Falling Stars, Damnable Heresy, and the Spirit of Evolution

“Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son” (1 John 2:22).

“And the fifth angel sounded the trumpet, and I saw a star fall from heaven upon the earth, and there was given to him the key of the bottomless pit." (Rev. 9:1)

In his Concise Commentary Matthew Henry identifies falling stars as tepid, indecisive, weak or apostate clergy who,

"Having ceased to be a minister of Christ, he who is represented by this star becomes the minister of the devil; and lets loose the powers of hell against the churches of Christ."

John identifies antichrists, in this case clergy who serve the devil rather than Christ, sequentially. First, like Bultmann, Teilhard de Chardin, Robert Funk, Paul Tillich, and John Shelby Spong, they specifically deny the living, personal Holy Trinity in favor of Gnostic pagan, immanent or Eastern pantheist conceptions. Though God the Father Almighty in three Persons upholds the souls of men and maintains life and creation, His substance is not within nature (space-time dimension) as pantheism maintains, but outside of it. Sinful men live within nature and are burdened by time and mortality; God is not.

Second, the specific denial of the Father logically negates Jesus the Christ, the Word who was in the beginning (John 1), was with God, and is God from the creation of all things (1 John 1). In a pre-incarnate theophany, Jesus is the Angel who spoke “mouth to mouth” to Moses (Num. 12:6-9; John 9:20) and at sundry times and in many ways “spoke in times past to the fathers by the prophets, last of all…” (Hebrews 1:1) Jesus the Christ is the incarnate Son of God who is the life and light of men, who by His shed blood on the Cross died for the remission of all sins and bestowed the privilege of adoption on all who put their faith in Him.

Therefore, to deny the Holy Father is to logically deny the deity of Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of God, hence,

“…every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist . . . and even now already is it in the world” (1 John 4:3).

According to Peter (2 Peter 2:1), falling stars will work among the faithful, teaching damnable heresies that deny the Lord, cause the fall of men into unbelief, and bring destruction upon themselves:

“The natural parents of modern unbelief turn out to have been the guardians of belief.” Many thinking people came at last “to realize that it was religion, not science or social change that gave birth to unbelief. Having made God more and more like man---intellectually, morally, emotionally---the shapers of religion made it feasible to abandon God, to believe simply in man.” (James Turner of the University of Michigan in “American Babylon,” Richard John Neuhaus, p. 95)

Almost thirty years ago, two well-respected social science scholars, William Sims Bainbridge and Rodney Stark found themselves alarmed by what they saw as a rising tide of irrationalism, superstition and occultism---channeling cults, spirit familiars, necromancers, Wiccans, Satanists, Luciferians, goddess worshippers, 'gay' shamans, Hermetic magicians and other occult madness at every level of society, particularly within the most influential--- Hollywood, academia and the highest corridors of political power.

Like many scientists, they were equally concerned by Christian opposition to naturalistic evolution. As is common in the science community, they assumed the cause of these social pathologies was somehow due to fundamentalism, their term for authentic Christian theism as opposed to liberalized Christianity. Yet to their credit, the research they undertook to discover the cause was conducted both scientifically and with great integrity. What they found was so startling it caused them to re-evaluate their attitude toward authentic Christian theism. Their findings led them to say:

"It would be a mistake to conclude that fundamentalists oppose all science (when in reality they but oppose) a single theory (that) directly contradicts the bible. But it would be an equally great mistake to conclude that religious liberals and the irreligious possess superior minds of great rationality, to see them as modern personalities who have no need of the supernatural or any propensity to believe unscientific superstitions. On the contrary...they are much more likely to accept the new superstitions. It is the fundamentalists who appear most virtuous according to scientific standards when we examine the cults and pseudo-sciences proliferating in our society today." ("Superstitions, Old and New," The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. IV, No. 4; summer, 1980)

In more detail they observed that authentic ‘born again’ Christians are far less likely to accept cults and pseudoscientific beliefs while the irreligious and liberalized Christians (i.e., progressive Catholics, Protestant emergent, NAR, word faith, prosperity gospel) are open to unscientific notions. In fact, these two groups are most disposed toward occultism.

