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Chapter 4

NEWS 94

NEW VIEWING ARRANGEMENTS
FOR THE CORPSE OF NATURALISM
 

BIOGENESIS OF THE NOTION OF BIOGENESIS


In CEN Technical Journal, Vol. 13, No.2, late 1999, there appears an article by Jonathan Sarfati which it is good to consider, in conjunction with our earlier treatment of the efforts of the savanti to collect life from non-life, and make matter the midwife of life.

For your preliminary browsing, this topic is made a demolition site in The Shadow of a Mighty Rock pp. 128ff., 171ff., 220ff., 211ff., 118ff., 208ff., with 79ff., 87ff., 349ff..

It is relevant also in A Spiritual Potpourri Chs. 1-3, Barbs, Arrows and Balms 29, Scoop of the Universe 57, Joyful Jottings 3, That Magnificent Rock Ch.1, esp. pp. 200-205.

The CEN article is in a detailed response by Sarfati to one of the innumerable seeming foreclosures on the creation of life by imagination minus observation, systematic logic and plus intervention plus failure in any case to achieve it with intelligence.

Before we begin, let us warm-up by reading an excerpt from That Magnificent Rock, Ch.8, pp. 200ff., where, with the reference to the VACANT HOUSE OF NATURALISM as in the reference to A Spiritual Potpourri, and News 57, in particular, you encounter the situation bleakly.
 


Sarfati's data in the purely technical realm may be investigated in detail, but his conclusions are precisely in line with what has been presented , with more generic logical issues, in the above references. They are as below, relative to the latest folie of hope proposed, that does not work, but which is imagined.

Naturally Sarfati is dealing with specific proposals which he refutes, and which have not had the grace to do the required (make life) even WITH intelligent participation; but with this, there are general considerations to be found in what follows.
 

Our present purpose is to consider one of the facets of this area, logically......
 
 

WHAT IS MISSING IS MORE THAN A LINK, IT IS A LOGIC

In all these areas, there is this sad death in the bustle of the room of thought. Logic is dead! Yet she is still used, like some disgraceful slave trader, who having misused the poor lady to her death, now uses her corpse in pretence.

It is not merely what Wilder Smith (SMR pp. 208ff.) calls the "superimposition" of a "sequential code" in living genes and derived proteins, of conceptual considerations beyond the molecular composition and any isomeric spatial variables. This is a specific phase of the material before us. Its biogenesis is the point, in the larger realms of logic. In this, of course, we are not using that term in the obvious verbal sense, of production of life, in which case of course the concept of creation is not excluded, so that there would be no point in further discussion. Nor is it used to mean: life from life only. It is rather used to indicate LIFE FROM NON-LIFE, a secular, material biogenesis from within 'Nature' itself, + nothing; and of course of matter from ... well, not matter, and for the materialist, nothing + nothing. This, as has often been discussed is simply a contradiction in terms. That is one of the larger Webster usages, and the one in view here.

This clarified, we can proceed. There can be no question that biogenesis in THIS sense, the evocation of life from non-life, which of course must mean NOT from God since HE has life, is a lively topic but a dead issue. We NEVER see it; we never see it happen under the auspices of that variety of life known as mankind, with the utmost plethora of scurry and intervention by intelligence, in teams and with extraordinary facilities. We NEVER see it happen without him either, for that matter. We just never see it.

It is never shown HOW we could see it. It would be far more comportable with reason to have a volume of Shakespeare write itself, but this is not a little difficult (SMR pp. 15ff.), as is shown in detail, even to the point of getting ONE LINE! At that, as is also shown in the reference above, the case is far worse than the inadequate but powerful one made to expose this expedition into imagination, never found in fact, and for what is thus very good reason. This sort of accident-creation concept is met not merely by the mathematics which appalled Sir Fred Hoyle (SMR pp. 226ff.), so for convenience, an excerpt from thence will be placed now, before we proceed with our current corollary. (Cf. Delusive Drift or Divine Dynamic Ch. 2.)
 
 
 

We have now economised on repetition, in order to advance, by allowing the reader to cover these preliminaries if this is found necessary, and omit them if he/she is assured of having the background applied to the point, having read these things before in the volumes concerned.

