The major parts of the molecules to man story of evolution are little more than claims without evidence. As an example of this, we're told repeatedly that life isn't a miracle of revelation, but merely an inevitable accident.
Quotes and comments;
"Life is an obligatory manifestation of matter... It's spontaneous emergence [was] inevitable under the conditions that existed on the pre-biotic earth. [It is] bound to occur similarly wherever and whenever similar conditions obtain..." - Christian de Duve
- Really? This amounts to a claim without evidence to back it up (as required in rational argument). I realize he offers various scenarios and speculations to back up his claim, but I see no evidence.
Duve's claim has to be one of the most foolish statements ever penned by man or ape. (But let's try to be serious.) Let's look at his statement. Let's begin by stripping out the abstractions and reifications. Let's start with life. Since we only know 'life' as genetic code, let's rephrase his statement in a concrete manner. It then reads, "Genetic code, is an obligatory manifestation of matter."
This amounts to saying matter is obliged (by government edict?) to produce genetic code? One wonders how mere matter (impersonal and stupid) is going to do this. (Is there a EU procedural manual it can use?) How can code be produced by some-thing that has no code, nor is capable of producing code?
Does inert matter realize it has this obligation? Has it received a letter from NASA? Attempted humor aside, Duve presumably means that living organisms must be explained by necessary cause. (The three kinds of cause are generally taken to be; necessary, chance and designed.) But where is the necessity? There is no necessity (to accomplish teological goals) only rigid, inflexible laws - only the death march of cause and effect, the mindless (uncreative) repetition of reaction.
Duve's statement can only mean that 'life' was somehow inside matter and somehow was expressed (manifested). Is this what we see? When you put 'matter' under the microscope do you see 'life' sitting there? (Not where I live.) Is there genetic code hidden away in granite? in hydrogen? Is there genetic code in matter? Obviously not. How then can 'life' (a reification) be a 'manifestation' of matter? This defies all we know about biology. It defies all we know about science. It defies all we know about logic. So then, how is this an obligatory (necessary) manifestation of matter?
One might wonder where the obligation of a scientist to be honest is; but maybe scientists aren't under the kinds of obligations matter is. If science is defined as working within the bounds of known physical law - then this is not a scientific statement or scenario.
Obligatory manifestation is strange language by the way; it sounds more like spiritism than science.
- Does 'spontaneous emergence' really mean anything? Isn't this 'scientese' for 'I don't have the foggiest idea'?
Notes;
1. Christian de Duve 'The beginnings of life on earth' [American Scientist/1995] from 'Dismantling the Big Bang' - Alex Williams, John Hartnett/p.158
2. Manifestation;
a. 'The act of manifesting or disclosing what is secret, unseen, or obscure; a making evident to the eye or to the understanding; the exhibition of something by clear evidence; display; revelation: as, the manifestation of God's power in creation. [Century Dictionary]
- Duve has objectified (reified?) manifestation... he's made a noun of a verb? (Is this just a translation problem? I doubt it.)
b. an appearance in bodily form (as of a disembodied spirit)
- so the spirit of matter manifested itself in a living organism :=)
c. 'The materialization or apparition of a spirit; -- a phenomenon claimed to be seen by spiritualists.
d. 'A public demonstration, usually of a political nature.
- Perhaps 'life' is a manifestation of matter in the way Darwinism is a manifestation of atheism or materialism. Perhaps it's a manifestation of matter in the way the ACLU is a manifestation of anti-Christianity.
e. The embodiment of an intangible, or variable thing.
Obligatory;
- I don't know if we have a translation problem here but obligatory is a strange word to use of mere matter. This is a poor use of language as only people can have obligations. I've checked many different dictionaries, and none uses obligation of inanimate objects. (I know scientists are allowed a lot of liberties, but are they allowed to ignore language conventions as well?)
Obligation;
'A social, legal, or moral requirement, such as a duty, contract, or promise that compels one to follow or avoid a particular course of action.
- Matter could only be under an obligation to produce life forms if some atheist put it under such obligation. (I jest; but how do you take a claim like this seriously?) It's true that atheists say very nice things about matter, but I don't think matter feels obligated by this kindness to perform supernatural tricks and stunts as a kind of payback.)
- Being a mere, lowly blogger, I'm under no obligation to take Duve's claim seriously... but I wish people would. When you look at it critically it just falls apart... it's nothing more than his desire the universe turn out in a way that suits him. (He apparently doesn't even feel obligated to use logic in his analysis; or to conform to known science.)
Friday, April 9, 2010
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Darwin's time machine; the evolutionary imagination
Charles Darwin loved to speculate about the past, and say things like ''it's easy to imagine..." this or that imaginary event occurred. (e.g. an eye developing from a light sensitive spot on the skin). He then went on to use these fantasies as proof of his theory. People seemed to forget that these ideas were just stories, and somewhere along the line acted as if they were true or real.
These stories of his had no explanatory power. It's a simple thing to imagine that something is possible.
What would happen if I said, ''I can easily imagine a time machine." Would this mean we could all act and talk as if time machines were real? as if we could travel in them? I don't think so; neither do I think we can make any progress toward a true understanding of origins if we travel in Darwin's winged carriage. (Darwin was the H.G. Wells of his day; but being more clever than Wells, he got people to believe his fiction was actually non-fiction.)
What Darwin was doing in his armchair speculations (strapped into his thought accelerator) was building a time machine; one he could use to travel back to the distant past in, to observe the 'emergence' of life. (Destination; small, warm pond. ETA unknown.) People don't seem aware of the hubris in such a notion, of its utter impossibility. We're so used to it by now that we aren't shocked by it; neither do we laugh at the absurdity of it. It's pure SF, but we've accepted it as truth.
We speak of the past as if it existed - but does it? Imagine a birthday party from the days of your grandparents. All the balloons are gone; all the smiles, the laughter, the noise... all of it is gone. While this is just a banal illustration, it seems clear that the past doesn't exist - but we speak of it as if it were some kind of concrete entity. If the past doesn't exist however, it means that any ideas we have of it are matters of faith. We can't be certain of what doesn't exist. This means that (contra the Darwinists) evolution cannot be a fact. Only if we had a time machine could we know this; but since the past doesn't exist there's no way to get to it. (It's as impossible as booking a flight for Shangri-la.) It was, and remains, metaphysical speculation in the form of a grand story.
All science deals with things that exist or happen in the present. While I think it's at least theoretically possible to be objective about the present, I don't think this is possible when dealing with the past. Why? Objects only exist in the present. Any 'object' that we talk about as existing in the past isn't real, but only a mental construct. (i.e. it's not a physical object, but an abstraction created by the human imagination.) As all scientists and researchers are finite, fallible and fallen, this imagined object (entity) cannot be exactly the same as the object that did exist once (in the country called the past). This means that our ideas about it can't constitute facts but only theory. [1.]
Summary;
Darwin claimed it was easy to imagine how the eye might have developed, or how the bear might have become a whale. [2.] This variety of hubris has been surpassed in our day by cosmologists who claim they can imagine a plenitude of universes, as numerous as bubbles on a sea of foam. When people start speculating about the past there's little to restrain them.
- I guess it's like what's happened in SF - the stories just keeping getting bigger, with events happening on a grander scale. We might call it metaphysical inflation.
Notes;
1. Being finite beings (and creatures of God) we should be satisfied with theory; rather than seeking absolute knowledge. (i.e. in regards to scientific investigation)
2. 'In the first edition of "The Origin of Species" in 1859, Charles Darwin speculated about how natural selection could cause a land mammal to turn into a whale. As a hypothetical example, Darwin used North American black bears, which were known to catch insects by swimming in the water with their mouths open: "I can see no difficulty in a race of bears being rendered, by natural selection, more aquatic in their structure and habits, with larger and larger mouths, till a creature was produced as monstrous as a whale," he speculated.
- Well; even a great author comes up with the odd stinker.
3. I wonder to what extent the Laudanum Darwin consumed facilitated the ease with which he imagined the various scenarios he writes about in his books. They often seem to have a dream like quality to them.
These stories of his had no explanatory power. It's a simple thing to imagine that something is possible.
What would happen if I said, ''I can easily imagine a time machine." Would this mean we could all act and talk as if time machines were real? as if we could travel in them? I don't think so; neither do I think we can make any progress toward a true understanding of origins if we travel in Darwin's winged carriage. (Darwin was the H.G. Wells of his day; but being more clever than Wells, he got people to believe his fiction was actually non-fiction.)
What Darwin was doing in his armchair speculations (strapped into his thought accelerator) was building a time machine; one he could use to travel back to the distant past in, to observe the 'emergence' of life. (Destination; small, warm pond. ETA unknown.) People don't seem aware of the hubris in such a notion, of its utter impossibility. We're so used to it by now that we aren't shocked by it; neither do we laugh at the absurdity of it. It's pure SF, but we've accepted it as truth.
We speak of the past as if it existed - but does it? Imagine a birthday party from the days of your grandparents. All the balloons are gone; all the smiles, the laughter, the noise... all of it is gone. While this is just a banal illustration, it seems clear that the past doesn't exist - but we speak of it as if it were some kind of concrete entity. If the past doesn't exist however, it means that any ideas we have of it are matters of faith. We can't be certain of what doesn't exist. This means that (contra the Darwinists) evolution cannot be a fact. Only if we had a time machine could we know this; but since the past doesn't exist there's no way to get to it. (It's as impossible as booking a flight for Shangri-la.) It was, and remains, metaphysical speculation in the form of a grand story.
All science deals with things that exist or happen in the present. While I think it's at least theoretically possible to be objective about the present, I don't think this is possible when dealing with the past. Why? Objects only exist in the present. Any 'object' that we talk about as existing in the past isn't real, but only a mental construct. (i.e. it's not a physical object, but an abstraction created by the human imagination.) As all scientists and researchers are finite, fallible and fallen, this imagined object (entity) cannot be exactly the same as the object that did exist once (in the country called the past). This means that our ideas about it can't constitute facts but only theory. [1.]
Summary;
Darwin claimed it was easy to imagine how the eye might have developed, or how the bear might have become a whale. [2.] This variety of hubris has been surpassed in our day by cosmologists who claim they can imagine a plenitude of universes, as numerous as bubbles on a sea of foam. When people start speculating about the past there's little to restrain them.
- I guess it's like what's happened in SF - the stories just keeping getting bigger, with events happening on a grander scale. We might call it metaphysical inflation.
Notes;
1. Being finite beings (and creatures of God) we should be satisfied with theory; rather than seeking absolute knowledge. (i.e. in regards to scientific investigation)
2. 'In the first edition of "The Origin of Species" in 1859, Charles Darwin speculated about how natural selection could cause a land mammal to turn into a whale. As a hypothetical example, Darwin used North American black bears, which were known to catch insects by swimming in the water with their mouths open: "I can see no difficulty in a race of bears being rendered, by natural selection, more aquatic in their structure and habits, with larger and larger mouths, till a creature was produced as monstrous as a whale," he speculated.
- Well; even a great author comes up with the odd stinker.
3. I wonder to what extent the Laudanum Darwin consumed facilitated the ease with which he imagined the various scenarios he writes about in his books. They often seem to have a dream like quality to them.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Genomic defects and gnomic arguments
A recent book claims to have found a 'new' argument to disprove the idea of intelligent design. The author seems to be ill informed to say the least.
Quotes and comments;
A. 'Are your body’s imperfections reasons for you to reject intelligent design and embrace evolution? Professor John Avise (UC Irvine) thinks so. His new book Inside the Human Genome was given good press by PhysOrg: “Distinguished Professor of ecology & evolutionary biology at UC Irvine, Avise also makes the case that overwhelming scientific evidence of genomic defects provides a compelling counterargument to intelligent design,” the article said. [1.]
- Really? Does anyone believe you could create a world thousands of years ago and then not have it suffer genetic damage? In no way does a perfect creation mean there's a perfect creation now. No creationist (I repeat, no one) thinks this is the case; but yet evolutionists keep coughing up this hair ball argument. Is our professor so ignorant he doesn't realize this? Has he read no creationist material whatsover? Is he lazy? just contemptuous? what's his excuse?
Not only that; the bible specifically (on numerous occasions) refers the Fall and to the corruption incumbent upon the fall. (eg. "The whole world groaneth in travail...'') So what's his excuse? If he's read the bible he knows better. If he's even remotely familiar with creationist literature he knows better. Is he merely trying to deceive ignorant people? You tell me. (If the publisher had given the book to a c. to read they could have easily told him all this.) This objection has been answered so many times over the last few decades that one wonders why it would have to be addressed again. The answers are cogent and to the point. This 'argument' is a bad one, and has no weight.)
B. 'The article said that evolutionary theory provides religious people a way out of theodicy – the need to explain natural evil. Avise said that while both theology and natural selection can explain the appearance of design, theology has trouble explaining design flaws.'
- Completely false as I've pointed out.
