The Religious History
Exodus 20:1-6
Of all of Satan's lies and machinations, by far the most subtle one that does the most damage to confuse the minds and hearts of men in making a clear distinction between good and evil, is his inventions of false systems of religion. Of all of the sins of ancient Israel and Judah, the one that God fought the hardest was idol worship. Most of the prophets constantly railed against idol worship. In I Kings 18:25-41, the prophet Elijah proved in a contest between two sacrifices that the Hebrew God Yahweh was the only God and that all other gods were false. God told Elijah to initiate this contest and had it recorded in His Word so that all of humanity could learn that He is the only God and that all forms of idol worship, which is all forms of false religion, is by far the most dangerous lie of the Devil meant to deceive the hearts of men.
False religion and idol worship are the same sins. The Bible records that God could easily handle any of the ordinary sins of any of His backslidden believers, but God always had a hard fight against false religion and idol worship because God knew that this sin, which stems from pride, had the potential to destroy the entire human race. The basis of this sin is that terrible pride which entered the heart of Lucifer when he rebelled against God. In some mysterious way, the emptiness that results from the false combination called pride, as opposed to the true basic feeling called pride, engendered within the heart of Lucifer a fierce determination to kill God and make himself a god. He had to try to fill that terrible emptiness. This same self-serving attitude constitutes the core of original sin and false religion within the hearts of men.
This strange false combination called pride actually exists as a contradiction. This false combination could be worded: "A desire to replace God with self." All idols and false religions represent extensions of the self. Each individual idea within this false combination remains real and useful in good combinations that honor God's Ideas, but when falsely combined, these ideas constitute false pride and false religion. All false combinations effect a nothingness which, in turn, conceals a nonexistence that could also be called an absolute nothingness. For this reason, pride engenders within the hearts of men an awful feeling of dread and emptiness even though we often deny this. Philosophers who have recognized this feeling in man have called it "alienation from self,"(Hegel) or "angst," (Kierkegaard) or "nausea" (Sartre). C.S. Lewis called it "the abolition of man." This "dread" is that part of his false pride which causes man to know, deep within himself, the impossibility of ever becoming his own self-serving god. Despite his deep fear of failure, man nevertheless persists in his fierce determination to succeed in his false endeavor, and at the same time, the contradiction of this fierce determination causes guilt and a deep yearning within man for a self-destruction that will eradicate both the sin and the self.
This contradiction called pride manifests itself in history in two ways, in religion and in dissipation. The pleasure seekers know that alcohol, drugs, illicit sex, gambling, crime and all other forms of excessive pleasure will eventually destroy them, but they secretly desire this destruction because of the emptiness effected by false combinations. Those who practice religion may be good citizens and moral people, but in their devotions to their false religions which may simply be a love of money or power or popularity, they display a secret desire to serve themselves. They believe that their religion or money or power will cause them to become their own little gods who do not need the Love of God. Yet at times, even religious and moral people deeply feel that secret emptiness that results from pride.
The contradiction within pride often manifests itself in religious ceremonies, even in Christian ceremonies. The Old Testament reveals this contradiction between a desire to become a god and an obsession with self-destruction when it recorded that parents would sometimes throw their own children into fires that burned before idols because they believed their gods would reward them with prosperity for doing this. A modern parallel to this practice adheres to the ideology that teaches women that they have the right to abort their unborn children if they have become a burden to them in any way. Man possesses only those rights that are given by God, and one of these is the right to life. The Devil has spread modern lies that humans have additional putative rights such as gay marriage and abortion, but these so-called rights are merely false combinations. They destroy rather than produce anything creative. Many Christians have been seduced into believing these lies. These are often the same kinds of Christians who treat worship of God as a mere ceremony that they must go through in order to please God so that He will reward them for enduring these ceremonies. This kind of perfunctory worship actually only displays idol worship because these putative Christians have treated a Holy God like their own little idol who will allow them to be their own little god.
Matthew 22:37-38
True Christians worship God with an absolute love and devotion and with a complete submission to His Will no matter what His Will might be. True Christians also display an absolute faith in God's Word, and never allow themselves to compromise His Word under any circumstances. These are the Christians who have been spiritually born into the family of God because they humbly admitted to God that they were lost sinners who could only be saved by being washed in the blood of Jesus which He shed for them on the cross. These are the Christians who have been born of the Spirit, and who have the Holy Spirit within them; He who gives them the ability to "worship Him in spirit and in truth."Read John 4:24.
Throughout history, the Devil has tried to destroy mankind by using ever more subtle lies. He has invented idol worship, false philosophies, a false science and false political systems to lure mankind away from trusting in the true and living Word of God. Satan has even infiltrated Christianity with the lies of false doctrine and subtle forms of idol worship. Yet, God has miraculously preserved His true gospel even at the heart of those churches that are riddled with the lies of the Devil. For example, no mere man has the power to turn wine into the blood of Jesus, but the fact that the congregation drinks this wine demonstrates that God has preserved the core doctrine within Catholicism that only the blood of Jesus can cleanse one from sin. Those who receive this wine as a mere ceremony practice idol worship, but some may actually believe that the blood of Jesus has washed away their sins. Who has the right to say that those who so believe have not been saved? Does not this judgment belong solely to a compassionate God? Jesus gave Christians no right to judge eternal matters. Read Matthew 7:1-2. This judgment belongs solely to God. Jesus gives Christians the right to judge evil and goodness when they see it, but not the person doing the good or evil. Read Matthew 7:15-20. The trees to which Jesus refers in this teaching are not the persons, but is simply the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that is within every person. Christians may speculate as to whether a particular person is saved or not, but never judge. Is it not possible that our Holy God of infinite compassion and understanding would accept such weak faith even though falsities are attached to it? The Bible relates in II Chronicles 30:15-22 that God answered the prayer of King Hezekiah and pardoned the people who committed some false practices while observing the passover. In addition, God may accept this weak faith even though those who drink this wine believe that they must come again and again to the altar to receive it, when God's Word teaches that a repentent sinner needs but once to be washed in the blood of Jesus in order to be permanently born into the family of God. Read Hebrews 10:14-18.
Through the centuries from the time of Christ, the Devil has succeeded in infiltrating the church with false doctrines, false teachers, false Bibles and false leaders so that many modern denominations have compromised with evil and denied the true Word of God, which is the King James Bible in English. At the beginning of Christianity, the Devil raised up many cults which claimed to be Christian, such as the Gnostics and the Arians, in his attempt to destroy Christianity through a direct attack against its doctrines. The Devil still has many cults in the modern world, such as the Mormons and the Jehovah's Witnessess. The central doctrine of all cults is that they deny the Deity of Christ or His Oneness with His Father. The Devil has also tried to destroy Christianity directly through severe persecutions inflicted by false religions; the Roman pagans and the phony hierarchy of the Roman church in the past, and the Muslims, Nazis and Communists in the past and present. The Devil has introduced the sins of racism and anti-semitism into the church in order to try to corrupt it from within. The Devil has used some false leaders of some churches to compromise with the false science called the theory of evolution in order to try to slowly strangle Christianity to death. The Jewish people may have suffered more from direct persecution, but Christianity has suffered greatly from direct persecution and the Devil has used every trick in his book in his attempts to destroy it. Despite all of these persecutions and false systems from the Devil, God has miraculously preserved His true Word and His true gospel right down to the present day.
Friday, February 15, 2013
Friday, February 8, 2013
THE GOOD versus THE EVIL chapter 6
The Scientific History
Read I Corinthians 1: 22
Throughout the history of mankind, certain philosophers and scientists have taken the atheistic and materialistic view of life. Other philosophers and scientists have taken the theistic and idealistic view of life. Most of the realists have taken the theistic view, and most of the skeptics have taken the atheistic view. Many of the early philosophers and scientists resided in Europe, some in Greece. Some of the theistic philosophers and scientists professed to believe in the gods, but the greatest of them, such as Plato and Aristotle, intimated in their writings that they actually believed in One God. This was no accident. God used the writings of Plato and Aristotle to prepare the minds of the Europeans for the future spread of Christianity.
God chose not to use the teachings of philosophers and scientists to inform the minds of His chosen people, the Hebrews. He chose prophets and priests instead. God provided His prophets with powers to perform miracles and predict the future. God knew that His people had the types of minds that would not be interested in abstract reasoning, but who would respond to the powers and signs of God revealed through His chosen prophets. God provided the spiritual leadership for His people through His prophets and priests from Abraham to John the Baptist. These prophets and priests had to battle continuously against the tendencies of some of the Hebrews to resort to idol worship. Even though many times these prophets and priests and their followers were in the minority, nevertheless, they successfully preserved the Word of God through scribes who wrote it down for centuries, right down to the present day, and even though evil men fought mightily to destroy it. This fact, in-itself, has to be a miracle of God.
Hebrews 1: 1-3
From the time of Jesus the Messiah, God has combined both methods, the signs of miracles and the love of wisdom, to spread the gospel message of Christ throughout the whole world. God has used the record of the miracles performed by Jesus and the Apostles as well as the great wisdom of Jesus, the Apostle Paul and the other Apostles, to appeal to the minds and hearts of all people everywhere who hear the gospel in order to convince them that they are lost sinners in need of a Savior. Christianity began as a very small group of Jewish believers in Jerusalem, but because of the miracle of the resurrection of Christ, Christianity has succeeded in spreading the gospel to the whole world. This fact must also be a miracle from God.
John 12: 32
History demonstrates that God has used miracles and a love of wisdom to maintain a strict balance between good and evil so that a fair test of His Love will always prevail wherever His gospel may be preached. Modern materialistic science has tried to redefine science as being synonymous with atheism, but history has always defined science as the love of wisdom which means a love of the truth wherever it may be found. The fair test of God's love adheres to the free will of mankind. The Holy Spirit brings conviction to the hearts of all who hear or read the gospel that they are lost sinners in need of a Savior. God has allowed evil to remain in the world so that those who read or hear the gospel will have a free and fair choice to either accept it by faith and be saved, or to reject it and remain within the destructive effects of evil. Love is absolutely fair and God proves the great value of His Love by His sacrifice and His fairness. God gives faith to those who cry out to Him for the salvation that Christ has already provided for them through His sacrifice and resurrection. God thus proves that His Love possesses the greatest possible value when He freely gives His forgiveness, His eternal life and a glorious eternal future to anyone who accepts His grace by faith. Yet, those who reject God's grace also prove the greatness of God's Love because He will not force them to believe, but allows them freely to choose their pride and an obsession with self-destruction over the beautiful and glorious salvation which Love would have freely given them. Force cannot be love and modern materialistic science has tried to force mankind to accept its atheistic definition of science when history has always defined science as the love of wisdom.
Psalm 147: 5
God's Word does not concern itself with science directly because God's most important revelation is that His Son has proven that Love has the greatest value through His sacrifice and resurrection for the salvation of a fallen race, and that God will freely give this salvation to all who will choose to believe. Yet, God's Word always proves to be accurate whenever it mentions a scientific fact. Isaiah 40:22 refers to the earth as being a sphere when it mentions "the circle of the earth," and it also refers to the expansion of the universe when it mentions that God "stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain." Job 26:7 refers to a great emptiness in space north of the earth that modern science has now discovered when it states: "He stretcheth out the north over the empty place....." This verse goes on to state: " and hangeth the earth upon nothing." "Hangeth" refers to the force of gravity and "upon nothing" indicates outer space. The first verse of the Bible states that: "God created the heaven and the earth." The atheistic scientists have long asserted that the universe came into being on its own, that it evolved in a natural way so that life, in some undiscoverd way, comes into being on any planet where this is possible; and that through a process of macoevolution, bacteria became fish which became amphibians which became reptiles which became mammals which eventually became man. Although modern science has some good evidence that the universe began with a big bang, it has no evidence that this could have happened by accident or by any known force. In fact, all of the evidence indicates that the big bang was completely impossible. Although modern science has some evidence that the universe evolved into stars and galaxies and planets, it also has evidence that the universe was fine-tuned so that life could survive only on planets where conditions were just right. Modern science has no evidence whatsoever that life can come into being by accident. In fact, the best mathematical evidence indicates that this too is impossible. Modern science has no good evidence that macroevolution ever happened. In fact, science has discovered that the existence of life, as well as the existence of the non-living part of the universe, requires a third component called "specific information" in addition to that of matter and energy. Specific information is essentially the same kind of entity as language or mathematics. The only possible source of specific information is a Mind.
The Bible reveals that God created the expansion of the universe along with the force of gravity, and He created life on earth. John 1:1-5 also relates that God accomplished His creations by using finite copies of His Infinite Specific Information also called the Word of God, and that His Word is One with His Being which is Love. Genesis reveals that God created the universe and life in six periods of time that He called "days," beginning with His creation of light which reflects the eternal existence of the Light which is His Son. He created the earth in two of His "days" from the point of view of someone looking up to the heavens. On the fourth "day," God simply cleared the clouds from the sky so that the sun and stars could be seen from the earth. On the fifth "day," God created animal life in the seas and the birds. On the sixth "day," God created the land animals and mankind. These were six "days" in God's measure of time, and God holds the power to compress or expand time as He sees fit. Psalm 90:4 and II Peter 3:8 reveals this fact. Thus, the billions of years of existence from man's point of view were only six "days" within God's control of time.
The atheistic scientists enjoy pretending that science suffered great persecution at the hands of Christianity. But their only example is that of Galileo who was put under house arrest for a while because he had discovered that the earth orbits the sun. This was paltry persecution compared to the millions of Jews and Christians that have been killed and enslaved by political philosophies based on atheistic science.
In addition, Galileo was never actually persecuted by any Christians, but was arrested by a political hierarchy that had infiltrated and had taken control of the Roman Catholic Church for the purpose of advancing their own political agenda. These were ignorant men who knew little about the Bible. They based their authority for arresting Galileo on Joshua 10:12-13 where Joshua commanded the sun and moon to stand still in the sky so that he would have daylight long enough to defeat the enemies of Israel in battle. These priests reasoned that Galileo had contradicted this passage of scripture when he had said that the earth moves. But these priests failed to consider the simple fact that the Bible only referred to the apparent movement of the sun and moon from Joshua's view from earth. Nowhere does the Bible teach that the earth stands still with the sun orbiting it.
History clearly shows that atheistic science has never been persecuted by Christians or Jews. In fact, when modern science first appeared and began to advance in sixteenth century Europe, most of these early scientists were Christians, including Galileo and Newton. The atheists only began to take control of modern science when an amateur scientist named Charles Darwin published a purely speculative, and even metaphysical, book which advanced the theory that life originated by accident and evolved solely by chance and natural selection from one species to another until man evolved from the apes. This theory completely pushed God's creation out of the picture, and the atheists seized this view to advance their idea that God does not exist because He is not needed. But the atheists adopted this theory solely by faith because there exists no good evidence either then or now that this theory is true. Despite all this, this solely mechanistic theory gained great success in the minds of many people, so much so that it allowed the atheists to take control of modern science. To this day, the atheists seldom try to defend their theory with any real scientific evidence, but maintain their total control, even totalitarian control, over science by ridiculing anyone who disagrees with them as being as ignorant as those who arrested Galileo. The atheists know that most people fear ridicule, and because of this ridicule, even some Christians have tried to find a compromise between this atheistic theory and the truth of God's Word, even though such a compromise is tantamount to a compromise with the Devil.
The atheistic scientists also ridicule Christians who criticize the theory of evolution by claiming that they hold only a God-of -the-gaps objection to it. By this, they mean that the theory of evolution is held up by pillars of solid scientific evidence, and that Christians can only criticize it within the gaps between these pillars. The atheists claim that in time all of these gaps will be filled in by new scientific evidence so that the theory of evolution will finally rest on a solid foundation that cannot be criticized. But the real truth of the matter is that there exists no pillars of evidence for the theory of evolution whatsoever. The whole theory equals one huge gap. The theory of evolution actually equals nothing, which is typical of all false combinations.
History proves that the Devil originated this evil theory because it has spawned two atheistic political philosophies, Fascism and Communism, which have employed war, genocide, enslavement, and even forced starvation to inflict untold suffering and agony on the human race. It is quite ironic that the atheists who so ridicule Christians for their faith, have accepted a purely mechanistic and metaphysical theory solely by faith, for which there exists no scientific evidence whatsoever.
Read I Corinthians 1: 22
Throughout the history of mankind, certain philosophers and scientists have taken the atheistic and materialistic view of life. Other philosophers and scientists have taken the theistic and idealistic view of life. Most of the realists have taken the theistic view, and most of the skeptics have taken the atheistic view. Many of the early philosophers and scientists resided in Europe, some in Greece. Some of the theistic philosophers and scientists professed to believe in the gods, but the greatest of them, such as Plato and Aristotle, intimated in their writings that they actually believed in One God. This was no accident. God used the writings of Plato and Aristotle to prepare the minds of the Europeans for the future spread of Christianity.