The simple fact we may now consider is this: THE ONLY KNOWN PLACE IN THIS UNIVERSE, WHERE LIFE HAS EVER BEEN DERIVED FROM NON-LIFE PLUS NOTHING IS IN THE MIND OF MAN.

That is simply a fact, no more, no less.

The mind of man is able, in composition with the natural orders of things, laws, powers and other instituted organisational orders and specifications left, if you like, lying around for play or work: it is able to do this sort of thing. Normally, when this is engaged in, it is called dreaming. At times, there may seem a payload, but in the end, unless you are successfully selling a book of fairy tales, in which case there is a relationship to reality in terms of the desire of some youngsters for these often interesting but not very practical things, there has to be an engagement with reality.

Now reality, as we have shown in SMR Ch.1,3,10, is in fact inclusive of mind (which has any opinion on what it is, and is hence indispensable, for if it were invalid, so would be all else), matter (which is a theory we form) and spirit (which is evidenced in that roving, searching, will-equipped  capacity we have, including that to reject formulations independently of reason, or through it if we wish, and to capture at preference,  thoughts that do/do not have any systematic relationship of a known kind to the world that moves and operates about us).

Hence one COULD say that fairy tales ARE part of reality; and indeed in the non-interface engagement sense, they could be deemed so; but for purposes of definition, it is not the intention here to define reality in such a way that interfaces of practicality are missing, but to mean what systematically relates to its ground, as distinct from what flits into realms without this feature.

This enables us simply to make the point: these biogenetic thoughts, in the sense of NON-LIFE plus 0 making life, have this feature: fantasy not reality, because there is NO interface EVER discovered; and because there is NO PROCEDURE ever found, to enable it.

Nor is this so merely in practice (though the latter is a required additive to ... science). It is so equally in theory.

It is so EQUALLY AND QUITE EMPHATICALLY in CORRELATION with other scientific features, such as the necessity of a sufficient cause for a specifiable result (cf. SMR Chs.3,4 pp. 419ff., 5, That Magnificent Rock Ch.7 . Without this, as there shown, even the thought concerning it is excluded, and the procedure is systematically self-contradictory.
 
 

THE COROLLARY

The point is necessary to be considered: the recent developments in code analysis in the DNA structures in cytological investigations, the discovery of literally the equivalent of maybe 1000 large volumes of information and direction and procedures (in copying) for correction, energy-supply and carrier chemical 'robots' to execute the orders, assemble the components, check the lists and so on, is not merely a matter of astonishment or amazement at its intricacy, passionate seeming dexterity and felicity (to conceive of people doing such things without being first marshalled): that much is sufficiently obvious.

We should be no less concerned with what it implies. This is dealt with in some detail in Repent or Perish Ch.7, especially Excursions 1 and 2 (cf. Wake Up World, Your Creator is Coming... Ch.2, Benevolence Brightness or Brothy Bane ? 81, End-Note 2;  82), where the staggering concentration of principial provisions in our situation is exposed; together with the fact that they ARE principles and not simple observations (though they related intimately to  this facet as well).

The entire mesh of considerations is there analysed.

However, at this point we come to our corollary.

It is not just that the DNA in humans is retreating in its refinements at a rate suggestive of extinction rather than creation as shown by recent tests (cf. Wake Up World! Your Creator is Coming...Ch.2). That is to be expected; it is the same in general with information in this, that it is not found naturally to increase (cf. SMR 252Aff., 252Hff.). That in turn is simply a practical expression of the general point on information; which in turn is a practical expression of the general principle that you need a sufficient cause for your desired or imagined consequences, if you are to break loose, like a rocket leaving earth's gravitational pull, into the space desired: except in this case, that is reality into which your theories have to break forth, and then your confirmatory, verificatory practice. It is, in short, the area and arena where imagination and occurrence MATCH that becomes important. Since we are looking at the origination of life, this IS and MUST BE our area of concern.