- I'd say it's evolutionary theory that has the problems with design flaws; as evolution is somehow supposed to be progressing, building marvellous organs out of thin air as it were. Biblical creation shows a descent from perfection to imperfection; while the evolution theory offered to us by Materialism gives us an ascent from imperfection (i.e. inert matter) to perfect (i.e. sophisticated genetic code) The professor (led astray by his monistic worldview) has got the thing back to front. He's trying to project his own problems onto the creation model.
C. “Serious biological imperfections, on the other hand, can only logically be expected of nonsentient evolutionary processes that are inherently sloppy and error-prone,” Avise claimed.
- I always find this comical. Here we have an evolutionist admitting that e. processes are 'inherently sloppy and error-prone' and yet they somehow (blindly, randomly, without foresight) managed to cobble together an Albert Einstein! That makes no sense to me. (Try writing a soft ware program with such a process :=)
I'm afraid I can't follow the 'logic' of life coming from non-life; of intelligence coming from non-intelligence; of the personal coming from the non-personal; of intelligent code coming from non-intelligent matter. If there's a logic to that story I don't see it.
- Apparently this man has never heard of genetic mutations, of genetic entropy.
D. “They’re [imperfections] more troublesome to rationalize as overt mistakes by a fallible God.”
- This is the kind of statement Charles Darwin liked to make. (i.e. attributing 'natural evil' to God.) One might ask him how he knows what a 'mistake' is (in terms of a blind, non-teleological process) and how he knows the mistakes he sees (or thinks he sees) were the acts of God? (Attributing 'mistakes' to God isn't scientific of course, it's theological.) We await his answer.
E. 'He extended Dobzhansky’s oft-quoted proverb that “nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution” to suggest that nothing in religion, medicine or environmental issues makes sense except in evolution’s light either.
- Evolution's light eh? One wonders how much 'light' a non-intelligent, non-personal, blind, random, wasteful, violence ridden process can provide. Evolution's shadow is more like it; a shadow unto death.
Summary;
As the gnomes of legend protect mines and mineral lodes, so the materialist must protect the theory of evolution. One of the most successful methods has been to impugn the creation, and to blame its 'imperfections' on God. Avise is just the latest in a long line of those trying to guard the Darwinian treasure.
Notes;
1. Is Your Bod Flawed by God? Creation/Evolution Headlines 02/14/2010
2. I've mentioned the books 'Darwin's god' and 'Darwin's proof' by Cornelius Hunter before, but they're pertinent here as they address these issues. (Maybe the professor could pick up a copy and try reading it. Would that be too much to ask?)
3. I find it comical to have a materialist offer poor Christians a theodicy. A theodicy by someone who doesn't believe in god? A theodicy if there is no god? what's that all about. I don't think the church needs that kind of help. (I don't even think the liberals need that kind of help, as they've been offering up this kind of junk for a couple centuries or more now.)
- I don't know the guy, but I'm assuming he's a materialist.
4. Avise is the guy who needs to give us an explanation of evil. He should mind his own knitting and give us his own account of evil. He might tell us how, if all is mere matter in motion, such a thing as evil exists. Isn't he just borrowing a theistic concept here? What right does a materialist have to talk about evil; let alone complain about it? (I maintain that it's the materialist that has the biggest problem with evil. He can't even give us an explanation of how it could exist on materialist terms. He might tell us how to define it as well, and what to do about it... this phantasm that doesn't exist.)
- If he does think evil exists (and he seems to) then this ought to tell him that his worldview is false.
Quotes and comments;
A. 'Are your body’s imperfections reasons for you to reject intelligent design and embrace evolution? Professor John Avise (UC Irvine) thinks so. His new book Inside the Human Genome was given good press by PhysOrg: “Distinguished Professor of ecology & evolutionary biology at UC Irvine, Avise also makes the case that overwhelming scientific evidence of genomic defects provides a compelling counterargument to intelligent design,” the article said. [1.]
- Really? Does anyone believe you could create a world thousands of years ago and then not have it suffer genetic damage? In no way does a perfect creation mean there's a perfect creation now. No creationist (I repeat, no one) thinks this is the case; but yet evolutionists keep coughing up this hair ball argument. Is our professor so ignorant he doesn't realize this? Has he read no creationist material whatsover? Is he lazy? just contemptuous? what's his excuse?
Not only that; the bible specifically (on numerous occasions) refers the Fall and to the corruption incumbent upon the fall. (eg. "The whole world groaneth in travail...'') So what's his excuse? If he's read the bible he knows better. If he's even remotely familiar with creationist literature he knows better. Is he merely trying to deceive ignorant people? You tell me. (If the publisher had given the book to a c. to read they could have easily told him all this.) This objection has been answered so many times over the last few decades that one wonders why it would have to be addressed again. The answers are cogent and to the point. This 'argument' is a bad one, and has no weight.)
B. 'The article said that evolutionary theory provides religious people a way out of theodicy – the need to explain natural evil. Avise said that while both theology and natural selection can explain the appearance of design, theology has trouble explaining design flaws.'
- Completely false as I've pointed out.
- I'd say it's evolutionary theory that has the problems with design flaws; as evolution is somehow supposed to be progressing, building marvellous organs out of thin air as it were. Biblical creation shows a descent from perfection to imperfection; while the evolution theory offered to us by Materialism gives us an ascent from imperfection (i.e. inert matter) to perfect (i.e. sophisticated genetic code) The professor (led astray by his monistic worldview) has got the thing back to front. He's trying to project his own problems onto the creation model.
C. “Serious biological imperfections, on the other hand, can only logically be expected of nonsentient evolutionary processes that are inherently sloppy and error-prone,” Avise claimed.
- I always find this comical. Here we have an evolutionist admitting that e. processes are 'inherently sloppy and error-prone' and yet they somehow (blindly, randomly, without foresight) managed to cobble together an Albert Einstein! That makes no sense to me. (Try writing a soft ware program with such a process :=)
I'm afraid I can't follow the 'logic' of life coming from non-life; of intelligence coming from non-intelligence; of the personal coming from the non-personal; of intelligent code coming from non-intelligent matter. If there's a logic to that story I don't see it.
- Apparently this man has never heard of genetic mutations, of genetic entropy.
D. “They’re [imperfections] more troublesome to rationalize as overt mistakes by a fallible God.”
- This is the kind of statement Charles Darwin liked to make. (i.e. attributing 'natural evil' to God.) One might ask him how he knows what a 'mistake' is (in terms of a blind, non-teleological process) and how he knows the mistakes he sees (or thinks he sees) were the acts of God? (Attributing 'mistakes' to God isn't scientific of course, it's theological.) We await his answer.
E. 'He extended Dobzhansky’s oft-quoted proverb that “nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution” to suggest that nothing in religion, medicine or environmental issues makes sense except in evolution’s light either.
- Evolution's light eh? One wonders how much 'light' a non-intelligent, non-personal, blind, random, wasteful, violence ridden process can provide. Evolution's shadow is more like it; a shadow unto death.
Summary;
As the gnomes of legend protect mines and mineral lodes, so the materialist must protect the theory of evolution. One of the most successful methods has been to impugn the creation, and to blame its 'imperfections' on God. Avise is just the latest in a long line of those trying to guard the Darwinian treasure.
Notes;
1. Is Your Bod Flawed by God? Creation/Evolution Headlines 02/14/2010
2. I've mentioned the books 'Darwin's god' and 'Darwin's proof' by Cornelius Hunter before, but they're pertinent here as they address these issues. (Maybe the professor could pick up a copy and try reading it. Would that be too much to ask?)
3. I find it comical to have a materialist offer poor Christians a theodicy. A theodicy by someone who doesn't believe in god? A theodicy if there is no god? what's that all about. I don't think the church needs that kind of help. (I don't even think the liberals need that kind of help, as they've been offering up this kind of junk for a couple centuries or more now.)
- I don't know the guy, but I'm assuming he's a materialist.
4. Avise is the guy who needs to give us an explanation of evil. He should mind his own knitting and give us his own account of evil. He might tell us how, if all is mere matter in motion, such a thing as evil exists. Isn't he just borrowing a theistic concept here? What right does a materialist have to talk about evil; let alone complain about it? (I maintain that it's the materialist that has the biggest problem with evil. He can't even give us an explanation of how it could exist on materialist terms. He might tell us how to define it as well, and what to do about it... this phantasm that doesn't exist.)
- If he does think evil exists (and he seems to) then this ought to tell him that his worldview is false.
The need for a creation foundation for science
It's the claim of various Reformed theologians (as opposed to 'evangelical' or Roman Catholic) that Rationalism not only gets it wrong about God, it also fails to see the created world (nature) correctly. In this regard I want to look at a current example of getting things wrong.
Quotes and comments;
A. 'How can toads calculate? How can cells without a brain or central nervous system figure out a balanced diet? How can bugs navigate the wind for optimum flight time? These are some of the questions that can arise from observations of the living world. The more we learn about life, the more we find unexpected abilities in the most “primitive” of living things.
'The ameba seems like a lowly life form. How smart can it be? French scientists found out they are not only social organisms; they know how to obtain a balanced diet. Science Daily reported that “Even single-celled organisms feed themselves in a ‘smart’ manner. Experiments showed that amoebas thrive best with a ratio of two parts protein to one part sugar. When presented with a veritable grocery stand of nutrients, they went for the optimal ingredients on their own. “Social amoebae are thus capable of solving complex nutritional challenges, quite a surprising feat for a very simple organism lacking a centralizing system,” the article said. [1.]
- This is nonsense; the amoeba aren't 'solving' any challenges at all. The amoeba is acting in conformity to a designed (built in) program of instructions. It doesn't solve anything. The authors of the article speak as if it were solving this 'problem' because, as materialists, they assume that somehow this organism developed its own abilities. (e.g. like a person learning the skills of boat building or oil painting perhaps.) They work from a monistic worldview, and thus they get everything wrong. (i.e. apart from description.)
It's utterly mistaken to imagine these organisms somehow developed these abilities themselves. Clearly these abilities were programmed into them. (Does anyone imagine a computer programmed itself? or that a collection of metal fragments somehow programmed processing abilities into themselves? The idea is absurd; as absurd as the materialist explanation for life form functions.) Intelligence is simply not a property of inert matter.
These abilities are only surprising (as opposed to wondrous) if you're a Materialist who denies God is the creator of all things. The materialist admits that what he finds is hard to believe... but then suppresses the implication of that admission, and gives the credit to some mystical force called evolution.
Summary;
I agree with Calvin and Van Til that the natural man can't even get basic science right a lot of the time. [2a.]
The natural man (anyone working on the monistic principle) cannot see even nature correctly, let alone God. He may describe the world accurately (due to his god given abilities) but his view of the world is false because he doesn't portray it as created by god, and as a home for man. He sees it incorrectly because he doesn't speak of it as having been created for beauty and as a revelation of god's love, mercy and wisdom; nor does he portray it as having been created for the glory of God. On the negative side (as it were) he gets 'nature' wrong as he doesn't portray the world (or man) as fallen, and that this was caused by man's sinful rebellion against his creator. So although he gets it right as far as the physical details (of description) he gets the most important things wrong.
Notes;
1.Life Is Smarter Than We Know: Creation/Evolution Headlines 02/15/2010
2. Cornelius Van Til; some thoughts on creation, theology and science
a. 'With the entrance of sin, however, man cut his study of himself loose from god, and therewith also cut his study of nature loose from himself. For this reason all the study of nature that man has made since the fall of man has been, in a basic sense, absolutely false. As far as an ultimate point of view is concerned, the sinner has been mistaken in his interpretation of the physical universe no less than in his interpretation of god. The physical world cannot be truly known when it is cut loose from god. We may say that the phenomena cannot be truly known without the noumena.' - Cornelius Van Til/Systematic Theology/p.81
b. 'It must be maintained that nature must be related to man and when thus related is better shown for what it is as a revelation of god. Men can read nature aright only when it is studied as the home of man who is made in the image of god.' ibid/82
c. '...the natural man is as blind as a mole with respect to the natural things as well as with respect to spiritual things.' ibid
d. '...from an ultimate point of view the natural man knows nothing truly, but from a relative point of view he knows something about all things. ibid/83
Quotes and comments;
A. 'How can toads calculate? How can cells without a brain or central nervous system figure out a balanced diet? How can bugs navigate the wind for optimum flight time? These are some of the questions that can arise from observations of the living world. The more we learn about life, the more we find unexpected abilities in the most “primitive” of living things.
'The ameba seems like a lowly life form. How smart can it be? French scientists found out they are not only social organisms; they know how to obtain a balanced diet. Science Daily reported that “Even single-celled organisms feed themselves in a ‘smart’ manner. Experiments showed that amoebas thrive best with a ratio of two parts protein to one part sugar. When presented with a veritable grocery stand of nutrients, they went for the optimal ingredients on their own. “Social amoebae are thus capable of solving complex nutritional challenges, quite a surprising feat for a very simple organism lacking a centralizing system,” the article said. [1.]