God chose not to use the teachings of philosophers and scientists to inform the minds of His chosen people, the Hebrews. He chose prophets and priests instead. God provided His prophets with powers to perform miracles and predict the future. God knew that His people had the types of minds that would not be interested in abstract reasoning, but who would respond to the powers and signs of God revealed through His chosen prophets. God provided the spiritual leadership for His people through His prophets and priests from Abraham to John the Baptist. These prophets and priests had to battle continuously against the tendencies of some of the Hebrews to resort to idol worship. Even though many times these prophets and priests and their followers were in the minority, nevertheless, they successfully preserved the Word of God through scribes who wrote it down for centuries, right down to the present day, and even though evil men fought mightily to destroy it. This fact, in-itself, has to be a miracle of God.
Hebrews 1: 1-3
From the time of Jesus the Messiah, God has combined both methods, the signs of miracles and the love of wisdom, to spread the gospel message of Christ throughout the whole world. God has used the record of the miracles performed by Jesus and the Apostles as well as the great wisdom of Jesus, the Apostle Paul and the other Apostles, to appeal to the minds and hearts of all people everywhere who hear the gospel in order to convince them that they are lost sinners in need of a Savior. Christianity began as a very small group of Jewish believers in Jerusalem, but because of the miracle of the resurrection of Christ, Christianity has succeeded in spreading the gospel to the whole world. This fact must also be a miracle from God.
John 12: 32
History demonstrates that God has used miracles and a love of wisdom to maintain a strict balance between good and evil so that a fair test of His Love will always prevail wherever His gospel may be preached. Modern materialistic science has tried to redefine science as being synonymous with atheism, but history has always defined science as the love of wisdom which means a love of the truth wherever it may be found. The fair test of God's love adheres to the free will of mankind. The Holy Spirit brings conviction to the hearts of all who hear or read the gospel that they are lost sinners in need of a Savior. God has allowed evil to remain in the world so that those who read or hear the gospel will have a free and fair choice to either accept it by faith and be saved, or to reject it and remain within the destructive effects of evil. Love is absolutely fair and God proves the great value of His Love by His sacrifice and His fairness. God gives faith to those who cry out to Him for the salvation that Christ has already provided for them through His sacrifice and resurrection. God thus proves that His Love possesses the greatest possible value when He freely gives His forgiveness, His eternal life and a glorious eternal future to anyone who accepts His grace by faith. Yet, those who reject God's grace also prove the greatness of God's Love because He will not force them to believe, but allows them freely to choose their pride and an obsession with self-destruction over the beautiful and glorious salvation which Love would have freely given them. Force cannot be love and modern materialistic science has tried to force mankind to accept its atheistic definition of science when history has always defined science as the love of wisdom.
Psalm 147: 5
God's Word does not concern itself with science directly because God's most important revelation is that His Son has proven that Love has the greatest value through His sacrifice and resurrection for the salvation of a fallen race, and that God will freely give this salvation to all who will choose to believe. Yet, God's Word always proves to be accurate whenever it mentions a scientific fact. Isaiah 40:22 refers to the earth as being a sphere when it mentions "the circle of the earth," and it also refers to the expansion of the universe when it mentions that God "stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain." Job 26:7 refers to a great emptiness in space north of the earth that modern science has now discovered when it states: "He stretcheth out the north over the empty place....." This verse goes on to state: " and hangeth the earth upon nothing." "Hangeth" refers to the force of gravity and "upon nothing" indicates outer space. The first verse of the Bible states that: "God created the heaven and the earth." The atheistic scientists have long asserted that the universe came into being on its own, that it evolved in a natural way so that life, in some undiscoverd way, comes into being on any planet where this is possible; and that through a process of macoevolution, bacteria became fish which became amphibians which became reptiles which became mammals which eventually became man. Although modern science has some good evidence that the universe began with a big bang, it has no evidence that this could have happened by accident or by any known force. In fact, all of the evidence indicates that the big bang was completely impossible. Although modern science has some evidence that the universe evolved into stars and galaxies and planets, it also has evidence that the universe was fine-tuned so that life could survive only on planets where conditions were just right. Modern science has no evidence whatsoever that life can come into being by accident. In fact, the best mathematical evidence indicates that this too is impossible. Modern science has no good evidence that macroevolution ever happened. In fact, science has discovered that the existence of life, as well as the existence of the non-living part of the universe, requires a third component called "specific information" in addition to that of matter and energy. Specific information is essentially the same kind of entity as language or mathematics. The only possible source of specific information is a Mind.
The Bible reveals that God created the expansion of the universe along with the force of gravity, and He created life on earth. John 1:1-5 also relates that God accomplished His creations by using finite copies of His Infinite Specific Information also called the Word of God, and that His Word is One with His Being which is Love. Genesis reveals that God created the universe and life in six periods of time that He called "days," beginning with His creation of light which reflects the eternal existence of the Light which is His Son. He created the earth in two of His "days" from the point of view of someone looking up to the heavens. On the fourth "day," God simply cleared the clouds from the sky so that the sun and stars could be seen from the earth. On the fifth "day," God created animal life in the seas and the birds. On the sixth "day," God created the land animals and mankind. These were six "days" in God's measure of time, and God holds the power to compress or expand time as He sees fit. Psalm 90:4 and II Peter 3:8 reveals this fact. Thus, the billions of years of existence from man's point of view were only six "days" within God's control of time.
The atheistic scientists enjoy pretending that science suffered great persecution at the hands of Christianity. But their only example is that of Galileo who was put under house arrest for a while because he had discovered that the earth orbits the sun. This was paltry persecution compared to the millions of Jews and Christians that have been killed and enslaved by political philosophies based on atheistic science.
In addition, Galileo was never actually persecuted by any Christians, but was arrested by a political hierarchy that had infiltrated and had taken control of the Roman Catholic Church for the purpose of advancing their own political agenda. These were ignorant men who knew little about the Bible. They based their authority for arresting Galileo on Joshua 10:12-13 where Joshua commanded the sun and moon to stand still in the sky so that he would have daylight long enough to defeat the enemies of Israel in battle. These priests reasoned that Galileo had contradicted this passage of scripture when he had said that the earth moves. But these priests failed to consider the simple fact that the Bible only referred to the apparent movement of the sun and moon from Joshua's view from earth. Nowhere does the Bible teach that the earth stands still with the sun orbiting it.
History clearly shows that atheistic science has never been persecuted by Christians or Jews. In fact, when modern science first appeared and began to advance in sixteenth century Europe, most of these early scientists were Christians, including Galileo and Newton. The atheists only began to take control of modern science when an amateur scientist named Charles Darwin published a purely speculative, and even metaphysical, book which advanced the theory that life originated by accident and evolved solely by chance and natural selection from one species to another until man evolved from the apes. This theory completely pushed God's creation out of the picture, and the atheists seized this view to advance their idea that God does not exist because He is not needed. But the atheists adopted this theory solely by faith because there exists no good evidence either then or now that this theory is true. Despite all this, this solely mechanistic theory gained great success in the minds of many people, so much so that it allowed the atheists to take control of modern science. To this day, the atheists seldom try to defend their theory with any real scientific evidence, but maintain their total control, even totalitarian control, over science by ridiculing anyone who disagrees with them as being as ignorant as those who arrested Galileo. The atheists know that most people fear ridicule, and because of this ridicule, even some Christians have tried to find a compromise between this atheistic theory and the truth of God's Word, even though such a compromise is tantamount to a compromise with the Devil.
The atheistic scientists also ridicule Christians who criticize the theory of evolution by claiming that they hold only a God-of -the-gaps objection to it. By this, they mean that the theory of evolution is held up by pillars of solid scientific evidence, and that Christians can only criticize it within the gaps between these pillars. The atheists claim that in time all of these gaps will be filled in by new scientific evidence so that the theory of evolution will finally rest on a solid foundation that cannot be criticized. But the real truth of the matter is that there exists no pillars of evidence for the theory of evolution whatsoever. The whole theory equals one huge gap. The theory of evolution actually equals nothing, which is typical of all false combinations.
History proves that the Devil originated this evil theory because it has spawned two atheistic political philosophies, Fascism and Communism, which have employed war, genocide, enslavement, and even forced starvation to inflict untold suffering and agony on the human race. It is quite ironic that the atheists who so ridicule Christians for their faith, have accepted a purely mechanistic and metaphysical theory solely by faith, for which there exists no scientific evidence whatsoever.
Friday, January 25, 2013
THE GOOD versus THE EVIL chapter 5
The Political History
The war between good and evil that lies within history reveals itself in every aspect of human life including politics. Satan constantly works through all political systems to try to crush goodness out of the world and thus overthrow the balance that God has maintained between good and evil which ensures that His Love will receive a fair test in history. God uses various methods to prevent Satan from gaining control over and using political systems for evil purposes.
From time to time, Satan has raised great empires bent on gaining control over the whole world, but also for the hidden purpose of getting control over God's people so that he can eventually convert them to evil or destroy them outright. The first such recorded empire was Babylon which conquered Judea around 600 B.C. and deported most of the wealthy and middle class Jews to Babylon. God allowed this to happen because much of Judea had given itself to idol worship which God must punish in order to correct. Idol worship and pride are the two most dangerous weapons that Satan uses to try to crush goodness completely. The Babylonians left the poorer classes in Judea because they thought their influence in the world was insignificant. Since many of God's people have always been among the poorer classes, God saved many of His people from slavery in this way. Some of God's people were deported, but God ensured their protection by gaining control over the mind of the king, Nebuchadnezzar. In Daniel, chapters one through four, the Bible records the methods which God used to gain control over the mind of Nebuchadnezzar which caused him to recognize the Jewish God as the only true God, and issue a decree that would ensure the protection of God's people. Satan had made his political move, but God countered with His own move which protected His people and preserved the balance between good and evil.
After Nebuchadnezzar, the fifth chapter of Daniel records that God continued His protection of His people by using a method that scared king Belshazzar out of his wits. God used the hand that wrote on the wall to proclaim the doom of Babylon to king Belshazzar. That very night, God punished Babylon by allowing the Medes and Persians to conquer it. The fear that God had instilled into Belshazzar no doubt spread to his followers and thus to his army and caused the downfall of Babylon.
Chapter six of Daniel records that king Darius was, for the most part, a fairminded man who only wanted to use the most talented men to rule over Babylon. Thus, king Darius selected Daniel because of his great intellect and leadership talents to be the head of his puppet government. In addition, Darius had no doubt learned the story of how God had instilled such great fear in Belshazzar and the part that Daniel had played in the downfall of Babylon. Yet, Satan influenced certain of the princes of the Persians to trick king Darius into issuing a decree that no one could petition any god or man but king Darius for thirty days and all who disobeyed should be cast into a den of lions. These princes knew that Daniel would disobey this decree and pray to God, and so they caught him so doing and delivered him to the king to be cast into the den of lions. King Darius could not get around the rule of law that the princes insisted on upholding, and so the king had Daniel cast into the den of lions. But Darius displayed his faith in Daniel's God by assuring him that God would protect him. God did indeed perform a great miracle and protected Daniel from the lions. King Darius then issued a decree to the whole empire that all men should fear the God of Daniel. The plot devised by the princes to destroy Daniel was meant to cause despair among God's people; a loss of faith that would eventually cause God's people to become absorbed into idol worship. Satan was behind this political plot to crush goodness out of God's world. God countered Satan's move by protecting Daniel from the lions, instilling faith in king Darius and thus maintaing His balance between good and evil.
The seventh chapter of Daniel returns to a prophecy that Daniel revealed to king Belshazzar about the four great empires that Satan would use in his attempts to crush all goodness completely out of the world, prevent God's trial of His Love, eliminate all of God's influence from the world, and bring all of mankind into enslavement. Throughout the rest of the book of Daniel, here and there he prophesied that these four empires would be destroyed, and that God would succeed in the future in bringing His suffering Messiah into the world to complete the trial of His Love, and that at some time in the far future this same Messiah will destroy Satan's beast who will be the leader of Satan's armies that will fight against God, and that this Messiah will then establish God's Kingdom in the world. The history of the world from the time of Daniel has certainly borne out his prophecies. Four great empires have arisen and fallen, and the suffering Messiah has come and completed the trial of God's Love, and His gospel has been preached to the world so that all who will believe will be saved. History down to the present day demonstrates God's awesome miracles; that mighty empires have failed to crush goodness out of the world, and that God has used a small and humble people to preserve His Word and to complete the trial of His Love which is the salvation of all who will believe. God has also succeeded in restoring His Jewish people to their own land just as His Word has prophesied even after being scattered over the whole world for two thousand years and terribly persecuted. Considering the further miracles of how God has preserved Israel through the 1948 war, and all of its other wars with a hoard of enemies striving mightily to destroy it, one wonders how anyone can doubt that the future prophecies of Daniel that the Messiah will come again to destroy Satan's evil armies, will not be fulfilled.
The book of Esther records a change in the Devil's tactics that he uses even now in his attempts to destroy the people of God. Satan invented a new false combination employing an unreasoned hatred for God's people simply for being the people of God. This was the beginning of all forms of ethnic, racial and religious bigotry. The history of the world does not seem to record any of this kind of hatred before this time.
King Ahasuerus promoted one of his princes named Haman, who was a very prideful man, to a higher position in his kingdom. But one of the king's advisors, a Jew named Mordecai, would not bow to him. This hurt the pride of Haman and engendered a great hatred in him for Modecai, and by extention, to all Jews. His hatred caused Haman to lie to king Ahasureus in that he accused the Jews of disobeying the laws of the land and of thus being in a state of rebellion against the king. Haman convinced the king that he should issue a decree that all of the Jews in the kingdom should be destroyed on a certain date. Satan had worked through Haman to intoduce a new horrible false combination into the world called genocide. But God was ahead of Satan and had already positioned a courageous Jewish lady named Esther, as one of the king's queens, to thwart the evil plans of Haman and bring about his destruction instead of her people's. Haman was the first of the Anti-Semites, who should more accurately be called the Anti-Judahites, who would plague the Jewish people throughout the rest of their history. Yet throughout history, God has proven to be more than able to counter Satan's evil plans to destroy God's people, both Jews and Christians.
Read Daniel 2: 21-22
Direct and indirect persecution of the Jews continued throughout the Greek and Roman empires. One of the Greek rulers of the Jews, Antiochus Epiphanes, sacrificed a sow on the altar of the Jewish temple. Satan inspired him to do this in order to cause despair among the Jews in that they would wonder why God would allow such an abomination to happen. Satan hoped that this despair would cause a complete loss of faith in God and prevent the coming of the Messiah and the test of God's Love. Satan's plan failed when the Jews simply cleansed the temple and renewed their worship of God.
The Roman persecution of the Jews culminated in their war against the Jewish rebellion in 70 A.D. The Romans went too far with their force and violence when they slaughtered most of the Jews, destroyed their temple, and forced the rest to be scattered over the whole world. God had prophesied in the Old Testament in several places that the Jews would be so scattered, but God had also prophesied that one day He would regather His earthly people and recreate their nation which His Word had even prophesied would be called Israel. Satan counted on the scattered Jews eventually losing their faith and thus making the future nation of Israel impossible. This would thwart the will of God and finally cause the world to belong entirely to Satan. But many of the Jews miraculously clung to their faith even through two thousand years of the Diaspora. Actually, God had protected the Jews by allowing them to be scattered over the world. Most of the Jews became good and productive citizens of whatever communities that they joined. This caused the good and fair-minded people of these communities to provide protection for the Jews against the Anti-Semites who sought to destroy them. Sometimes however this protection failed, and the Jews became the victims of pogroms and inquisitions inflicted upon them by the Anti-Semites who had infiltrated both the governments and religion. Despite all this, God miraculously fulfilled His prophecy and reestablished the nation of Israel in 1948.
In 1933, the Anti-Semites gained control over a whole country, Germany. These Nazis then proceeded to attempt to destroy the entire population of Jews living in Europe. They endeavored through waging war to gain control of the whole world and destroy all of the Jews everywhere. The Nazis waged war against most of the other European countries and wherever their armies found Jews, they killed them. But even under such horrible conditions, there were some good and fair-minded people in each of these countries, even in Germany itself, who tried to save small groups of Jews from destruction. The good and fair-minded free people of the world also united in a mighty force called the Allies who defeated the Nazi war machine and saved the Jews who were left in Europe. Because of the guilt felt by the good people of Europe and America that they had failed to stop the Nazis before they got started, Britain and America determined that they would ensure that the Jews would regain their ancient homeland in Palestine. God brought the Nazis to defeat, and He made sure, by bringing guilt on good people, that Israel would be reestablished as a nation in 1948.
