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Chapter 2
GOING UP ?
There's a war on...
There was a time when
there was a war on, in the British world, and in some others. It was called
World War II. This did seem at the time, comparatively obvious. For example,
there were ration tickets to enable limited supplies of petrol or meat; and
there were resultant limitations on some forms of enterprise, such as touring
holidays and construction of factories for which supplies would have to be authorised. If you did not know there was a war on, your
degree of intelligence/knowledge would need to be that of something like an
infant, or of rather restricted proportions.
Hence, when someone was
being amazingly obtuse about some area of this situation, the cry could go, 'Listen mate! Don't
you know there is a war on!'
There were times when a
little direct talk seemed to some at least, to be necessary. It is so here
also, in the situation of this world approaching the return of Christ, like a
boat approaching its wharf for docking.
It is as if some of the
hands do not realise this, and as the vessel nears
the wharf, the officer in charge of that operation might cry in amazed concern
to some completely oblivious rating, 'Listen mate, there is docking on!'
In a similar way, the time
is coming and is now, when one must cry to the blind and to the oblivious,
"Listen mate, there's a creation on, and we're docking with its
Author!' Stand by!" The crash of timbers is appalling even to
consider.
In CREATION
magazine, October-November, there is an interesting observation from researches
recently conducted. It is to the effect that in a comparison of human DNA with
that of gorillas, it was "calculated conservatively" that
"harmful mutations occur at a rate of 1.6 mutations per person per generation."
This was found within the
noted magazine NATURE,
The article there, went on to note: "This staggeringly high value has
shocked and baffled evolutionists, because it means that theoretically humans
should have become extinct by now!"
As we saw in
SMR, the difficulty of CONSERVING order and hence integral meaning in an
exposed word system is that it REDUCES, and in so doing, PRODUCES confusion,
disruption of that delicate tissue of means-results, methods-production,
symbol-meaning which is essential for operation in a command-means system such
as our DNA (SMR the Wistar Conference, pp. 154-159, with pp. 232ff., where Sir Fred Hoyle's point
is extended! pp. 15ff. where
mathematical analysis of a kindred character is considered, and 129ff., 159, 210ff., 251ff., 315Aff., where intelligence,
principles and production are analysed, with Ch.3 where order and causation are related to
reason).
For the moment, however,
let us simply address this case per se. In terms of the Second Law of
Thermodynamics,
entropy increases in any material system in this world. Order and available
energy tend to dissipate. As Professor Barnes puts it, "There is an
irreversible tendency for processes in a self-contained system to go toward
lower order. This means an increase in randomness, disorder, and decay if the
whole system is taken into account. That is to say, systems run down hill, not
up hill; they don't wind themselves up, they tend to run down." He
continues, "Biologist Harold Blum says, 'One way of stating this law is to
say that all real processes tend to go toward a condition of greater probability.'"
Blum argues for evolution. Barnes does not.
Start with nothing, like
Paul Davies. By DEFINITION of the term, you MUST end with it; for no potential
is POSSIBLE in such a concept; for if it were, it would NOT be nothing, but
potential. From nothing there is only one POSSIBLE product: nothing. Strictly
it is not a product for there is no PROCESS; for if there were, it would NOT be
nothing, but process.
Start with something. You
need a cause for it, as explained in SMR 1-3.
Start with it ANYWAY, for
argument's sake, so that if you DID get it - say by magic, you could see what
happened next in a system such as SCIENCE SHOWS by observation, is the one we
now have.
What then
?
Then its order will tend to
decrease, its randomness grow, its decay will
proliferate: this is the direction of flow.
To go up by going down is
not an option. It is the OPPOSITE, as one may observe. You do not postulate
that the people with fattest stomachs will win the Olympic spring BECAUSE of
their fat. If the TOTAL system is the fat, if it has the trend to go DOWN, then
this is not a possible position for going up. The SYSTEM SIMPLY WILL NOT DO IT.
If we want the logical
necessities we can study these as we have frequently done in SMR and other
works. But for the present, we are not studying the rational structure of
thought, but the observable structure of the world. It tends to decrease.
What now would creationists
say ? That it tends to decrease. What happens ? It tends to decrease. What would be their reason ? As scientists, it would be that the means to
increase are not exposed, and their operation is likewise not seen.
WHY ? For two reasons: on the one hand,
this is what is FOUND; and on the other, this is likewise what they READ in
what, as logic shows and faith accepts, is the word of the only One
who was there when it happened, GOD. It is a matter of fact and faith,
observation:
1) in the word and
2) in the works of the God who is
needed to endue things with existence,
an existence they show
neither means nor method (SMR pp. 80ff.),
neither power nor capacity to make for themselves, nor for that matter, even
the evidence of having done so (SMR pp.
106ff., 162ff., 1031C,
Ch.2, That Magnificent Rock
Ch.1, A Spiritual Potpourri Chs. 1-9), even if they could, and indeed, even if they
had been there to do it, which of course, they were not, since we are
discussing how they came to BE there in the first place.
We have dealt extensively
with the underlying point, the logical necessities in SMR and elsewhere.
Let us, however, knowing that it is there, yet look for the moment at
the mere realm of the observable, with purely the limits of ONE method, that
which science must deal with in all its endeavours to
explain. That is its task: TO SEE what is HAPPENING - with the eyes of the mind
as well as with those of the head, for some things are measurable only by their
effects, which nevertheless must be THERE - and
to EXPLAIN it in testable HYPOTHESES which will be singly verified or
otherwise, and cumulatively cross-verified by their cohesion with other working
hypotheses. How ?
In this sense, that they
work, that this is an observable reality, that they are verified, so that a
tissue of conception and operation, predication and prediction, may
successfully evidence its functional force, and being applied, advance the
power of man to achieve results. This is the purely operational realm, testable
in operations visible or by methods which translate this effectively into what
is so.
We shall call this realm
the empirical. In empirical science, then, we find that the concept of CREATOR
matches that of ENTROPY increase. LESS specialised
order, form, available energy is the way of it.