As Bainbridge and Stark admitted, evolution directly contradicts the Bible, beginning with the Genesis account of creation ex nihilo. This means that evolution is the antithesis of the Genesis account. For this reason, discerning Christians refuse to submit to the evolutionary thinking that has swept Western and American society. Nor do they accept the evolutionary theism brought into the whole body of the Church by weak, tepid, indecisive, or apostate clergy.

Over eighty years ago, Rev. C. Leopold Clarke wrote that priests who embrace evolution (evolutionary theists) are apostates from the ‘Truth as it is in Jesus.’ (1 John2:2) Rev. Clarke, a lecturer at a London Bible college, discerned that evolution is the antithesis to the Revelation of God in the Deity of Jesus Christ, thus it is the greatest and most active agent of moral and spiritual disintegration:

“It is a battering-ram of unbelief---a sapping and mining operation that intends to blow Religion sky-high. The one thing which the human mind demands in its conception of God, is that, being Almighty, He works sovereignly and miraculously---and this is the thing with which Evolution dispenses….Already a tremendous effect, on a wide scale has been produced by the impact of this teaching---an effect which can only be likened to the…collapse of foundations…” (Evolution and the Break-Up of Christendom, Philip Bell, creation.com, Nov. 27, 2012)

The faith of the Christian Church and of the average Christian has had, and still has, its foundation as much in the literal and historic meaning of Genesis, the book of beginnings revealed ‘mouth to mouth’ by the Angel to Moses, as in that of the person and deity of Jesus Christ. But how horrible a travesty of the sacred office of the Christian Ministry to see church leaders more eager to be abreast of the times, than earnestly contending for the Faith once delivered unto the saints (Jude 1:3). It is high time, said Rev. Clarke, that the Church,

“…. separated herself from the humiliating entanglement attending her desire to be thought up to date…What, after all, have custodians of Divine Revelation to do making terms with speculative Biology, which has….no message of comfort or help to the soul?” (ibid)

The primary tactic employed by priests eager to accommodate themselves and the Church to modern science and evolutionary thinking is predictable. It is the argument that evolution is entirely compatible with the Bible when we see Genesis, especially the first three chapters, in a non-literal, non-historical context. This is the argument embraced and advanced by mega-church pastor Timothy J. Keller.

With a position paper Keller published with the theistic evolutionary organization Bio Logos he joined the ranks of falling stars (Catholic and Protestant priests) stretching back to the Renaissance. Their slippery-slide into apostasy began when they gave into the temptation to embrace a non-literal, non-historical view of Genesis. (A response to Timothy Keller’s ‘Creation, Evolution and Christian Laypeople,” Lita Cosner, Sept. 9, 2010, creation.com)

This is not a heresy unique to modern times. The early Church Fathers dealt with this damnable heresy as well, counting it among the heretical tendencies of the Origenists. Fourth-century Fathers such as John Chrysostom, Basil the Great and Ephraim the Syrian, all of whom wrote commentaries on Genesis, specifically warned against treating Genesis as an unhistorical myth or allegory. John Chrysostom strongly warned against paying heed to these heretics,

“…let us stop up our hearing against them, and let us believe the Divine Scripture, and following what is written in it, let us strive to preserve in our souls sound dogmas.” (Genesis, Creation, and Early Man, Fr. Seraphim Rose, p. 31)

As St. Cyril of Alexandria wrote, higher theological, spiritual meaning is founded upon humble, simple faith in the literal and historic meaning of Genesis and one cannot apprehend rightly the Scriptures without believing in the historical reality of the events and people they describe. (ibid, Seraphim Rose, p. 40)

In the integral worldview teachings of the Fathers, neither the literal nor historical meaning of the Revelations of the pre-incarnate Jesus, the Angel who spoke to Moses, can be regarded as expendable. There are at least four critically important reasons why. First, to reduce the Revelation of God to allegory and myth is to contradict and usurp the authority of God, ultimately deny the deity of Jesus Christ; twist, distort, add to and subtract from the entire Bible and finally, to imperil the salvation of believers.

Scenarios commonly proposed by modern Origenists posit a cleverly disguised pantheist/immanent nature deity subject to the space-time dimension and forces of evolution. But as noted previously, it is sinful man who carries the burden of time, not God. This is a crucial point, for when evolutionary theists add millions and billions of zeros (time) to God they have transferred their own limitations onto Him. They have ‘limited’ God and made Him over in their own image. This is not only idolatrous but satanic.