God also proved, through Hitler's foolish actions, that evil always possesses the seeds of its own destruction. At that time, Germany had the very best scientists and engineers in the world. Given time, Germany could have produced greatly advanced weapons that would have ensured that Germany could have conquered the world fairly easily. Germany could have raced ahead of the naive Allies who only wanted peace at any cost, and produced all of these advanced weapons before the Allies could have even gotten started on them. All of this raises the question: Why did not Hitler simply wait until he had these weapons before he started the war? Had Hitler waited until he had these weapons, including atomic bombs and long-range missiles and airplanes to deliver them, he could have fairly quickly conquered the world and saved the lives of millions of his own soldiers in the process. Instead, he went to war far too soon and unnecessarily sacrificed the lives of his soldiers for limited gains. Hitler also made the great mistake of going to war with Russia before he had conquered Britain. During the war, Hitler made many egregious blunders including refusing to allow whole armies to retreat when they were surrounded and cut off from supplies, such as at Stalingrad. In fact, Russian leaders had plans to assassinate Hitler by using certain of their secret agents in Germany, but they decided not to do so because they rightly concluded that Hitler had more value to them alive than dead.
All of this evidence points to the fact that deep within the psyche of evil men, they know that they are evil. This deep knowledge of their own evil causes them to be obsessed with death and destruction, of themselves and everyone around them. Their inner ability to construct false combinations causes a sense of worthlessness and emptiness within themselves which acts out to cause cruelty and destruction. This shows that all men secretly know that false combinations only produce nothingness. Yet, instead of humbly turning to God to plead for a cure for their sin, evil men, like Lucifer, adopt a terrible pride which causes them to believe that they can rid themselves of God's Goodness. In a kind of vicious cycle, their sin feeds their pride, which in turn, feeds their sin. This condition constitutes the mystery of evil which not even God can understand.
Near the end of the war, Hitler ordered that the entire infrastructure of Germany should be destroyed. An obedience to such an order would have left Germany completely destitute, and the people had better sense than to obey it. Hitler's reason for this order was that since Germany had failed him, then Germany deserved only destruction. This order revealed only a terrible pride and a will for utter destruction. This evidence points to the fact that Hitler never really loved Germany. Hitler actually loved only horror and destruction, of himself and his people.
The history of WWII in many ways corresponds with the history in the Bible. Bible history records that God used many methods to combat evil and maintain the balance between good and evil. For instance, I Kings chapter 22 records that God caused one evil force to go to war with another evil force. This tactic not only destroyed evil, but also spared the lives of many good people who did not have to fight. In this same history, God used lies to persuade the evil forces to fight each other. God possesses the ability to use false combinations, such as war and lies, to combat other false combinations in order to create good combinations that produce a desired result which is the destruction of evil. God used these same tactics in WWII when He caused one evil force, the Nazis, to fight against another evil force, the Communists, in order to destroy evil in such a way as also to protect the lives of millions of good people. God also inspired the Allies to invent various ingenious lies that hastened the destruction of the evil forces. Because of His great Love, God holds the power to change false combinations into good combinations. Read Proverbs 10: 12.
All of this proves that God has used extraordinary measures throughout the political history of the world to protect goodness from being completely destroyed by evil. Had God not done so, evil would have long ago completely overwhelmed goodness because of the inherent innocence within limited goodness. Limited cleverness beats limited innocence every time. God wins over evil because He possesses an infinite and omnipotent Love and Innocence which cannot be overwhelmed. God possesses an absolute cleverness which gives Him the power to change evil to good. Nevertheless, God has allowed evil to remain in history in order to maintain a balance between good and evil so that those who freely choose to put their faith in God's Goodness as displayed in the cross of Christ will prove beyond all doubt that God's Love holds the greatest value that can ever possibly exist.
The war between good and evil that lies within history reveals itself in every aspect of human life including politics. Satan constantly works through all political systems to try to crush goodness out of the world and thus overthrow the balance that God has maintained between good and evil which ensures that His Love will receive a fair test in history. God uses various methods to prevent Satan from gaining control over and using political systems for evil purposes.
From time to time, Satan has raised great empires bent on gaining control over the whole world, but also for the hidden purpose of getting control over God's people so that he can eventually convert them to evil or destroy them outright. The first such recorded empire was Babylon which conquered Judea around 600 B.C. and deported most of the wealthy and middle class Jews to Babylon. God allowed this to happen because much of Judea had given itself to idol worship which God must punish in order to correct. Idol worship and pride are the two most dangerous weapons that Satan uses to try to crush goodness completely. The Babylonians left the poorer classes in Judea because they thought their influence in the world was insignificant. Since many of God's people have always been among the poorer classes, God saved many of His people from slavery in this way. Some of God's people were deported, but God ensured their protection by gaining control over the mind of the king, Nebuchadnezzar. In Daniel, chapters one through four, the Bible records the methods which God used to gain control over the mind of Nebuchadnezzar which caused him to recognize the Jewish God as the only true God, and issue a decree that would ensure the protection of God's people. Satan had made his political move, but God countered with His own move which protected His people and preserved the balance between good and evil.
After Nebuchadnezzar, the fifth chapter of Daniel records that God continued His protection of His people by using a method that scared king Belshazzar out of his wits. God used the hand that wrote on the wall to proclaim the doom of Babylon to king Belshazzar. That very night, God punished Babylon by allowing the Medes and Persians to conquer it. The fear that God had instilled into Belshazzar no doubt spread to his followers and thus to his army and caused the downfall of Babylon.
Chapter six of Daniel records that king Darius was, for the most part, a fairminded man who only wanted to use the most talented men to rule over Babylon. Thus, king Darius selected Daniel because of his great intellect and leadership talents to be the head of his puppet government. In addition, Darius had no doubt learned the story of how God had instilled such great fear in Belshazzar and the part that Daniel had played in the downfall of Babylon. Yet, Satan influenced certain of the princes of the Persians to trick king Darius into issuing a decree that no one could petition any god or man but king Darius for thirty days and all who disobeyed should be cast into a den of lions. These princes knew that Daniel would disobey this decree and pray to God, and so they caught him so doing and delivered him to the king to be cast into the den of lions. King Darius could not get around the rule of law that the princes insisted on upholding, and so the king had Daniel cast into the den of lions. But Darius displayed his faith in Daniel's God by assuring him that God would protect him. God did indeed perform a great miracle and protected Daniel from the lions. King Darius then issued a decree to the whole empire that all men should fear the God of Daniel. The plot devised by the princes to destroy Daniel was meant to cause despair among God's people; a loss of faith that would eventually cause God's people to become absorbed into idol worship. Satan was behind this political plot to crush goodness out of God's world. God countered Satan's move by protecting Daniel from the lions, instilling faith in king Darius and thus maintaing His balance between good and evil.
The seventh chapter of Daniel returns to a prophecy that Daniel revealed to king Belshazzar about the four great empires that Satan would use in his attempts to crush all goodness completely out of the world, prevent God's trial of His Love, eliminate all of God's influence from the world, and bring all of mankind into enslavement. Throughout the rest of the book of Daniel, here and there he prophesied that these four empires would be destroyed, and that God would succeed in the future in bringing His suffering Messiah into the world to complete the trial of His Love, and that at some time in the far future this same Messiah will destroy Satan's beast who will be the leader of Satan's armies that will fight against God, and that this Messiah will then establish God's Kingdom in the world. The history of the world from the time of Daniel has certainly borne out his prophecies. Four great empires have arisen and fallen, and the suffering Messiah has come and completed the trial of God's Love, and His gospel has been preached to the world so that all who will believe will be saved. History down to the present day demonstrates God's awesome miracles; that mighty empires have failed to crush goodness out of the world, and that God has used a small and humble people to preserve His Word and to complete the trial of His Love which is the salvation of all who will believe. God has also succeeded in restoring His Jewish people to their own land just as His Word has prophesied even after being scattered over the whole world for two thousand years and terribly persecuted. Considering the further miracles of how God has preserved Israel through the 1948 war, and all of its other wars with a hoard of enemies striving mightily to destroy it, one wonders how anyone can doubt that the future prophecies of Daniel that the Messiah will come again to destroy Satan's evil armies, will not be fulfilled.
The book of Esther records a change in the Devil's tactics that he uses even now in his attempts to destroy the people of God. Satan invented a new false combination employing an unreasoned hatred for God's people simply for being the people of God. This was the beginning of all forms of ethnic, racial and religious bigotry. The history of the world does not seem to record any of this kind of hatred before this time.
King Ahasuerus promoted one of his princes named Haman, who was a very prideful man, to a higher position in his kingdom. But one of the king's advisors, a Jew named Mordecai, would not bow to him. This hurt the pride of Haman and engendered a great hatred in him for Modecai, and by extention, to all Jews. His hatred caused Haman to lie to king Ahasureus in that he accused the Jews of disobeying the laws of the land and of thus being in a state of rebellion against the king. Haman convinced the king that he should issue a decree that all of the Jews in the kingdom should be destroyed on a certain date. Satan had worked through Haman to intoduce a new horrible false combination into the world called genocide. But God was ahead of Satan and had already positioned a courageous Jewish lady named Esther, as one of the king's queens, to thwart the evil plans of Haman and bring about his destruction instead of her people's. Haman was the first of the Anti-Semites, who should more accurately be called the Anti-Judahites, who would plague the Jewish people throughout the rest of their history. Yet throughout history, God has proven to be more than able to counter Satan's evil plans to destroy God's people, both Jews and Christians.
Read Daniel 2: 21-22
Direct and indirect persecution of the Jews continued throughout the Greek and Roman empires. One of the Greek rulers of the Jews, Antiochus Epiphanes, sacrificed a sow on the altar of the Jewish temple. Satan inspired him to do this in order to cause despair among the Jews in that they would wonder why God would allow such an abomination to happen. Satan hoped that this despair would cause a complete loss of faith in God and prevent the coming of the Messiah and the test of God's Love. Satan's plan failed when the Jews simply cleansed the temple and renewed their worship of God.
The Roman persecution of the Jews culminated in their war against the Jewish rebellion in 70 A.D. The Romans went too far with their force and violence when they slaughtered most of the Jews, destroyed their temple, and forced the rest to be scattered over the whole world. God had prophesied in the Old Testament in several places that the Jews would be so scattered, but God had also prophesied that one day He would regather His earthly people and recreate their nation which His Word had even prophesied would be called Israel. Satan counted on the scattered Jews eventually losing their faith and thus making the future nation of Israel impossible. This would thwart the will of God and finally cause the world to belong entirely to Satan. But many of the Jews miraculously clung to their faith even through two thousand years of the Diaspora. Actually, God had protected the Jews by allowing them to be scattered over the world. Most of the Jews became good and productive citizens of whatever communities that they joined. This caused the good and fair-minded people of these communities to provide protection for the Jews against the Anti-Semites who sought to destroy them. Sometimes however this protection failed, and the Jews became the victims of pogroms and inquisitions inflicted upon them by the Anti-Semites who had infiltrated both the governments and religion. Despite all this, God miraculously fulfilled His prophecy and reestablished the nation of Israel in 1948.
In 1933, the Anti-Semites gained control over a whole country, Germany. These Nazis then proceeded to attempt to destroy the entire population of Jews living in Europe. They endeavored through waging war to gain control of the whole world and destroy all of the Jews everywhere. The Nazis waged war against most of the other European countries and wherever their armies found Jews, they killed them. But even under such horrible conditions, there were some good and fair-minded people in each of these countries, even in Germany itself, who tried to save small groups of Jews from destruction. The good and fair-minded free people of the world also united in a mighty force called the Allies who defeated the Nazi war machine and saved the Jews who were left in Europe. Because of the guilt felt by the good people of Europe and America that they had failed to stop the Nazis before they got started, Britain and America determined that they would ensure that the Jews would regain their ancient homeland in Palestine. God brought the Nazis to defeat, and He made sure, by bringing guilt on good people, that Israel would be reestablished as a nation in 1948.
God also proved, through Hitler's foolish actions, that evil always possesses the seeds of its own destruction. At that time, Germany had the very best scientists and engineers in the world. Given time, Germany could have produced greatly advanced weapons that would have ensured that Germany could have conquered the world fairly easily. Germany could have raced ahead of the naive Allies who only wanted peace at any cost, and produced all of these advanced weapons before the Allies could have even gotten started on them. All of this raises the question: Why did not Hitler simply wait until he had these weapons before he started the war? Had Hitler waited until he had these weapons, including atomic bombs and long-range missiles and airplanes to deliver them, he could have fairly quickly conquered the world and saved the lives of millions of his own soldiers in the process. Instead, he went to war far too soon and unnecessarily sacrificed the lives of his soldiers for limited gains. Hitler also made the great mistake of going to war with Russia before he had conquered Britain. During the war, Hitler made many egregious blunders including refusing to allow whole armies to retreat when they were surrounded and cut off from supplies, such as at Stalingrad. In fact, Russian leaders had plans to assassinate Hitler by using certain of their secret agents in Germany, but they decided not to do so because they rightly concluded that Hitler had more value to them alive than dead.
All of this evidence points to the fact that deep within the psyche of evil men, they know that they are evil. This deep knowledge of their own evil causes them to be obsessed with death and destruction, of themselves and everyone around them. Their inner ability to construct false combinations causes a sense of worthlessness and emptiness within themselves which acts out to cause cruelty and destruction. This shows that all men secretly know that false combinations only produce nothingness. Yet, instead of humbly turning to God to plead for a cure for their sin, evil men, like Lucifer, adopt a terrible pride which causes them to believe that they can rid themselves of God's Goodness. In a kind of vicious cycle, their sin feeds their pride, which in turn, feeds their sin. This condition constitutes the mystery of evil which not even God can understand.
Near the end of the war, Hitler ordered that the entire infrastructure of Germany should be destroyed. An obedience to such an order would have left Germany completely destitute, and the people had better sense than to obey it. Hitler's reason for this order was that since Germany had failed him, then Germany deserved only destruction. This order revealed only a terrible pride and a will for utter destruction. This evidence points to the fact that Hitler never really loved Germany. Hitler actually loved only horror and destruction, of himself and his people.
The history of WWII in many ways corresponds with the history in the Bible. Bible history records that God used many methods to combat evil and maintain the balance between good and evil. For instance, I Kings chapter 22 records that God caused one evil force to go to war with another evil force. This tactic not only destroyed evil, but also spared the lives of many good people who did not have to fight. In this same history, God used lies to persuade the evil forces to fight each other. God possesses the ability to use false combinations, such as war and lies, to combat other false combinations in order to create good combinations that produce a desired result which is the destruction of evil. God used these same tactics in WWII when He caused one evil force, the Nazis, to fight against another evil force, the Communists, in order to destroy evil in such a way as also to protect the lives of millions of good people. God also inspired the Allies to invent various ingenious lies that hastened the destruction of the evil forces. Because of His great Love, God holds the power to change false combinations into good combinations. Read Proverbs 10: 12.
All of this proves that God has used extraordinary measures throughout the political history of the world to protect goodness from being completely destroyed by evil. Had God not done so, evil would have long ago completely overwhelmed goodness because of the inherent innocence within limited goodness. Limited cleverness beats limited innocence every time. God wins over evil because He possesses an infinite and omnipotent Love and Innocence which cannot be overwhelmed. God possesses an absolute cleverness which gives Him the power to change evil to good. Nevertheless, God has allowed evil to remain in history in order to maintain a balance between good and evil so that those who freely choose to put their faith in God's Goodness as displayed in the cross of Christ will prove beyond all doubt that God's Love holds the greatest value that can ever possibly exist.
Tuesday, January 15, 2013
THE GOOD versus THE EVIL chapter 4
The Record of the Test
Read: Proverbs 8: 36 II Timothy 3:16 Hebrews 11:6 (KJB)
God recorded the test of His Love and free will in His Word as inspired by the Holy Spirit. As such, this record has to be inerrant and infallible. In the English language, the King James Bible has proven itself to be the most accurate translation from the Masoretic Text, which is the original Word of God. All other English versions have been, to some extent, based on perversions, and therefore cannot be the inerrant Word of God. Even though many enemies of God have tried mightily through the ages to destroy the Word of God, God has preserved and protected His Word in English through His inspired translation of His Word into the King James Bible. All other versions of the English Bible are but additional attempts by the forces of evil to attempt to destroy the Word of God slowly over time.
God chose a particular race of people to write and to preserve His Word and to bring His Messiah into the world for the salvation of mankind. God did not directly explain either to Abraham or to Moses why He chose the Hebrew people to write and preserve His Word, and He did not explain to King David why He chose the tribe of Judah to bring His Messiah into the world. Moses did tell the Hebrews that God chose them because He loved them, but then God loves all people, and so this could be no special reason why God chose the Hebrews. The Hebrews do seem to be a people who are especially faithful to their traditions, and so many of them have diligently taught each generation the Word of God exactly as it was revealed to Moses and the prophets.
