YET will he rejoice in the Lord. How ? BY FAITH! He will do as he was told, the just shall live by faith, and so will he, knowing that mercy is available, judgment is sure and all things are modelled to a plan, fearful in final execution, marvellous in interim mercies, sure in eventual salvation to those who live by faith in that Messiah who is to come at the end, in just judgment, God as man the surety for all knowledge and all compassion, and all knowledge, even to the most intimate of details in the most personal of fashions (cf. Hebrews 2:10-18, 12:24-29).

The just, said Habakkuk, said Paul in applying the word of that prophet, shall  live by faith; and THAT faith, it is the faith of Abraham (as in Romans 4), who received the ACCOUNTING of God's righteousness to himself by that means, the faith which RECEIVES the divinely provided sacrifice, even as it was in the end that was the beginning of this crucial Age,  that of the LORD Himself.

Yet you say, It is still force. It is still blood ?

That, as a parry, it scarcely deserves contempt. It is the blood not shed BY you to survive so selfishly for your sins, but shed FOR you that you might be covered, your sin cancelled, so that you might KNOW GOD, and HENCE being filled with His Spirit, rejoice in sure and certain knowledge of His sublimity. This you find not only by reason, but by experience as He schools you and interprets and applies.

Darwin is dead, in religion, in science, in fact. Naturalism is dead. It is wearisome ignoring of all that is man, all that is scientific in method. Psychological warfare, such as seen in so many schools and lands, wrought by misled educationists, seeking to subdue the minds of students to their own follies, just as Hitler did, and Stalin: this too is a way of death, auguring death for all who participate without revulsion, and do not repent. Force as a supplement or basis for faith, this too is dead. It defiles reality.

UNHOLY ROWDYISM IN THE CLASS ROOM

How ludicrous then to find in The Australian (Oct. 29, 2003) that there is ANOTHER UNHOLY ROW, in terms of creation and evolutionism. It is an unholy vow, if you will, on the lips of insurgent educationists who misteach scientific method (cf. SMR pp. 140ff.), who mismatch pedagogy with people, using it as a tool to ENFORCE, not a method of instruction, so that the students THINK.

Richard Dawkins is cited in this article as indicating that yes, if you propagandise sufficiently, you could convince people of almost anything. It is the principle which he seems to understand; it is the practice where he apparently fails. It is true that endless FORCIBLE ('enforced') nonsense, as Gould rightly saw it to be, can as in Darwinism, with its gradual creation by what lacks empirically, logically and visibly all power to do so, comes to be believed by many.

Soft-bodied things did not leave records, they wistfully proclaim; yet in the Burgess deposits in Canada, there is reported a MULTITUDE and MASS of just that^*8. And WHY did it leave it (cf. News 1), because it was covered up. And why was it covered up, not degrading, but kept so long, though so soft ? It is because of the flood which gave the instant cover, as in much of the earth, with its masses of deposits, often anything but autochthanous, drawn form varied scenes of wide dispersal, and set down in the violence of the occasion.

What weakness tries to writhe into some kind of continuity for self-creation! What enormities are mouthed against simple facts in the agony of error! As Nilsson put it in his massive tome:

"THE DEFICIENCIES ARE REAL," he summarised, "THEY WILL NEVER BE FILLED... THE IDEA OF EVOLUTION RESTS ON PURE BELIEF" - English Summary, op.cit., p. 1212.

Again we read, Nilsson, op.cit,  p. 1212, where he reinforces the dictum:

"It may, therefore, be firmly maintained that it is not even possible to make a caricature of an evolution out of the palaeobiological facts." The point about these statements is that they are true, it is so. Specialists on all sides attest it, albeit variously. The thing is not there.

As summed up in SMR Ch. 2, note 36 from the empirical findings of Gould:

Put more specifically, in terms of form: the theory of gradualism

is a parody of the facts; a rejection of the evidence;
is falsified as a scientific theory
by continual confirmation of this contradiction of what it would predict;
and its formally defunct character

is re-asserted with the progress of knowledge,

with increasing and now mortifying force and firmness.

That is its logical character. It is like the corpse of Lenin:
very dead, but surprising kept on view.

In this case, however, wanton devotee work is not interested
in acknowledging that the corpse is (scientifically) dead.

Reading Gould's Wonderful Life in this respect, is pure comedy. The man is continually exploding at the deadness of gradualism. His own contribution, at the theoretical level, is merely verbal, contrary as seen above to all logic^{*1,   *3}. At least like Nilsson he faces the evidence, even if his mind floats off in naturalistic efforts anyway.