The derivation of symbols requires a systematic comprehension of them, in order to deploy them; the operation of executive figures or features or chemical robots, messenger DNA (call a rose by any other name, and its perfume is unchanged) requires a systematic apprehension of the totality, now arising before our eyes. Since the operatives are to operate in response to coded commands, there has therefore to be an interface, however intricately contrived, to enable this. Otherwise it would not happen. Science currently is busily engaged in finding the exact REASON why it DOES happen, and hence the NUMEROUS symbolic and practical features which ENABLE it to do so,  and ENSURE it.

But let us not lose sight of the wood for the trees.

Symbols are significations, indications, made not with total description (like - the house on the corner with the green roof and one mini-turret, build in a baroque style), but NAME-REALITY correlatives. They make the ONE to be indicated by (efficient and unambiguous) use of the OTHER. That at least is the case for what in stringent and demanding circumstances, actually WORKS! Thus these have to be given a way of COMMUNICATING what they entail, to what is to do what they are directed to direct. Direction is by meaningful units to uncomprehending servitors; or in other words, command is from the control centre to the operators, by symbols; and the operators lack intelligence with which to discern the meaning of the correlation: symbol-thing.

Now it is NOT necessary that they should. Robots are like that, whether physical or chemical in emphasis. They are exceedingly demanding, if one wishes to construct them, for one has to imitate without conscious input frorm the action unit, the robot, so that well-provided responses occur under a wide diversity of situations. It is demanding on the creator of the robot. If however he can meet that demand, then what ? Why, then, the knowledge,  does not need to repose in the non-brain of the servant, if such be the case. It is written into the construction instead. You do not need to shout, in the old style, IDIOT! because you lose your temper at the lowly aptitude of your paid (and in those days, perhaps ill-paid) servant. No, you MAKE a situation where the receptor RESPONDS to knowledge, without knowing it. It is a knowledge input, action output situation.

That is HIGHLY sophisticated. Thus the knowledge involved, and it is more but not less than data since it is a specific KIND of data with specialised characteristics which need careful understanding, is like a currency unit. It has power to secure the actualities, here clever artifices of commanded action. It is a knowledgeability about the mechanics of superimposed code, to use Wilder-Smith's term, or the functional operation of it, if you prefer the more abstract term of wider application. It has to be far GREATER than the 'mere' knowledge itself, which makes apposite the relationship of code to thing. The 'mere' understanding of the collation of data which constitutes the available ground for knowing and hence relating systematically to something, the knowledge of something is not at all, ALL. You could SPEAK to someone with that. But here the someone has no ears. It is the robot type of thing. You have to organise an agent by code.

The knowledge of the other things to which something is to be made to relate, this too, is not at all, ALL. The knowledge of the system in which these and many other things, to be guarded against or deployed, are to operate, this too is not at all, ALL. You can know all about these things, and yet not even BEGIN to secure the programmatic input which will make the object of your creation perform the complex task which your imagination desires it to do.

More is needed. Much more. It may be more than required, but it cannot be less.

What we have seen in its categorical singularity (SMR Ch.1) is also needed in its empirical multiplicity (cf. Repent or Perish Ch.7).

The WORLD of knowledge needs its SPECIAL aptitudes for operation as does any other with the ban of sufficient cause on short-cut imaginations. Knowledge is what it is; it is not another thing. Its modes and means are of their own type, with their own potential blemishes, crevasses of ignorance taking off the unwary, fatal mistakes and so on. The point we are making is this: that knowledge, vast and far-ranging as it must be in this case, is only a beginning. There is need likewise for the knowledgeability which DEPLOYS knowledge into symbol-thing signified relationship, so that the symbol can  operate in the recipient (if human, for example) or receptor (if not), in the way that knowledge requires.

In the latter case, the purpose is not only that it can, but that it can and will do so.

The knowledgeability for deployment of knowledge  NOT being in the receptor, necessary for the institution of this system, this symbol configuration in a (micro-) universe of practical action - the cell, or the cell configurations and organisation into organs and these in the body, depending on what level you desire to consider - requires an additional knowledge.

There is no room for cheating, imagining practicalities, sheering off whole elements of the etiological necessities, acting as if the deployment of thought required no functionality, operative adequacy: no agent of deployment able and willing to exercise this function. It does not exercise itself, as if data and deployment were words with no meaning; for in the real world, you have to have what it takes, not phrases. And what is this functionality to operated ?