Several distinct and consistent themes run through the entire Word of God. The first and most important theme reveals that God promised to test His Love by sending a Messiah, a Savior who would be God in human form, and who would in Love sacrifice Himself to save humanity from being destroyed by original sin. Many examples of this theme occur directly and indirectly throughout the Old Testament. In Genesis 3:21, the Bible relates that God shed the blood of an animal and clothed Adam and Eve in its skin, demonstrating that God will protect humans by shedding blood and clothing them. Genesis 4:1-5 reveals that God commanded that a blood sacrifice must be offered in worship to God in order for a person to gain God's favor. In Genesis, chapter 22, God spared Isaac by substituting a ram for Abraham to sacrifice, which was an illustrative prophecy of the vicarious suffering of Christ. King David wrote about the sacrifice of the Messiah in Psalm 22, and the prophet Isaiah wrote about Him in Isaiah 53. Other examples could be given, but the consistent theme is that God Himself would come to earth and sacrifice Himself in man's place in order to save him from destruction by the sin within him. God would also rise from the dead to justify and to give eternal life to all who would believe in His Love and His Power to save them. Through the sacrifice of His Son, God would pass the test of His Love, and thereby dispell any possible doubt that might adhere to any of His future creations. In this way, God made any future possible rebellions impossible. All of God's future creations would know beyond all doubt that God's Love will do whatever is necessary to save His creations from all effects of false combinations connected to the destructive effects of absolute nothingness. God took the destructive effects of absolute nothingness upon Himself on a cruel cross and not only survived the sin and death, but actually conquered them. God's Love passed its greatest possible test.
Read Revelation 21:1-8
By passing its greatest possible test, God proved that Love can never be destroyed and that it always prevails and can never fail. Had God not so proved His Love, then a hint of doubt about His Power to prevail over evil would have infected all of His future creations. Evil can only be defined as false and uncreative combinations of God's Ideas, which in turn connects to absolute nothingness. All of God's intelligent creations possess access to limited copies of God's Infinite Ideas which also connects them to free will. Had God not proven the absolute Power of His Love, then a hint of uncertainty would have haunted all of His creations making them secretly wonder if God would eventually be destroyed by evil. Evil constitutes a kind of filthiness within God's creations. By passing the test of His Love, God accomplished the justification to recreate His universe and all of His creatures with a complete cleansing of all evil. God will completely purge all evil from all of His future creations, and will thoroughly destroy it by burning it forever in a lake of fire. All of this means that evil and absolute nothingness can never diminish God's Infinite Ideas in the least. God survived and conquered all of the worst effects of evil when He rose from the dead.
In order to ensure that His test would be fair, God determined to maintain a balance between good and evil throughout the history of mankind. God's Word reflects this balance. The Bible offers no proof of God's existence, but simply begins with an assumption of His existence. God could allow no religious, scientific or historical proof of His existence since any such proof would invalidate His test because it would give mankind no choice but to believe. A forced love always remains in doubt, but love freely given removes all doubt. Those who freely choose by faith to love God hold no doubt that God has all Power over evil. At times, they may sinfully doubt but in their faith they cannot doubt because their faith has been given to them by God. Just as God would never allow a proof of His existence, He also would never allow a proof of His nonexistence. Such a proof would cause despair among mankind. God has determined to maintain a balance between belief and unbelief in His fallen race. This balance would ensure that free will would be preserved, and that the great value of God's Love would be forever proved in its Almighty Power by the free choices of His believers to receive His grace through faith.
God's Word records that God used various methods to maintain this balance throughout history. For instance, whenever evil became so strong that it threatened to overwhelm the faithful and crush goodness out of the world, then God would act to destroy evil so completely that the balance would be restored. God sending the great flood and the fiery destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah are two such examples. God would also sometimes allow foreign powers to gain control over His people when they were backslidden in order to discipline them and cause them to repent and return to living in accord with their faith. God allowed Babylon to defeat Judea and control the Jews for 70 years. Those who repented were mostly the same as those who returned to rebuild the temple and reestablish the nation. But God would not allow His people to be destroyed as the story of the defeat of Haman in the book of Esther records. God's Word indicates that God never had a problem dealing with sin in the lives of His believers. Two such examples involved His discipline of the backslidden Samson and king David which effectively caused their repentence and return to obedience to Him. God never removes faith from His believers, but He can and will correct their sinful ways. God's wrath was deeply stirred against idol worship among His people because this sin indicated that evil was causing widespread unbelief which threatened to crush goodness out of God's world. God often used very powerful methods to combat this sin. God's Word and history itself demonstrate that God has succeeded in preserving this balance between good and evil right down to the present day.
Satan, being the god of this world, is the evil force behind all attempts to overwhelm goodness and destroy God's people. Satan believes that if he can obliterate goodness from the world, he will cause God's love to fail and then the world will belong solely to him. But God has successfully countered every move of Satan to destroy goodness and eliminate God's Love from the world. God's balance between goodness and evil still holds to this day. While at times, evil seems to be on the verge of taking control of the world, and at other times, goodness seems to be holding evil at bay; nevertheless, the balance always returns. God maintains the balance because He has determined that His Love will have a fair test.
If God had not preserved the miracle of this balance, evil would have completely crushed goodness a long time ago. Good people tend to be innocent. Evil people tend to be very cunning and clever. Clever and cunning beats innocence every time. Without God's balance, evil would now control the world.
God also uses a psychological factor to maintain the balance between good and evil. Evil carries within itself the seeds of its own destruction. Evil adheres to false combinations connected to absolute nothingness. This means evil equals the idea of nothing since all false combinations reduce to nothing. But this use of the idea of nothing also indirectly indicates a deeper nothingness; that is, an absolute nothingness, a nonexistence. God can only know the Infinite Being of Infinite Ideas. God knows absolutely nothing about nonexistence. Yet, in some mysterious way that even God cannot understand, absolute nothingness seems to hold some strange magnetic power within itself to attract those toward it who learn about false combinations. When Lucifer invented false combinations, a terrible vanity, an emptiness, entered into him which caused an obsession within him to rebel against God even though he had to know deep within himself that this would result in his own destruction. Even in order to enhance this strange obsession, Lucifer invented other false combinations such as: "excessive pleasure" and "excessive excitement." He did this in order to cause a kind of fall through bliss toward self-destruction. Satan invented other false combinations to deceive those who might realize that they were being drawn to self-destruction. Satan invented such false combinations as "excessive self-righteousness" and "idols" to redirect man's worship away from God and toward false combinations that they falsely believe will save them from self-destruction. Satan also invented false political and scientific systems to mislead some away from faith and worship of God. Even so, deep within all who adhere to false combinations lies a subconscious awareness that they are being powerfully drawn toward self-destruction and absolute nothingness. This deep feeling is that which the existentialists call "angst" or "dread" or "nausea." They refuse to realize the truth because they are infected with that same terrible obsession and pride that caused the downfall of Lucifer. But God possesses the power to cause some to awaken from their hypnotic obsession and return to the Truth.
The only remedy for such pride and obsession is the grace of God displayed in the Love of Christ through His sacrifice, death and resurrection. Jesus sacrificed Himself on the cross to wash away the sin of man with His own blood. In His death and burial, Jesus literally descended toward absolute nothingness in order to take man's sin away. Jesus rose from the dead to prove that His Love holds all power over sin and death; that is, over all false combinations and absolute nothingness. Christ can give His own eternal life to all who will abandon their obsession with self-destruction, and who will trust in Him as their only source of salvation.
Those obsessesd with self-destruction falsely believe that they can attain the nonexistence for which they so yearn. They can achieve self-destruction but not nonexistence. God's Infinite Ideas and all of His creations based on these Ideas can never disolve into absolute nothingness. Nonexistence can never diminish an Infinite Being in the least. Lucifer, in his self-deceptive pride, put his faith in the false power of false combinations to disolve at least some of God's Ideas into absolute nothingness. Lucifer falsely believed that if he could use false combinations to reduce some of God's Infinite Ideas, which is the Word of God which is God Himself, to absolute nothingness, then he could begin the destruction of God. God can only be Infinite. Should He ever become less than Infinite, He would cease to exist. Lucifer counted on reducing God's Infinite Being. This is what his temptation of Christ was all about. Lucifer could certainly achieve self-destruction, but not the nonexistence for which he subconsciously yearned. Satan has made himself into a false combination of God's Ideas. The false combination can be destroyed, but not God's Ideas. God can subject Satan, as a false combination, to a perpetual destruction in a lake of fire in order to nullify his ability to concoct false combinations. In this way, God can recreate a false combination and turn it into a good and useful combination that neutralizes sin in His universe. Also, God can never destroy Satan's consciousness which is based on one of God's Ideas, since to do so would mean that God would have to destroy a part of His Word which is Himself.
Read II Peter 3:13 Revelation 21:5
God will succeed in recreating a new heaven and earth, and a new mankind completely purged of all obsession with self-destruction and of all false combinations. God means to cleanse His universe of all of the filthiness of sin and "make all things new." God will use a form of destruction called "the lake of fire" in order to nullify all sin and obsession with self-destruction. God can nullify false combinations, but He can never nullify His own creations, all of which are based on His Infinite Ideas. God will recover all elements of His creations and use them in new useful creations, and all left-over false combinations, such as Satan, will be turned into good and useful combinations.
Romans 5: 12-21 Romans 7: 13-25
Since the garden of Eden, the mind of man has been divided into two wills; the will to live and the will to self-destruction. The will to live stems from the knowledge of the good, and the secret will to self-destruction stems from the knowledge of the evil. The knowledge of the good causes man to invent good systems that improve the quality of life. The knowledge of the evil causes man to engage in false systems already invented by Satan that tend to destroy life. One possible interpretation of the Word of God could call this helpless obsession with evil: "original sin."
Apparently, when man disobeyed God in the garden of Eden; a terrible emptiness which is an indirect awareness of absolute nothingness that hides behind the idea of nothing, entered the very being of man as it had Lucifer when he invented false combinations. At once, Adam and Eve realized that something had gone wrong within themselves, and so in shame for their marred condition, they tried to cover their nakedness with fig leaves. The knowledge of false combinations carries with it an indirect awareness that the nothingness inherent in false combinations hides a nonexistence, or absolute nothingness, that one has never before encountered. This knowledge then becomes ineluctably fixed in the mind, and as such, a part of one's being. This knowledge, which no one can shake off, then causes a terrible feeling of shame and emptiness. One secretly feels that one has become worthless and worthy only of destruction. However, Satan makes this self-destruction more palatable by combining it with excessive pride and pleasure. Nevertheless, this feeling has become an obsession with self-destruction.
This obsession manifests itself in various ways in the history of mankind. Many people practice false combinations connected to self-destruction such as "excessive pleasure" and "excessive excitement." Those who are addicted to illicit sex, drugs, gambling, thievery, gossip or any other sin, fall into this category. Even people who try to be good occasionally fall into such sins. Because the will to live usually overpowers the desire to kill oneself outright, sinners use the slow method which provides them at least some excessive pleasure and excitement on their way to self-destruction. Some of these sinners do eventually kill themselves because, over time, they find that the pleasures and excitement become muted, and the feelings of emptiness and worthlessness become more pronounced. Most of the others die from ruined health. In any case, one can conclude that those who practice these lifestyles must know, deep within themselves, that they possess a secret will for self-destruction.
Read I Peter 3:18 John 16:7-11 I John 1:7
The only cure for sin and the will to self-destruction is the sacrifice of Christ; His death, burial and resurrection. God loves mankind and He does not want man to practice self-destruction. Jesus came to earth from heaven to save man from his sin and self-destruction. This is the gospel of God. When a person hears or reads the gospel, then the Holy Spirit visits that person and makes him or her keenly aware that sin has become a part of their being, and they cannot get rid of it on their own, and that it will eventually destroy them. They learn that Christ, in His compassion, has already taken their sin and self-destruction on Himself on the cross, that He has suffered in their place, and that He rose from the dead to justify them, to give them His own eternal life, and victory over self-destruction. They learn that Jesus' blood that He shed on the cross can wash away all of their sin, and that the Spirit of Christ can enter their cleansed hearts to justify them and give them eternal life. They learn that the only way that they can escape from sin and self-destruction is through the power of the salvation that Christ has already provided for them.
Read John 12:32 John 6:37 John 10:14 Revelation 22: 17
When a person hears or reads the gospel and comes under the conviction of the Holy Spirit that the Word is true, then that person can choose to repent of their sins and accept the gospel by faith, or they can reject it and remain in their sins. God has given them free will. God has provided His written gospel to be read, and God has sent His preachers to preach it to the people in order to separate the believers from the unbelievers. Christ is the good shepherd who knows His sheep. Because of God's foreknowledge, many unbelievers claim that God never gave them a free choice since He always knew the choice they would make. They are quite wrong to make this charge against God. God will bring every one who reads or hears the gospel to a moment of decision. Of their own free will they can accept or reject the gospel. If they sincerely repent and accept the gospel by faith, then their salvation has been absolutely guaranteed by the Word of God. Read John 6:37. The guarantee that God will accept them as one of His sheep is also the guarantee that they possessed the free will to accept it by faith. They cannot charge God with rejecting them by His foreknowledge because God has guaranted their acceptance if they only choose to believe. If they reject the gospel, they cannot object that they did so, and blame God for it because He knew from eternity who His sheep are. They cannot blame God because they had only to choose to accept Christ by faith and God has already guaranteed that He knew them as His sheep from all eternity. God has given everyone free will and those who choose to reject Christ can never charge God with rejecting them by His foreknowledge because God can always point to their moment of decision and indicate that had they only chosen to accept Christ by faith, then God would have been obligated to accept them from eternity because of the guarantee of His Word.
Read: Proverbs 8: 36 II Timothy 3:16 Hebrews 11:6 (KJB)
God recorded the test of His Love and free will in His Word as inspired by the Holy Spirit. As such, this record has to be inerrant and infallible. In the English language, the King James Bible has proven itself to be the most accurate translation from the Masoretic Text, which is the original Word of God. All other English versions have been, to some extent, based on perversions, and therefore cannot be the inerrant Word of God. Even though many enemies of God have tried mightily through the ages to destroy the Word of God, God has preserved and protected His Word in English through His inspired translation of His Word into the King James Bible. All other versions of the English Bible are but additional attempts by the forces of evil to attempt to destroy the Word of God slowly over time.
God chose a particular race of people to write and to preserve His Word and to bring His Messiah into the world for the salvation of mankind. God did not directly explain either to Abraham or to Moses why He chose the Hebrew people to write and preserve His Word, and He did not explain to King David why He chose the tribe of Judah to bring His Messiah into the world. Moses did tell the Hebrews that God chose them because He loved them, but then God loves all people, and so this could be no special reason why God chose the Hebrews. The Hebrews do seem to be a people who are especially faithful to their traditions, and so many of them have diligently taught each generation the Word of God exactly as it was revealed to Moses and the prophets.
Several distinct and consistent themes run through the entire Word of God. The first and most important theme reveals that God promised to test His Love by sending a Messiah, a Savior who would be God in human form, and who would in Love sacrifice Himself to save humanity from being destroyed by original sin. Many examples of this theme occur directly and indirectly throughout the Old Testament. In Genesis 3:21, the Bible relates that God shed the blood of an animal and clothed Adam and Eve in its skin, demonstrating that God will protect humans by shedding blood and clothing them. Genesis 4:1-5 reveals that God commanded that a blood sacrifice must be offered in worship to God in order for a person to gain God's favor. In Genesis, chapter 22, God spared Isaac by substituting a ram for Abraham to sacrifice, which was an illustrative prophecy of the vicarious suffering of Christ. King David wrote about the sacrifice of the Messiah in Psalm 22, and the prophet Isaiah wrote about Him in Isaiah 53. Other examples could be given, but the consistent theme is that God Himself would come to earth and sacrifice Himself in man's place in order to save him from destruction by the sin within him. God would also rise from the dead to justify and to give eternal life to all who would believe in His Love and His Power to save them. Through the sacrifice of His Son, God would pass the test of His Love, and thereby dispell any possible doubt that might adhere to any of His future creations. In this way, God made any future possible rebellions impossible. All of God's future creations would know beyond all doubt that God's Love will do whatever is necessary to save His creations from all effects of false combinations connected to the destructive effects of absolute nothingness. God took the destructive effects of absolute nothingness upon Himself on a cruel cross and not only survived the sin and death, but actually conquered them. God's Love passed its greatest possible test.
Read Revelation 21:1-8
By passing its greatest possible test, God proved that Love can never be destroyed and that it always prevails and can never fail. Had God not so proved His Love, then a hint of doubt about His Power to prevail over evil would have infected all of His future creations. Evil can only be defined as false and uncreative combinations of God's Ideas, which in turn connects to absolute nothingness. All of God's intelligent creations possess access to limited copies of God's Infinite Ideas which also connects them to free will. Had God not proven the absolute Power of His Love, then a hint of uncertainty would have haunted all of His creations making them secretly wonder if God would eventually be destroyed by evil. Evil constitutes a kind of filthiness within God's creations. By passing the test of His Love, God accomplished the justification to recreate His universe and all of His creatures with a complete cleansing of all evil. God will completely purge all evil from all of His future creations, and will thoroughly destroy it by burning it forever in a lake of fire. All of this means that evil and absolute nothingness can never diminish God's Infinite Ideas in the least. God survived and conquered all of the worst effects of evil when He rose from the dead.