What then ?

The difference from creation is the lack of rationality which the latter possesses eminently.

Evolutionism, organic evolution, it is against ALL empirical evidence; while creation is as shown in the above SMR reference, conformed to EACH segment of requirement scientifically. Yet the endless repetition has people just as he says, in large numbers believing ALMOST ANYTHING! Yes, even that given time, inert matter makes thought, freedom and code; that the bound makes the liberated; that the directed makes the undirected; that the platform makes the players, that the instruments make the musicians and that the trees need not to be felled, or cut, the timbers need not to be cured, the craftsman need not create violins. Given time, the trees make the music, and the musicians, in company with the earth.

Believe ? yes almost anything provided it is for long enough idly propagandised, and yes ENFORCED.
Dawkins in right as to propaganda: he projects however in just such a way, what has no other support.

If at any time, man wants to be free of force, and face the requirement of faith in the Creator where the EVIDENCE ALONE lies, and accept the book which ALONE of all gives the answer which creation NEEDS, and the resolution which for force is the only answer which will at last SUFFICE, when miscreancy has run its self-revealing course: then there are so many to interfere. Biblically it is to get worse, until the rule of the STATE in the hands of the aggressive regime which is to be not only national, but international, with no escape but to God, comes into FORCE.

It will be ENFORCED. How apt was the word of the Minister's servant in Adelaide! Enforced. In this present world, it is the last resort of feeble minds, and the first occasion of defeated players, who WILL not because they cannot face the truth.

Force solves nothing, and is eminently suitable with God, when He has exhibited the option, and shown the way, allowing all error to be exploded, and for eternity, left the peace of the truth. Even He is most sparing, and comes only when all the nations have had their day, when the Gospel is fully preached, when liberty being offered, has been summarily dismissed, or happily received. Even that is under His sole supervision and oversight. It is really God or flesh; reason or irrationality; dream or direction; evidence or emptiness; pretence or propositional proof; antagonism to truth, or its flowering.

Do they answer ?

If they could, they would debate. In our experience, they never do. They 'cannot' or they will not, or they cite authority; but as to reason, it is left naked on the turf, trodden on. As the Bible put it, truth lies 'fallen in the street.' If they could, they would allow students to show contrasts with theory and fact; but now they FORBID it in science, and call it unallowable in other subjects. The beast of the Bible ?

It is virtually here now. Yet let us not despair for all, for always throughout history, the Lord has chosen some. Let us not even despair for the loud-mouthed, rough-housing of the students, under the guises of education! It is not necessarily the case that the move to the end will be universally similar. In the end, the Spirit will raise up a standard for the truth; and yes, it is even now (Isaiah 59:19ff.). It comes.

The end looms like a ship approaching the wharf. It seems slow, to take so long: but suddenly, it is there (cf. Revelation 1:7-8,  Matthew 24:36ff.).

Shortly, the whole callow calamity of the defilement of scientific method in religion and in systematic studies of material things, and living forms, will explode into a broader base, political, financial and other. Let it. It is only temporary. Meanwhile, let us love those afflicted children, and seek deliverance for them, as we are able, for He who judges knows, and do we then say, I did not know!

Let us therefore in liberty love the young, and not the tormentors of method, who seduce by force; and whom do they seduce ? only some, despite the defilement of pedagogy to which they are committed.

It is the gorgeous beauty of our overflight, that not only all science, but all truth is available in one package, one logical cohesion, one self-explanatory reality, nothing missing, in one place, from one God, in one Word who became flesh, in one resurrection, in one place for one Person, who is the one Messiah, in whom all is found, each part, as pure as ice, as tough as steel, as beautiful as a cloud of daffodils.

We do not impute evil motive to man, for God will do that soon enough; but whatever the motive, the result is irrational in such fields as these, in rebellion against God as against fact. In reality, all are friends, for God makes with the universe, the FACTS FOR MAN, in His image. It is simply one more verification that man is able to see, if he will, without any impediment but his own will, the holy harmony, the HOLY BEAUTY that is the substitute for the unholy row of romancing pseudo-science and false prophecy, in all things in one.

It is however only in the RIGHT ONE, as in any problem, that this is found. The right one is the evidenced one, the eternal one, the self-attesting one, the one who does not use force for faith, the one who loved, the one who gave to creation its existence, and gives in perfect harmony with that generous feat, salvation its place, freely.