- This is nonsense; the amoeba aren't 'solving' any challenges at all. The amoeba is acting in conformity to a designed (built in) program of instructions. It doesn't solve anything. The authors of the article speak as if it were solving this 'problem' because, as materialists, they assume that somehow this organism developed its own abilities. (e.g. like a person learning the skills of boat building or oil painting perhaps.) They work from a monistic worldview, and thus they get everything wrong. (i.e. apart from description.)
It's utterly mistaken to imagine these organisms somehow developed these abilities themselves. Clearly these abilities were programmed into them. (Does anyone imagine a computer programmed itself? or that a collection of metal fragments somehow programmed processing abilities into themselves? The idea is absurd; as absurd as the materialist explanation for life form functions.) Intelligence is simply not a property of inert matter.
These abilities are only surprising (as opposed to wondrous) if you're a Materialist who denies God is the creator of all things. The materialist admits that what he finds is hard to believe... but then suppresses the implication of that admission, and gives the credit to some mystical force called evolution.
Summary;
I agree with Calvin and Van Til that the natural man can't even get basic science right a lot of the time. [2a.]
The natural man (anyone working on the monistic principle) cannot see even nature correctly, let alone God. He may describe the world accurately (due to his god given abilities) but his view of the world is false because he doesn't portray it as created by god, and as a home for man. He sees it incorrectly because he doesn't speak of it as having been created for beauty and as a revelation of god's love, mercy and wisdom; nor does he portray it as having been created for the glory of God. On the negative side (as it were) he gets 'nature' wrong as he doesn't portray the world (or man) as fallen, and that this was caused by man's sinful rebellion against his creator. So although he gets it right as far as the physical details (of description) he gets the most important things wrong.
Notes;
1.Life Is Smarter Than We Know: Creation/Evolution Headlines 02/15/2010
2. Cornelius Van Til; some thoughts on creation, theology and science
a. 'With the entrance of sin, however, man cut his study of himself loose from god, and therewith also cut his study of nature loose from himself. For this reason all the study of nature that man has made since the fall of man has been, in a basic sense, absolutely false. As far as an ultimate point of view is concerned, the sinner has been mistaken in his interpretation of the physical universe no less than in his interpretation of god. The physical world cannot be truly known when it is cut loose from god. We may say that the phenomena cannot be truly known without the noumena.' - Cornelius Van Til/Systematic Theology/p.81
b. 'It must be maintained that nature must be related to man and when thus related is better shown for what it is as a revelation of god. Men can read nature aright only when it is studied as the home of man who is made in the image of god.' ibid/82
c. '...the natural man is as blind as a mole with respect to the natural things as well as with respect to spiritual things.' ibid
d. '...from an ultimate point of view the natural man knows nothing truly, but from a relative point of view he knows something about all things. ibid/83
Sunday, April 4, 2010
The image of God
As there's much confusion about what Christians mean when they refer to the image of God, I thought I'd post something pertinent to the subject, and appropriate to Easter week.
Quotes and comments;
You'll find below a sermon by B. B. Warfield called 'The revelation of man' but I want to post a few excerpts from the sermon first.
A. 'But, equally, because of His perfect identification with the children of men, partaking of their blood and flesh, and made in all things like unto men, He stands before us also as the perfect revelation of man. [1.]
Without the picture of Jesus placed before them, men would have no idea (not fully at least) of what a perfect man was, or of what teachers mean by the phrase image of god. The law of god certainly gives us a picture, but it's a shadowy picture, and one that only becomes clear in the Incarnation.
B. 'It may also behoove us to look upon Him who is not ashamed to call us brethren, that we may learn to know man—the man that God made in His own image, and whom He would rescue from his sin by the gift of His Son. [1.]
C. 'Therefore it is to Him that we are to look if we would see man as man, man in the possession and use of all those faculties, powers, dignities for which he was destined by his Creator. In this way the author of this epistle presents Jesus before us as the pattern, the ideal, the realization of man. Looking upon Him, we have man revealed to us. [1.]
THE REVELATION OF MAN - a sermon by B.B. Warfield
" But one hath somewhere testified, saying, What is man, that Thou art mindful of him ? Or the son of man, that Thou visitest him ? Thou madest him a little lower than the angels ; Thou crownedst him with glory and honor; Thou didst put all things in subjection under his feet. For in that He subjected all things unto him, He left nothing that is not subject to him. But now we see not yet all things subjected to him. But we behold Him who hath been made a little lower than the angels, even Jesus, because of the suffering of death, crowned with
glory and honor." - Heb. ii. 6-9.
'These words form the beginning of a marvelous passage the subject of which is " Christ our Representative." That He might become our Representative, the inspired writer teaches, it was needful that He should identify Himself with us. Therefore it was that He became man. Language had been exhausted to exhibit the divine dignity of our Representative. In contrast with those men of God, the prophets, in whom God dwelt and through whom God spoke, He is called a Son through whom the worlds were made and by the word of whose power all things are upheld ; who is the effulgence of God's glory and the very impression of His substance.
In contrast with the most exalted of the creatures of God, the angels, He is given the more excellent name of the Son of God, His firstborn, whom all the angels of God shall worship ; nay, He is given the name of the almighty and righteous God Himself, of the eternal Lord, who in the beginning laid the foundations of the earth and framed the heavens, and who shall abide the same when heaven and earth wax old and pass away. Language is now exhausted to emphasize the perfection of the identification of this divine being with the children of men, when He who by nature was thus infinitely exalted above angels was made, like man, "a little lower than the angels . . . because of the suffering of death."
" It behooved Him," we are told, " in all things to be made like unto His brethren" ; and " since then the children are sharers in blood and flesh, He also Himself in like manner partook of the same," in order " that through death He might bring to nought him that had the power of death, that is, the devil ; and might deliver all them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage."
The emphasis is upon the completeness of the identification of the Son of God with the sons of men, that by His sufferings many sons might be brought unto glory. And the implication is that as He was thus so completely identified with us for His work, so we are equally completely identified with Him in the fruits of that work. He shared with us our estate that we might share His merit with Him. There is a great deal more precious truth in this passage than we can profitably attempt to consider in a single discourse The whole gospel of the grace of God is in it. I have chosen its initial words for my text, and I purpose to ask you to fix your attention on its initial thought—the perfect identification of Christ with man.
And even this in only one of its aspects, viz.: the consequent revelation of man which is brought us by the man Christ Jesus. Because our Lord is the Son of God, the impressed image of God's substance—as the stamp of a seal is the impressed image of the seal—His advent into our world was the supreme revelation of God. But, equally, because of His perfect identification with the children of men, partaking of their blood and flesh, and made in all things like unto men, He stands before us also as the perfect revelation of man.
It behooves us to look with wondering eyes upon Him whom to see is to see the Father also, that we may learn to know God—the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who " so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but have eternal life." It may also behoove us to look upon Him who is not ashamed to call us brethren, that we may learn to know man—the man that God made in His own image, and whom He would rescue from his sin by the gift of His Son.
The text assuredly fully justifies us in looking upon Christ as the revelation of man. It begins, as you observe, by adducing the language of the eighth Psalm, in which God is adoringly praised for His goodness to man in endowing him, despite his comparative insignificance, with dominion over the creatures. The psalmist is contemplating the mighty expanse of the evening sky, studded with its orbs of light, among which the moon marches in splendor ; and he is filled with a sense of the greatness of the God the work of whose hands all this glory is. " O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is Thy name in all the earth, who hast set Thy glory upon the
heavens !" He is lost in wonder that such a God can bear in mind so weak a thing as man.
" When I consider Thy heavens, the work of Thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which Thou hast ordained ; what is man, that Thou art mindful of him, and the son of man, that Thou visitest him?" But his wonder and adoration reach their climax as he recounts how the Author of all this magnificent universe has not only considered man, but made him lord of it all. In an inextinguishable burst of amazed praise he declares:
" Thou hast made him but little lower than the angels, and crownedst him with glory and honor. Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of Thy hands ; Thou hast put all things under his feet." He enumerates the minor elements of man's strange dominion, emphasizing its completeness and all-inclusiveness. "
All sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field; the fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas." Nothing is omitted. So the praise returns upon itself and the Psalm closes with the repeated and now justified exclamation, " O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is Thy name in all the earth !" It is a hymn, you observe, of man's dignity and honor and dominion.
God is praised that He has dealt in so wondrous a fashion with mortal man, born from men, that He has elevated him to a position but little lower than that of the angels, crowned him with glory and honor, and
given him dominion over all the works of His hands. Now, observe how the author of this epistle deals with the Psalm. He adduces it as authoritative Scripture declaring indisputable fact. " One hath somewhere testified, saying, What is man, that Thou art mindful of him ? Or the son of man, that Thou visitest him ? Thou madest him a little lower than the angels ; Thou crownedst him with glory and honor; Thou didst put all things in subjection under his feet."
He expounds its meaning accurately. "For in that He subjected all things unto him, He left nothing that is not subject to him." And then he argues thus : " But now we see not yet all things subjected to him. But we behold Him who hath been made a little lower than the angels, even Jesus, because of the suffering of death, crowned
with glory and honor." That is, of course, in Jesus only as yet do we see in actual possession and exercise, in its completeness and perfection, that majesty and dominion which the inspired psalmist attributes to man.
God has expressly subjected all things to man ; man has obviously not entered into his dominion ; but the
man Jesus has. Therefore it is to Him that we are to look if we would see man as man, man in the possession and use of all those faculties, powers, dignities for which he was destined by his Creator. In this way the author of this epistle presents Jesus before us as the pattern, the ideal, the realization of man. Looking upon Him, we have man revealed to us.
I beg you to keep fully in mind that our Lord's adaptation to reveal to us what man is, is based by the author of this epistle solely on the perfection of His identification with us in His incarnation. To the author of this epistle, our Lord in His own proper person is beyond all comparison with man. As God's own Son, the effulgence of His glory and the impressed image of His substance, He is beyond comparison even with prophets and infinitely above angels. He became identified with us by an act of humiliation and for an assigned cause, viz. : for the sake " of the suffering of death," that is, in order that He might be able to undertake and properly to fulfill His high-priestly work—as we are immediately instructed in detail.
This act of humiliation is expressed here, for the sake of giving point to the argument, in language derived from the Psalm : " He hath been made a little lower than the angels." Observe, then, the pregnant difference
which emerges in the use of this phrase of man and of our Lord. That man was made but little lower than the angels marks the height of his exaltation : " Thou didst make him a little lower than the angels, Thou didst crown him with glory and honor."
That our Lord was made a little lower than the angels, marks the depth of His humiliation : " We behold Jesus, who hath been made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death." So wide is the interval that
stretches between Him and man. He stoops to reach the exalted heights of man's as yet unattained glory.
But the perfection of His identification with us consisted just in this, that He did not, when He was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, assume merely the appearance of man or even merely the position and destiny of man, but the reality of humanity. Note the stress laid in the passage, on the reality of the humanity which our Lord assumed, when, as the inspired writer pointedly declares, He was made like to His brethren in all things.
He was made like them in their physical nature : as they were " sharers in blood and flesh, He also Himself in
like manner partook of the same." He was made like them in their psychical nature: as
they suffered and were tempted, He also " Himself hath suffered being tempted." Jesus Christ
is presented before us here as a true and real man, possessed of every faculty and capacity
that belongs to the essence of our nature : as a veritable "son of man," born of a woman, and
brother to all those whom He came to succor. It is because He was in this true and complete
sense what He so loved to call Himself, the Son of man—doubtless with as full reference to
the eighth Psalm as to Daniel's great apocalypse —that He reveals to us in His own life and conduct
what man was intended to be in the plan of God.
We must keep these great facts in mind that we may preserve the point of view of the inspired
writer, as we strive to follow him in looking upon Jesus as the representative man, in whose
humanity man is revealed to us. He is not the representative man in the sense that man is all
that He is. When He entered the sphere of human life, by the assumption of a human nature,
He did not lay aside His Godhead. He is, while being all that man is, infinitely more. He is
God as well as man.
He is not the representative man in the sense that in Him the age-long
process of man's creation was first completed — that His exalted humanity is the goal toward
which nature had been all through the aeons travailing, till now at last in Him the man-child
comes to a tardy birth. He is the revelation of man only in the sense that when we turn our
eyes toward Him, we see in the quality of His humanity God's ideal of man, the Creator's intention
for His creature; while by contrast with Him we may learn the degradation of our sin ; and
happily also we may see in Him what man is to be, through the redemption of the Son of God
and the sanctification of the Spirit. Let us think a little on these things.
And, first, in the quality of Christ's manhood we may see the perfect man, the revelation of what man is in God's idea of him, of what the Creator intended him to be. And what is the quality of Jesus' manhood ?