In order to ensure that His test would be fair, God determined to maintain a balance between good and evil throughout the history of mankind. God's Word reflects this balance. The Bible offers no proof of God's existence, but simply begins with an assumption of His existence. God could allow no religious, scientific or historical proof of His existence since any such proof would invalidate His test because it would give mankind no choice but to believe. A forced love always remains in doubt, but love freely given removes all doubt. Those who freely choose by faith to love God hold no doubt that God has all Power over evil. At times, they may sinfully doubt but in their faith they cannot doubt because their faith has been given to them by God. Just as God would never allow a proof of His existence, He also would never allow a proof of His nonexistence. Such a proof would cause despair among mankind. God has determined to maintain a balance between belief and unbelief in His fallen race. This balance would ensure that free will would be preserved, and that the great value of God's Love would be forever proved in its Almighty Power by the free choices of His believers to receive His grace through faith.
God's Word records that God used various methods to maintain this balance throughout history. For instance, whenever evil became so strong that it threatened to overwhelm the faithful and crush goodness out of the world, then God would act to destroy evil so completely that the balance would be restored. God sending the great flood and the fiery destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah are two such examples. God would also sometimes allow foreign powers to gain control over His people when they were backslidden in order to discipline them and cause them to repent and return to living in accord with their faith. God allowed Babylon to defeat Judea and control the Jews for 70 years. Those who repented were mostly the same as those who returned to rebuild the temple and reestablish the nation. But God would not allow His people to be destroyed as the story of the defeat of Haman in the book of Esther records. God's Word indicates that God never had a problem dealing with sin in the lives of His believers. Two such examples involved His discipline of the backslidden Samson and king David which effectively caused their repentence and return to obedience to Him. God never removes faith from His believers, but He can and will correct their sinful ways. God's wrath was deeply stirred against idol worship among His people because this sin indicated that evil was causing widespread unbelief which threatened to crush goodness out of God's world. God often used very powerful methods to combat this sin. God's Word and history itself demonstrate that God has succeeded in preserving this balance between good and evil right down to the present day.
Satan, being the god of this world, is the evil force behind all attempts to overwhelm goodness and destroy God's people. Satan believes that if he can obliterate goodness from the world, he will cause God's love to fail and then the world will belong solely to him. But God has successfully countered every move of Satan to destroy goodness and eliminate God's Love from the world. God's balance between goodness and evil still holds to this day. While at times, evil seems to be on the verge of taking control of the world, and at other times, goodness seems to be holding evil at bay; nevertheless, the balance always returns. God maintains the balance because He has determined that His Love will have a fair test.
If God had not preserved the miracle of this balance, evil would have completely crushed goodness a long time ago. Good people tend to be innocent. Evil people tend to be very cunning and clever. Clever and cunning beats innocence every time. Without God's balance, evil would now control the world.
God also uses a psychological factor to maintain the balance between good and evil. Evil carries within itself the seeds of its own destruction. Evil adheres to false combinations connected to absolute nothingness. This means evil equals the idea of nothing since all false combinations reduce to nothing. But this use of the idea of nothing also indirectly indicates a deeper nothingness; that is, an absolute nothingness, a nonexistence. God can only know the Infinite Being of Infinite Ideas. God knows absolutely nothing about nonexistence. Yet, in some mysterious way that even God cannot understand, absolute nothingness seems to hold some strange magnetic power within itself to attract those toward it who learn about false combinations. When Lucifer invented false combinations, a terrible vanity, an emptiness, entered into him which caused an obsession within him to rebel against God even though he had to know deep within himself that this would result in his own destruction. Even in order to enhance this strange obsession, Lucifer invented other false combinations such as: "excessive pleasure" and "excessive excitement." He did this in order to cause a kind of fall through bliss toward self-destruction. Satan invented other false combinations to deceive those who might realize that they were being drawn to self-destruction. Satan invented such false combinations as "excessive self-righteousness" and "idols" to redirect man's worship away from God and toward false combinations that they falsely believe will save them from self-destruction. Satan also invented false political and scientific systems to mislead some away from faith and worship of God. Even so, deep within all who adhere to false combinations lies a subconscious awareness that they are being powerfully drawn toward self-destruction and absolute nothingness. This deep feeling is that which the existentialists call "angst" or "dread" or "nausea." They refuse to realize the truth because they are infected with that same terrible obsession and pride that caused the downfall of Lucifer. But God possesses the power to cause some to awaken from their hypnotic obsession and return to the Truth.
The only remedy for such pride and obsession is the grace of God displayed in the Love of Christ through His sacrifice, death and resurrection. Jesus sacrificed Himself on the cross to wash away the sin of man with His own blood. In His death and burial, Jesus literally descended toward absolute nothingness in order to take man's sin away. Jesus rose from the dead to prove that His Love holds all power over sin and death; that is, over all false combinations and absolute nothingness. Christ can give His own eternal life to all who will abandon their obsession with self-destruction, and who will trust in Him as their only source of salvation.
Those obsessesd with self-destruction falsely believe that they can attain the nonexistence for which they so yearn. They can achieve self-destruction but not nonexistence. God's Infinite Ideas and all of His creations based on these Ideas can never disolve into absolute nothingness. Nonexistence can never diminish an Infinite Being in the least. Lucifer, in his self-deceptive pride, put his faith in the false power of false combinations to disolve at least some of God's Ideas into absolute nothingness. Lucifer falsely believed that if he could use false combinations to reduce some of God's Infinite Ideas, which is the Word of God which is God Himself, to absolute nothingness, then he could begin the destruction of God. God can only be Infinite. Should He ever become less than Infinite, He would cease to exist. Lucifer counted on reducing God's Infinite Being. This is what his temptation of Christ was all about. Lucifer could certainly achieve self-destruction, but not the nonexistence for which he subconsciously yearned. Satan has made himself into a false combination of God's Ideas. The false combination can be destroyed, but not God's Ideas. God can subject Satan, as a false combination, to a perpetual destruction in a lake of fire in order to nullify his ability to concoct false combinations. In this way, God can recreate a false combination and turn it into a good and useful combination that neutralizes sin in His universe. Also, God can never destroy Satan's consciousness which is based on one of God's Ideas, since to do so would mean that God would have to destroy a part of His Word which is Himself.
Read II Peter 3:13 Revelation 21:5
God will succeed in recreating a new heaven and earth, and a new mankind completely purged of all obsession with self-destruction and of all false combinations. God means to cleanse His universe of all of the filthiness of sin and "make all things new." God will use a form of destruction called "the lake of fire" in order to nullify all sin and obsession with self-destruction. God can nullify false combinations, but He can never nullify His own creations, all of which are based on His Infinite Ideas. God will recover all elements of His creations and use them in new useful creations, and all left-over false combinations, such as Satan, will be turned into good and useful combinations.
Romans 5: 12-21 Romans 7: 13-25
Since the garden of Eden, the mind of man has been divided into two wills; the will to live and the will to self-destruction. The will to live stems from the knowledge of the good, and the secret will to self-destruction stems from the knowledge of the evil. The knowledge of the good causes man to invent good systems that improve the quality of life. The knowledge of the evil causes man to engage in false systems already invented by Satan that tend to destroy life. One possible interpretation of the Word of God could call this helpless obsession with evil: "original sin."
Apparently, when man disobeyed God in the garden of Eden; a terrible emptiness which is an indirect awareness of absolute nothingness that hides behind the idea of nothing, entered the very being of man as it had Lucifer when he invented false combinations. At once, Adam and Eve realized that something had gone wrong within themselves, and so in shame for their marred condition, they tried to cover their nakedness with fig leaves. The knowledge of false combinations carries with it an indirect awareness that the nothingness inherent in false combinations hides a nonexistence, or absolute nothingness, that one has never before encountered. This knowledge then becomes ineluctably fixed in the mind, and as such, a part of one's being. This knowledge, which no one can shake off, then causes a terrible feeling of shame and emptiness. One secretly feels that one has become worthless and worthy only of destruction. However, Satan makes this self-destruction more palatable by combining it with excessive pride and pleasure. Nevertheless, this feeling has become an obsession with self-destruction.
This obsession manifests itself in various ways in the history of mankind. Many people practice false combinations connected to self-destruction such as "excessive pleasure" and "excessive excitement." Those who are addicted to illicit sex, drugs, gambling, thievery, gossip or any other sin, fall into this category. Even people who try to be good occasionally fall into such sins. Because the will to live usually overpowers the desire to kill oneself outright, sinners use the slow method which provides them at least some excessive pleasure and excitement on their way to self-destruction. Some of these sinners do eventually kill themselves because, over time, they find that the pleasures and excitement become muted, and the feelings of emptiness and worthlessness become more pronounced. Most of the others die from ruined health. In any case, one can conclude that those who practice these lifestyles must know, deep within themselves, that they possess a secret will for self-destruction.
Read I Peter 3:18 John 16:7-11 I John 1:7
The only cure for sin and the will to self-destruction is the sacrifice of Christ; His death, burial and resurrection. God loves mankind and He does not want man to practice self-destruction. Jesus came to earth from heaven to save man from his sin and self-destruction. This is the gospel of God. When a person hears or reads the gospel, then the Holy Spirit visits that person and makes him or her keenly aware that sin has become a part of their being, and they cannot get rid of it on their own, and that it will eventually destroy them. They learn that Christ, in His compassion, has already taken their sin and self-destruction on Himself on the cross, that He has suffered in their place, and that He rose from the dead to justify them, to give them His own eternal life, and victory over self-destruction. They learn that Jesus' blood that He shed on the cross can wash away all of their sin, and that the Spirit of Christ can enter their cleansed hearts to justify them and give them eternal life. They learn that the only way that they can escape from sin and self-destruction is through the power of the salvation that Christ has already provided for them.
Read John 12:32 John 6:37 John 10:14 Revelation 22: 17
When a person hears or reads the gospel and comes under the conviction of the Holy Spirit that the Word is true, then that person can choose to repent of their sins and accept the gospel by faith, or they can reject it and remain in their sins. God has given them free will. God has provided His written gospel to be read, and God has sent His preachers to preach it to the people in order to separate the believers from the unbelievers. Christ is the good shepherd who knows His sheep. Because of God's foreknowledge, many unbelievers claim that God never gave them a free choice since He always knew the choice they would make. They are quite wrong to make this charge against God. God will bring every one who reads or hears the gospel to a moment of decision. Of their own free will they can accept or reject the gospel. If they sincerely repent and accept the gospel by faith, then their salvation has been absolutely guaranteed by the Word of God. Read John 6:37. The guarantee that God will accept them as one of His sheep is also the guarantee that they possessed the free will to accept it by faith. They cannot charge God with rejecting them by His foreknowledge because God has guaranted their acceptance if they only choose to believe. If they reject the gospel, they cannot object that they did so, and blame God for it because He knew from eternity who His sheep are. They cannot blame God because they had only to choose to accept Christ by faith and God has already guaranteed that He knew them as His sheep from all eternity. God has given everyone free will and those who choose to reject Christ can never charge God with rejecting them by His foreknowledge because God can always point to their moment of decision and indicate that had they only chosen to accept Christ by faith, then God would have been obligated to accept them from eternity because of the guarantee of His Word.
Friday, December 28, 2012
THE GOOD versus THE EVIL chapter 3
The Test of Love
John 1:1-3 II Thessalonians 2:7 I John 4:8
God created all things as limited copies of some of His Infinite Ideas. A "thing" is whatever is more than nothing, including the idea of nothing which is more than nothing as an idea. God's Consciousness causes all "things" to be more than nothing. The nothingness from which all things are separated by Consciousness can only not be an absolute nothingness of which no consciousness can be conscious, including God's Consciousness. Read II Thessalonians 2:7. God's Infinite Consciousness is the source of His Infinite Ideas and is also one with His Infinite Ideas since consciousness can also be an idea to itself. God could never use His Infinite Creative Will and Power in any negative way. God could never have even thought of such a thing. God can only direct His Infinite Ideas and Creative Power to the creation of combinations that are beautiful and alive.
God gave a limited copy of the Infinite Idea of Free Will to Lucifer when He created him. God gave this gift to Lucifer with an Infinite Innocence which made it impossible for God to ever think that this gift could be misused. Lucifer misused this gift to invent false combinations of God's Ideas which indirectly indicated an absolute nothingness; that is, an idea of nothingness that hides an absolute nothingness. God only knew how to use the idea of nothing in creative combinations. Lucifer invented a method by which he could misuse the idea of nothing in a destructive way. God could know absolutely nothing about absolute nothingness since it does not exist. Thus, absolute nothingness could never limit God's Infinite Knowledge because this chaos is the opposite of knowledge. Lucifer invented false combinations of God's Ideas in an attempt to open God's Infinite Reality to the destructive effects of absolute nothingness.
Apparently, when Lucifer realized his ability to invent false combinations, the emptiness thus accessed entered into his being as a false combination called "excessive pride." Lucifer became obsessed with the idea that he could fill this emptiness with his own creations. But in order to accomplish his plan, Lucifer knew that he would have to get rid of God since God alone is the source of all creative power. For this reason, Lucifer rebelled against God and attempted to use false combinations such as "kill God" in his attempt to reduce God to an absolute nothingness so that Lucifer could replace Him. Lucifer cleverly attached other false combinations to "excessive pride" such as "excessive pleasure," in order to induce other angels to follow him. Apparently, Lucifer desired to invent his own universe filled with "excessive pleasure" and "excessive excitement." But Lucifer's "excessive pride" would not allow him to realize that his obsession was really nothing more than an addiction to self-destruction. How such an addiction could gain such a hold on Lucifer's mind when absolute nothingness holds no power since it does not exist, constitutes a mystery which not even God can understand. But God's inability to understand "the mystery of iniquity" does not limit God's Infinite Creative Knowledge in the least.
God could have completely destroyed Lucifer and his followers at the time of their rebellion and recreated them as creatures who would obey Him. Instead, God exiled Lucifer and the fallen angels to earth where Lucifer became Satan, the god of this world. God exiled Lucifer instead of destroying him because He realized that destroying him would amount to a rejection of His own gift of free will. This would seem to indicate a failure of God's creative efforts, even though God knew within Himself that His Perfect Innocence would protect Him from any such charge of failure. God also knew that a destruction and recreation of Lucifer and his followers would leave Love untested, even though God knew within Himself that His Love could pass any test. God realized that both His gift of free will and His Love must be fully tested in order to prove that His creative gifts, such as free will, has creative effects as God intended; and that His Love, which is His very Being, cannot fail. Otherwise, a hint of "doubt" could infect all of His future creations which would make future rebellions possible. God knew that He had to create a thorough test of the righteousness of both His gift of free will and His Love in order to cleanse His future creations of all "doubt" completely, and restore an absolute "faith" or "confidence" in His Love and Creative Power.
In order to make this test, God decided to create humans in His own image, give them free will, and put them into a Paradise on earth. Had humans decided to continue in their love for God and obedience to Him, and had they rejected all doubt of His Word, then God would have directly told them to eat of the tree of life and they would have gained immortality and lived in fellowship with Him forever. Should they decide to disobey God and doubt His Word by eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, then evil would become a part of their being giving them an obsession with sin and self-destruction which characterizes an infection with absolute nothingness. But even if they decided to disobey Him, the great Love of God would not abandon them to their lost condition, but God would come to earth at some time in the future to provide all that they and their posterity would need for their salvation if they would but simply repent of their sins and put their faith in His sacrifice for them. In this way, God would prove that His gift of free will can be rightly used to return fallen creatures to eternal fellowship with Him. God would also prove that His Love has supreme value because He would sacrifice Himself in unspeakable anguish and suffering on a cruel cross, taking man's sin upon Himself, suffering in their place to take away their sin and to restore them to eternal fellowship with Him if they would but choose to return to faith in His great Love and Power. As the Apostle Paul taught in I Corinthians 13:8: "Love never fails." God dispelled all possible "doubt" from all of His future creations by proving that His Love is the greatest possible Power. God also proved that His gift of free will can be rightly used as the means to return to full faith in the Almighty Power of His Love.
John 1:1-3 II Thessalonians 2:7 I John 4:8
God created all things as limited copies of some of His Infinite Ideas. A "thing" is whatever is more than nothing, including the idea of nothing which is more than nothing as an idea. God's Consciousness causes all "things" to be more than nothing. The nothingness from which all things are separated by Consciousness can only not be an absolute nothingness of which no consciousness can be conscious, including God's Consciousness. Read II Thessalonians 2:7. God's Infinite Consciousness is the source of His Infinite Ideas and is also one with His Infinite Ideas since consciousness can also be an idea to itself. God could never use His Infinite Creative Will and Power in any negative way. God could never have even thought of such a thing. God can only direct His Infinite Ideas and Creative Power to the creation of combinations that are beautiful and alive.