So have we flown over these things as in our U 2, surveying the scene. Surveillance is a little different, for we know what is there, and what is to be, the latter because God has told us. We are seeing it come to pass. Fascinating thing is overflight! Far better than delayed shock!

NOTES

*1 This excerpt from Wake Up World! Your Creator is Coming ... Ch. 6 will illustrate. For this purpose, the citations are in red.

 

The CONTRA-INDICATIONS. Some of these "difficulties" he notes, some vividly! These lead on to the pronunciamento phase to follow.

These appear in *2, Ch. 5, above, but to these we may add.

1. There was in the Burgess shale a phenomenon low down in Cambrian, which was so vast in scope and variety that:

there are found remains of 15-20 organisms so different from ONE ANOTHER and from anything now known to to be living, that "EACH OUGHT TO RANK AS A SEPARATE PHYLUM" (op. cit. p.99).

2. This tallies with his statement that "INSTEAD OF A NARROW BEGINNING AND A CONSTANTLY EXPANDING UPWARD RANGE, MULTICELLULAR LIFE
REACHES ITS MAXIMAL SCOPE AT THE START,
WHILE LATER DECIMATION LEAVES ONLY A FEW SURVIVING DESIGNS" - op.cit. p. 233.

HOW, he asks, presuming to do so "in heaven's name" - seemingly in the grip of growing frustration and desperation, like that of Nilsson and Paul Davies in his nothing approach (certainly radical, even if radically irrational)
 

·       "HOW ... COULD SUCH DISPARITY ARISE SO QUICKLY"*^1A (op.cit. p. 227).

The Burgess time provided what he calls a "Burgess maximum in organic disparity" (loc.cit.). The Chinese fossil case cited is reputedly similar (p. 226).

"HOW," he continues, "IN HEAVEN'S NAME COULD SUCH DISPARITY ARISE IN THE FIRST PLACE, WHATEVER THE LATER FORTUNES OF ITS EXEMPLARS?" (Cf. Questions and Answers 2, End-note 1.)

·       It is of course far easier to go to heaven in word, than in fact; just as it is far easier to have continuity in nature through the power of phrases, than in the power of evident construction.

The intense and literally immense irony is this: that while Gould's words invoke a heaven of whose power no indication in his words appears that he is aware, in the antics or cavortings of his desperation, it is precisely where he invokes this name, that the answer he seeks is not only present: it is blatantly so. However, how many, how often are themselves amazed in due course, at what they did not see, and as we shall see in our Chapter 7 to follow: the sense of irony is not lost on God ! (as in Proverbs 1, 8).

3. He rightly sees that survival does not presuppose by any means, superiority of design (p. 238).

"But we have no evidence that the winners enjoyed adaptive superiority, or that contemporary handicapper could have designated the survivors. All that we have learned from the finest and most detailed anatomical monographs in twentieth-century paleontology portrays the Burgess losers as adequately specialized and eminently capable" - p. 239. "But if we examine the Burgess fauna honestly we have no evidence - not a shred - that the losers in the great decimation were systematically inferior in adaptive design to those that survived." Anyone, he cries, can invent a plausible story after the fact.

This adds to the consideration that terminating the life on this earth of this or that creation is not going to create, and is merely a maintenance phenomenon.

Easy outs at this level at last are being forsaken with some appearance of rationality, most rare in the company of those normally alight with the magical fervour which is organic evolutionism.

4. Indeed, p.260 brings us this impactive announcement, of the gradualistic, progressive, ' lottery' approach: "The modern themes of maximal disparity and decimation by lottery are more than just unacceptable under such a view of life; they are literally incomprehensible. They could never even arise for consideration."

Again from the same volume, Ch. 5, we have this from Gould:

"The absence of fossil evidence for intermediate stages between major transitions in organic design, indeed our inability, even in imagination, to construct functional intermediates in many cases, has been a persistent and nagging problem for gradualistic accounts of evolution" - 'Is a new and general theory of evolution emerging?', from Paleobiology, vol. 6(1), January 1980, p. 127.

Further from his Ch. 6,

"But we have no evidence that the winners enjoyed adaptive superiority, or that contemporary handicapper could have designated the survivors. All that we have learned from the finest and most detailed anatomical monographs in twentieth-century paleontology portrays the Burgess losers as adequately specialized and eminently capable" - p. 239.