Additionally, evolution inverts creation. In place of God’s good creation from which men fell there is an evolutionary escalator starting at the bottom with matter, then progressing upward toward life, then up and through the life and death of millions of evolved creatures that preceded humans by millions of years until at long last an apish humanoid emerges into which a deity that is always in a state of becoming (evolving) places a soul.

Evolution amputates the entire historical precedent from the Gospel and makes Jesus Christ unnecessary as the atheist Frank Zindler enthusiastically points out:

“The most devastating thing that biology did to Christianity was the discovery of biological evolution. Now that we know that Adam and Eve never were real people the central myth of Christianity is destroyed. If there never was an Adam and Eve, there never was an original sin. If there never was an original sin there is no need of salvation. If there is no need of salvation there is no need of a saviour. And I submit that puts Jesus…into the ranks of the unemployed. I think evolution absolutely is the death knell of Christianity.” (“Atheism vs. Christianity,” 1996, Lita Cosner, creation.com, June 13, 2013)

None of this was lost on Darwin’s bulldog, Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-1985). Huxley was thoroughly familiar with the Bible, thus he understood that if Genesis is not the authoritative Word of God, is not historical and literal despite its’ symbolic and poetic elements, then the entirety of Scripture becomes a collection of fairytales resulting in tragic downward spiraling consequences as the Catholic Kolbe Center for the Study of Creation makes clear in part:

“By denying the historical truth of the first chapters of Genesis, theistic evolutionism has fostered a preoccupation with natural causes almost to the exclusion of supernatural ones. By denying the several supernatural creative acts of God in Genesis, and by downplaying the importance of the supernatural activity of Satan, theistic evolutionists slip into a naturalistic mentality which seeks to explain everything in terms of natural causes. Once this mentality takes hold, it is easy for men to regard the concept of spiritual warfare as a holdover from the days of primitive superstition. Diabolical activity is reduced to material or psychological causes. The devil and his demons come to be seen as irrelevant. Soon ‘hell’ joins the devil and his demons in the category of antiquated concepts. And the theistic evolutionist easily makes the fatal mistake of thinking that he has nothing more to fear from the devil and his angels. According to Fr. Gabriele Amorth, the chief exorcist of Rome, there is a tremendous increase in diabolical activity and influence in the formerly Christian world. And yet most of the bishops of Europe no longer believe in the existence of evil spirits….To the Fathers of the Church who believed in the truth of Genesis, this would be incredible. But in view of the almost universal acceptance of theistic evolution, it is hardly surprising.” (The Difference it makes: The Importance of the Traditional Doctrine of Creation, Hugh Owen, kolbecenter.org)

Huxley had ‘zero’ respect for modern Origenists and received enormous pleasure from heaping piles of hot coals and burning contempt upon them, thereby exposing their shallow-reasoning, hypocrisy, timidity, fear of non-acceptance, and unfaithfulness. With sarcasm dripping from his words he quipped,

“I am fairly at a loss to comprehend how any one, for a moment, can doubt that Christian theology must stand or fall with the historical trustworthiness of the Jewish Scriptures. The very conception of the Messiah, or Christ, is inextricably interwoven with Jewish history; the identification of Jesus of Nazareth with that Messiah rests upon the interpretation of passages of the Hebrew Scriptures which have no evidential value unless they possess the historical character assigned to them. If the covenant with Abraham was not made; if circumcision and sacrifices were not ordained by Jahveh; if the “ten words” were not written by God’s hand on the stone tables; if Abraham is more or less a mythical hero, such as Theseus; the story of the Deluge a fiction; that of the Fall a legend; and that of the creation the dream of a seer; if all these definite and detailed narratives of apparently real events have no more value as history than have the stories of the regal period of Rome—what is to be said about the Messianic doctrine, which is so much less clearly enunciated? And what about the authority of the writers of the books of the New Testament, who, on this theory, have not merely accepted flimsy fictions for solid truths, but have built the very foundations of Christian dogma upon legendary quicksands?” (Darwin’s Bulldog---Thomas Huxley, Russell Grigg, creation.com, Oct. 14, 2008)