God gave a limited copy of the Infinite Idea of Free Will to Lucifer when He created him. God gave this gift to Lucifer with an Infinite Innocence which made it impossible for God to ever think that this gift could be misused. Lucifer misused this gift to invent false combinations of God's Ideas which indirectly indicated an absolute nothingness; that is, an idea of nothingness that hides an absolute nothingness. God only knew how to use the idea of nothing in creative combinations. Lucifer invented a method by which he could misuse the idea of nothing in a destructive way. God could know absolutely nothing about absolute nothingness since it does not exist. Thus, absolute nothingness could never limit God's Infinite Knowledge because this chaos is the opposite of knowledge. Lucifer invented false combinations of God's Ideas in an attempt to open God's Infinite Reality to the destructive effects of absolute nothingness.
Apparently, when Lucifer realized his ability to invent false combinations, the emptiness thus accessed entered into his being as a false combination called "excessive pride." Lucifer became obsessed with the idea that he could fill this emptiness with his own creations. But in order to accomplish his plan, Lucifer knew that he would have to get rid of God since God alone is the source of all creative power. For this reason, Lucifer rebelled against God and attempted to use false combinations such as "kill God" in his attempt to reduce God to an absolute nothingness so that Lucifer could replace Him. Lucifer cleverly attached other false combinations to "excessive pride" such as "excessive pleasure," in order to induce other angels to follow him. Apparently, Lucifer desired to invent his own universe filled with "excessive pleasure" and "excessive excitement." But Lucifer's "excessive pride" would not allow him to realize that his obsession was really nothing more than an addiction to self-destruction. How such an addiction could gain such a hold on Lucifer's mind when absolute nothingness holds no power since it does not exist, constitutes a mystery which not even God can understand. But God's inability to understand "the mystery of iniquity" does not limit God's Infinite Creative Knowledge in the least.
God could have completely destroyed Lucifer and his followers at the time of their rebellion and recreated them as creatures who would obey Him. Instead, God exiled Lucifer and the fallen angels to earth where Lucifer became Satan, the god of this world. God exiled Lucifer instead of destroying him because He realized that destroying him would amount to a rejection of His own gift of free will. This would seem to indicate a failure of God's creative efforts, even though God knew within Himself that His Perfect Innocence would protect Him from any such charge of failure. God also knew that a destruction and recreation of Lucifer and his followers would leave Love untested, even though God knew within Himself that His Love could pass any test. God realized that both His gift of free will and His Love must be fully tested in order to prove that His creative gifts, such as free will, has creative effects as God intended; and that His Love, which is His very Being, cannot fail. Otherwise, a hint of "doubt" could infect all of His future creations which would make future rebellions possible. God knew that He had to create a thorough test of the righteousness of both His gift of free will and His Love in order to cleanse His future creations of all "doubt" completely, and restore an absolute "faith" or "confidence" in His Love and Creative Power.
In order to make this test, God decided to create humans in His own image, give them free will, and put them into a Paradise on earth. Had humans decided to continue in their love for God and obedience to Him, and had they rejected all doubt of His Word, then God would have directly told them to eat of the tree of life and they would have gained immortality and lived in fellowship with Him forever. Should they decide to disobey God and doubt His Word by eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, then evil would become a part of their being giving them an obsession with sin and self-destruction which characterizes an infection with absolute nothingness. But even if they decided to disobey Him, the great Love of God would not abandon them to their lost condition, but God would come to earth at some time in the future to provide all that they and their posterity would need for their salvation if they would but simply repent of their sins and put their faith in His sacrifice for them. In this way, God would prove that His gift of free will can be rightly used to return fallen creatures to eternal fellowship with Him. God would also prove that His Love has supreme value because He would sacrifice Himself in unspeakable anguish and suffering on a cruel cross, taking man's sin upon Himself, suffering in their place to take away their sin and to restore them to eternal fellowship with Him if they would but choose to return to faith in His great Love and Power. As the Apostle Paul taught in I Corinthians 13:8: "Love never fails." God dispelled all possible "doubt" from all of His future creations by proving that His Love is the greatest possible Power. God also proved that His gift of free will can be rightly used as the means to return to full faith in the Almighty Power of His Love.
Wednesday, December 19, 2012
THE GOOD versus THE EVIL chapter 2
The Beginning of Evil
Isaiah 14:12-17 Ezekiel 28: 12-19 Genesis chapter 3 Habakkuk 1:13 II Thessalonians 2:7
Evil began when God's greatest creation, the cherub Lucifer, rebelled against God. Lucifer desired to destroy God and take His place as a god. God had given the gift of free will to Lucifer. God had allowed Lucifer to do whatever he wanted. God could not imagine that free will could ever be used in any but creative and beautiful ways. God was, and is, Infinite Innocence. Yet Lucifer, who had access to God's Ideas, misused limited copies of these Ideas to invent false combinations of these ideas that proved to be destructive and empty.
"God is Love." Read I John 4:8. One of the greatest components of Love is the Infinite Idea called "Innocence." Because of God's great Innocence, He had never imagined that there could ever be such a thing as evil. God must have been greatly shocked when "iniquity was found" in Lucifer. God had had great faith in Lucifer, and yet Lucifer misused God's Ideas to invent evil. God's Innocence protected Him from any blame for Lucifer's crimes.
Read Romans 8:20 John 8:44
The Word of God often refers to evil as being "vanity." Vanity means "emptiness" but it also means "pride." "Emptiness" and "pride" constitute exact descriptions of Lucifer's attitude and actions when he rebelled against God. Lucifer invented evil when he began to combine copies of God's Ideas in ways that effected destruction and emptiness. This newfound power caused pride to arise in him to the point that he thought that he could use his power to destroy God and take His place. God had always combined His Ideas in creative ways, and had never imagined that they could be combined in any other way. Because God's Ideas are Infinite, Lucifer could not create new ideas, but he did invent false combinations of those Ideas. God had always used the Idea of nothing in creative ways, so He was able to use this Idea as His means to recognize the emptiness and pride that resulted from Lucifer's invention of false combinations. But God could not comprehend the absolute nothingness that would result if Lucifer should succeed in using his false combinations to destroy Him. God was able to use His Idea of nothing to recognize the destructive effects of such false combinations as: "The desire to kill God," "untruths about God," and "jealousy of God's Power." Every individual Idea within these false combinations are true and useful in creative combinations, but Lucifer combined them in false and destructive ways. God had used even the Idea called "kill" in creative combinations as that Idea which eliminates all Ideas from any particular combination that are not needed for that combination. While all of God's Ideas are true, he had used the true combination called "not true" to identify true Ideas that do not fit into certain combinations but which will fit into others. But Lucifer used this same combination in a false way when he tried to show that God has lied. It had never occurred to God that "not" could be combined with "truth" as a destructive attempt to "kill" the Truth which is the Oneness of God with His Word. God created a useful name for all of these false combinations invented by Lucifer. God called them "sin."
Sin can in no way whatsoever be a limitation of God's Infinite Knowledge and Power. From its beginning, sin has merely been an attempt to reduce God's Being to an absolute nothingness; that is, to reduce Him to nonexistence. But this attempt could never limit God's Infinity in the least. God possesses the Infinite ability to separate an infinite something from an infinite nothing by His power to recognize that both are Infinite Ideas in His Infinite Mind. Absolute nothingness can have no effect on God's Infinite Creative Power whatsoever because it nonexists.
By using his lies and propaganda, Lucifer persuaded a third of God's angels to follow him in his rebellion. No doubt, he probably appealed to their intelligence to awaken within them a knowledge of their own free will which their intelligence could cause them to realize that they had. The knowledge of the power of free will can be quite heady and thus cause pride and rebellion. God did not immdeiately crush this rebellion because His Love and Innocence caused Him to attempt to persuade the rebels to abandon their rebellion as being hopeless and meaningless. Also, God was probably in great shock for a while, and shock can cause inactivity. "Shock" and "inactivity" are not weaknesses in God's Power; they name two of His Infinite Creative Combinations of His Infinite Ideas. "Shock" can be described as a creative combination called a "horror of evil." "Inactivity" can be described as "rest," which is also very creative.
Read II Corinthians 4:4
When God did act, He led His loyal angels in war against the rebels, arrested them, and threw them out of heaven and down to earth. On earth Lucifer became Satan the "god of this world." Satan is responsible for all of the horror, cruelty and evil that has happened in the history of the world. But all of these false combinations have always comprised copies of God's original true and creative Ideas.
God created two innocent and immortal humans and put them into the garden of Eden to live there in bliss forever. Satan entered the garden in the form of a serpent for the express purpose of destroying their innocence and ruining their bliss. Satan seduced Eve to fall into sin with his lies about God's Word, and Eve seduced Adam to sin with both her pathos and her sexual allure. Adam and Eve came to know good and evil because they disobeyed God and ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. They attained the intelligence that is needed to construct both creative and false combinations of God's true Ideas. Eve's disobedience was good in that her innocence was violated by a superior being, but it was evil in that she allowed rebellion against God's Word to become a part of her being. Adam's disobedience was good in that in his compassion for Eve's lost condition, he sacrificed himself in order to become equal with Eve and thus remain her friend; but it was evil in that he selfishly did not want to lose her sexual companionship, and he also allowed rebellion to become a part of his being. In addition, the good parts of their beings could never be enough to overcome the evil parts of their beings, and so they would remain in a hopeless, lost and depraved condition until they died and became separated from God forever. They needed God to come to their rescue.
God came to Adam and Eve's rescue when He prophesied to the serpent that He would give the serpent his chance to destroy Him, but that the serpent would only succeed in injuring the seed of the woman, but the seed of the woman would succeed in destroying the serpent. God made sure that Adam and Eve could overhear His prophecy to the serpent. Both the serpent and Adam and Eve understood this prophecy to mean that God would, at some time in the future, come to earth as a mere man who would defeat the Devil on his own ground. Read Genesis 4:1. The fulfillment of this prophecy would result in the final defeat of Satan's rebellion. From the time of Christ's resurrection, the Devil knew that he has "but a short time." Read Revelation 12:12. God had decided to test His Love and rescue humanity from the Devil's power by meeting the Devil in battle on equal grounds. Could God, as a mere man, endure the worst that evil could throw against Him, or would He succumb to evil? God meant to prove that His Love can never be destroyed even when pain and suffering beyond imagination were inflicted upon Him. God also meant to prove that Love could survive even death, and that those humans who would choose to trust in His sacrifice and resurrection would forever be saved from the power of evil by His Love. God meant to prove the eternal power of Love to triumph and to save.
God then confirmed His prophecy to Adam and Eve when He gave them a sign by killing an animal and clothing them in its skin. God meant for all future humans who trusted in Him to practice this sign by sacrificing animals and shedding their blood. Read Genesis 4:1-5. This sign would continue as a prophecy to humans until the time would come that God Himself would come to earth and shed His own blood, and rise from the dead so that He could wash all believers in His own blood and clothe them in His own righteousness so that they could be saved from evil forever. God meant to prove that His Love never fails to show compassion, never fails to rescue, and can never fail to protect and sanctify forever. "Love never fails." Read I Corinthians 13:8. God meant to prove that even when the most severe test possible were applied to Love, that Love will always prevail over evil.
Isaiah 14:12-17 Ezekiel 28: 12-19 Genesis chapter 3 Habakkuk 1:13 II Thessalonians 2:7
Evil began when God's greatest creation, the cherub Lucifer, rebelled against God. Lucifer desired to destroy God and take His place as a god. God had given the gift of free will to Lucifer. God had allowed Lucifer to do whatever he wanted. God could not imagine that free will could ever be used in any but creative and beautiful ways. God was, and is, Infinite Innocence. Yet Lucifer, who had access to God's Ideas, misused limited copies of these Ideas to invent false combinations of these ideas that proved to be destructive and empty.
"God is Love." Read I John 4:8. One of the greatest components of Love is the Infinite Idea called "Innocence." Because of God's great Innocence, He had never imagined that there could ever be such a thing as evil. God must have been greatly shocked when "iniquity was found" in Lucifer. God had had great faith in Lucifer, and yet Lucifer misused God's Ideas to invent evil. God's Innocence protected Him from any blame for Lucifer's crimes.
Read Romans 8:20 John 8:44
The Word of God often refers to evil as being "vanity." Vanity means "emptiness" but it also means "pride." "Emptiness" and "pride" constitute exact descriptions of Lucifer's attitude and actions when he rebelled against God. Lucifer invented evil when he began to combine copies of God's Ideas in ways that effected destruction and emptiness. This newfound power caused pride to arise in him to the point that he thought that he could use his power to destroy God and take His place. God had always combined His Ideas in creative ways, and had never imagined that they could be combined in any other way. Because God's Ideas are Infinite, Lucifer could not create new ideas, but he did invent false combinations of those Ideas. God had always used the Idea of nothing in creative ways, so He was able to use this Idea as His means to recognize the emptiness and pride that resulted from Lucifer's invention of false combinations. But God could not comprehend the absolute nothingness that would result if Lucifer should succeed in using his false combinations to destroy Him. God was able to use His Idea of nothing to recognize the destructive effects of such false combinations as: "The desire to kill God," "untruths about God," and "jealousy of God's Power." Every individual Idea within these false combinations are true and useful in creative combinations, but Lucifer combined them in false and destructive ways. God had used even the Idea called "kill" in creative combinations as that Idea which eliminates all Ideas from any particular combination that are not needed for that combination. While all of God's Ideas are true, he had used the true combination called "not true" to identify true Ideas that do not fit into certain combinations but which will fit into others. But Lucifer used this same combination in a false way when he tried to show that God has lied. It had never occurred to God that "not" could be combined with "truth" as a destructive attempt to "kill" the Truth which is the Oneness of God with His Word. God created a useful name for all of these false combinations invented by Lucifer. God called them "sin."
Sin can in no way whatsoever be a limitation of God's Infinite Knowledge and Power. From its beginning, sin has merely been an attempt to reduce God's Being to an absolute nothingness; that is, to reduce Him to nonexistence. But this attempt could never limit God's Infinity in the least. God possesses the Infinite ability to separate an infinite something from an infinite nothing by His power to recognize that both are Infinite Ideas in His Infinite Mind. Absolute nothingness can have no effect on God's Infinite Creative Power whatsoever because it nonexists.
By using his lies and propaganda, Lucifer persuaded a third of God's angels to follow him in his rebellion. No doubt, he probably appealed to their intelligence to awaken within them a knowledge of their own free will which their intelligence could cause them to realize that they had. The knowledge of the power of free will can be quite heady and thus cause pride and rebellion. God did not immdeiately crush this rebellion because His Love and Innocence caused Him to attempt to persuade the rebels to abandon their rebellion as being hopeless and meaningless. Also, God was probably in great shock for a while, and shock can cause inactivity. "Shock" and "inactivity" are not weaknesses in God's Power; they name two of His Infinite Creative Combinations of His Infinite Ideas. "Shock" can be described as a creative combination called a "horror of evil." "Inactivity" can be described as "rest," which is also very creative.
Read II Corinthians 4:4
When God did act, He led His loyal angels in war against the rebels, arrested them, and threw them out of heaven and down to earth. On earth Lucifer became Satan the "god of this world." Satan is responsible for all of the horror, cruelty and evil that has happened in the history of the world. But all of these false combinations have always comprised copies of God's original true and creative Ideas.
God created two innocent and immortal humans and put them into the garden of Eden to live there in bliss forever. Satan entered the garden in the form of a serpent for the express purpose of destroying their innocence and ruining their bliss. Satan seduced Eve to fall into sin with his lies about God's Word, and Eve seduced Adam to sin with both her pathos and her sexual allure. Adam and Eve came to know good and evil because they disobeyed God and ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. They attained the intelligence that is needed to construct both creative and false combinations of God's true Ideas. Eve's disobedience was good in that her innocence was violated by a superior being, but it was evil in that she allowed rebellion against God's Word to become a part of her being. Adam's disobedience was good in that in his compassion for Eve's lost condition, he sacrificed himself in order to become equal with Eve and thus remain her friend; but it was evil in that he selfishly did not want to lose her sexual companionship, and he also allowed rebellion to become a part of his being. In addition, the good parts of their beings could never be enough to overcome the evil parts of their beings, and so they would remain in a hopeless, lost and depraved condition until they died and became separated from God forever. They needed God to come to their rescue.
God came to Adam and Eve's rescue when He prophesied to the serpent that He would give the serpent his chance to destroy Him, but that the serpent would only succeed in injuring the seed of the woman, but the seed of the woman would succeed in destroying the serpent. God made sure that Adam and Eve could overhear His prophecy to the serpent. Both the serpent and Adam and Eve understood this prophecy to mean that God would, at some time in the future, come to earth as a mere man who would defeat the Devil on his own ground. Read Genesis 4:1. The fulfillment of this prophecy would result in the final defeat of Satan's rebellion. From the time of Christ's resurrection, the Devil knew that he has "but a short time." Read Revelation 12:12. God had decided to test His Love and rescue humanity from the Devil's power by meeting the Devil in battle on equal grounds. Could God, as a mere man, endure the worst that evil could throw against Him, or would He succumb to evil? God meant to prove that His Love can never be destroyed even when pain and suffering beyond imagination were inflicted upon Him. God also meant to prove that Love could survive even death, and that those humans who would choose to trust in His sacrifice and resurrection would forever be saved from the power of evil by His Love. God meant to prove the eternal power of Love to triumph and to save.