There is no other word to express it except the great word perfection. Sin ? We cannot think of it in connection with Him. Those who companied with Him testify that He was " without blemish and without spot "; that " He did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth." The author of our epistle declares that He was " separate from sinners," that He was, in the midst of temptation, " without sin." The story of His life
and sayings leaves us without trace of acknowledgment of fault on His own part, without
betrayal of consciousness of unworthiness, without the slightest hint of inner conflict with sinful
impulses.
And if the quality of His excellence is too positive to permit us even to speak of sin in
connection with it, it is equally too universal to admit of adequate characterization. The excellences
of the best of men may usually be condensed in a single outstanding virtue or grace
by which each is peculiarly marked. Thus we speak of the faith of Abraham, the meekness of
Moses, the patience of Job, the boldness of Elijah, the love of John. The perfection of Jesus
defies such particularizing characterization. All the beauties of character which exhibit themselves
singly in the world's saints and heroes, assemble in Him, each in its perfection and all in perfect
balance and harmonious combination.
If we ask what manner of man He was, we can only respond, No manner of man, but rather, by way
of eminence, the man, the only perfect man that ever existed on earth, to whom gathered all
the perfections proper to man and possible for man, that they might find a fitting home in His
heart and that they might play brightly about His person. If you would know what man is, in the height of His divine idea, look at Jesus Christ.
Is it not well for the world once to have seen such a man ? How easy it is to accuse nature of our faults, to confront God with what we have wrought, and to seek to roll upon our Creator the responsibility for the creatures which our own deeds have made us. How easy to look upon
corruption as the inevitable incident of existence for such beings as men ; and to speak of sin as only the mark of our humanity.
How easily a cynical temper waxes within us as we mix with men in the world's marts and tread with them the devious paths of life. We mark their ways and ask, waiting, like Pilate, for no answer, Who
shall show us any good ? How easily our ideals themselves sink to what we fancy the level of human powers. We note the aims of those who strive about us. We note the aims of the great
figures which flit across the pages of history, commanding the acclamation of all the ages.
We look within at the seething caldron of passions and impulses of our own souls. Do not
all these voices call us to one natural, one unavoidable issue ? If in the far distance we faintly
discover hanging above us the beckoning glimmer of some star of heaven—what is poor wingless
man, that he should hope to rise to grasp it ? Is it not the part of wisdom, as well as the
demand of nature, that worms shall crawl ? Is it not folly unspeakable for such as we to attempt
to mount the skies ? But we see Jesus, and the scales fall from our eyes; in Him we perceive
what man is in his idea, and what it may be well for him to seek to become.
The man Jesus stands before us as the revelation of man's native dignity, capacities, and powers. He exhibits to us what man is in the idea of his Maker. He uncovers to our view, in their perfection and strength, those qualities and forces of good, the ruins of which only we may see in our fellow-men, and enables us to admire,
honor, love, and hope for them, because they still possess such qualities and capacities though in
ruins. To look upon Him is to ennoble and elevate our ideals of life ; the sight of Him forbids
us to forget our higher nature and higher aspirations ; it quickens in us our dead longings to be
like Him, men after God's plan and heart, rather than after our own corrupt impulses.
It is well for the world once to have seen such a man. Once and once only. Ah, there is the pity of it, and there is the despair of it ! In no other than in Him has the ideal ever been realized. And the more we look upon His perfections the more we perceive, as in no other light, how far short of the ideal man have been our highest imaginations.
For we need to note, secondly, that in the light of Jesus' perfect manhood we have, by
contrast, revealed to us what man is in his sin and depravity, what he has made himself in his rebellion from good and from God.
The Greeks had a proverb : " By the straight is judged both the straight and the crooked; the rule is singly the test of both." And so it is. Wherever the straight is brought to light, there inevitably is also the crookedness of the crooked made visible. Let the builder hang his plumbline,
with whatever careless intent, over any wall; and if the wall be not straight, every wayfarer may perceive it. Let the carpenter lay his straightedge
alongside of any board, and every crook and
bend is brought to the instant observation of all.
This is what is meant when the Scriptures tell us that by the law is the knowledge of sin. For the law is for moral things what the plumb-line and the straight-edge are for physical things : it is
the rule by which our hearts are measured and in the presence of which what we really are is made
manifest. We may sin and scarcely know we sin, until the straight-edge of the law is brought against us. Oh, how we fall away from its line of rectitude!
Now, our blessed Saviour, as the perfect one, full of righteousness and holiness, is the embodiment of the law in life. And more perfectly and vividly than any law—though that law be holy and just and good—does His presence among men measure men and reveal what men are. The presence of any good man in
our midst acts, in its due proportion, as such a measure. And, therefore, from the beginning of
the world men have been stung by the presence
of a good man among them to hatred of him, and
have evilly entreated and persecuted him. He is
a standing accusation of their sins. " There is certainly,"
says Miss Yonge in The Heir of Redcliffe —that uplifting story which has been such a factor
in the lives of such men as Mr. William Morris and Dr. A. Kuyper—" there is certainly a ' tyrannous hate' in the world for unusual goodness, which is a rebuke to it."
But no man ever so feels his utter depravity as when he thinks of himself
as standing by the side of Jesus. In this presence, even what we had fondly looked upon as our virtues hide their faces in shame and cry, Depart from us, for we are sinful in thy sight, O
Lord. Lay open the narrative in these gospels, of how the Son of man went about among men, in
the days of His sojourn here below. Note on the one hand the ever-growing glory of that revelation
of a perfect life. And note on the other hand the ever-increasing horror of the accompanying
revelation of human weakness and human depravity.
It could not be otherwise.
When we see Jesus, it must be in the brightness of His unapproachable splendor that we see those about
Him : as it is in the light of the sun that we see the forms and colors and characters of all objects
on which it turns its beams. Especially when we see Him in conflict with His enemies, as we cannot avoid being moved with amazement by the spectacle of His utter perfection ; so must we, in that light, be shocked by the spectacle of the utter depravity of men. Men are revealed
in this presence in their true, their fundamental tones of nature with a vivid completeness in which they are never seen elsewhere.
Now, such a crisis as this, Jesus is bringing into the life of every man upon whom the light of His knowledge shines. No man can escape the test. Christ Jesus has come into the world and He confronts
every one with the spectacle of His perfect humanity. When men are least thinking of Him, lo ! there He is by their side. Every time His
name is mentioned in the assemblies of men, every time His image rises in a brooding human heart, the crisis comes again to human souls.
They may not realize it ; they may prefer otherwise;
they may determine otherwise. But they are being tried and tested against their wills every moment they live in His presence.
Some, like the priests, burn with rage at every thought of the supreme claim He makes upon their homage, and refuse with all violence to have this man to rule over them. Others, like Pilate, yield a languid and chill recognition to His goodness and worth, yet choose the pursuit of pleasure or gain
above the service of Him. Others, like the mob, may in easy indifference prefer some other leader, though he be a robber and a murderer. Thus a
crisis is brought by His presence to every heart ; and a revelation of man in his true depravity is the result.
As He moves through the world the whole race lies at His feet self-condemned. We shudder as, in the light of His brightness, we see man as he is. Yet we have the word of Jesus Himself for it
that God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him
might be saved. Let us turn our eyes away, then, from the terrible spectacle of a race revealed
in its sin to observe, in the third place, that in the
perfection of Christ's manhood we have the revelation
of what man may become by the redemption
of the Son of God and the sanctification of the Spirit.
We observe that the element of promise is made very prominent in the text and in the wider passage of which the text is a part. Mark those words of hope, " Not yet." " We see not yet all things subjected to him." The psalmist's ascription is then yet to be fulfilled in man himself. In
Jesus' dominion, and in Jesus' perfection, we are to see only the earnest and the pledge. When He entered through sufferings into glory, it was in
the process of bringing many sons unto glory. If He is the sanctifier, they are the sanctified ; and He is not ashamed to call them brethren.
If He became like them in order that He might die in their behalf; this death was to be accomplished in order that He might, by making propitiation for their sins, deliver them from their bondage. In a
word, we are to look upon Jesus in His perfect manhood as our forerunner. In His perfection we are to see the revelation of what we too shall be when He shall have perfected His work in us
as He has already perfected it for us.
Let us bless God for these precious assurances. Without them the sight of Jesus could but bring us despair. Men speak of Him, indeed, as our example ; and we praise God that He has given
us such an example—we bless His holy name
that He has permitted the world to see one such
man. But if He were only our example, as we looked upon Him and saw His perfection and by contrast saw our depravity, who would not cry that this example is too high, we cannot attain unto it!
I fear we do not always consider with what limitations mere example is hedged about. Limitations of space. How narrow a circle can really feel the uplift of even the most moving personal example. At the best, only those who cluster most nearly round the figure of a good man,
however impressive, can be much affected by his example.
Limitations of time. How soon the force of the mightiest personality is drowned in the stream of the years. As the flood of days falls over it how rapidly it becomes at best a story —an empty name. Could Jesus have declared that it was expedient for Him to go away, if it
were only or chiefly as an example that He came into the world ? Would not it have been rather expedient that He should have lived through all
the ages, and kept His living example as a living force before the eyes of men for all time and in every land? Limitations of power. The most inspiring example cannot change the heart, cannot
impart new life to a dead soul. At best it can but deflect the direction of powers already existent and operative.
We thank God that Christ is our example, that we see in Him all that we fain would be. But we thank Him that He is much more than our example ; that He is our life as well.
It is only because He is our life, that as our example He can be our hope and joy. With Him as only our example we could see
in His perfect manhood only what we ought to be,
ought but cannot. Hopeless gloom would inevitably
settle upon our souls. With Him as our life,
who has died for our sins and purchased the sanctifying
Spirit for us, we see in His perfect manhood what we are to be. Do we peer into that mysterious future, with doubt if not dismay ?
We have the precious assurance based upon His perfected work of propitiation and purchase: "Beloved, now are we children of God, and it is not yet made manifest what we shall be. We know that,
if He shall be manifested, we shall be like Him." " We shall be like Him." Our hearts take courage, and we rest on this word. We shall be like Him ! "
We all remember," says Bishop Gore, " the pathetic words of Simmias in the argument with Socrates about the immortality of the soul.
' I dare say/ he says, ' that you, Socrates, feel as I do, how very hard and almost impossible is the attainment of any certainty about questions such
as these in the present life. And yet I should deem him a coward who did not prove what is said about them to the uttermost, or whose heart failed him before he had examined them on every
side. For he should persevere until he has ascertained
one of two things : either he should discover and learn the truth about them ; or, if this is impossible, I would have him take the best and most irrefragable of human notions, and let this
be the raft on which he sails through life—not without risk, as I admit, if he cannot find some word of God which will more surely and safely carry him.'
' Some word of God ' : it has come to us ; crowning the legitimate efforts, supplying the inevitable deficiencies of human reasoning; satisfying all the deepest aspirations of the heart and conscience. It has come to us, and not as a mere spoken message, but as an incarnate person,
at first to attract, to alarm, to subdue us ; afterwards, when we are His servants, to guide, to discipline, to enlighten, to enrich us, till that which is perfect is come, and that which is in part shall
be done away." Aye, this is it which meets every longing of our hearts. We shall be like Him when we see Him as He is.
Oh, toil-worn pilgrim, weary with your burden, would you know the glory in store for you ? Look at Jesus : you shall be like Him. Are you tempted to despair? Do you shrink from an endless future in which you shall remain for ever yourself? Look at Jesus : not as you are, but
like what He is, you are to be. If we can but attain to such a hope, heaven bursts at once upon our souls. To be like Jesus ! Is this not a glory, in the presence of which all other glories fade
away by reason of the glory that is surpassing ?
When we look at Jesus, we may not—we cannot afford to—forget that we are looking at that which, by the grace of God, we may and shall become.
And you, in whose veins the pulses of youth are still beating, whose hearts are high as you look out upon the still untrodden fields of life fields which you doubt not you are to subdue — you, all of you, no doubt, have your ideals and your heroes. Some figure rises before your eyes, now as I speak to you, whom you would fain be like—a soldier, a thinker, some master of assemblies, some leader of men, some lord of finance.
Or, perhaps, your gentler blood throbs with exhilarated longing as you fancy yourself repeating in your own life the strivings or the accomplishments of some noble woman of history or of romance—some high-minded Hypatia, some patient Griselda, some devoted Saint Catharine a Florence Nightingale, an Elizabeth Fry, a Dora Pattison, a Frances Havergal. What would it be to you to have an angel visitant stand suddenly by your side—as long ago there stood suddenly by Mary, most blessed of women, one with the greeting on his lips of " Hail Mary ! thou that art highly favored !"—and say, " Your wish is granted ; this—all this—you shall be !" Are we so blind that we do not see that this, and more, is just what has come to us? All these heroes of our hearts, great and inspiring as they are, are but men and women like ourselves, touched with our faults, our failings, our sins.