“When Jesus spoke, as of a matter of fact, that "the Flood came and destroyed them all," did he believe that the Deluge really took place, or not? It seems to me that, as the narrative mentions Noah’s wife, and his sons’ wives, there is good scriptural warranty for the statement that the antediluvians married and were given in marriage; and I should have thought that their eating and drinking might be assumed by the firmest believer in the literal truth of the story. Moreover, I venture to ask what sort of value, as an illustration of God’s methods of dealing with sin, has an account of an event that never happened? If no Flood swept the careless people away, how is the warning of more worth than the cry of “Wolf” when there is no wolf? If Jonah’s three days’ residence in the whale is not an “admitted reality,” how could it “warrant belief” in the “coming resurrection?” … Suppose that a Conservative orator warns his hearers to beware of great political and social changes, lest they end, as in France, in the domination of a Robespierre; what becomes, not only of his argument, but of his veracity, if he, personally, does not believe that Robespierre existed and did the deeds attributed to him?” (ibid)

“If divine authority is not here claimed for the twenty-fourth verse of the second chapter of Genesis, what is the value of language? And again, I ask, if one may play fast and loose with the story of the Fall as a “type” or “allegory,” what becomes of the foundation of Pauline theology?” (ibid)

“If Adam may be held to be no more real a personage than Prometheus, and if the story of the Fall is merely an instructive “type,” comparable to the profound Promethean mythus, what value has Paul’s dialectic?” (ibid)

After much thought, C.S. Lewis concluded that evolution is the central, most radical lie at the center of a vast network of lies within which modern Westerners are entangled while Rev. Clarke identifies the central lie as the Gospel of another Spirit. The fiendish aim of this Spirit is to help men lose God, not find Him, and by contradicting the Divine Redeemer, compromising Priests are serving this Spirit and its’ diabolical purposes. To contradict the Divine Redeemer is the very essence of unfaithfulness, and that it should be done while reverence is professed,

“…. is an illustration of the intellectual and moral topsy-turvydom of Modernism…’He whom God hath sent speaketh the Words of God,’ claimed Christ of Himself (John 3:34), and no assumption of error can hold water in the face of that declaration, without blasphemy.” Evolutionary theists are serving the devil, therefore “no considerations of Christian charity, of tolerance, of policy, can exonerate Christian leaders or Churches who fail to condemn and to sever themselves from compromising, cowardly, shilly-shallying priests”---the falling stars who “challenge the Divine Authority of Jesus Christ.” (ibid)

The rebuttals, warnings and counsels of the Fathers against listening to Origenists (and their modern evolutionary counterparts) indicates that the spirit of antichrist operating through modern rationalistic criticism of the Revelation of God is not a heresy unique to our times but was inveighed against by early Church Fathers.

From the scholarly writings of the Eastern Orthodox priest, Fr. Seraphim Rose, to the incisive analysis, rebuttals and warnings of the Catholic Kolbe Center, creation.com, Creation Research Institute, Rev. Clarke, and many other stalwart defenders of the faith once delivered, all are a clear, compelling call to the whole body of the Church to hold fast to the traditional doctrine of creation as it was handed down from the Apostles, for as God spoke and Jesus is the Living Word incarnate, it is incumbent upon the faithful to submit their wills to the Divine Will and Authority of God rather than to the damnable heresy proffered by falling stars eager to embrace naturalistic science and the devil's antithesis--- evolution. But if it seem evil to you to serve the Lord,

“…you have your choice: choose this day that which pleases you, whom you would rather serve….but as for me and my house we will serve the Lord.” Joshua 24:15

spirited irish: "It’s true that certain Catholics, Protestants and Eastern Orthodox embrace Darwinism.
Many embrace the Hindu-pantheism of the Hermetic alchemist Teilhard de Chardin and tout the self-avowed spiritist Alfred Russel Wallace as the co-discoverer of Darwin’s theory."

The term is "theistic evolutionism", meaning: evolution guided by God.
All Christian churches which do not specifically condemn evolution theory teach "theistic evolutionism".
That means well over 90%, perhaps 99% of the world's two+ billion Christians.

As for "Hindu-pantheism" and all the rest -- there you go again with your vacuum cleaner.
In fact, the number of Christian churches which have anything at all to say about such things is doubtless limited to geographical areas with large populations of Hindus.
It would be a way for Christians to relate to people raised in a Hindu tradition, imho.