This real world matches
the creation of it, as its ground; for it is continually falling apart,
deteriorating, growing in that disorder which is the enemy of any and every
material system of the kind we have, and of the interaction of systems which is
so integral a part of what we find when we investigate and look into the
structure of things, be they heart or DNA.
How did it get here ? It quite obviously will not be put together BY
falling apart.
The total system ? It is rather like a lift. It will not rise BY
falling.
Even if it did, it will not
FIND upper floors just by rising. The systems have to be there to be reached,
if the process is DOWN and not UP. They will not invent themselves by growing
less. You also need the energy for the lift to go up. It will not create itself
by growing less, for it would then be negative, an overdraft with nowhere from
which to get it: no bank! With decreasing available energy, specialisation
and facility of operation, you will not find increasing available energy (so
that you can keep on using it up), increasing organisation
(so that you will have something to decrease). You are, in this scenario,
living on your capital. You will NEVER BY ANY MEANS generate it by losing it.
If your every endeavour to put something in the bank
is met by this irreversible trend for it to decrease, in your bank balance,
there is clearly only one way in which you could overcome this deadly, deathly
and moribund process.
You would have to INCREASE
it by MORE than the trend to DECREASE has provided for. To use this latter mode
of OPERATION as a form of GENERATION is simply a contradiction in terms. To
OVERCOME it, you need not mere words of mortal man, white-coated or other, but
power and intelligence enough to apply it to the point. It will thus be quite
useless to push stones around on a desert, as an example of using energy. THIS
will not increase that downgrading bank account.
You must use energy in SUCH
A WAY that it is APPLICABLE to the situation in hand, and so alter THAT
relevant situation in the way desired and designed. YOU must design something
effective to overcome its downward DESIGN component or actuality procedure. We
are talking of the real world, not of an imaginary one. THAT is the way IT GOES; this intelligent counter must
be the way YOU
GO. You must overcome by relevant energy, the process of decreasing purchasing
power.
In
general terms, in generics: if the order is to be lost, there is only way in
which this EMPIRICAL SCIENCE for any TOTAL SYSTEM (such as the totality of the
universe) may increase it, and that is from some OTHER SOURCE. That is what empirics tell us here.
You can go to reason, and we have done this, in terms of the nature and
structure of logic and causation. That is quite decisive as we have seen.
But if you want simply to
OBSERVE the EMPIRICAL and watch WHAT IS HAPPENING, then this is the most
masterful VERIFICATION you could wish. WHAT IS observable RUNS DOWN. Thus empirical science confirms, verifies and does so
with stunning severity, the whole of logic which has forced us to God in
The Shadow of a Mighty Rock. Let us be quick to add, this is merely to
force us to GOD or else, logically, to ABANDON reason, which of course includes ALL argument.
SURRENDER AND ALL THAT!
We do not HAVE to come to
Him. If many of us have delightedly done so, this does not mean that others may
not quite deliberately abandon reason, become irrational, cease all
communication to the point, and retire from the creation in mind, in effect,
becoming suicides of that rational part of their composition, while all the time
using this for other purposes. It is certainly, in terms of analogy, a sort of
spiritual schizophrenia; it is to operate in two irreconcilable ways
simultaneously, when one harmonious one is available: it is the opposite of all
science, and it is fatal to logic, hence outlawing it from any consistent use.
However, there is no necessity for the WILL to capitulate to God (Luke 13:1-3,
Having made this
clarification, however, we proceed with our Second Law of Thermodynamics, a
scientific, empirical law, and consider in a scientific, empirical way, what we
are getting.
First, then, there is this
massive verification of the whole conception of Creator. What we have does the
opposite as a TOTAL SYSTEM, and this is not an EXPLANATION or EXPLANATORY of, a
CONFIRMATION or CONFIRMATORY of a system inventing itself; but it is all this,
of a system NEEDING to be THERE, so that it can run down, and so that we can be
about while it does so, hoping it will take some time to do so, so that we can
have somewhere to be, and indeed, something to be!
When we look BEYOND the
material system, since it shows this behaviour: when
we plan to seek its source, then, we are no longer looking WITHIN this system,
in terms of its behavioural characteristics. We are
therefore looking somewhere else. Matter acts in this way; it is then not to
this we must look, if we are to follow empirics.
There is a name for
what is not matter, and which yet can act: it is
spirit. It is so much easier in this, that we all have one. We can invade
matter, do so with mind, and decide it is all worth while by spirit. By spirit
we can reject the desires of the mind, the rationality of its conceptions or
the reasonableness of its analysis, because WE WANT TO (cf. SMR pp. 348ff.). People and nations often do
this. It is a matter of WILL, and it leads to all sorts of erratic things,
contrary to law and order and system and organisation,
and makes it amazing that anything of these is left at all, when you consider
just one element, as we did in our present Chapter 1, WAR. But there is war of
mind and of spirit as well, domestic and spiritual also; and the results are
that there is still something left. It is not showing of itself, any increase.
Anything but this is the case.
When we look for the cause
whereby the system NOT OBSERVABLY of the magical type is, and has come to be,
an observable system which is very prosaic and
commonplace in this respect, that it demands grounds for action, substance for
expenditure: when in other words, we act in terms of empirical science, of
course, we find the necessities as has been shown. We look for what this system
is not, and find independent evidence accordingly. Our present point however is
simply this: the verification of Creation by the operation of what is here, is as total as it would be possible to be. It is
eloquent, substantive, incisive, continual, and formulable
in law.
GETTING SOMEWHERE
FROM NOWHERE
WITH NO MEANS …!
Let us however go further.
The TOTAL ORDER of our TOTAL SYSTEM, in terms of empirical science, MUST have
been greater
at earlier times
than now: and as our indication on DNA with which we
began, indicates, much greater. The deterioration of our delicate systems is
intense. Hence something MUCH MORE than what we now have MUST ONCE HAVE BEEN. ITS TOTAL ORDER MUST HAVE BEEN A DEPOSIT, for empirically -
and this, we repeat is our present chosen field, for special thought on its
own, at this time, since the others have been so thoroughly worked already -
THIS ONLY GOES DOWN.