That ? It is the knowledge of HOW to imprint, compound on what is material, the specification technology to enable it to respond AS IF IT WERE INTELLIGENT. This of course requires a vast intelligence to perform, a long way beyond what ANY team of high-resource scientists have EVER vaguely APPROACHED. Facts such as living tissue having ONLY left-handed protein, so well discoursed on by John Mackay in his justly famed ORIGIN OF LIFE video-tapes, and this never being unintelligently found to be produced, are mere illustrations of what is far beyond all examples: the principles implied in this or any such case; and beyond all such cases, in the micro-universe's design.

We have noted the meaning of this term and thus the propriety of its usage earlier (SMR pp. 211, 251ff. etc. - see Index, DESIGN, THOUGHT) and the impasse in its omission. It has been necessary in that exercise to remove the misconceptions of Kant, which is found in SMR 5, and in depth and detail, in Predestination and Freewill, Appendix on Kant. Without this strange mesmerism which for so long attracted philosophy, duly exporting to some in the field of science as preconceptions, the case would not have needed so much development. That however is the cultural fact, so it is dealt with in this way, to cover the actual - if you will - psychic case!

Design, then, for if our bodies do not exhibit it, then nothing could attain to the demands of the term. The human body exhibits it microscopically, spatially, operationally, cognitively;

Call it what you will, however, the fruits and functions are the same, and the causative requirements do not alter in the least part.

The knowledge of symbol-thing unambiguous specification, or word-item relationship, if you prefer: this is required. (Again, let us not be too concerned with the schools of definition, the point being to know what one refers to: thus, here 'word' means symbol specifying a thing to which it unambiguously relates - an operational refinement since we are dealing with this super-class of EFFECTIVE words, words that actually WORK, so that this is the relevant meaning for this case.)

Because this knowledge is NOT required of the operative units themselves, in the actual WORK being done, it is required in vast measure by the knowledge source, both concerning the materials themselves, and in our own case, as mankind units, or trilogy persons (mind-matter-spirit packages), these include mind and spirit: it is required both there, and in the mode of conveying such connotations by symbol. It must be done so that the transference of data WORKS; in a language not subject to significant distortion, far less to dispersal (as seen in the mutation rates reference, above). In the whole fabric of life, it would be important to prevent confusion, and a unitary language, entirely divorced from mere happening in its constant bending to impacts and occurrences.

That, of course, is what it is indicated that the DNA has, a unitary uniformity throughout, a compelled system.

As to its continuing to be effective because of relevant constraints and further programmatic aids to achieve this also ? This is maintenance; but the origin of what is not maintained for too long use in this present world, which has a rather high rate of deteriorative change, this is an a fortiori consideration, when you are looking at this side of the matter.
 


The Wistar Conference of highly placed specialist scholars could find NO WAY for such procedures, language itself not being seen as non-inventable for coherent discourse or designations because of dispersive disruptions, before the question of knowledge enters at all (SMR pp. 132ff., and see also 128ff.). The DECAY which is a FACT is thus wedded to the NON-PERCEPTION of this arising of language in unintelligent bodies, and the theoretical constraints on its very arrival, even if the overlying feature of knowledge did not exist.

It is perhaps now time in our survey of this field, to consider the point that material items can be, and on all but innumerable occasions are manipulated by the means of intelligent superimposition of plan, purpose and contrived means, to secure a given result of which the agent knows nothing and the facilities of the agent, by themselves, are WHOLLY irrelevant. A tape recording has been used to illustrate (SMR pp. 316Dff.).

Thus if you construct a machine which transports items given to the relevant arrangement of parts and processive powers installed, then while it neither knows nor relates to such things in its own sphere at all, yet it transmits without knowledge, what is relevant TO knowledge, when the transmission is complete. No one would dream of confusing the performance, say of Madam Melba's artistry, with the facilities, capacities and natural relationship of the materials of the tape-recorder. They are wholly distinct. They are a servant, as is a wheel-barrow when you are transporting a fern by its means. They are entirely different things; but the one can serve through knowledge to move the other. If there were a code involved, then the further requirements which we have been considering would also be required.