Partial and incomplete, alike in themselves and in their accomplishments, they can provide us with but stepping-stones to higher things. The one perfect man, the one perfect model of life, stands
before us in Christ Jesus. And the voice comes
to us—not the voice of an angel only, but God's own voice of power—proclaiming, Ye shall be like Him!
Could there be another proclamation of equal encouragement, of equal strengthening? Up, brethren, let us take Him, the perfect One, for our model ; let us nurse our longing to be like Him; and let us go forth to the work of life buoyant with the joy of this greatest of hopes,
this most precious of assurances—We shall be like Him ; what He is, that shall we also become!
In the strength of this great hope let us live our life out here below, and in its joyful assurance let us, when our time comes to go, enter eagerly into our glory.
Notes;
1. The power of god unto salvation - B. B. Warfield/Ch. 1 The revelation of man
- The book is available online (free) at Archive.org
Quotes and comments;
You'll find below a sermon by B. B. Warfield called 'The revelation of man' but I want to post a few excerpts from the sermon first.
A. 'But, equally, because of His perfect identification with the children of men, partaking of their blood and flesh, and made in all things like unto men, He stands before us also as the perfect revelation of man. [1.]
Without the picture of Jesus placed before them, men would have no idea (not fully at least) of what a perfect man was, or of what teachers mean by the phrase image of god. The law of god certainly gives us a picture, but it's a shadowy picture, and one that only becomes clear in the Incarnation.
B. 'It may also behoove us to look upon Him who is not ashamed to call us brethren, that we may learn to know man—the man that God made in His own image, and whom He would rescue from his sin by the gift of His Son. [1.]
C. 'Therefore it is to Him that we are to look if we would see man as man, man in the possession and use of all those faculties, powers, dignities for which he was destined by his Creator. In this way the author of this epistle presents Jesus before us as the pattern, the ideal, the realization of man. Looking upon Him, we have man revealed to us. [1.]
THE REVELATION OF MAN - a sermon by B.B. Warfield
" But one hath somewhere testified, saying, What is man, that Thou art mindful of him ? Or the son of man, that Thou visitest him ? Thou madest him a little lower than the angels ; Thou crownedst him with glory and honor; Thou didst put all things in subjection under his feet. For in that He subjected all things unto him, He left nothing that is not subject to him. But now we see not yet all things subjected to him. But we behold Him who hath been made a little lower than the angels, even Jesus, because of the suffering of death, crowned with
glory and honor." - Heb. ii. 6-9.
'These words form the beginning of a marvelous passage the subject of which is " Christ our Representative." That He might become our Representative, the inspired writer teaches, it was needful that He should identify Himself with us. Therefore it was that He became man. Language had been exhausted to exhibit the divine dignity of our Representative. In contrast with those men of God, the prophets, in whom God dwelt and through whom God spoke, He is called a Son through whom the worlds were made and by the word of whose power all things are upheld ; who is the effulgence of God's glory and the very impression of His substance.
In contrast with the most exalted of the creatures of God, the angels, He is given the more excellent name of the Son of God, His firstborn, whom all the angels of God shall worship ; nay, He is given the name of the almighty and righteous God Himself, of the eternal Lord, who in the beginning laid the foundations of the earth and framed the heavens, and who shall abide the same when heaven and earth wax old and pass away. Language is now exhausted to emphasize the perfection of the identification of this divine being with the children of men, when He who by nature was thus infinitely exalted above angels was made, like man, "a little lower than the angels . . . because of the suffering of death."
" It behooved Him," we are told, " in all things to be made like unto His brethren" ; and " since then the children are sharers in blood and flesh, He also Himself in like manner partook of the same," in order " that through death He might bring to nought him that had the power of death, that is, the devil ; and might deliver all them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage."
The emphasis is upon the completeness of the identification of the Son of God with the sons of men, that by His sufferings many sons might be brought unto glory. And the implication is that as He was thus so completely identified with us for His work, so we are equally completely identified with Him in the fruits of that work. He shared with us our estate that we might share His merit with Him. There is a great deal more precious truth in this passage than we can profitably attempt to consider in a single discourse The whole gospel of the grace of God is in it. I have chosen its initial words for my text, and I purpose to ask you to fix your attention on its initial thought—the perfect identification of Christ with man.
And even this in only one of its aspects, viz.: the consequent revelation of man which is brought us by the man Christ Jesus. Because our Lord is the Son of God, the impressed image of God's substance—as the stamp of a seal is the impressed image of the seal—His advent into our world was the supreme revelation of God. But, equally, because of His perfect identification with the children of men, partaking of their blood and flesh, and made in all things like unto men, He stands before us also as the perfect revelation of man.
It behooves us to look with wondering eyes upon Him whom to see is to see the Father also, that we may learn to know God—the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who " so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but have eternal life." It may also behoove us to look upon Him who is not ashamed to call us brethren, that we may learn to know man—the man that God made in His own image, and whom He would rescue from his sin by the gift of His Son.
The text assuredly fully justifies us in looking upon Christ as the revelation of man. It begins, as you observe, by adducing the language of the eighth Psalm, in which God is adoringly praised for His goodness to man in endowing him, despite his comparative insignificance, with dominion over the creatures. The psalmist is contemplating the mighty expanse of the evening sky, studded with its orbs of light, among which the moon marches in splendor ; and he is filled with a sense of the greatness of the God the work of whose hands all this glory is. " O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is Thy name in all the earth, who hast set Thy glory upon the
heavens !" He is lost in wonder that such a God can bear in mind so weak a thing as man.
" When I consider Thy heavens, the work of Thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which Thou hast ordained ; what is man, that Thou art mindful of him, and the son of man, that Thou visitest him?" But his wonder and adoration reach their climax as he recounts how the Author of all this magnificent universe has not only considered man, but made him lord of it all. In an inextinguishable burst of amazed praise he declares:
" Thou hast made him but little lower than the angels, and crownedst him with glory and honor. Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of Thy hands ; Thou hast put all things under his feet." He enumerates the minor elements of man's strange dominion, emphasizing its completeness and all-inclusiveness. "
All sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field; the fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas." Nothing is omitted. So the praise returns upon itself and the Psalm closes with the repeated and now justified exclamation, " O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is Thy name in all the earth !" It is a hymn, you observe, of man's dignity and honor and dominion.
God is praised that He has dealt in so wondrous a fashion with mortal man, born from men, that He has elevated him to a position but little lower than that of the angels, crowned him with glory and honor, and
given him dominion over all the works of His hands. Now, observe how the author of this epistle deals with the Psalm. He adduces it as authoritative Scripture declaring indisputable fact. " One hath somewhere testified, saying, What is man, that Thou art mindful of him ? Or the son of man, that Thou visitest him ? Thou madest him a little lower than the angels ; Thou crownedst him with glory and honor; Thou didst put all things in subjection under his feet."
He expounds its meaning accurately. "For in that He subjected all things unto him, He left nothing that is not subject to him." And then he argues thus : " But now we see not yet all things subjected to him. But we behold Him who hath been made a little lower than the angels, even Jesus, because of the suffering of death, crowned
with glory and honor." That is, of course, in Jesus only as yet do we see in actual possession and exercise, in its completeness and perfection, that majesty and dominion which the inspired psalmist attributes to man.
God has expressly subjected all things to man ; man has obviously not entered into his dominion ; but the
man Jesus has. Therefore it is to Him that we are to look if we would see man as man, man in the possession and use of all those faculties, powers, dignities for which he was destined by his Creator. In this way the author of this epistle presents Jesus before us as the pattern, the ideal, the realization of man. Looking upon Him, we have man revealed to us.
I beg you to keep fully in mind that our Lord's adaptation to reveal to us what man is, is based by the author of this epistle solely on the perfection of His identification with us in His incarnation. To the author of this epistle, our Lord in His own proper person is beyond all comparison with man. As God's own Son, the effulgence of His glory and the impressed image of His substance, He is beyond comparison even with prophets and infinitely above angels. He became identified with us by an act of humiliation and for an assigned cause, viz. : for the sake " of the suffering of death," that is, in order that He might be able to undertake and properly to fulfill His high-priestly work—as we are immediately instructed in detail.
This act of humiliation is expressed here, for the sake of giving point to the argument, in language derived from the Psalm : " He hath been made a little lower than the angels." Observe, then, the pregnant difference
which emerges in the use of this phrase of man and of our Lord. That man was made but little lower than the angels marks the height of his exaltation : " Thou didst make him a little lower than the angels, Thou didst crown him with glory and honor."
That our Lord was made a little lower than the angels, marks the depth of His humiliation : " We behold Jesus, who hath been made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death." So wide is the interval that
stretches between Him and man. He stoops to reach the exalted heights of man's as yet unattained glory.
But the perfection of His identification with us consisted just in this, that He did not, when He was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, assume merely the appearance of man or even merely the position and destiny of man, but the reality of humanity. Note the stress laid in the passage, on the reality of the humanity which our Lord assumed, when, as the inspired writer pointedly declares, He was made like to His brethren in all things.
He was made like them in their physical nature : as they were " sharers in blood and flesh, He also Himself in
like manner partook of the same." He was made like them in their psychical nature: as
they suffered and were tempted, He also " Himself hath suffered being tempted." Jesus Christ
is presented before us here as a true and real man, possessed of every faculty and capacity
that belongs to the essence of our nature : as a veritable "son of man," born of a woman, and
brother to all those whom He came to succor. It is because He was in this true and complete
sense what He so loved to call Himself, the Son of man—doubtless with as full reference to
the eighth Psalm as to Daniel's great apocalypse —that He reveals to us in His own life and conduct
what man was intended to be in the plan of God.
We must keep these great facts in mind that we may preserve the point of view of the inspired
writer, as we strive to follow him in looking upon Jesus as the representative man, in whose
humanity man is revealed to us. He is not the representative man in the sense that man is all
that He is. When He entered the sphere of human life, by the assumption of a human nature,
He did not lay aside His Godhead. He is, while being all that man is, infinitely more. He is
God as well as man.
He is not the representative man in the sense that in Him the age-long
process of man's creation was first completed — that His exalted humanity is the goal toward
which nature had been all through the aeons travailing, till now at last in Him the man-child
comes to a tardy birth. He is the revelation of man only in the sense that when we turn our
eyes toward Him, we see in the quality of His humanity God's ideal of man, the Creator's intention
for His creature; while by contrast with Him we may learn the degradation of our sin ; and
happily also we may see in Him what man is to be, through the redemption of the Son of God
and the sanctification of the Spirit. Let us think a little on these things.
And, first, in the quality of Christ's manhood we may see the perfect man, the revelation of what man is in God's idea of him, of what the Creator intended him to be. And what is the quality of Jesus' manhood ?
There is no other word to express it except the great word perfection. Sin ? We cannot think of it in connection with Him. Those who companied with Him testify that He was " without blemish and without spot "; that " He did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth." The author of our epistle declares that He was " separate from sinners," that He was, in the midst of temptation, " without sin." The story of His life
and sayings leaves us without trace of acknowledgment of fault on His own part, without
betrayal of consciousness of unworthiness, without the slightest hint of inner conflict with sinful
impulses.
And if the quality of His excellence is too positive to permit us even to speak of sin in
connection with it, it is equally too universal to admit of adequate characterization. The excellences
of the best of men may usually be condensed in a single outstanding virtue or grace
by which each is peculiarly marked. Thus we speak of the faith of Abraham, the meekness of
Moses, the patience of Job, the boldness of Elijah, the love of John. The perfection of Jesus
defies such particularizing characterization. All the beauties of character which exhibit themselves
singly in the world's saints and heroes, assemble in Him, each in its perfection and all in perfect
balance and harmonious combination.
If we ask what manner of man He was, we can only respond, No manner of man, but rather, by way
of eminence, the man, the only perfect man that ever existed on earth, to whom gathered all
the perfections proper to man and possible for man, that they might find a fitting home in His
heart and that they might play brightly about His person. If you would know what man is, in the height of His divine idea, look at Jesus Christ.
Is it not well for the world once to have seen such a man ? How easy it is to accuse nature of our faults, to confront God with what we have wrought, and to seek to roll upon our Creator the responsibility for the creatures which our own deeds have made us. How easy to look upon
corruption as the inevitable incident of existence for such beings as men ; and to speak of sin as only the mark of our humanity.
How easily a cynical temper waxes within us as we mix with men in the world's marts and tread with them the devious paths of life. We mark their ways and ask, waiting, like Pilate, for no answer, Who
shall show us any good ? How easily our ideals themselves sink to what we fancy the level of human powers. We note the aims of those who strive about us. We note the aims of the great
figures which flit across the pages of history, commanding the acclamation of all the ages.