*2

Imagine the case of skin repair. Now there has to be the array of clotting factors, their arrest and disposition to duties, their production; then comes the order of the skin section to be provided, each one diverse, each in the right place in the organ which is skin, layer by layer, provided, transported, laid down, finished for the next in sequence, and ready for adaptation to cohesion in a strength of specialised interchange. Such is healing.

Then there has to be the closure of the opening simultaneously, but at a rate which is compatible with the supply of the materials, and with the eventual geometry required. Texturing has to be added to all of the above, and much more besides, in terms of resistance to disease.

Think for just one moment of what is GOING to be needed, NOT being needed when the skin is wholly diverse, because not yet developed, hypothetically at some early stage. Hence it must not be selected or it would tend to be otiose, a mere drag on the life, useless garbage for millions of years (and that of course, is garbage also, as the new work on the velocity of light makes too apparent, in context of the earlier reasonings on age - cf. TMR Ch. 7, His Time is Near  9, Calibrating Myths Ch.  1).

However, let us keep to the model, for critical purposes, even it is beginning to resemble the T-model  Ford.

Thus harassed, other things equal, the limping cellular structure, in advance of its time, has what will be needed, but is not ready for such an advanced contribution, and collapses.

This condition, multiplied by millions of times for all the subtle interchanges that WILL  be required, but are not, and never are at any stage, except as apt for that stage, involves endless duplication of  effort, multiplication of format and absence of means, so that this is surely the most cumbersome piece of effrontery to mind ever invented: although of course, the ancient Greeks like Democritus were hard to beat for obscurantism  also: for what atom transcended the orbit to do a little thinking for the philosopher, and to discuss atoms in ways which were not an arrangement of bits of stuff, but of thought.

Thought may be  transferred by a code to a communicable person; but it is not the code but the thought which is symbolically expressible which is in point. Chalk is not cheese; law is not purpose; cogitation is not agitation; logical investigation is not logical command; question is not answer. It is important to talk about one thing at a time, and not to try to reduce everything to nothing since nothing does not do anything.

Do we SEE anything becoming something else - thoughts dissolving in some solution; some solution arising to think; some thought willing a purpose, or some purpose losing itself in mere thought. Each may rebuke the other, but they are consciously disposable, tenaciously pursuable.

They are diverse, relatable but co-operative elements of the whole. It is rather like saying this: Of course a cylinder is REALLY iron, and an electrical lead is REALLY a  small girder, and a battery is REALLY a chemical solution on a plate and so forth.

Such inaccuracies are the nadir of science, mere philosophy, without ground, use or descriptive power, a breach of the integrity of data in the interests of what is NEVER seen, has no GROUND for being found, and NEVER operates.

Returning for one moment to biology, we find that the absence of ACTION on the lines suggested - an abomination of inefficiency imagined for a PRODUCT which is a monument to efficiency, in just one more confrontation with fact, is mirrored by the absence of RELICS showing such odd procedures, in the very midst of enormous numbers of soft-bodied and hard-boned materials, all ... after their kind. Often now they are found just as now, 'millions' of years ago, and sometimes far larger.

Logic smiles at experience; experience purrs at laboratory precision; truth glances happily at the records, and the skin goes on being repaired in its integrity of multiplicity, the mind in being exercised in its symbolic logic, the spirit in its purposing and all in its imagination, that divinely sculptured gift which is an aid to delight, a probe for understanding and alas also, so readily a substitute for science in such diseased specimens of anti-scientific methodology as are now so popular that thought seems outlawed.

The method however remains; its results remain, and remain consistent ONLY with the facts, with creation. Simple facts of this kind are unwelcome, because of the spirit of man, that crowning achievement which is frequently apt to want the crown for itself, though it did not even create the crown of its head, that it might be crowned. The apt response is actually as shown in Revelation 4:10-11.

*3
On this evolutionary model, most of the designs, far more than now present,  came very near the beginning, so that relatively, it is a sort of Spring, an outburst if you will in Parliament of a member ever since all but silent. The Cambrian era is the end of Darwin. It is surprising that with all the other events, this is not realised. It is like someone for President, who is found to have eighteen wives, and then, to have slain two thousand men at work. It is strange that the case is not realised. It is not really quite ... suitable.

*4

'Darwinian' has a 'win' whereas Darwin is a dead loss. In this context, Darwinesque seems better, the sheer comedy of the eminent Gould setting the audience ablaze with mirth, except of course when they dare not say good-bye to a miscreant religion of magic, that has well prepared the path for the new fad in witchcraft.