God then confirmed His prophecy to Adam and Eve when He gave them a sign by killing an animal and clothing them in its skin. God meant for all future humans who trusted in Him to practice this sign by sacrificing animals and shedding their blood. Read Genesis 4:1-5. This sign would continue as a prophecy to humans until the time would come that God Himself would come to earth and shed His own blood, and rise from the dead so that He could wash all believers in His own blood and clothe them in His own righteousness so that they could be saved from evil forever. God meant to prove that His Love never fails to show compassion, never fails to rescue, and can never fail to protect and sanctify forever. "Love never fails." Read I Corinthians 13:8. God meant to prove that even when the most severe test possible were applied to Love, that Love will always prevail over evil.
Friday, December 14, 2012
THE GOOD versus THE EVIL chapter 1
The Perfect
Read: Isaiah 45:7 Psalm 147:5 Revelation 4:6-8 Revelation 4:11 Habakkuk 1:12-13 Psalm 33:6 Genesis 1:6 Hebrews 11:6 Hebrews 4:4
The story of the good versus the evil had a beginning. It began when the Perfect, in His graciousness, decided to give the gift of free will to His greatest creation at that time; Lucifer, the light bearer.
Before the good and the evil began, only the Perfect existed. The Perfect contains the Ideas of absolutely everything that can exist. But the Perfect can only be Perfect if every Idea is absolutely exact and right. Absolutely no error can exist within the Perfect. This can only mean that the Perfect and every Idea within the Perfect must be Infinite.
The philosophers who are called the skeptics have rightly contended that the only test which can prove the absolute truth of anything in the world has to be an infinite test. For example, one can only prove, beyond all doubt, that the shortest distance between two points is always a straight line by comparing every instance of this idea to infinity. Because such a test remains continuously impossible for any finite mind, the skeptics wrongly abandoned any hope of ever finding the absolute truth about anything in the world. The skeptics ignored the argument that no partial truth can exist without an absolute truth from which it was derived.
The Absolute Truth does exist because the Perfect exists. The Perfect perfects Himself by continuously applying the infinite test to His Infinite Set of Ideas. In this way, the Infinite Set of Ideas, which is the same as the Perfect, has caused Himself to be absolute Righteousness and Truth. This means that the Perfect must always be right and cannot be wrong. This is called the Holiness of the Perfect.
There can be no Ideas outside of the Infinite Set of Ideas. This makes Self-Consciousness an Infinite Idea within the Infinite Set of Ideas. All finite creations, including man's self-consciousness, are based on the Infinite Set of Ideas and Infinite Self-Consciousness.
All of this means that outside of Infinite Consciousness only absolute nothingness can nonexist. All that can possibly exist already exists as Ideas within the Infinite. Absolute nothingness contains no ideas, no time and no place. Absolute nothingness nonexists nowhere and at no time. Therefore, there can be no idea of it. The idea of nothing is a real idea in consciousness, and one can use this idea to get an indirect idea of absolute nothingness, but a direct idea of it is impossible even for Infinite Consciousness. This does not mean that absolute nothingness can restrict Infinite Consciousness because it can have no effect on the Infinite whatsoever.
Nothingness exists as an Idea within the Infinite Set of Ideas. The Perfect uses this Idea in many creative ways. One of these ways is that the Perfect uses this Idea to indirectly indicate absolute nothingness. The idea of nothing is real to the finite mind, but nonexistence is never real. Neither Infinite Consciousness nor finite consciousness can ever get a direct idea of absolute nothingness. The closest that the finite mind can come to a direct idea of absolute nothingness is when it is in a coma.
Revelation 4:11 relates that God "created all things." God created all things in heaven and earth as limited material and spiritual sections of His Infinite Ideas. The manner in which DNA creates particular living beings is similar to this manner of creation. In theory, the whole of DNA could be infinite, but particular living organisms are created by snippets copied from sections of DNA strands.
The Perfect certainly created all things, but Isaiah 45:7 relates that God also created "evil." But the Hebrew word for "evil" here means all of the painful effects and emotions that evil will cause. Thus, God had already created "sorrow," "grief," "pain" and "suffering" as the sure results of sin. Just as pain is a sure sign that something is wrong in the body that needs to be corrected, so all forms of suffering are sure signs that wrongful combinations of good things exist called "sin," which also needs to be corrected. This means that all of God's creations serve good and useful purposes. "Sin" itself was not created by the Perfect, but all of the elements of sin such as "pleasure," "excitement" and "pride" were so created. God knows how to use these elements rightly when He puts them into good combinations that produce creative results. Lucifer did not create sin, but he invented sin as wrongful combinations of the Perfect's good elements, and sin is always destructive. For example, when Lucifer combined the good element called "pride," with the good element called "excessive," with the good element called "against," with the idea of the good Being called "God," then he invented that destructive combination called "excessive pride against God," which is the basis for all sin.
Since the Perfect created such good and useful elements as "grief," "sorrow," "remorse" and "pain;" and since all of the Perfect's good creations must be contained within His Infinite Set of Ideas, then the Perfect must have known these Infinite Ideas prior to Lucifer's invention of sin. Yet, these elements could have had no useful purpose prior to the invention of sin because their only useful purpose adheres to the fact that they indicate wrongful combinations that need to be corrected. Since the Perfect, by necessity, must also be Absolute Innocence, then He could have only known perfection; and therefore, He could have known absolutely nothing about sin prior to its invention. Read Habakkuk 1:12-13. Then why did the Perfect know the useful Infinite Ideas that signal sin prior to its invention? The answer lies in the first phrase of Isaiah 45:7 which states: "I form the light, and create darkness...." In order to possess truly Infinite Knowledge, then the Perfect must contain all possible Infinite Ideas. Not only must the Perfect contain all useful elements at the time of the creation of heaven and earth; indicated by, "I form the light....," but He must also contain all of the Infinite contingent elements that will prove to be useful at such a time as they are needed, such as at the time of Lucifer's rebellion. Thus God's statement, "and create darkness....," could relate to the Perfect's ability to hold some of His Infinite Ideas in reserve until they are needed, even though in Innocence He knew nothing about sin.
Since the Perfect has perfected Himself through the Infinity of His Ideas, then the combinations of these elements must also be real, since each element in finite creations constitutes but a small section of those Infinite Ideas used in these combinations. The finite mind of man is one of these creations. Three categories of the universe exist: the informational, the material and the forceful. The material is that which is known to be real through the senses. The forceful is that which is known to be real through movement and energy. The informational is that which is known to be real as ideas in the mind. All ideas abstracted from the material such as the informational idea called "solid" are real. All ideas related to man's relationship to man such as the informational ideas called "justice" and "truth" are just as real as any material object. The idea that relates the mind to the movement of one's own body called "will" is just as real as any material object. All ideas that relate the mind to itself such as "imagination" or "memory" are just as real as any material object. Reality consists of all of the elements of consciousness, material or immaterial, because all these elements are useful in creative ways. When useful elements are combined into destructive combinations, then the elements themselves are real but the combination is false and falsity always indicates a nothingness which is the only unreality.
When God created the world, He saw that everything was "good," which means that everything was useful to some creative degree. When one examines the entire contents of reality, one finds that every element of reality can be useful for some creative purpose. Even "hatred" has a useful purpose in the fight against evil. "Jealousy" can have a useful purpose as that emotion that guards the wellbeing of loved ones. However, some words do not denote irreducible elements of consciousness but true or false combinations. For instance, "cruelty" is not an emotion but is a false combination of real elements such as "hatred," "aggression,"(as an emotion) and "pain." "Sin" is always a false combination. But all the words that indicate false combinations are useful real ideas in-themselves because they always indicate that which is useless and should be usefully discarded or avoided. The word "law," as a general rule, usually indicates a true combination. Another definition of reality would be that its real and irreducible elements can be combined in useful or useless ways. The absolutely true combination is that the contents of consciousness and reality are absolutely identical.
If such be the absolute truth, then the question arises: Where and what is unreality? The mind does encounter unreality from time to time. Since the entire contents of consciousness and reality are the same, the only possible answer to this question is that unreality nonexists nowhere and at no time. Just as the real elements of consciousness can be combined in creative ways, so these same elements can be combined in useless and destructive ways, and all the words that indicate these useless combinations are themselves useful. "Hatred" and "Jealousy" can be combined with other real elements in cruel and evil ways. The chemical elements that can be combined to make explosions can be used in destructive ways such as in war, or can be used in creative ways such as in building roads or mining operations. Whenever real elements are combined in useless or destructive ways, this always indicates a nothingness, but this nothingness is an idea in the mind, and therefore, a real nothingness. An explosion may be used to destroy a house, but then there is no house; a nothingness of which one is aware. The destruction of the house may serve some useful purpose, or it may serve simply a useless and destructive purpose; but in either case, it has been reduced to a nothingness which must be real because one is conscious of it. We always say that illusions, such as ghosts, are really nothing, but when we think about it, we realize that all of the elements of a ghost, such as "wispy" or "grey" are always real informational ideas in our minds including the real idea that the ghost is nothing. So where and what is unreality? False combinations always comprise real elements, but the real idea of nothing always indirectly indicates a useless and absolute nothingness that nonexists nowhere and at no time.
Since unreality nonexists nowhere and at no time, it must lie outside of God's Infinite Set of Ideas. Both God's Infinite Consciousness and man's finite consciousness can only be indirectly aware of the nonexistence of absolute nothingess by the use of the idea of nothing which indirectly indicates its nonexistence.
All of this means that something can never come from nothing. Something can only come from something, and nothing can only come from nothing. Nowhere does the Bible teach that God created something from nothing. God's Infinite Consciousness is required for an eternal separation of something from nothing. Without God's Infinite Consciousness, absolute nothingness would swallow up both something and nothing so that they could never be separated, and would forever equal each other, and therefore, nonexist.
Psalm 33:6 teaches that God created the heavens "by the Word of the Lord." The word "heavens" is plural which indicates His creation of both heaven and the material universe. In Genesis 1:3 and subsequent verses, the Bible teaches that God created the earth and life by His spoken Word. Some scientists maintain that they have discovered that material substance consists of highly concentrated sound waves. Psalm 33:6 also relates that God created the universe "by the breath of His mouth." In Hebrew, the word "breath" means "a blast of wind" but it also means "mind." The universe exists in three categories: information, force and material. Thus, the word "breath" denotes both the force and materiality of God's spoken Word as well as His intellect which contains the information by which He formed all of the separate objects of the universe and the life within it. All of this indicates that God did not create the universe from nothing. Reality must always be a something including the useful idea of nothing because all ideas are something. One of the uses of the idea of nothing is that it indirectly indicates a useless nothingness that nonexists outside of God's Being and all of His creations.
Reality requires consciousness and information. Without them, reality can not exist. If there had been no Infinite Consciousness prior to finite consciousness, then the information vital to the existence of the universe could not exist and neither could the universe. Without Infinite Consciousness, there also could have been no separation of something from nothing and the universe would nonexist.
Nothing produces only nothing. Consciousness produces reality by separating something from nothing. That is the very purpose of consciousness. The real idea of nothing indirectly indicates to consciousness an absolute nothingness. This means that all of the "somethings" thus separated from "nothing" by the power of consciousness must be real, including the idea of nothing. The idea of nothing itself is a useful something separated from absolute nothingness by consciousness. This also means that consciousness can never objectify any something forever hidden by nothing. For example, no astronomer can ever know whether or not a galaxy lies hidden by a dark spot upon which he has focused his telescope because its light has not reached his eye. To him, the dark spot only indicates the idea of nothing which may, or may not, hide a galaxy. If he never sees the galaxy which lies behind the idea of nothing, then it will forever be to him an absolute nothingness because his consciousness has never separated it from nothing.
All that appears to consciousness must be real. False combinations trick the mind into thinking it is experiencing something unreal. Actually, the elements of all false combinations are real. Falsity lies only in the uncreative combinations themselves. Falsity always equals a nothing that indirectly indicates nonexistence.
This means that consciousness of consciousness that appears as an idea to the mind must be a creative combination of real elements because it cannot be a false theory that produces nothing. Consciousness of consciousness does produce a good result which is an intelligent consciousness which stores information.
This also means that consciousness cannot be solely the product of brain activity since brain activity itself constitutes a true combination which is one of the informational contents of consciousness. This fact makes brain activity an object of consciousness which means that consciousness must be a real element on its own separate from brain activity. Consciousness also works to produce a consciousness of itself as well as brain activity. If consciousness can only be conscious of the real, then self-consciousness can only be a true combination separate from brain activity. Apparently, brain activity is simply a true combination by which consciousness makes itself aware of the material world through the senses.
If consciousness can only know nothing of whatever it is not conscious, and consciousness of all elements makes them real; then consciousness of consciousness must indicate another consciousness, and that still another, and so forth toward infinity. Finite consciousness simply lacks the power to carry this process to infinity. But this possible connection of consciousness to infinity must be real because self-consciousness is a true combination that produces a real result; that is, intelligence. This possible connection of finite consciousness to infinity could be that which the Bible calls the "spirit" of man which survives bodily death.
All of this raises the next question: Is infinity real? If infinity is real, then an Infinite Self- Consciousness must also be real since the infinite must contain all possibilities. Otherwise, there could be no infinity.
If infinity is real, it could be a real result of the true combination of real elements called "not" "finite." If infinity is not real, then it must be a false combination of real elements called "not" "finite." But if infinity is a false idea, it can only be equal to nothing. This means that finite consciousness could never get an idea of infinity because the false combination could never indicate to consciousness any other idea than the idea of nothing. However, the idea of infinity could be the result of a false theory about reality called "not" "finite," which consciousness has not yet discovered to be equal to nothing. If science could devise a test that would prove whether or not the combination called "not" "finite" produces a real infinity or a falsity equal to nothing, then this problem would be solved. But such a test may not be needed if one considers the fact that even false theories almost always possess logical possibilities. For example, the false conclusion that there has to be a medium in space called "aether" was a logical possibility. But when false combinations contain no logical possibilities, we usually immediately recognize them as false and equal to nothing without the need for a test. For example, we immediately recognize all mistakes in arithmetic to be false and equal to nothing because they are completely illogical. There seems to be no logical connection within the combination called "not" "finite" that would indicate a leap to the idea of infinity. Then why do we not immediately recognize the idea of infinity to be equal to nothing? Despite this, we possess the idea of the infinite as a real idea. How could a finite mind ever make a seemingly impossible leap from the finite to the infinite, especially as an illogical result of a finite combination called "not" "finite" which would logically only indicate the idea of nothing? After all, the logical conclusion of the combination called "not" "finite" can only be that the "finite" has been temporarily considered to be hidden in the idea of "nothing," leaving only nothing remaining. There can be no logical connection to the infinite in that. The truth can only be that we cannot, and do not, get the idea of the infinite from any finite combination. The truth is that we could have no idea of the infinite except as a real idea given to us from the Infinite Himself. Just as Descartes taught us that we can have no idea of the absolutely perfect without the aid of the Absolute Perfect, so we can have no idea of the infinite without the aid of the Infinite Consciousness.
Some Christian philosophers criticize those philosophers who offer any proofs of God's existence on the grounds that such proofs amount to an insult to God. They rightly maintain that God requires faith in His existence and not proofs. God has deliberately instilled a balance in history whereby His existence can neither be proved nor disproved. Man has never been able to overcome this balance. Sometimes, this balance tips in favor of faith, and sometimes in favor of unbelief. But always, this balance guarantees the free will of man. God is using history and the free will of man to test His Love. Free will requires a history in order to operate properly. God intends to prove that Love is the most valuable and powerful force in the universe. God knows that this test can only succeed if an intelligent creature freely chooses to love and believe in Him. Thus, God must maintain the balance.
As long as the forces of evil and rebellion remain in God's universe, then the value and power of God's Love remains in doubt. Not that God would ever doubt the power of His own Love, but that "doubt," as an Infinite Idea must be applied, as with "grief" and "pain," to false combinations as a negative effect of such combinations. These negative effects make the balance, and free will, and the test of God's Love necessary. God cannot simply annul evil without the test because "doubt" of His Love could cause evil to return in the future with even more power. After all, evil is a mystery even to God. God must test His Love even with all of the "horror" and "pain" that must attend this test, in order to remove all doubt about His Love so that He could, by His final judgment, purge all evil from His universe forever. God Himself endured all of the "horror" and "pain" that evil can inflict when He died on the cross in the place of sinners so that He can cleanse with His shed blood all who will believe in His sacrifice. God Himself passed the test of His great Love. All who believe in His sacrifice will participate in God's victory forever.