We look within at the seething caldron of passions and impulses of our own souls. Do not
all these voices call us to one natural, one unavoidable issue ? If in the far distance we faintly
discover hanging above us the beckoning glimmer of some star of heaven—what is poor wingless
man, that he should hope to rise to grasp it ? Is it not the part of wisdom, as well as the
demand of nature, that worms shall crawl ? Is it not folly unspeakable for such as we to attempt
to mount the skies ? But we see Jesus, and the scales fall from our eyes; in Him we perceive
what man is in his idea, and what it may be well for him to seek to become.
The man Jesus stands before us as the revelation of man's native dignity, capacities, and powers. He exhibits to us what man is in the idea of his Maker. He uncovers to our view, in their perfection and strength, those qualities and forces of good, the ruins of which only we may see in our fellow-men, and enables us to admire,
honor, love, and hope for them, because they still possess such qualities and capacities though in
ruins. To look upon Him is to ennoble and elevate our ideals of life ; the sight of Him forbids
us to forget our higher nature and higher aspirations ; it quickens in us our dead longings to be
like Him, men after God's plan and heart, rather than after our own corrupt impulses.
It is well for the world once to have seen such a man. Once and once only. Ah, there is the pity of it, and there is the despair of it ! In no other than in Him has the ideal ever been realized. And the more we look upon His perfections the more we perceive, as in no other light, how far short of the ideal man have been our highest imaginations.
For we need to note, secondly, that in the light of Jesus' perfect manhood we have, by
contrast, revealed to us what man is in his sin and depravity, what he has made himself in his rebellion from good and from God.
The Greeks had a proverb : " By the straight is judged both the straight and the crooked; the rule is singly the test of both." And so it is. Wherever the straight is brought to light, there inevitably is also the crookedness of the crooked made visible. Let the builder hang his plumbline,
with whatever careless intent, over any wall; and if the wall be not straight, every wayfarer may perceive it. Let the carpenter lay his straightedge
alongside of any board, and every crook and
bend is brought to the instant observation of all.
This is what is meant when the Scriptures tell us that by the law is the knowledge of sin. For the law is for moral things what the plumb-line and the straight-edge are for physical things : it is
the rule by which our hearts are measured and in the presence of which what we really are is made
manifest. We may sin and scarcely know we sin, until the straight-edge of the law is brought against us. Oh, how we fall away from its line of rectitude!
Now, our blessed Saviour, as the perfect one, full of righteousness and holiness, is the embodiment of the law in life. And more perfectly and vividly than any law—though that law be holy and just and good—does His presence among men measure men and reveal what men are. The presence of any good man in
our midst acts, in its due proportion, as such a measure. And, therefore, from the beginning of
the world men have been stung by the presence
of a good man among them to hatred of him, and
have evilly entreated and persecuted him. He is
a standing accusation of their sins. " There is certainly,"
says Miss Yonge in The Heir of Redcliffe —that uplifting story which has been such a factor
in the lives of such men as Mr. William Morris and Dr. A. Kuyper—" there is certainly a ' tyrannous hate' in the world for unusual goodness, which is a rebuke to it."
But no man ever so feels his utter depravity as when he thinks of himself
as standing by the side of Jesus. In this presence, even what we had fondly looked upon as our virtues hide their faces in shame and cry, Depart from us, for we are sinful in thy sight, O
Lord. Lay open the narrative in these gospels, of how the Son of man went about among men, in
the days of His sojourn here below. Note on the one hand the ever-growing glory of that revelation
of a perfect life. And note on the other hand the ever-increasing horror of the accompanying
revelation of human weakness and human depravity.
It could not be otherwise.
When we see Jesus, it must be in the brightness of His unapproachable splendor that we see those about
Him : as it is in the light of the sun that we see the forms and colors and characters of all objects
on which it turns its beams. Especially when we see Him in conflict with His enemies, as we cannot avoid being moved with amazement by the spectacle of His utter perfection ; so must we, in that light, be shocked by the spectacle of the utter depravity of men. Men are revealed
in this presence in their true, their fundamental tones of nature with a vivid completeness in which they are never seen elsewhere.
Now, such a crisis as this, Jesus is bringing into the life of every man upon whom the light of His knowledge shines. No man can escape the test. Christ Jesus has come into the world and He confronts
every one with the spectacle of His perfect humanity. When men are least thinking of Him, lo ! there He is by their side. Every time His
name is mentioned in the assemblies of men, every time His image rises in a brooding human heart, the crisis comes again to human souls.
They may not realize it ; they may prefer otherwise;
they may determine otherwise. But they are being tried and tested against their wills every moment they live in His presence.
Some, like the priests, burn with rage at every thought of the supreme claim He makes upon their homage, and refuse with all violence to have this man to rule over them. Others, like Pilate, yield a languid and chill recognition to His goodness and worth, yet choose the pursuit of pleasure or gain
above the service of Him. Others, like the mob, may in easy indifference prefer some other leader, though he be a robber and a murderer. Thus a
crisis is brought by His presence to every heart ; and a revelation of man in his true depravity is the result.
As He moves through the world the whole race lies at His feet self-condemned. We shudder as, in the light of His brightness, we see man as he is. Yet we have the word of Jesus Himself for it
that God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him
might be saved. Let us turn our eyes away, then, from the terrible spectacle of a race revealed
in its sin to observe, in the third place, that in the
perfection of Christ's manhood we have the revelation
of what man may become by the redemption
of the Son of God and the sanctification of the Spirit.
We observe that the element of promise is made very prominent in the text and in the wider passage of which the text is a part. Mark those words of hope, " Not yet." " We see not yet all things subjected to him." The psalmist's ascription is then yet to be fulfilled in man himself. In
Jesus' dominion, and in Jesus' perfection, we are to see only the earnest and the pledge. When He entered through sufferings into glory, it was in
the process of bringing many sons unto glory. If He is the sanctifier, they are the sanctified ; and He is not ashamed to call them brethren.
If He became like them in order that He might die in their behalf; this death was to be accomplished in order that He might, by making propitiation for their sins, deliver them from their bondage. In a
word, we are to look upon Jesus in His perfect manhood as our forerunner. In His perfection we are to see the revelation of what we too shall be when He shall have perfected His work in us
as He has already perfected it for us.
Let us bless God for these precious assurances. Without them the sight of Jesus could but bring us despair. Men speak of Him, indeed, as our example ; and we praise God that He has given
us such an example—we bless His holy name
that He has permitted the world to see one such
man. But if He were only our example, as we looked upon Him and saw His perfection and by contrast saw our depravity, who would not cry that this example is too high, we cannot attain unto it!
I fear we do not always consider with what limitations mere example is hedged about. Limitations of space. How narrow a circle can really feel the uplift of even the most moving personal example. At the best, only those who cluster most nearly round the figure of a good man,
however impressive, can be much affected by his example.
Limitations of time. How soon the force of the mightiest personality is drowned in the stream of the years. As the flood of days falls over it how rapidly it becomes at best a story —an empty name. Could Jesus have declared that it was expedient for Him to go away, if it
were only or chiefly as an example that He came into the world ? Would not it have been rather expedient that He should have lived through all
the ages, and kept His living example as a living force before the eyes of men for all time and in every land? Limitations of power. The most inspiring example cannot change the heart, cannot
impart new life to a dead soul. At best it can but deflect the direction of powers already existent and operative.
We thank God that Christ is our example, that we see in Him all that we fain would be. But we thank Him that He is much more than our example ; that He is our life as well.
It is only because He is our life, that as our example He can be our hope and joy. With Him as only our example we could see
in His perfect manhood only what we ought to be,
ought but cannot. Hopeless gloom would inevitably
settle upon our souls. With Him as our life,
who has died for our sins and purchased the sanctifying
Spirit for us, we see in His perfect manhood what we are to be. Do we peer into that mysterious future, with doubt if not dismay ?
We have the precious assurance based upon His perfected work of propitiation and purchase: "Beloved, now are we children of God, and it is not yet made manifest what we shall be. We know that,
if He shall be manifested, we shall be like Him." " We shall be like Him." Our hearts take courage, and we rest on this word. We shall be like Him ! "
We all remember," says Bishop Gore, " the pathetic words of Simmias in the argument with Socrates about the immortality of the soul.
' I dare say/ he says, ' that you, Socrates, feel as I do, how very hard and almost impossible is the attainment of any certainty about questions such
as these in the present life. And yet I should deem him a coward who did not prove what is said about them to the uttermost, or whose heart failed him before he had examined them on every
side. For he should persevere until he has ascertained
one of two things : either he should discover and learn the truth about them ; or, if this is impossible, I would have him take the best and most irrefragable of human notions, and let this
be the raft on which he sails through life—not without risk, as I admit, if he cannot find some word of God which will more surely and safely carry him.'
' Some word of God ' : it has come to us ; crowning the legitimate efforts, supplying the inevitable deficiencies of human reasoning; satisfying all the deepest aspirations of the heart and conscience. It has come to us, and not as a mere spoken message, but as an incarnate person,
at first to attract, to alarm, to subdue us ; afterwards, when we are His servants, to guide, to discipline, to enlighten, to enrich us, till that which is perfect is come, and that which is in part shall
be done away." Aye, this is it which meets every longing of our hearts. We shall be like Him when we see Him as He is.
Oh, toil-worn pilgrim, weary with your burden, would you know the glory in store for you ? Look at Jesus : you shall be like Him. Are you tempted to despair? Do you shrink from an endless future in which you shall remain for ever yourself? Look at Jesus : not as you are, but
like what He is, you are to be. If we can but attain to such a hope, heaven bursts at once upon our souls. To be like Jesus ! Is this not a glory, in the presence of which all other glories fade
away by reason of the glory that is surpassing ?
When we look at Jesus, we may not—we cannot afford to—forget that we are looking at that which, by the grace of God, we may and shall become.
And you, in whose veins the pulses of youth are still beating, whose hearts are high as you look out upon the still untrodden fields of life fields which you doubt not you are to subdue — you, all of you, no doubt, have your ideals and your heroes. Some figure rises before your eyes, now as I speak to you, whom you would fain be like—a soldier, a thinker, some master of assemblies, some leader of men, some lord of finance.
Or, perhaps, your gentler blood throbs with exhilarated longing as you fancy yourself repeating in your own life the strivings or the accomplishments of some noble woman of history or of romance—some high-minded Hypatia, some patient Griselda, some devoted Saint Catharine a Florence Nightingale, an Elizabeth Fry, a Dora Pattison, a Frances Havergal. What would it be to you to have an angel visitant stand suddenly by your side—as long ago there stood suddenly by Mary, most blessed of women, one with the greeting on his lips of " Hail Mary ! thou that art highly favored !"—and say, " Your wish is granted ; this—all this—you shall be !" Are we so blind that we do not see that this, and more, is just what has come to us? All these heroes of our hearts, great and inspiring as they are, are but men and women like ourselves, touched with our faults, our failings, our sins.
Partial and incomplete, alike in themselves and in their accomplishments, they can provide us with but stepping-stones to higher things. The one perfect man, the one perfect model of life, stands
before us in Christ Jesus. And the voice comes
to us—not the voice of an angel only, but God's own voice of power—proclaiming, Ye shall be like Him!
Could there be another proclamation of equal encouragement, of equal strengthening? Up, brethren, let us take Him, the perfect One, for our model ; let us nurse our longing to be like Him; and let us go forth to the work of life buoyant with the joy of this greatest of hopes,
this most precious of assurances—We shall be like Him ; what He is, that shall we also become!
In the strength of this great hope let us live our life out here below, and in its joyful assurance let us, when our time comes to go, enter eagerly into our glory.
Notes;
1. The power of god unto salvation - B. B. Warfield/Ch. 1 The revelation of man
- The book is available online (free) at Archive.org
Saturday, April 3, 2010
From abstract art to the ruination of science; the history of Rationalism
Is there any reason to believe that science isn't as debased as the arts are in our day? We can see how Rationalism has destroyed artists who bought into it (e.g. John Cage, Jackson Pollack, etc.) but is there reason to believe this hasn't happened in the sciences?
I think we must assume the same negative (destructive, corrosive) process has been affecting scientists... but do we see any evidence of this? A big difference here is that while art deals with small c. creation; science deals with discovery. This means we have to be careful in our analysis.
I think it's when they come to dealing with specifically human issues that scientists have been affected by Rationalism. (It doesn't require a great deal of spiritual acumen to deal with inert matter, but it takes true wisdom to be able to deal with human issues correctly.) This is even more the case when these issues cross major biblical doctrines.
In my opinion ideas like a universe coming from nothing without cause is as absurd as a Pollack painting. The idea life came from non-life as absurd as a Cage silent sonata. The idea man 'evolved' from the animals as absurd as Duchamp exhibiting a urinal as art. In these examples (and there are storehouses full of others) we see that ideas trump art; that the idea art should be about representing the creation has been supplanted by the idea of art as the expression of individual ideas and feelings.