Thus on this basis,
that respectable basis of empirical science which finds what happens and seeks
for coherent, interlocking hypotheses to account for it, to verify or
disregard: a vast and far more than current universe was deposited in a way
contrary to what now happens.
This is not very helpful
for gradualism, and there is simply no escape for it, just as there is no
escape from this reality, if this is our field. As far as total order, organisation and availability of energy is
concerned, this law, then, the second of thermodynamics is simply making its
quite stunning contribution to the many phases of the creation evidence. What
is this contribution then ?
1) As to the universe: ONCE IT WAS, and
that is that. It was PLACED. Since then, its behaviour
is to be displaced. This is the implication of the Second Law of
Thermodynamics.
2) The Bible says: In the beginning, God created the heaven and
the earth, and that ? It is that.
They match,
the former in its phase, relative to the latter. Not only is this so, but
equally true is it, that each has excellent
credentials: the latter as we have demonstrated formally, ineradicable, and if
despised, able to eradicate reason itself as a weapon in the hands of those so
disposed.
But let us go further
again. The fact is that there have to be floors for the lift to go to (the
TOTAL system), even if it did go up - contrary
to scientific, empirical observation, go only down for the total system (we can
always IMAGINE something, but here we are dealing with observation and
verification, which is never found in the mind, but with the measuring,
investigating and FINDING ruler of science). In other words, systems do not
invent their order by observation: ONLY adequate implants can do that. Left
alone they degenerate, do not appreciate.
What is to
stop this must be ADEQUATE to counteract it. One name for that is NOT nothing. It is force applied as required to cover the
specific features of the case in such a way as to overcome the specialised and highly particular degrading tendency which
is - and wait for it - NATURAL. Which force ? Which
particularity of counteraction, able to service the designs and overcome their
natural downgrading through interaction ? What is it called ? Where do we EVER see it ?
What is its name ? What natural 'force' or adequacy or
sufficiency or agency does this ? Where is this
counteraction to the law to be
found ? Is its invisibility the heart of science
? Does science speak of things we see and hear, of imagine what is NEVER
seen OR heard and then explain on that basis ?
Lacking such things, in our empirical reality of this world, we simply revert to the law. Now we have this a fortiori point, this additional quandary. NOT ONLY is it IMPOSSIBLE without TOTAL breach of the second law of thermodynamics to GET this world without its totality or order and available energy, the organisational being far greater than it now is, at the FIRST. IN ADDITION, even if things were to become more organised, there has to be the constructive capacity to enable them to be better, more sophisticated, to have that implant of code and symbol, or product and intelligence definitional reality, to which the particular form of upward organisation would relate (cf. A Spiritual Potpourri, Ch.4, pp. 41- end of chapter, esp. 51-53). No array of universes can allay or suspend the need to have a net plus, in order to have decline, and the net plus has to BE, for a reason, causally produced, sustained and so present.
You can make your tin
soldiers line up more and more strictly in a straight line; but this does not
invent a cannon. Nor does it make the interface
between hand and cannon. Nor yet does it create the capacity of hand to meet
the requirements of firing cannon; nor yet again, the consequences to the point
of the correlation, nor yet again, the integration of the other soldiers, nor
the field in which the operation occurs, nor the target, nor the value of so
assaulting the target, nor even more, the consequences of so meeting a value,
nor the integration of this with other values, and so on almost ad infinitum,
as far as this world allows (but this IS the one we are dealing with, so its
limits are THE limits, without God).
Phase by phase, step by step, plan by plan, minor plan and master plan, scene and scenario, agents and sub-agents, we find ONE WHOLE MECHANISM OF MINIATURISED MARVEL WHICH OPERATES IN SUCH EXTREME PRECISION OF INFORMATION MEANS AND CARRIERS AND CONSEQUENCES, AND SUCH UNITARY CORRELATION WITH PURPOSES, THAT IT IS ALL OR NOTHING. Indeed, with it is the machination of man, which is roving, discursive and so free that it may purposely at will, elect to be irrational, even for rational objectives (as when David pretended to be mad, with rational intent).
With this, a consistent, persistent outthrust of organised marvel is grooved into the governing matrix, where it has interface.
Put a spare Volkswagen tyre on a Cadillac, if you
will; but it will not work. And that ? It assumes that
TYRES are a device to be selected in the first place, and you are there to do
the selection (cf. SMR pp. 252Aff.,
where the point made by Professor Fred Hoyle of
You need a field for their
operation, a code for their information, a structure of command for their
disposition, a universe of discourse for the communication, with code-meaning
correlation, a contrivance for the execution of command, a unitary message
format for the assimilation of response to the direction of purpose, so that
adjustment may be made as in editing of DNA copy errors, an erection of plan in
the preference to NOTHING, and thus of all the material correlates of the plan
for the fulfilment of the same. Purpose
? it is measured by the correlation and
integration of unitary consequences in terms of a related synthesis with the
progress or progression of some entity. It may be direct, as in conscious
planning, or indirect, as in programmed modes of fulfilling the same, as in
setting the alarm clock: but the distance of the device from the mind of the
purposing agent is not really of any consequence at this level. It is trivia
only (cf. Repent or Perish 7, Excursion 2).
Not MERELY MORE order, but
that sort of order which has all the components in a working order, able to act
and interact, to operate and co-operate, in a field of total operational
felicity, involving many and sometimes myriads of necessary, highly specialised parts, format specific, functional specific,
and in action, order and sequence specific, and output specific, and in total,
at once and in total association, specific in time. NOT ONLY the opposite, then
of the Second Law, but an increment of what is the prerogative of the word
defined as intelligence must appear (cf. SMR pp. 210-211, 252Eff.).
This is what the
requirements for organic evolution prescribe, and what the the
Second Law proscribes. There are the two emperors, the one in NATURE and the
other in IMAGINATION. Science has no difficulty in determining which is the one
to heed, when it is its own method is followed,
and not the purposes of those whose own imaginations have preferences which,
quite within their own authority, relate to a world of their desire and not of
the actual design. THERE, there is the difference! It is a political, a psychic
substitution for the natural, the scientific case.