So, overall, we're talking about a very small percentage of all Christians who might be influenced by such teachings.
We certainly hear nothing like that in my little church's services.

spirited irish: "All of this is heresy reframed as science and evolution, and when syncretized with the Bible results in paganized Christianity.
It will not get you to heaven."

Indeed, it's irrelevant which is why all your, ahem, spirited condemnations of science in general and evolution specifically, it's all inappropriate -- has nothing to do with what's important spiritually, in this life & beyond.

“As for “Hindu-pantheism” and all the rest — there you go again with your vacuum cleaner.”

Spirited: Your reaction bespeaks either an uninformed mind or one that refuses to know truth.

Teilhard is lauded by secular-pantheist Transhumanists and occult spiritual New Agers alike as one of the most important fathers of New Age and modern Mystery Religion. That liberal Catholics embrace his teachings places them in league with occult pantheists and modern Mystery Religion initiates who seek either reincarnation/reabsorption or apotheosis.

Teilhard rejected Christ’s offer of salvation and sought an alternative salvation by way of reincarnation and reabsorption rather than resurrection unto Paradise. Upon the death of his body, he discovered to his horror the eternal consequences of his choice.

Over on the evolutionarychristian website Michael Dowd describes himself as the evangelist of evolution. In league with certain prominent scientists, atheists, and theologians Dowd describes their project as the overhauling of Christianity on behalf of a New Theism: evolutionary pantheism, reincarnation/reabsorption.

Dowd also boasted that New Theists are moving into all denominations where they’ll teach and preach evolutionary pantheism.

All unbiblical systems, and this includes Teilhards and Dowds among others, are grounded in evolutionary and pantheist conceptions stretching back to Nimrod. Evolutionary pantheism is at bottom materialism and refers to the mechanical reincarnation of soul over time within different kinds of bodies as it ever so slowly evolves up the Great Chain of Being ending either in reabsorption or apotheosis. It’s meaning remains substantially unchanged despite that liberal Christians embrace it.

The book of Revelation has something rather dire to say about Babylon, Mystery Religions and idolatry (i.e., pantheism).

It is not possible for one person to save another who chooses to dance on the edge of a cliff. All a person can do is try to warn and edify the foolish dancer who will either heed the warning or laugh off the warning and ridicule its’ bearer. At the beginning of this post I said your reaction bespeaks either an uninformed mind or one that refuses to know truth. If you have read this post then you have been edified and warned. Thus far your choice is to laugh and ridicule.

spirited irish: "Your reaction bespeaks either an uninformed mind or one that refuses to know truth.

"Teilhard is lauded by secular-pantheist Transhumanists and occult spiritual New Agers alike as one of the most important fathers of New Age and modern Mystery Religion.
That liberal Catholics embrace his teachings places them in league with occult pantheists and modern Mystery Religion initiates who seek either reincarnation/reabsorption or apotheosis."

You are right that I have no idea who you're talking about; to me it's all gibberish.
And I'm certainly not one to defend the Catholic Church, but my overall impression is: despite various "modernizings" their basic theology is still pretty traditional -- you know, the Trinity, Virgin Mary, Roman primacy, all that kind of stuff.
If some priests have wandered off the reservation, that might not be so surprising in a Church with a billion members, but I've seen nothing to suggest the Vatican's basic doctrines are all that changed from what they've always been.

So, Ms irish, all your non-specific ranting and railings against people I never heard of, or intellectual movements which might effect various churches only tangentially, if at all, seem to me misplaced & inappropriate, if not outright false.

spirited irish: "Over on the evolutionarychristian website Michael Dowd describes himself as the evangelist of evolution.
In league with certain prominent scientists, atheists, and theologians Dowd describes their project as the overhauling of Christianity on behalf of a New Theism: evolutionary pantheism, reincarnation/reabsorption."

I never heard of these people, couldn't care less about whatever it is they're hoping to do, and absolutely don't want to be conflated with them in your maniacal vacuuming-up of dirty "isms".

spirited irish: "Dowd also boasted that New Theists are moving into all denominations where they’ll teach and preach evolutionary pantheism."