It is not a matter of mere analogy; though analogy can help comprehension here: because the matter IS SO SIMPLE. THAT, the simple reality, it  is often the type of issue hardest to understand when cultural conformity with millions of TV and pseudo-scientific sermons acts so as to blind.

The PRINCIPLE is simply this: when what lacks power to perform, is made to perform, then the cause of this enablement lies in what does not lack this power; and where code is concerned in making automatic performers for one's task, to get it done, then the information concerned, though only known to decrease, and this for good reason, though a demanding requisition for the purpose to succeed, is only a minor part of the entire operation.

The causally necessary sufficiency of knowledge is now entailed not merely of the units, the working materials (the wheel barrow in our image), but in such a discerning way as to enable specifications which relate, hard and sure, strong and certain, to the things in view; and this in such a way, that the power is sufficient, destructive intrusion is normatively ruled out and an integral product (q.v. SMR pp.135, 252E-G) is ruled IN... a productive product: life.

·Logic out requires logic in.


THE PRINCE OF LIFE -

 The PRINCE OF LIFE, the speaker of the code, is referred to in Acts 3 (verses14-15), where the Gentile (with Pilate, Roman Governor), as likewise the JEW (priestly contingent and their ... operatives) contingents were embroiled in a murder, by defalcation and untrustworthiness in office in the first case, and  plot in the second.

There are a lot of murders. THIS one was different: when you murder your manufacturer, that is outstanding folly. But when you murder the visitor from BEYOND MATTER (and hence beyond space and time),

It is necessary then to repent and to return to this SPEAKER*4, who indeed in John 1:1 is called the word, the word which was with God. In I Cor. 8:5-6 you find that there are many so-called gods, but there is in fact only ONE actual one. Psalm 83 deals with the so-called. It is scathing, as is Paul here. But the fact is that there is Biblically, as logically, but ONE (SMR 1). This WORD is the speaker whose code instructions were foreshadowed so aptly in Psalm 139 (as in Joyful Jottings Ch. 16). This speaker had other things to say: UNLESS YOU BELIEVE I AM HE, YOU WILL DIE IN YOUR SINS (John 8:24). Peter had other things to say (Acts 2:37-39). The first part is REPENT. The main part is IN THE NAME of Jesus Christ. HE is the WORD. Baptism does neither cleanse nor save (I Peter 3:21), but it is like an engagement ring for those engaged!
 


Even when people, however, do NOT find their way back to the PRINCE OF LIFE, that same Jesus is in His own scenario, spiritually propounded for millenia, to return with a WORD to say to the world, a WORD OF JUDGMENT. To Him 1000 years are as a day, and this like a 2 day absence. The program as we have often shown (cf. Wake Up World! Your Creator is Coming... Ch.1) is to an exceedingly near point, completely fulfilled for His coming. If you do not come to Him, in any case He comes to you.

"THIS SAME JESUS SHALL RETURN AGAIN IN JUST THE SAME WAY AS YOU HAVE WATCHED HIM GO TO HEAVEN" - (Acts 1:11, NASV).
 


NOTES


*1 This note has become so long that it forms Ch.5 of WAKE UP WORLD! YOUR CREATOR IS COMING...It thus forms a specialised sequel, and is entitled - THE PINE LOGGING EXCURSION.
 
 


*2 See Predestination and Freewill 1. Here these matters are given review in some depth. See also SMR Ch. 4, pp. 348ff., Ch.1 and Ch.5.
 

*3
Simply to pursue the prophetic intimation from the eyes: it could presumably also indicate the knowledgeable oversight of the living constructions envisaged by the prophet, by an inspectorial intelligence, a surveying mind, as when a child looks at his toy train set, or an engineer at his airliner, knowing what is there, watching it perform, alert to its ways.
 


*4
THE MYSTERY WHICH IS INDEED SWEET! MYSTERIOUS IN THIS,
THAT THE LOVE OF SUCH A BEING AS GOD,
SHOULD CONCERN ITSELF WITH SUCH AS WE ARE,
IN THE WAY HE DID IT!