To say that this is
irrelevant is not going nearly far enough; it IS relevant, for it is a
replacement of the world of creative imagination by the one we all know, our
own in common, that on which we walk with our feet, and move in parts with our
hands, the natural one which is the ostensible object of research. You can do
that; you can make that substitution, and in the extreme degree, that is the lurk and lair of the schizophrenic mind. But again, our
topic is not psychiatry, but this common world. Such imaginations, whether
pathological or merely preferential, they are interesting, but have nothing to
do with science, except perhaps, if it WERE to be called a science, that of
psychology.
That then is a confusion of
territories; for in this instance, we were not studying the terrain of the
human mind, yes better of SOME human minds, associated with wills, but of the
earth common to all! It is one thing to make a mistake in some mathematical
enterprise at some point, and as we saw in SMR, even Einstein once did that,
and did so monumentally, so that a Dutch astronomer pointed out the error. That
is understandable, though psychically interesting (in view of WHAT that mistake
did!). It is however quite another sort of error when one is STUDYING the
WRONG SCIENCE, the discipline itself is confused, as if one were talking on
astronomy, but in fact make a study of dancing - BY MISTAKE! There, one has
more than mere error!
We do not need such an
error, but the discipline of thought to the issue in hand. The imagination must
relate in a disciplined way to the field in hand (cf. SMR pp. 251ff.), and not, inventing another,
proceed to account for that!
THIS world! not yours or mine in some fantasy or preference: the one
which is our common lot. Now of it, there is much to be said, but it should be
looked at as it is, not as it might be. Yet if someone wants to consider the
movements which are a precise contradiction of the trend which the Second Law
prescribes, let us then indulge the desire, for the sake of the other party.
Let us then move upward in it, and consider the elevation requirement, if one
were to have it like that, stage by stage, going up.
The delicacy and elevated
felicity of multiple things which relate only in plan, not in part, and are
plan specific in time and place, in result and product, this is needed. Worms
do not become Boeings by means of more order. Something in addition is
necessary. Codes and symbols, expression and command is
necessary, which while matter may transmit it, as in a tape recorder, is not a
performance quality of matter to invent. Evidentially, WE humans have it
(within profound limits); but matter lacks it.
Scientifically (and that is
our present limited area of thought), this is a BASE for INTERPRETATION, not an
ISSUE FOR IGNORING. When in all science do you EXPLAIN what does NOT happen
with theories built on the assumption that it does! In this, then, we are NOT,
emphatically not back at Primary School. In this sort of enterprise, there is
no thought of school at all. It is fairy books. As to principles, those marvellous statements of what happens, which are to do all
this work, when it does not show itself or its equipment or its facilities or
its powers at all, to the point, this is merely a verbal magic, creation by
phrase (cf. Scoop of the Universe 57, 59, That Magnificent Rock 1,8,
The Shadow of a Mighty Rock Ch.3, and pp. 159, 315A-316A, 137, 1-50,
Repent or Perish 7, End-note
2). For the vast concourse of communism, with its creation of the
dictatorship of the proletariat by PHRASE, while the bureaucrats held their
Its words are
not equipped with power because they do not relate to reality. When you want to
create with words, there is one thing you simply MUST NOT omit. It is this: the
EXISTENCE of the RELEVANT power to EXECUTE your words, and the ACCESS and
AUTHORITY to use that power, with the TIME access sufficient for the purpose,
and the ABSENCE of any contrary power which could annul the working of the
power which you have in mind. Just speaking, formulating, alas, this is not
adequate. That is one of the first lessons of growing from baby to boy, or
girl.
As to
Communism, as for Organic Evolutionism, its theories are not mandates for the
universe to obey. The universe obeys another law-maker, and it is He and He
alone who logically COULD even CONCEIVABLY, have implanted this form of order, organisation and enterprise into what otherwise shows no
power to do the same; and which, even it did, would require all the other
ingredients for which the case calls, if it were to be effective. With this,
the capacity to create the time-space containments which are a form of order
and organisation, and to live without them, which
need logically their ground; and so on as we have shown before: it is God.
As to what is
to be seen in the limited format of mere matter, however, it is not so. As to
what is its origin, it is then, as has so often been indicated, to be
explored and its results considered, and its ways found, and its programs noted
in another field. There is no other logical option, whether for science in its
empirical studies, or logic with its causative interface. THE ACTUAL SOLUTION
is so obvious, monopolising the whole premises, that
it is one of the most artful exercises in organised
blindness that it is not more often found. And that, as we
have shown earlier, it is the result of a spiritual disease, in which the will
is not innocent. But let us return to the relative simplicity of the
Second Law of Thermodynamics.
Up is one thing;
contrivance is another. A system cannot contrive to be what it is not, or to do
what it lacks ingredients to perform. THAT is merely to misname the system. If
of thought, then call it so; if of purpose, then this is its name, if of
intelligence, so let its works declare it; but let us not pretend that merely
more order in matter is not any of these, remaining at merely its own level and
not suffering such imaginative additions to be stealing in.
·
However,
in our flight of investigation, this is merely a fortiori. In
fact, our material universe goes only down, and hence is an emplacement from
the first. For the rest, it is then merely amusing to perceive that EVEN IF it
were otherwise,
·
there is yet far more to cover than merely a REVERSAL OF REALITY, a FRACTURE OF SCIENTIFIC
LAW.
·
You
would also have to have a creator for the TYPE of upgrade, as well as for the
INITIAL FACT OF AN IMPLANT OF ORDER AND ORGANISATION.
·
That
we (theoretically) expire as a race from the long-time incursions of DNA loss, is an example. and it is the
one with which we commenced this essay, the rate of harmful mutation! It merely
emphasises the point: we do not END by the onset of
the second law of thermodynamics (as a method for destruction) while being
built by it.
·
It
is not sufficient to invent us, when it nevertheless destroys us by its organised operation. It shows not the evidence of mind, to
change it; but of mind to make it, so that it should continue as it is made. As
it is made, so it goes. As it goes, it goes down.