*5

'Punctuated equilibrium'. However, it is not so much punctuation that is needed, as for example the full stop of cessation. It is the SENTENCE IN BETWEEN which lacks. It is not brakes, but accelerator, not ending but starting, and not starting only, but getting it done which is the point at issue. Finesse with punctuation presumes that something is written. Alas it lacks!

See SMR pp. 315Aff..

*6 Since Muhammad here declares as from Allah, that never was there a case of a prophet or apostle with whose wishes Satan did not tamper, it must be true of himself.

God however abrogates, says Muhammad, the work of  Satan and confirms his own revelations: but from all this,  there are implications.

Suggestions are made by Satan, as one translation puts it, 'according to his desire',  but they are dismissed. The auditing of such, in the realm of the word of God, would be inconceivable with Christ, who recognised Satan and slew him with the word, not being 'tempted' by suggestions, manifestly out of accord with Himself, the living word, and the written word of that day. The word of God, says Peter in II Peter 1:20-21, swept, drove as by a wind, the prophets to speak, and so they spoke. It was not a personal equation at all. Overwhelming power and precision drove them like hurricane (the same word for 'driven' is used of just such a wind, when Paul was tempest-tossed in the Mediterranean Sea), and impelled them like a sword. God told them, and they wrote.

This man, Muhammad, then, does not know that of which he speaks, in this, that he did not have personal knowledge of the class of persons to whom he refers. He cannot therefore generalise. Nor does the Bible reveal such a thing, but even in the case of Balaam, seemingly a false man, like Judas, the message came out without error, whatever the result. In fact, the evidence concerning the tampering case reminds one clearly of Balaam, who with some sort of gift, yet dithered and dallied, and needed an ass to correct his intemperance.

Hence with Muhammad, at least, himself of whom he DID have personal knowledge, this account of tampering must be true, if he is not lying. Assuming that he is not, which would be a sin, then he is acknowledging of himself, as one of the class of whom he speaks, that Satan has tampered with the revelation he gave, sought to sway him with appealing variants. To be sure, it is asserted that this was overcome, but tampering is not sinless when it is permitted, or admitted. Conflicting voices for one chosen to declare the word of God is a highly personal equation, betokening undisciplined desire even at such a thing, as being called to declare the word of God (if such had been the case, in reality).

Christ spoke what was commanded and did ALWAYS what His Father desired. Satan could not tamper in the least, since he was simply read out of court (Matthew 4, John 12:48ff.). Confirmatory of Muhammad's liability is the fact that we find this also in the Koran:

"The Night Journey", (Al Isra), verses 73 - 75:

"They sought to entice you from Our revelations - they nearly did - hoping that you might invent some other scripture in Our name, and thus become their trusted friend. Indeed had we not strengthened your faith, you might have made some compromise with them and thus incurred a double punishment in this life and in the next. Then you should have found none to help you against Us."

    Reasonable is the word noted in the site, Answering Islam:

At all events, this is the actual early testimony in written coverage of a decisive character concerning Muhammad. This is their record.

In fact, it merely confirms what the Koran indicates, that Muhammad was acutely aware, at least on occasion, and by the appearance of the statement, not uncharacteristically, of efforts of 'Satan' to impel into his 'revelations' some other word, with some other influence, some motivation which competed with the other. He may indeed have actually declared such a word, as many early commentators indicate, and more of the tradition yet.

Even in the Koran, it is seen that the tumult of his person, even on this admission, his 'god' did not appear so clearly that the case was beyond dubiety. Such things, lacking clarity and vision, are falling short and constitute sin. By no means is this any sinless being!

The testimony of the Christ, the only Son of God, the Messiah, the guide, ransom and ground of faith for man, is far otherwise, clarity and authority never varying, His holy passion entrancing even to enemies (cf. John 18:6, 7:46). In the latter case, Christ 'arrested' in heart, those who had come to arrest Him in body. It was precisely the lack of wavering, the lack of the personal equation as some kind of soft under-belly which never ceased to amaze, never ceased to happen. In His temptations, His Spirit is always clear, His word decisive. Cf. Christ the Wisdom and the Power of God, esp. Ch. 8.

*7

On these prophecies, see Joyful Jottings 22-25. On the scope of salvation as shown continually in the Bible, see Barbs, Arrows and Balms 17; and on the multiply provided, but single Gospel see TMR Ch. 3.

*8

See Gish's Evolution! the fossils STILL say NO! e.g. pp. 67ff..