The new artist (having imbibed of Rationalism) claims that art is anything he says it is. He forces his view of things onto the world. Is a urinal really art? Is someone sitting with folded hands at a piano really music? Is a can with holes in it dripping onto a canvas below really art? It wouldn't appear so. People in previous eras would have mocked such a notion. But yet we're told (very seriously) that this is indeed art, and that we're too simple minded to understand (if we should dare to disagree). So who's right? Is it art or not?
What has happened is that a complex of ideas called Rationalism has trumped all other views in the last century or so. This basic idea has determined how artists and scientists (etc) view the world. The rational trumps the real as they say. The Rationalist (materialist, atheist) knows a priori that no creator god exists, and therefore there has to be a materialistic explanation for everything. (Even for himself.)
This insistence on materialism affects even the scientist (though it affects the artist more) as he endeavors to make discoveries about the universe. ie. he knows in advance (he thinks) what he can and cannot discover. e.g. if he sees something that appears to be Design, he knows it cannot be evidence of design... and so his 'eyes' are deceiving him; what he sees can only be the appearance of design. The result is that we have a new definition of science. As art was redefined so now is science. Science we're told isn't about discovering the truth, but it's about finding materialistic explanations for everything in the universe. Truth has been displaced by Materialism. This new definition limits what the scientist can discover, and it means he will be forced to formulate theories that have little or nothing to do with reality. (If we assume materialism is a false notion.)
A key idea behind modern art is that truth doesn't exist. If all is merely matter in motion the idea of truth is obsolete. This means that art is anything one says it is. This idea can't help infecting scientists as well. I see more and more people interested in telling accepted or desired stories rather than caring about truth. (The modern artist and the modern materialist in science are basically telling the same story. ie. all is merely matter in motion, and this means that traditional ideas of man and truth are obsolete. Science is becoming less a field involved in discovery, and more a field that's engaged in creating various models that fit with materialist assumptions.)
One could make the argument that a painter like Rembrandt was more of a scientist than some of our cosmologists who speak of a universe coming from nothing or who talk about many universes and the like. He at least was concerned with giving a representation of reality; an order he took to be God created.
It's interesting to me that the faithful rendering of human beings is absent from abstract art. Why? Isn't it because Materialism has murdered man? turned him into chemicals and particles. He's as absent from these paintings as God is. The scientist tells us there was no God behind creation, and the artist shows us a world where man has disappeared as well. Rationalism has led to the death of god and then to the death of man.) Of course this isn't the case with popular culture, where the human form is exploited with a heartless gusto unparalled in our history. But the human forms of popular (porno) culture aren't the men and women of traditional culture. The concept of man that christianity presented to the world has been replaced by something new; the trousered (or not) ape of Rationalism. (Not exactly the kind of fellow who would paint himself into the crowd at a crucifixion scene.)
It's in the human sciences that we see the most horrific influence of Rationalism. (Defined as man as the only starting point for knowledge. i.e. the universe is what man determines that it is.) Here we see the obscenities of modern art as in a mirror. e.g. man has no mind, but only a brain. Thought is an excretion of the brain. (Now do you understand why artists have hung bags of their own waste on gallery walls and called it art?)
We see the 'Skinnerian' notion that man is just an animal and should be treated as one. (And so all the art featuring man as animal, and Picasso grotesqueries.) Man has no soul. (And thus the blank canvas as art.) There is no truth and no meaning. (Random drippings on a canvas.) Beauty is an illusion. (Painted soup cans.)
If man is just matter in motion then he can be best explained by the methods of the hard sciences; thus the obsession with measurement and chemical levels of this and that. In the end the dream is to treat man in mathematical terms. (We see the beginnings of such a program in various quota systems.) In the end (as Da Vinci feared) man will be treated like a number. So when we come to the end of the road Rationalism has turned man into an animal, then a collection of chemicals, and finally a number. (Should we say thanks?)
If all is matter in motion there can be no meaning (in a transcendent sense) this means that people must try to find some individual meaning in things. (An individual meaning isn't really meaning at all, but we'll let that pass.) This means he must impress his meaning upon a meaningless universe. He thus knows ultimate meaning doesn't exist, but must create some substitute meaning to cover up this naked fact. What this means is that an illusion must substitute for reality. We already see this playing out in art, but as scientists move further away from basic discoveries (we might date the modern advance from Galileo) they move further into areas of theory and speculation... and its here that the influence of Rationalism comes into play.
The assumption of materialism cannot allow certain ideas (or claims) about the universe to be true. This means there are some avenues the rationalist can't go down. This means he must come up with models of the universe (and its workings) that are attractive to the postulates of his wview. Thus story will trump discovery if the data appear contrary to the basic materialist assumption.
As art is more and more about ideas (as opposed to representing the creation) so science is becoming more and more about ideas. (I realize this notion runs counter to the common conception of scientists getting ever closer to a true view of reality as time passes.) I fear that as art has 'gone off the deep end' as we say, so science will do the same. (I see this as already happening in various fields and specialties. e.g. so called neuro-psychology; the rejection of sin for chemical imbalance; speculations like multiverses; Darwinian views of literature and justice; and so on.) We've seen art become painted philosophy; will we see science become painted philosophy as well? (eg. The idea there cannot be a creator god isn't science, but philosophy masquerading as science.)
The rationalist doesn't know what art is all about; neither does he know what life is all about. If man is but matter in motion, then it follows that man's life isn't about anything at all. (This is as certain a conclusion as there is no god.) In biblical terms art and science are ways of taking dominion over the earth, and of responding to the negative effects of the fall. Life is about communion (relationship) with god; and this means living in conformity with God's commandments. Since that's what life is all about; that's what art and science are all about. (Religion, art and science are separate spheres of man's life; but all have a similar impetus or source.)
Notes;
1. A good example of rationalist thinking is Kant's rejection of the atonement. He rejects it solely on the basis of his own thinking. He finds the idea absurd and so rejects it. i.e. nothing can be true if it violates his idea of what must be the case. [Religion within the limits of reason alone]
2. Notes on true art;
'In all Liberal Arts, in the most as well as in the least important, the praise and glory of God are to be enhanced. The arts, says he, have been given us for our comfort, in this our depressed estate of life. They react against the corruption of life and nature by the curse. - Kuyper/Lectures on Calvinism/#5/153
- The modern' art of our day is comfort to no one - except maybe Satan himself.
- This connection between the Fall and art is a fascinating one. It would seem that the modern (rationalist) artist in rejecting the idea of the fall, has lost a major source of motivation to produce great (beautious) art. ie. since he sees our world as 'normal' (ie. unfallen) he sees beauty as unreal, as a kind of sentimentalist yearning for illusions... rather than as a longing for an unfallen state (or for a redemption to come). We might look at art (in its christian sense) as a longing for redemption... as enjoying a glimpse of our redeemed state as it were. (In beautiful art we see ourselves as unfallen, and living in an unfallen world. (Not that this is all art is; true art can also show us our fallenness; it shows both sides or all sides. True art then shows us creation, the fall, and redemption.)
3. 'In view of all this we may say that Calvin esteemed art, in all its ramifications, as a gift of God, or, more especially, as a gift of the Holy Ghost; that he fully grasped the profound effects worked by art upon the life of the emotions ; that he appreciated the end for which art has been given, viz., that by it we
might glorify God, and ennoble human life, and drink at the fountain of higher pleasures, yea even of common sport ; and finally, that so far from considering art as a mere imitation of nature, he attributed to it the noble vocation of disclosing to man a higher reality than was offered to us by this sinful and corrupted world.' ibid
4. 'But if you confess that the world once was beautiful, but by the curse has become undone, and by a final catastrophe is to pass to its full state of glory, excelling even the beautiful of paradise, then art has the mystical task of reminding us in its productions of the beautiful that was lost and of anticipating its perfect coming luster. ibid/p.155
- the Christian lives (spiritually) in 3 worlds; the perfect world of creation, the fallen world of today, and the redeemed world of the new heavens and the new earth. He goes wrong when he denies or ignores any of these three.
I think we must assume the same negative (destructive, corrosive) process has been affecting scientists... but do we see any evidence of this? A big difference here is that while art deals with small c. creation; science deals with discovery. This means we have to be careful in our analysis.
I think it's when they come to dealing with specifically human issues that scientists have been affected by Rationalism. (It doesn't require a great deal of spiritual acumen to deal with inert matter, but it takes true wisdom to be able to deal with human issues correctly.) This is even more the case when these issues cross major biblical doctrines.
In my opinion ideas like a universe coming from nothing without cause is as absurd as a Pollack painting. The idea life came from non-life as absurd as a Cage silent sonata. The idea man 'evolved' from the animals as absurd as Duchamp exhibiting a urinal as art. In these examples (and there are storehouses full of others) we see that ideas trump art; that the idea art should be about representing the creation has been supplanted by the idea of art as the expression of individual ideas and feelings.
The new artist (having imbibed of Rationalism) claims that art is anything he says it is. He forces his view of things onto the world. Is a urinal really art? Is someone sitting with folded hands at a piano really music? Is a can with holes in it dripping onto a canvas below really art? It wouldn't appear so. People in previous eras would have mocked such a notion. But yet we're told (very seriously) that this is indeed art, and that we're too simple minded to understand (if we should dare to disagree). So who's right? Is it art or not?
What has happened is that a complex of ideas called Rationalism has trumped all other views in the last century or so. This basic idea has determined how artists and scientists (etc) view the world. The rational trumps the real as they say. The Rationalist (materialist, atheist) knows a priori that no creator god exists, and therefore there has to be a materialistic explanation for everything. (Even for himself.)
This insistence on materialism affects even the scientist (though it affects the artist more) as he endeavors to make discoveries about the universe. ie. he knows in advance (he thinks) what he can and cannot discover. e.g. if he sees something that appears to be Design, he knows it cannot be evidence of design... and so his 'eyes' are deceiving him; what he sees can only be the appearance of design. The result is that we have a new definition of science. As art was redefined so now is science. Science we're told isn't about discovering the truth, but it's about finding materialistic explanations for everything in the universe. Truth has been displaced by Materialism. This new definition limits what the scientist can discover, and it means he will be forced to formulate theories that have little or nothing to do with reality. (If we assume materialism is a false notion.)
A key idea behind modern art is that truth doesn't exist. If all is merely matter in motion the idea of truth is obsolete. This means that art is anything one says it is. This idea can't help infecting scientists as well. I see more and more people interested in telling accepted or desired stories rather than caring about truth. (The modern artist and the modern materialist in science are basically telling the same story. ie. all is merely matter in motion, and this means that traditional ideas of man and truth are obsolete. Science is becoming less a field involved in discovery, and more a field that's engaged in creating various models that fit with materialist assumptions.)
One could make the argument that a painter like Rembrandt was more of a scientist than some of our cosmologists who speak of a universe coming from nothing or who talk about many universes and the like. He at least was concerned with giving a representation of reality; an order he took to be God created.
It's interesting to me that the faithful rendering of human beings is absent from abstract art. Why? Isn't it because Materialism has murdered man? turned him into chemicals and particles. He's as absent from these paintings as God is. The scientist tells us there was no God behind creation, and the artist shows us a world where man has disappeared as well. Rationalism has led to the death of god and then to the death of man.) Of course this isn't the case with popular culture, where the human form is exploited with a heartless gusto unparalled in our history. But the human forms of popular (porno) culture aren't the men and women of traditional culture. The concept of man that christianity presented to the world has been replaced by something new; the trousered (or not) ape of Rationalism. (Not exactly the kind of fellow who would paint himself into the crowd at a crucifixion scene.)
It's in the human sciences that we see the most horrific influence of Rationalism. (Defined as man as the only starting point for knowledge. i.e. the universe is what man determines that it is.) Here we see the obscenities of modern art as in a mirror. e.g. man has no mind, but only a brain. Thought is an excretion of the brain. (Now do you understand why artists have hung bags of their own waste on gallery walls and called it art?)
We see the 'Skinnerian' notion that man is just an animal and should be treated as one. (And so all the art featuring man as animal, and Picasso grotesqueries.) Man has no soul. (And thus the blank canvas as art.) There is no truth and no meaning. (Random drippings on a canvas.) Beauty is an illusion. (Painted soup cans.)
If man is just matter in motion then he can be best explained by the methods of the hard sciences; thus the obsession with measurement and chemical levels of this and that. In the end the dream is to treat man in mathematical terms. (We see the beginnings of such a program in various quota systems.) In the end (as Da Vinci feared) man will be treated like a number. So when we come to the end of the road Rationalism has turned man into an animal, then a collection of chemicals, and finally a number. (Should we say thanks?)
If all is matter in motion there can be no meaning (in a transcendent sense) this means that people must try to find some individual meaning in things. (An individual meaning isn't really meaning at all, but we'll let that pass.) This means he must impress his meaning upon a meaningless universe. He thus knows ultimate meaning doesn't exist, but must create some substitute meaning to cover up this naked fact. What this means is that an illusion must substitute for reality. We already see this playing out in art, but as scientists move further away from basic discoveries (we might date the modern advance from Galileo) they move further into areas of theory and speculation... and its here that the influence of Rationalism comes into play.