·
Deterioration
can indeed remove; but it does not create. Downward currents draw to the sea,
but not to the hills. Cannon make changes, but they do not build skyscrapers
(unless, in a small measure, you dismantle them, melt them and then, recasting
with intelligence, principle and design, re-adapt the metal for that purpose!).
Ignoring of these considerations is not science, but wish fulfilment,
that does not fulfil - logically, whatever may be the
emotional haven it invents: THAT it is a due function of the imagination, as
when a thirsty man nevertheless dreams of iced lemon squash. It does not
suffice to produce this drink however. For that, it must operate in the real
world; or have a miracle from God.
As to life,
we do not manage (even with intelligence! of many and with much time in which
to use it) TO IMPROVE ON THE INGREDIENTS, we who were not there to make
it in the first place, in any case.
We move the ingredients
about. Life is not even for us, to make, when the model is staring us in the
face. Intelligence is baulked when faced with its design. It IS needed. It is
not enough.
Wisdom and understanding
and the qualities of life which relate to creation at this level are also
needed. Simply, you get out what you can put in. Put in thought and you MAY get
it out, depending on the expertise of your emplacement. 'Bugs' may bedizen your
empire; and may take all your time, and inadequate formulations may utterly
deny you ANY result. Yet with adequate time and concept and comprehension and
diligence, and application, and knowledge of relevant principles, and
constructions within the milieu of your matrix, you may in the end achieve some
modest results (compared with our own, AS human agents,
MOST modest results!).
Leave thought out and it is
not in. That is the causative reality. There are whole
worlds of thought, conception, formulation, symbolisation,
interactive collation as shown in detail in Repent or Perish 7, Excursion 1. None of them brings
its modes of operation into being without cause, sufficient, efficient, to
unload that level (cf. Stepping Out for Christ,
2, 3). There
is no magic. The second law of thermodynamics in ITS domain is calling for
something other than what is NOW HERE as the source of it. Nature is not
nature's inventor: this it declares with its BEHAVIOUR, its EQUIPMENT, its LAWS
and its correlation with CAUSALITY. In fact, nothing is its own inventor; you
need something outside whatever it is to put it into being.
Indeed, it is always
difficult to invent what is not there with what is not adequate. You need a
sufficiency for everything.
Let us then summarise to our immediate point.
The law is DOWN; the
imaginary requirement of organic evolution is UP.
That is all. All the rest,
and there is an assemblage of aspects to this, detailed in some measure in the
references above, merely adds to the burden in ADDITIONAL directions, projections and inspections -
consummately editorial in the case of DNA, which appoints it own inspector,
according to plan and program. A good place to pursue all
this in detail in Repent or Perish
Amongst these things in the
material world, are not to be found formulators
of symbolic logic, the conceptual equivalent which induces it, the systematic
machinery which produces and retains it in operational format and directive
impact so that things are caused to happen just so; for unsupervised, the order
goes, unmanufactured, the symbolism dissipates, even
if it could arise, without the interstices of logic for its meaning to be able
to exist, and of program to interpret that meaning. The vital world smiles on
the merely material world. It is a mere infant, that has never gone to school;
though for all that, when you cease to compare it with the vital world, and
compare it instead with nothing, it is of its own kind a veritable prodigy of
order and form, format and law.
Matter is ordered; it has
no machinery to give orders.
It has impress
of law; it shows no capacity to make any.
It can be symbolically represented,
and its laws put into intellectually high-rise formulae; it shows no capacity
to do the same, merely to repose, the repository of however, adequate in mind
and directorship, wishes to implant these things.
The only one to do it, is not matter: it is not man. It is, as noted,
necessarily Spirit (cf. SMR pp. 348ff.),
and its powers manifestly transcend man, far more than do man's transcend the
ant; for the ant, like man, has its own codes which program phases of its
action; whereas as shown in SMR 1, God of
necessity is without any impress of program, for the One who did that would BE
God, the ultimate, necessary, eternal sufficiency for what is, as a result of
whom, it IS!
WHAT DOES IT IMPLY, THIS LAW
?
Once again, then, following
our adverse mutation decease notice from Nature magazine, quoted
above, we revisit our Second Law, just ONE of the almost infinite number of
laws which operate in our highly governed system. Let us look at it
structurally, this time. It is an empirical matter at our present level.
Despite some excursions, in principle we are at
this time, MERELY examining it, investigating it and applying it, to see what
it shows to the point of organic evolution. SINCE we are being merely
empirical, we simply note that this law has no known exceptions, and we have in
an earlier essay, shown why this is to be wholly expected, and in fact merely
represents logically, a particular application of a rigorous necessity, in type
(Stepping Out for Christ, Ch.2 -
Benevolent Brightness or Brothy Bane 82?).
Yet let us here trace the
results, in view of the fact that science has no more prestigious law, none
better tied to others, to observations and manifold conceptual considerations.
Thus NOT ONLY would the total order and organisation present at the first have
had to be FAR GREATER THAN IS NOW THE CASE, but it would have to have been this
ALL AT
ONCE, since it can ONLY in terms of this law, decrease ON THE WHOLE.
ON THE WHOLE, THEREFORE, IT
MUST have been at once far greater than now. It must have enjoyed this
deposition from the outset. This is the finding of empirical science, of what
looks at what is, and seeks to account for it. Time can only decrease it, in
terms of this LAW.
Evolutionary gradualism is
the name of the game. It is a game. We are concerned here with work. The game
is a mere game, of words; and it is out.
That is, empirically and in
terms of empirical science. It has been shown to be OUT and IRRATIONAL in terms
of logic and causation as well. This, our current concern,
is merely an APPLICATION, and it is FABULOUSLY successful, EMINENTLY verificatory and amusingly HOSTILE to ANY gradualistic process.
The fact that in addition
you need floors to which the lift is to ascend, something other than mere
'rising' to 'rise' to, something formulating the operations more than mere
ENERGY, which simply ENABLES action, not direction, and puts things in motion, when
there are things, and enables a system to operate when it is a
system: this is mere icing to the cake, AT THIS LEVEL.