The 1000 or so books of vast scope and integral arrangement, like encyclopedias, but with the difference that they are ACTION instructions, for growth, defence, work and repair, including what appears a death program to limit life's duration at this time (telomeres, discussed previously), are a distinctive for life. For man, this is an information, command, executive facility in every nucleated living cell.

Ah sweet mystery of life ? It IS wonderful, but it is not a special magical area, arena, sport field, where nothing is needed for specifiable and spectacular consequences - because it hs some sort of free pass!

Lord Kelvin, one of Britain's most outstanding physicists of the last century (Stepping Out for Christ 2) rightly stressed the application of the material realities to biological material. It does not evaporate because it is programmed. There are additional constraints, not excursions from rationality.

But in fact the conceptual apparatus and its codification for life, is not only FAR MORE demanding, than is the case for matter per se, since this is  INCLUDED in the coded material - the atoms do not die: though even MATTER has requisitions per logic to power to create that are ineluctable (SMR 1 3, 4 That Magnificent Rock 1). This DNA,

In man, however, they are not merely programmatically supplied so that an operation works (though this is a large portion of the monumental assemblage underlying man's physical operations, and mental capacities to execute the same). With our race, we are so equipped that we can even APPLY our OWN MINDS! Our equipment works -
 


We can apply, then, our own minds to language, words, creations - within limits. Both application-site of mind, as receiver,  and applier of the same, as actor, the individuals of the race called man  have a dual function. Men sometimes forget those limits, imposed by their Creator, and rebel, aspiring to godlike powers which fall to earth, where alone they belong (cf. Isaiah 14:9-13).

In the case of those who have found the WORD which has WORKED to produce these facilities of communication, expression, logic and format, the great God even our Saviour, Jesus Christ, we seek the will of God, the mind of Christ as Paul puts it, knowing that Christ IN YOU is the hope of glory (Col. 1:27), He who by His Spirit then reinforces properly our own (Ephesians 3:16), who will in bodily format return as He went (Acts 1:11), being neither ashamed nor afraid of the world He created, to which He came, and which received Him NOT. For as many as received Him did He give the authority to become the children of God, as John 1 tells us.

In fact, He is interested in His people and will remove them, just as He comes for them; and He is interested in His world which He created, to judge its works (II Peter 3:7,10-13). These are the works which we are enabled to DO, as able in measure to subject things to himself. But as to man, whose subject is he ! By will, himself very often, but by faith and reason alike, God's subject in the case of the redeemed. THAT, redemption (Romans 3:23ff., Hebrews 8-10, Matthew 20:28, Galatians 3:1-13, 6:14), it is a crash course which by comparison makes panel-beating look superficial, heart transplant seem minor.

It is nothing less than an accomplishment of creation, by the power of God Himself who raised the dead, to change a dead spirit without the divine light of life, into one which is SPIRITUALLY as well as biologically alive (John 3, II Cor. 4:6-7). It is the spiritual and preliminary work of resurrection, the preparation for the resurrection of the body (II Cor. 5:1ff.), which is thus apt for such a spirit.

Cars that prefer (or would if they could) to remain a smash object, are fit for only one thing. With man, the case is not significantly different. If men PREFER darkness, says Christ, "THIS IS THEIR CONDEMNATION." What then ? That "LIGHT HAS COME INTO THE WORLD AND MEN LOVED DARKNESS RATHER THAN LIGHT" - John 3:19 (cf. SMR Appendix C, Index, Christ on Earth).  For that there is no further offer, opportunity and no other salvation; "for there is not other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved" (Acts 4:11-12). ALL THINGS are to be gathered up IN ONE in Christ (Ephesians 1:10), things in heaven and on earth: either for acceptance BY HIS WORD, or rejection according to it (John 12:48-50, Matthew 24:30ff.).

It is, in short, time to wake up! (cf. Ephesians 5:14, I Cor. 6:1-2, 15:34, Romans 13:11). It is time to act, walking in the light, as children of the light, in the Spirit, in the love of Christ, by faith which works by love in the interim (I Thessalonians 5:5, I John 1:7, Galatians 5:6).

The CREATOR is coming back; His appointed time is exceedingly near. It is operation repentance and renewal in His redemption by covenant in His blood, or it is ruin.