The assumption of materialism cannot allow certain ideas (or claims) about the universe to be true. This means there are some avenues the rationalist can't go down. This means he must come up with models of the universe (and its workings) that are attractive to the postulates of his wview. Thus story will trump discovery if the data appear contrary to the basic materialist assumption.
As art is more and more about ideas (as opposed to representing the creation) so science is becoming more and more about ideas. (I realize this notion runs counter to the common conception of scientists getting ever closer to a true view of reality as time passes.) I fear that as art has 'gone off the deep end' as we say, so science will do the same. (I see this as already happening in various fields and specialties. e.g. so called neuro-psychology; the rejection of sin for chemical imbalance; speculations like multiverses; Darwinian views of literature and justice; and so on.) We've seen art become painted philosophy; will we see science become painted philosophy as well? (eg. The idea there cannot be a creator god isn't science, but philosophy masquerading as science.)
The rationalist doesn't know what art is all about; neither does he know what life is all about. If man is but matter in motion, then it follows that man's life isn't about anything at all. (This is as certain a conclusion as there is no god.) In biblical terms art and science are ways of taking dominion over the earth, and of responding to the negative effects of the fall. Life is about communion (relationship) with god; and this means living in conformity with God's commandments. Since that's what life is all about; that's what art and science are all about. (Religion, art and science are separate spheres of man's life; but all have a similar impetus or source.)
Notes;
1. A good example of rationalist thinking is Kant's rejection of the atonement. He rejects it solely on the basis of his own thinking. He finds the idea absurd and so rejects it. i.e. nothing can be true if it violates his idea of what must be the case. [Religion within the limits of reason alone]
2. Notes on true art;
'In all Liberal Arts, in the most as well as in the least important, the praise and glory of God are to be enhanced. The arts, says he, have been given us for our comfort, in this our depressed estate of life. They react against the corruption of life and nature by the curse. - Kuyper/Lectures on Calvinism/#5/153
- The modern' art of our day is comfort to no one - except maybe Satan himself.
- This connection between the Fall and art is a fascinating one. It would seem that the modern (rationalist) artist in rejecting the idea of the fall, has lost a major source of motivation to produce great (beautious) art. ie. since he sees our world as 'normal' (ie. unfallen) he sees beauty as unreal, as a kind of sentimentalist yearning for illusions... rather than as a longing for an unfallen state (or for a redemption to come). We might look at art (in its christian sense) as a longing for redemption... as enjoying a glimpse of our redeemed state as it were. (In beautiful art we see ourselves as unfallen, and living in an unfallen world. (Not that this is all art is; true art can also show us our fallenness; it shows both sides or all sides. True art then shows us creation, the fall, and redemption.)
3. 'In view of all this we may say that Calvin esteemed art, in all its ramifications, as a gift of God, or, more especially, as a gift of the Holy Ghost; that he fully grasped the profound effects worked by art upon the life of the emotions ; that he appreciated the end for which art has been given, viz., that by it we
might glorify God, and ennoble human life, and drink at the fountain of higher pleasures, yea even of common sport ; and finally, that so far from considering art as a mere imitation of nature, he attributed to it the noble vocation of disclosing to man a higher reality than was offered to us by this sinful and corrupted world.' ibid
4. 'But if you confess that the world once was beautiful, but by the curse has become undone, and by a final catastrophe is to pass to its full state of glory, excelling even the beautiful of paradise, then art has the mystical task of reminding us in its productions of the beautiful that was lost and of anticipating its perfect coming luster. ibid/p.155
- the Christian lives (spiritually) in 3 worlds; the perfect world of creation, the fallen world of today, and the redeemed world of the new heavens and the new earth. He goes wrong when he denies or ignores any of these three.
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Deconstructing the creation
In this post I want to compare the Darwinist 'reading' of creation with our PC professors and their (deconstructionist) readings of literature. If you want a name for it, you might call it deconstructing Darwin.
Quotes and comments;
A. I was listening to a lecture on Shakespeare's 'The Tempest' and the person giving the lecture mentioned some of the strange new interpretations of the play. As an example; a Stephen Greenblatt claimed the Tempest was all about colonialism; this despite the fact the island in question has no natives (not really) and is located a few miles off the coast of Italy. In other words, professor Greenblatt has fabricated a PC version of the play for some political reason or other. He clearly doesn't care what the text said or what it was about. [1]
In my opinion Darwinists do the same kind of thing. i.e. they're determined to read 'nature' in the way they want... for reasons that have nothing to do with the living forms they're dealing with. I see little evidence they care anything about the truth, or being honest to what we might call the text. This doesn't stop them from pretending that they, of all people, are reading the 'nature' right. (Our professors do the same. Though they don't care what the text says, they usually pretend to be getting at its 'real' meaning... a meaning only the 'expert' can understand. A plain reading is just too naive and simplistic, it misses what's really going on.)
- I think we can see that if an author's (e.g. William Shakespeare) intended meaning (we might call it design) can be ignored, or given an interpretation foreign to his intent, how nature can be even more easily ignored. It's a 'dumb' text that can be used to dump whatever one wants onto it. (As an example of what I mean; they can look at the punctuated data of the fossil record and still teach a gradualist model of evolution.)
- We know that life only comes from life, but the Darwinists deny this truism and tell us life 'emerged' from inert matter once upon a time.
- Darwinists are well aware of the limits to change exhibited by living organisms (e.g. that a fruit fly remains a fruit fly no matter what you do to it) but yet they claim animals transformed themselves from one kind to another. (e.g.some mythical land animal became a whale, reptiles became mammals and so on.) In other words they deny the text and the Author and concoct whatever story they want.
This kind of deliberate 'misreading' of things is rampant on campus. The examples are numerous. We can see the same thing with what feminists say; they look at men and women, (deny the data) and claim men and women are exactly the same. You wonder how anyone can come to such an absurd conclusion; but their politics and worldview demands it, and so the data is ignored or twisted.
Let's not forget our PC theologians, as they play the same game. They can honestly (or so they claim) look at the Bible and declare that it says nothing against homosexuality; they say it says nothing about people going to Hell; they say Christians are under no commandment to obey God's law; deny the divinity and work of Christ and so on. (They also claim the bible teaches evolution, or at the least says nothing against it.) They claim that anyone who doesn't share their modernist views is misreading the text.
- Our professors make a career out of denying obvious truth. They make outrageous claims like; man has no mind; man is no different than an animal; there is no truth; God doesn't exist; Jesus didn't exist; Christianity is responsible for most of the evil in the world; (and on and on the denials go) I don't know why anyone should believe them when it comes to origins then, as they've shown they have no respect for the truth, and indeed care nothing for it. (The Bible tells us, "No one seeketh the truth, no not one." Some claim that this is an exaggeration, but it comes close enough to the mark.) [2.]
Men can be neutral (or near enough) when it comes to objects and inert things for the simple reason man isn't a thing (he transcends things, he's greater than they are), but he cannot be neutral when he looks at man, because he can't transcend himself. (Not only can't he be objective about himself, he can't even see himself as he is.)
- I could go on and on here, but clearly truth isn't a high priority for our academic elite. Few of them care about truth, and in fact a great many deny such a thing exists. I'll leave you with a question; do you think people who deny truth exists are going to tell the public the truth about Origins?
Notes;
1. lecture on Tempest [TTC: Shakespeare, Word and Action]
- I think the Greenblatt essay was 'Learning to curse' or somesuch. [The above are my comments about Greenblatt, not the lecturer. To avoid confusion I'm not giving his name.]
- The connection with the play is interesting in that Prospero is a great magician who uses books and words to control nature (etc.) So the Darwinist uses words to cast spells on people, to get them to believe they're not seeing design.. but merely seeing matter in motion. [We don't see design Richard Dawkins says; we only see the appearance of design.] Words are a form of power for the professor of our day (and self-consciously so). They use words to fight their political and social battles. They might not look like it, but they're modern magicians, hardly different in spirit from the magicians of the Renaissance.
2. What Paul is referring to here (and quoting an old testament passage) is that no one seeks the Truth with a capital T. i.e. no one is interested in the truth that God created the world and placed man on it. (The whole truth of the Bible is what Paul is referring to.) Men claim to want to know the truth, but they deny everything biblical Christianity teaches. (i.e. the one thing man claims to know, the most certain truth he possesses, is that biblical Christianity is not true. If truth exist, it most certainly is not biblical.
Quotes and comments;
A. I was listening to a lecture on Shakespeare's 'The Tempest' and the person giving the lecture mentioned some of the strange new interpretations of the play. As an example; a Stephen Greenblatt claimed the Tempest was all about colonialism; this despite the fact the island in question has no natives (not really) and is located a few miles off the coast of Italy. In other words, professor Greenblatt has fabricated a PC version of the play for some political reason or other. He clearly doesn't care what the text said or what it was about. [1]
In my opinion Darwinists do the same kind of thing. i.e. they're determined to read 'nature' in the way they want... for reasons that have nothing to do with the living forms they're dealing with. I see little evidence they care anything about the truth, or being honest to what we might call the text. This doesn't stop them from pretending that they, of all people, are reading the 'nature' right. (Our professors do the same. Though they don't care what the text says, they usually pretend to be getting at its 'real' meaning... a meaning only the 'expert' can understand. A plain reading is just too naive and simplistic, it misses what's really going on.)
- I think we can see that if an author's (e.g. William Shakespeare) intended meaning (we might call it design) can be ignored, or given an interpretation foreign to his intent, how nature can be even more easily ignored. It's a 'dumb' text that can be used to dump whatever one wants onto it. (As an example of what I mean; they can look at the punctuated data of the fossil record and still teach a gradualist model of evolution.)
- We know that life only comes from life, but the Darwinists deny this truism and tell us life 'emerged' from inert matter once upon a time.
- Darwinists are well aware of the limits to change exhibited by living organisms (e.g. that a fruit fly remains a fruit fly no matter what you do to it) but yet they claim animals transformed themselves from one kind to another. (e.g.some mythical land animal became a whale, reptiles became mammals and so on.) In other words they deny the text and the Author and concoct whatever story they want.
This kind of deliberate 'misreading' of things is rampant on campus. The examples are numerous. We can see the same thing with what feminists say; they look at men and women, (deny the data) and claim men and women are exactly the same. You wonder how anyone can come to such an absurd conclusion; but their politics and worldview demands it, and so the data is ignored or twisted.
Let's not forget our PC theologians, as they play the same game. They can honestly (or so they claim) look at the Bible and declare that it says nothing against homosexuality; they say it says nothing about people going to Hell; they say Christians are under no commandment to obey God's law; deny the divinity and work of Christ and so on. (They also claim the bible teaches evolution, or at the least says nothing against it.) They claim that anyone who doesn't share their modernist views is misreading the text.
- Our professors make a career out of denying obvious truth. They make outrageous claims like; man has no mind; man is no different than an animal; there is no truth; God doesn't exist; Jesus didn't exist; Christianity is responsible for most of the evil in the world; (and on and on the denials go) I don't know why anyone should believe them when it comes to origins then, as they've shown they have no respect for the truth, and indeed care nothing for it. (The Bible tells us, "No one seeketh the truth, no not one." Some claim that this is an exaggeration, but it comes close enough to the mark.) [2.]
Men can be neutral (or near enough) when it comes to objects and inert things for the simple reason man isn't a thing (he transcends things, he's greater than they are), but he cannot be neutral when he looks at man, because he can't transcend himself. (Not only can't he be objective about himself, he can't even see himself as he is.)
- I could go on and on here, but clearly truth isn't a high priority for our academic elite. Few of them care about truth, and in fact a great many deny such a thing exists. I'll leave you with a question; do you think people who deny truth exists are going to tell the public the truth about Origins?
Notes;
1. lecture on Tempest [TTC: Shakespeare, Word and Action]
- I think the Greenblatt essay was 'Learning to curse' or somesuch. [The above are my comments about Greenblatt, not the lecturer. To avoid confusion I'm not giving his name.]
- The connection with the play is interesting in that Prospero is a great magician who uses books and words to control nature (etc.) So the Darwinist uses words to cast spells on people, to get them to believe they're not seeing design.. but merely seeing matter in motion. [We don't see design Richard Dawkins says; we only see the appearance of design.] Words are a form of power for the professor of our day (and self-consciously so). They use words to fight their political and social battles. They might not look like it, but they're modern magicians, hardly different in spirit from the magicians of the Renaissance.
2. What Paul is referring to here (and quoting an old testament passage) is that no one seeks the Truth with a capital T. i.e. no one is interested in the truth that God created the world and placed man on it. (The whole truth of the Bible is what Paul is referring to.) Men claim to want to know the truth, but they deny everything biblical Christianity teaches. (i.e. the one thing man claims to know, the most certain truth he possesses, is that biblical Christianity is not true. If truth exist, it most certainly is not biblical.
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