It is however observable
that in any system, you need interface, you need the LINKAGE for INTERACTION in
a given direction to a specialised material
formation, and conceptual formulation, such as it exhibits in SYMBOLIC
INFORMATION, which as has often been noted, tends, this also, ONLY TO DECREASE,
which again is difficult for gradualism. DATA, INFORMATION DECREASES. This puts
the general principle of decline, of having to have input to make and input to
maintain, in a broader perspective. Again we must ask: How do you increase by decreasing ? How do you get ANYTHING from nothing; and when
you do somehow GET SOMETHING, how do you increase its performance
characteristics, and information, and organisation,
and order by decreasing not one, but ALL of them.
Obviously you do not. It is
so amusing, that it is a very acme of hilarity. If you WANT to explain
something, do you then look at the exact (scientifically exact) opposite of the
observed means, method, thrust, basis, law, operational reality, to find it!
Let
us now look further afield, once more.
SCIENTIFIC METHOD AND
THE
PERVERSE MIRROR WHICH DEFAMES IT
In terms of scientific
method, there is, to be sure, a very close relation. It is the EXACT CONTRARY
of organic evolution in its requirements of the observable realities. Hence it IS undoubtedly true to say that the second law of
thermodynamics has a relationship to organic evolution; and that those who
flatly state that it has nothing to do with it, are therefore at least, being
imprecise. It does have THIS to do with it: it is the precise
anti-verification of it in like a mirror image in a particularly perverse mirror. It does not
merely DISTORT, it invents the opposite process, the exact counter to it in
observation.
This it does (in its image,
not in the reality it is supposed to reflect), for a reality which likewise
lacks the entire structure of operation to enable it to be what the mirror is
showing. The mirror ? It is of course the theory of
organic evolution. The reality ? It is what science
has been depicting, and putting into violated laws, as far as the mirror is
concerned. What is it like ? what
does this mirror do ? If you look at your face you see the back of your head,
at your feet, you see the top of your head. Whatever is, the theory in this
regard, precisely counters. It reflects ? well, yes in a way: it reflects negation of observable fact.
Then we have those other
little codicils, as it were, to the will IN THE THEORY OF ORGANIC EVOLUTION, as
it 'deals' with what is found.
1)
We do not find this upgrade, this type of interfaced order increase, HAPPENING.
2)
We do not find the things to make it happen - MEANS.
3)
We cannot formulate a statement about it happening - LAW, because, you see, it
does not, so words cannot be formulated to cover this in terms of its doing so,
which is the opposite, and that would be not so very careful a formulation,
now, would it ?
4)
We cannot see the synthesis: co-operation of the MEANS and the HAPPENING, as we
like to do, as when we find the electrical impulses exhibiting their passage
from A to B in terms of their local effects on the way, when for example we
have postulated that it is an electrical cause which is operating, and which
explains something which we are studying. There is a reason for this fourth
absence. If it is NOT HAPPENING, then of course the MEANS by which it WOULD
happen will not be able to be found in ASSOCIATION with the happening, since
these are absent also. This may seem just a trifle unnecessary to state, but it
is very far from being so. It is something of eminent practicality, eminently
absent.
NORMALLY, you would WANT
ALL THIS, in the ideal and impressive situation. Here you can get NONE of it.
You get the opposite in each case, including the synthetic case where it all
comes together. Here there is nothing to come to together, so the playtime is
lonely, and the yard empty.
It is an exercise in negativity,
futility and contrariety. It is not only wrong. It is an opera on wrongness.
It is not merely unscientific, it is a magnum opus on the fact. It is a parody, a
comedy, a satire; and it is artistically very well done indeed. The ONLY
problem, in terms of the art of the devices of organic evolutionism here is
this, that the artists do not normally seem to realise
that they are producing such a magnum opus, such an entertaining, a deliriously rollicking comedy at all. For all the world, you would not know they are clowning,
scientifically clowning. They act almost as if they meant it - straight!
It is so like the situation
in World War II, when someone might ask, Listen mate! don't
you know there is a war on. Here it varies: Listen, mate, don't you know
there is a spoof on! ONLY creation is indicated in terms of empirical science.
Your smash hit of organic evolutionism should be played as if you knew it to be
the burlesque of the millenium! Get with it! Get organised. Violate the second law of thermodynamics, or
rather, much better! COUNTERACT IT, by using you intelligence, and PRODUCING
this play of yours with more art, and above all, KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING! This
is more than caricature: this is spoofing!
All things require it,
whether analytically logical, empirical or synthetic: there has been a CREATION
ON, and it is time to act accordingly. It is running down, and it is not good
to run with it. LOOK TO THE CREATOR, for He has something to say NOT ONLY IN YOUR DNA, and that is many millions of concepts and
formulations and orders and symbolic devices as well as a matter of correlative
implementing engineering; it is also FOR YOUR MIND. Don't start imaging that
YOU ARE THE ONLY sort of entity which has something to say. Look around you,
examine the Bible and consider that if you reject that ONLY evidenced reality
for the word of God (as in SMR 1,10), then you are rejecting God as your own
equal, for YOU with all power could do better than this, if it is merely un
unsupervised mess, couldn't you!
o
unless of course, there were
WILFUL DISORDER in the implements called man, and
o
unless there were
FREEDOM to allow him to BE man, and
o
unless likewise there were
necessary interactive results AMONG MEN, from their abused freedoms, and PROPER
judgments to awake them... and what else ? AND
o
UNLESS THERE WERE A
REMEDY BEING REJECTED BY A MANKIND ABLE TO CONTINUE FOR A TIME
,TILL THE OPPORTUNITIES WERE CONSUMMATED AND THE PURPOSE OF HIS CREATION
FULFILLED.
This remedy
is logically necessary and actually observable. Unlike the case
of the organic evolutionism, the Christian Gospel from the Bible (cf. That
Magnificent Rock
There
is no contest in this matter. Not even as a wild card could logical entry be obtained.