The proofs of God's existence contained in this philosophy are not meant to prove the actual existence of God. God's balance in history does not allow such proofs. God requires faith which comes from free will. However, God is not insulted by such proofs. God is longsuffering and understanding. God knows that the reasoning power that He has given man will naturally lead man to all sorts of speculation. Natural speculation seldom results in sin. The purpose of these proofs is that they may cause some atheists and materialists to think a little harder about God's existence and maybe start reading His Word. The Holy Spirit is likely to cause those who read His Word to come under conviction of their sins and discover in that conviction that they have a choice to accept or to reject Christ as their Savior. This philosophy is meant to be a witness to the most stubborn of unbelievers.
Read: Isaiah 45:7 Psalm 147:5 Revelation 4:6-8 Revelation 4:11 Habakkuk 1:12-13 Psalm 33:6 Genesis 1:6 Hebrews 11:6 Hebrews 4:4
The story of the good versus the evil had a beginning. It began when the Perfect, in His graciousness, decided to give the gift of free will to His greatest creation at that time; Lucifer, the light bearer.
Before the good and the evil began, only the Perfect existed. The Perfect contains the Ideas of absolutely everything that can exist. But the Perfect can only be Perfect if every Idea is absolutely exact and right. Absolutely no error can exist within the Perfect. This can only mean that the Perfect and every Idea within the Perfect must be Infinite.
The philosophers who are called the skeptics have rightly contended that the only test which can prove the absolute truth of anything in the world has to be an infinite test. For example, one can only prove, beyond all doubt, that the shortest distance between two points is always a straight line by comparing every instance of this idea to infinity. Because such a test remains continuously impossible for any finite mind, the skeptics wrongly abandoned any hope of ever finding the absolute truth about anything in the world. The skeptics ignored the argument that no partial truth can exist without an absolute truth from which it was derived.
The Absolute Truth does exist because the Perfect exists. The Perfect perfects Himself by continuously applying the infinite test to His Infinite Set of Ideas. In this way, the Infinite Set of Ideas, which is the same as the Perfect, has caused Himself to be absolute Righteousness and Truth. This means that the Perfect must always be right and cannot be wrong. This is called the Holiness of the Perfect.
There can be no Ideas outside of the Infinite Set of Ideas. This makes Self-Consciousness an Infinite Idea within the Infinite Set of Ideas. All finite creations, including man's self-consciousness, are based on the Infinite Set of Ideas and Infinite Self-Consciousness.
All of this means that outside of Infinite Consciousness only absolute nothingness can nonexist. All that can possibly exist already exists as Ideas within the Infinite. Absolute nothingness contains no ideas, no time and no place. Absolute nothingness nonexists nowhere and at no time. Therefore, there can be no idea of it. The idea of nothing is a real idea in consciousness, and one can use this idea to get an indirect idea of absolute nothingness, but a direct idea of it is impossible even for Infinite Consciousness. This does not mean that absolute nothingness can restrict Infinite Consciousness because it can have no effect on the Infinite whatsoever.
Nothingness exists as an Idea within the Infinite Set of Ideas. The Perfect uses this Idea in many creative ways. One of these ways is that the Perfect uses this Idea to indirectly indicate absolute nothingness. The idea of nothing is real to the finite mind, but nonexistence is never real. Neither Infinite Consciousness nor finite consciousness can ever get a direct idea of absolute nothingness. The closest that the finite mind can come to a direct idea of absolute nothingness is when it is in a coma.
Revelation 4:11 relates that God "created all things." God created all things in heaven and earth as limited material and spiritual sections of His Infinite Ideas. The manner in which DNA creates particular living beings is similar to this manner of creation. In theory, the whole of DNA could be infinite, but particular living organisms are created by snippets copied from sections of DNA strands.
The Perfect certainly created all things, but Isaiah 45:7 relates that God also created "evil." But the Hebrew word for "evil" here means all of the painful effects and emotions that evil will cause. Thus, God had already created "sorrow," "grief," "pain" and "suffering" as the sure results of sin. Just as pain is a sure sign that something is wrong in the body that needs to be corrected, so all forms of suffering are sure signs that wrongful combinations of good things exist called "sin," which also needs to be corrected. This means that all of God's creations serve good and useful purposes. "Sin" itself was not created by the Perfect, but all of the elements of sin such as "pleasure," "excitement" and "pride" were so created. God knows how to use these elements rightly when He puts them into good combinations that produce creative results. Lucifer did not create sin, but he invented sin as wrongful combinations of the Perfect's good elements, and sin is always destructive. For example, when Lucifer combined the good element called "pride," with the good element called "excessive," with the good element called "against," with the idea of the good Being called "God," then he invented that destructive combination called "excessive pride against God," which is the basis for all sin.
Since the Perfect created such good and useful elements as "grief," "sorrow," "remorse" and "pain;" and since all of the Perfect's good creations must be contained within His Infinite Set of Ideas, then the Perfect must have known these Infinite Ideas prior to Lucifer's invention of sin. Yet, these elements could have had no useful purpose prior to the invention of sin because their only useful purpose adheres to the fact that they indicate wrongful combinations that need to be corrected. Since the Perfect, by necessity, must also be Absolute Innocence, then He could have only known perfection; and therefore, He could have known absolutely nothing about sin prior to its invention. Read Habakkuk 1:12-13. Then why did the Perfect know the useful Infinite Ideas that signal sin prior to its invention? The answer lies in the first phrase of Isaiah 45:7 which states: "I form the light, and create darkness...." In order to possess truly Infinite Knowledge, then the Perfect must contain all possible Infinite Ideas. Not only must the Perfect contain all useful elements at the time of the creation of heaven and earth; indicated by, "I form the light....," but He must also contain all of the Infinite contingent elements that will prove to be useful at such a time as they are needed, such as at the time of Lucifer's rebellion. Thus God's statement, "and create darkness....," could relate to the Perfect's ability to hold some of His Infinite Ideas in reserve until they are needed, even though in Innocence He knew nothing about sin.
Since the Perfect has perfected Himself through the Infinity of His Ideas, then the combinations of these elements must also be real, since each element in finite creations constitutes but a small section of those Infinite Ideas used in these combinations. The finite mind of man is one of these creations. Three categories of the universe exist: the informational, the material and the forceful. The material is that which is known to be real through the senses. The forceful is that which is known to be real through movement and energy. The informational is that which is known to be real as ideas in the mind. All ideas abstracted from the material such as the informational idea called "solid" are real. All ideas related to man's relationship to man such as the informational ideas called "justice" and "truth" are just as real as any material object. The idea that relates the mind to the movement of one's own body called "will" is just as real as any material object. All ideas that relate the mind to itself such as "imagination" or "memory" are just as real as any material object. Reality consists of all of the elements of consciousness, material or immaterial, because all these elements are useful in creative ways. When useful elements are combined into destructive combinations, then the elements themselves are real but the combination is false and falsity always indicates a nothingness which is the only unreality.
When God created the world, He saw that everything was "good," which means that everything was useful to some creative degree. When one examines the entire contents of reality, one finds that every element of reality can be useful for some creative purpose. Even "hatred" has a useful purpose in the fight against evil. "Jealousy" can have a useful purpose as that emotion that guards the wellbeing of loved ones. However, some words do not denote irreducible elements of consciousness but true or false combinations. For instance, "cruelty" is not an emotion but is a false combination of real elements such as "hatred," "aggression,"(as an emotion) and "pain." "Sin" is always a false combination. But all the words that indicate false combinations are useful real ideas in-themselves because they always indicate that which is useless and should be usefully discarded or avoided. The word "law," as a general rule, usually indicates a true combination. Another definition of reality would be that its real and irreducible elements can be combined in useful or useless ways. The absolutely true combination is that the contents of consciousness and reality are absolutely identical.
If such be the absolute truth, then the question arises: Where and what is unreality? The mind does encounter unreality from time to time. Since the entire contents of consciousness and reality are the same, the only possible answer to this question is that unreality nonexists nowhere and at no time. Just as the real elements of consciousness can be combined in creative ways, so these same elements can be combined in useless and destructive ways, and all the words that indicate these useless combinations are themselves useful. "Hatred" and "Jealousy" can be combined with other real elements in cruel and evil ways. The chemical elements that can be combined to make explosions can be used in destructive ways such as in war, or can be used in creative ways such as in building roads or mining operations. Whenever real elements are combined in useless or destructive ways, this always indicates a nothingness, but this nothingness is an idea in the mind, and therefore, a real nothingness. An explosion may be used to destroy a house, but then there is no house; a nothingness of which one is aware. The destruction of the house may serve some useful purpose, or it may serve simply a useless and destructive purpose; but in either case, it has been reduced to a nothingness which must be real because one is conscious of it. We always say that illusions, such as ghosts, are really nothing, but when we think about it, we realize that all of the elements of a ghost, such as "wispy" or "grey" are always real informational ideas in our minds including the real idea that the ghost is nothing. So where and what is unreality? False combinations always comprise real elements, but the real idea of nothing always indirectly indicates a useless and absolute nothingness that nonexists nowhere and at no time.
Since unreality nonexists nowhere and at no time, it must lie outside of God's Infinite Set of Ideas. Both God's Infinite Consciousness and man's finite consciousness can only be indirectly aware of the nonexistence of absolute nothingess by the use of the idea of nothing which indirectly indicates its nonexistence.
All of this means that something can never come from nothing. Something can only come from something, and nothing can only come from nothing. Nowhere does the Bible teach that God created something from nothing. God's Infinite Consciousness is required for an eternal separation of something from nothing. Without God's Infinite Consciousness, absolute nothingness would swallow up both something and nothing so that they could never be separated, and would forever equal each other, and therefore, nonexist.
Psalm 33:6 teaches that God created the heavens "by the Word of the Lord." The word "heavens" is plural which indicates His creation of both heaven and the material universe. In Genesis 1:3 and subsequent verses, the Bible teaches that God created the earth and life by His spoken Word. Some scientists maintain that they have discovered that material substance consists of highly concentrated sound waves. Psalm 33:6 also relates that God created the universe "by the breath of His mouth." In Hebrew, the word "breath" means "a blast of wind" but it also means "mind." The universe exists in three categories: information, force and material. Thus, the word "breath" denotes both the force and materiality of God's spoken Word as well as His intellect which contains the information by which He formed all of the separate objects of the universe and the life within it. All of this indicates that God did not create the universe from nothing. Reality must always be a something including the useful idea of nothing because all ideas are something. One of the uses of the idea of nothing is that it indirectly indicates a useless nothingness that nonexists outside of God's Being and all of His creations.
Reality requires consciousness and information. Without them, reality can not exist. If there had been no Infinite Consciousness prior to finite consciousness, then the information vital to the existence of the universe could not exist and neither could the universe. Without Infinite Consciousness, there also could have been no separation of something from nothing and the universe would nonexist.
Nothing produces only nothing. Consciousness produces reality by separating something from nothing. That is the very purpose of consciousness. The real idea of nothing indirectly indicates to consciousness an absolute nothingness. This means that all of the "somethings" thus separated from "nothing" by the power of consciousness must be real, including the idea of nothing. The idea of nothing itself is a useful something separated from absolute nothingness by consciousness. This also means that consciousness can never objectify any something forever hidden by nothing. For example, no astronomer can ever know whether or not a galaxy lies hidden by a dark spot upon which he has focused his telescope because its light has not reached his eye. To him, the dark spot only indicates the idea of nothing which may, or may not, hide a galaxy. If he never sees the galaxy which lies behind the idea of nothing, then it will forever be to him an absolute nothingness because his consciousness has never separated it from nothing.
All that appears to consciousness must be real. False combinations trick the mind into thinking it is experiencing something unreal. Actually, the elements of all false combinations are real. Falsity lies only in the uncreative combinations themselves. Falsity always equals a nothing that indirectly indicates nonexistence.
This means that consciousness of consciousness that appears as an idea to the mind must be a creative combination of real elements because it cannot be a false theory that produces nothing. Consciousness of consciousness does produce a good result which is an intelligent consciousness which stores information.
This also means that consciousness cannot be solely the product of brain activity since brain activity itself constitutes a true combination which is one of the informational contents of consciousness. This fact makes brain activity an object of consciousness which means that consciousness must be a real element on its own separate from brain activity. Consciousness also works to produce a consciousness of itself as well as brain activity. If consciousness can only be conscious of the real, then self-consciousness can only be a true combination separate from brain activity. Apparently, brain activity is simply a true combination by which consciousness makes itself aware of the material world through the senses.
If consciousness can only know nothing of whatever it is not conscious, and consciousness of all elements makes them real; then consciousness of consciousness must indicate another consciousness, and that still another, and so forth toward infinity. Finite consciousness simply lacks the power to carry this process to infinity. But this possible connection of consciousness to infinity must be real because self-consciousness is a true combination that produces a real result; that is, intelligence. This possible connection of finite consciousness to infinity could be that which the Bible calls the "spirit" of man which survives bodily death.
All of this raises the next question: Is infinity real? If infinity is real, then an Infinite Self- Consciousness must also be real since the infinite must contain all possibilities. Otherwise, there could be no infinity.
If infinity is real, it could be a real result of the true combination of real elements called "not" "finite." If infinity is not real, then it must be a false combination of real elements called "not" "finite." But if infinity is a false idea, it can only be equal to nothing. This means that finite consciousness could never get an idea of infinity because the false combination could never indicate to consciousness any other idea than the idea of nothing. However, the idea of infinity could be the result of a false theory about reality called "not" "finite," which consciousness has not yet discovered to be equal to nothing. If science could devise a test that would prove whether or not the combination called "not" "finite" produces a real infinity or a falsity equal to nothing, then this problem would be solved. But such a test may not be needed if one considers the fact that even false theories almost always possess logical possibilities. For example, the false conclusion that there has to be a medium in space called "aether" was a logical possibility. But when false combinations contain no logical possibilities, we usually immediately recognize them as false and equal to nothing without the need for a test. For example, we immediately recognize all mistakes in arithmetic to be false and equal to nothing because they are completely illogical. There seems to be no logical connection within the combination called "not" "finite" that would indicate a leap to the idea of infinity. Then why do we not immediately recognize the idea of infinity to be equal to nothing? Despite this, we possess the idea of the infinite as a real idea. How could a finite mind ever make a seemingly impossible leap from the finite to the infinite, especially as an illogical result of a finite combination called "not" "finite" which would logically only indicate the idea of nothing? After all, the logical conclusion of the combination called "not" "finite" can only be that the "finite" has been temporarily considered to be hidden in the idea of "nothing," leaving only nothing remaining. There can be no logical connection to the infinite in that. The truth can only be that we cannot, and do not, get the idea of the infinite from any finite combination. The truth is that we could have no idea of the infinite except as a real idea given to us from the Infinite Himself. Just as Descartes taught us that we can have no idea of the absolutely perfect without the aid of the Absolute Perfect, so we can have no idea of the infinite without the aid of the Infinite Consciousness.
Some Christian philosophers criticize those philosophers who offer any proofs of God's existence on the grounds that such proofs amount to an insult to God. They rightly maintain that God requires faith in His existence and not proofs. God has deliberately instilled a balance in history whereby His existence can neither be proved nor disproved. Man has never been able to overcome this balance. Sometimes, this balance tips in favor of faith, and sometimes in favor of unbelief. But always, this balance guarantees the free will of man. God is using history and the free will of man to test His Love. Free will requires a history in order to operate properly. God intends to prove that Love is the most valuable and powerful force in the universe. God knows that this test can only succeed if an intelligent creature freely chooses to love and believe in Him. Thus, God must maintain the balance.
As long as the forces of evil and rebellion remain in God's universe, then the value and power of God's Love remains in doubt. Not that God would ever doubt the power of His own Love, but that "doubt," as an Infinite Idea must be applied, as with "grief" and "pain," to false combinations as a negative effect of such combinations. These negative effects make the balance, and free will, and the test of God's Love necessary. God cannot simply annul evil without the test because "doubt" of His Love could cause evil to return in the future with even more power. After all, evil is a mystery even to God. God must test His Love even with all of the "horror" and "pain" that must attend this test, in order to remove all doubt about His Love so that He could, by His final judgment, purge all evil from His universe forever. God Himself endured all of the "horror" and "pain" that evil can inflict when He died on the cross in the place of sinners so that He can cleanse with His shed blood all who will believe in His sacrifice. God Himself passed the test of His great Love. All who believe in His sacrifice will participate in God's victory forever.
The proofs of God's existence contained in this philosophy are not meant to prove the actual existence of God. God's balance in history does not allow such proofs. God requires faith which comes from free will. However, God is not insulted by such proofs. God is longsuffering and understanding. God knows that the reasoning power that He has given man will naturally lead man to all sorts of speculation. Natural speculation seldom results in sin. The purpose of these proofs is that they may cause some atheists and materialists to think a little harder about God's existence and maybe start reading His Word. The Holy Spirit is likely to cause those who read His Word to come under conviction of their sins and discover in that conviction that they have a choice to accept or to reject Christ as their Savior. This philosophy is meant to be a witness to the most stubborn of unbelievers.
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