Where the one speaks in
absence, the other speaks in presence. Where the one can't put it in writing,
for there is nothing to record and no way to be found, the other puts it in
writing, in the world's most sold book, stating the beginning, the means, the
purpose and the procedure altogether in coherent, testable form. This is
scientifically required, for there is no other option available to sight or
logic; and it is verified constantly. The other is scientifically required
also, but to be absent: for there is no confirmation available to sight, or
method to observation; and it negates all logic that it might work.
When therefore you awaken
to the issues, the real issue is intensely personal. It is not about the
carpentry of the stage, that the issue is drawn; it is about the actions of the
players upon it, who transcend it so totally in their synthetic systems, and
spiritual powers, mental capacities and purposeful possibilities, as to make
any comparison ludicrous, quite apart from the fact that matter itself is
merely a theory of mind, which has to be valid for the idea to have any place.
What has God then done! The necessities of logic are married in this (cf.
Barbs, Arrows and Balms 6, 7, 19, 29), to the realities of observation.
He has spoken.
To ignore this necessity
and reality, is merely to show towards Him, in principle, a contempt due to our
own sin, and so to aggravate, as a race, our own
follies (cf. SMR pp. 100-101). It
sets you up as the wronged party, the one left in a situation which is filled
with repulsion, in its famines, lies and pride, without remedy. To deny the
remedy is to blaspheme that Spirit who is God, and to contradict both logic and
empirical reality. When a nurse gives her life to deliver you, and you speak of
her as if she was nowhere to be found, while your wounds hurt (speaking
globally), is worse than littleness of mind and stubbornness of heart. It is
mere insult. It is moreover heartless insult, ungrateful irrationality.
Is it not in order to
apply the old adage ? 'Wake up, mate, there's a war
on!' - there still is. It is a spiritual one. You are
fighting in it, one way or the other. The COMEDY is merely for the theatre of
philosophy, to be enjoyed by some. The WAR ITSELF is for the reality of life,
to be deplored by many. To escape it, leave the second law of thermodynamics to
go happily along as it does, and do not join its ending movements. To avoid it,
you need as in anything which is running down, the contrary power. You MUST
have the power to go up, to get out, to overcome. This
is obviously to be found only in the one who DID THE MAKING of what is running
down. THAT is its way. THIS is another. THAT is self-destructive (given time);
THIS is creative (in any time, at His choice).
That is - God, your Creator. The fact is that in the Bible HE STATES that
there is no other name than that of Jesus Christ for this deliverance, escape
(Acts 4:11-12), as we saw last time; and incidentally, the necessary
FORGIVENESS of error, which is there to be found, does nothing to increase your
repose in ESCAPING FROM IT. Why escape from the escape ?
It is like a captain standing on the bridge of his sinking ship. It may look
noble, but it is in this case saving nobody, only wilfully
dooming yourself.
Listen:
that was
the Psalm 2 prediction (see Joyful Jottings 21, 25) of
the attitude of the powers that were in charge in the days of Christ, in their endeavour to 'rub Him out' as the mafia of today might put
it.
"It is
expedient that one man should die for the people!" was the ECCLESIASTICAL WAY of
putting it: not of the real church of God, God forbid, but of that which was
acting as if it were, while engaged in rejecting the very incarnation of the
God they professed to serve.
They are not alone. He is -
as far as action and inaction are concerned - being treated in the same way by
what seem to some to be adequate methods in the nations today. To this hour,
the word of God in Psalm 2 is advising those who would cast the 'bonds' of God
and His Christ aside, to be instructed, to be reconciled to God, instead of
justly inheriting the divine scorn for such folly, pride and impiety, useless
vanity in the face of truth, justly covered with shame (Psalm 2:4).
This casting away of divine
word, work and will, it is a process which led to murder, and which leads to
ignoring or distortion, such as we have just been considering. It will lead of
course to His judgment according to truth, upon it (Psalm
It is not always conscious,
but the trend of behaviour on the part of intelligent
people tends at least to suggest the overall intention, even if it is not
consciously formulated*1. It might be the
OPPOSITE of what their reason shows them, as we have considered a few moments
ago. It is STILL the case that this is the DESIRE, or the thrust in their
lives. WILL does not always want truth. It wants its way. Just as reason can
divorce itself from fact, so will can divorce itself
from results, and reality. To want to have life as your own, when it is
derivative, is fraud, and its result is judgment (John
Thus, in both cases there
is a price tag.
One must count the cost,
Christ declared.
There is ALWAYS a cost
(Luke 14:28ff.). Things do not come from nowhere, and thus there is a limit,
except one knows God who has Himself no limit, and can remove limits at will.
Otherwise, cost is compulsory. Without Christ, escape from folly, disorder and disorganisation, from sin, that masterpiece of disorder
production technique, is a zero situation. It is
OUT.
There IS a war on and it is
necessary to take sides. You can BE your own side, but that is impossible to
differentiate from the megalomaniac, since NO ONE LIVING on this mortal earth,
has a track record as Christ's, one of such power, purity, consistency,
rationality and understanding, reinforced by independent variables in the form
of such things as prior prophecy announcing what He would do and when He would
do it, and how, and why, which He duly fulfilled.
Nor is
this all. Even
that is doubly reinforced by His own prophetic track
record of indications of what would come, in detail, and in tartan pattern, in
history, as we have often shown and even a little considered in this present
volume. The total historical reality of Christ (SMR Appendix C cf. SMR Ch.6, Appendix C, A Spiritual Potpourri 18; Barbs, Arrows and Balms,
Appendix I, pp. 279ff.,
IV ; Repent or
Perish 2, pp. 41ff. ),
like the logical necessities often shown, is inescapable.
So is the result of
not escaping to Him, and preferring this deadly, dismal, dull and
dysfunction-making LAW, of thermodynamics. What is made and declines maintenance
is not always foolish; for it is not always equipped with will. Man is not in
this position; nor is his destiny devoid of open shame, if he masquerades as
self-important and departs from the Lord, whether mourning like the rich young
ruler, because the price was too high, or in mockery, like many of the priests,
who were envious, as Matthew (27:18) relates.
Yet the issues are indeed
inescapable: like the FIRST LAW, otherwise called the law of conservation of
mass and energy, which indicates that "energy may have different forms
(including mass); that it is possible to change from one form to another, but
the total energy remains constant." In other words, it is all here; it has
arrived; it is created, like you. Where to go is to the Creator of it all. It
is not coming
(Law 1): it is
going (Law 2). Are you going to go likewise ? down the drain to a destiny prepared for pollution ? or to apply to your Creator ?
No ? Listen: "Rejoice, O young
man, in your youth,
And let
your heart cheer you in the days of your youth:
Walk in
the ways of your heart,
And in
the sight of your eyes,
But know
that for all these things God will bring you into judgment.
"Therefore
remove sorrow from your heart,
And put
away evil from your flesh,
For childhood and youth are vanity.
Remember
now your Creator in the days of your youth,
Before the difficult days come..." (from
Ecclesiastes 11:9-12:1).
But what
? There is an alternative way (cf. Repent or Perish 7, Excursion 3).
Isaiah 40:27-31 speaks of
it, the dynamising available from the SOURCE of
creation, from the OTHER POWER which produced us, in order to re-create and
empower the resources earlier created, with current MAINTENANCE, with dynamic
and spiritual zest:
v
"Why do you say, O Jacob,
And
speak, O Israel:
'My way
is hidden from the LORD,
And my
just claim is passed over by my God' ?
v
"Have you now known ?
Have you
not heard ?
The
everlasting God, the LORD,
The
Creator of the ends of the earth,
Neither faints nor is weary.
His
understanding is unsearchable.
v
"He gives power to the weak,
And to
those who have no might He increases strength.
Even the
youths shall faint and be weary,
And the young men shall utterly fall,
But those
who wait on the LORD
Shall
renew their strength,
They
shall mount up with wings like eagles,
They
shall run and not be weary,
They
shall walk and not faint."
And how does Isaiah start
this apostrophe ?
Like this:
"Lift up your eyes on high,
And see who has created these things.
Who
brings out their host by number;
He calls
them all by name,
By the greatness of His might
And the
strength of His power:
Not one
is missing."
Again, as the universe so
composed runs down (Isaiah 51:6):
"Lift up your eyes to the heavens,
And look on the earth beneath.
For the
heavens will vanish away like smoke,
The earth
will grow old like a garment,
And those
who dwell in it will die in like manner;
But my
salvation will be forever,
And My
righteousness will not be abolished."
Christian
friends, rejoice with Me in the total, invasive,
pervasive, inelastic reality of the truth, and draw on the undying resources of
God for the work He gives you in a dying world; for the removal of the stage is
nothing. The actors are the point, and the plot, it
must not be lost; and the review of the actors is coming.
THE CREATOR IS COMING
Oh world! from this come, people who seek truth, love enlightenment,
and wish what answers everything (cf. SMR Ch. 5).
He is there and He is God, and Lord and Saviour and
His saving health will NEVER BE ABOLISHED, for there is a FIRST LAW OF
LOVELINESS IN THE LORD. HIS salvation will never be abolished. It ? It is CONSERVED! AND WITH IT, likewise are those who
have come to Him, the source, the spiritual power, recourse, resource which
created the format and order and organisation of
matter and mind and spirit, and is able to redeem, to renew, to inspire in this
life, and to keep into an eternity which does not deteriorate; for the stage
is going, but the Maker of it, He is still there. To be sitting on a stage
being dismantled is neither wise nor necessary. COME TO HIM, your Creator, and
rejoice further in this, that His salvation likewise is forever: MY SHEEP, said
Christ, WILL
NOT PERISH. The things,
says Hebrews
Are you one of the latter, because through His mercy and by His love and grace, you are
willingly in the hand of the One who made you and then became in form like one
of you - yet Himself and without sin, in order to redeem you - at cost
(Philippians 2). Did He
count the cost ? HE IS - after all - THE ONE WHO HAS
PAID! He counted it a delight to do it (Hebrews 1:8-9, 10:5ff., Psalm 40), even
when it was scorching with misery (Hebrews 5:7) as He approached the cross, and
then actually bore for all who should come to Him, the sin as justice demanded,
and truth insisted, for the sake of love and mercy.
Your
cost ? It is the loss of an autonomy you do not, in
any case, possess.
NOTE
*1
Whose intention,
however, this is another question. Intention IN the life: but what of the
intention OF the life ? Are they entirely identical ? What is stirring, and what moves in the life of
the unredeemed ?
In fact, the Bible makes it
clear that three (to say no more at this point) dimensions of obstruction can
occur in the working of man's mind, and thought, when his spirit is controlled,
contaminated, manipulated or manoeuvred, when he
is in the pathologically directive condition of unredeemed
sinner. The redeemed are not in this world sinless, but they are NOT under the
sovereignty of that evil, that error (John
Thus
1) there
is the obfuscation, the opacity, the BLINDNESS, from THE GOD OF THIS WORLD (II Corinthians 4:3-4). This is
purposely directed, and not merely malignant. It is IN ORDER TO PREVENT the
light of the glorious gospel of Christ to appear.
2)
there is the ALIENATION from the life of God (Ephesians
3)
there is the SERVITUDE to sin (John
Such conditions as these,
which are normal to the sovereignty-of-sin syndrome, can of course lie BEHIND
the sinners actions, propelling, instilling, almost discharging thought and
action into the land of the forbidden, the milieu of the proscribed, in
divorce, anything but divine, from the desires of deity; and it can be so grave
a matter that the victim, distinguishable in definition from his/her condition,
is nevertheless virtually (but not entirely) consolidated with the disease.
It is in this situation
that the OUTCOME does not necessarily exhibit the INTENTION of the person
concerned; but it DOES exhibit the RULING purpose, whether or not this be that of the individual: it assuredly is that of the evil
entrant which seizes and secures the heart.
Hence in the text to which
this is the note, one did not say 'desire OF their lives', but rather 'desire
IN their lives'.