I live in the country near a small town.
In our small church we do our level best to meet the expectations of traditional Christian religion.
We go by what the Bible says.
So, we don't get involved in whatever the latest "trendy set" might be up to...

spirited irish: "At the beginning of this post I said your reaction bespeaks either an uninformed mind or one that refuses to know truth.
If you have read this post then you have been edified and warned.
Thus far your choice is to laugh and ridicule."

Sorry, Ms irish, but you do not speak the language of facts, or of truth or Truth, as I understand them.
Instead you appear to wildly gesticulate in conjuring up images of devils dancing on cliff-edges while preaching nonsense in churches -- all of which I've seen nothing of, and have no particular wish to study.
More to the point, since your foul arrows are aimed as much at me (yours truly, BroJoeK) as anybody in particular, I'd say to you Ms irish: enough is enough, time to give it up -- you are not acting like my FRiend, and you are not helping the cause at Free Republic.
So find another target to loose your foul words on.

Why was the King blind to the fact of his nakedness? Answer: his pride was so massively inflated that he was blind to reality, even to the extent that when he saw looks of shock, dismay and disgust on the faces of some on-lookers he immediately attributed them to either complete adoration of his shining magnificence or to jealousy.

From the very first, your posts have reflected pride and blindness. Thus you cannot see the continuous stream of self-contradiction flowing through your keyboard. For instance, you admit your ignorance here:

“You are right that I have no idea who you’re talking about; to me it’s all gibberish.”

Then your pride demands that you save face since from the first you’ve been positioning yourself as the repository of what is worth knowing or not, so you immediately reduce what you cannot understand to insignificance, rantings, railings, falsehood and even foulness:

“So, Ms irish, all your non-specific ranting and railings against people I never heard of, or intellectual movements which might effect various churches only tangentially, if at all, seem to me misplaced & inappropriate, if not outright false....So find another target to loose your foul words on.”

Pride is an ugly thing BroJoeK. It forces its’ ‘owner’ to confess his ignorance and bring shame upon him or herself.

From the first your pride has loudly advertised its offense with the essay “Falling Stars, Damnable Heresy, and the Spirit of Evolution.” The essay is an exposition of God’s Revelation to man beginning with Moses who received
knowledge of creation ex nihilo from the Angel in the desert.

But as the King was a repository of magnificence, and you are the repository of “truth” your pride is offended due to your acceptance of “trendy set ups,” that is, natural science and evolutionary concepts that come from the mind of fallen men (in rebellion against the God of Revelation) with certain key aspects received by way of mystical encounters (i.e. Wallace, Nietzsche, Teilhard).

Once again, pride demands that you save face by
contradicting yourself:

“In our small church we do our level best to meet the expectations of traditional Christian religion.
We go by what the Bible says. So, we don’t get involved in whatever the latest “trendy set” might be up to...”

Now if it was true that your church—and you— goes by what God’s Revelation to man says then your pride would not be so offended by “Falling Stars...” that you have repeatedly tried to undermine the veracity of the author and joined with other offended posters in having the essay removed to the religion forum.

“...you are not acting like my FRiend”

A true friend would try to prevent the King from holding himself up to public ridicule. True friends do not massage our pride by telling us what we want to hear. They take no pleasure in seeing others fall.

spirited irish: "From the very first, your posts have reflected pride and blindness."

Let's see... yes, there it is.
The first definition of "pride" in my dictionary is: spirited irish.
Now let's see again... yes, there it is. Arrogance = spirited irish.
What about "false accusations"? Yes again: spirited irish.
What about, "posts blithering nonsense"? = spirited irish.
"Has no good intentions"? = spirited irish.

spirited irish: "...you cannot see the continuous stream of self-contradiction flowing through your keyboard."

That falls under "false accusations", already defined.

spirited irish: "Then your pride demands that you save face since from the first you’ve been positioning yourself as the repository of what is worth knowing or not, so you immediately reduce what you cannot understand to insignificance, rantings, railings, falsehood and even foulness:"

Now let me tell you the truth of this matter: what you call "pride" is simply me returning your insults to sender.
If "pride" is your issue, then there is none more prideful than spirited irish in posting an unending stream of falsehoods and insults.

spirited irish: "Now if it was true that your church—and you— goes by what God’s Revelation to man says then your pride would not be so offended by “Falling Stars...” that you have repeatedly tried to undermine the veracity of the author and joined with other offended posters in having the essay removed to the religion forum."

Well, thank you!
tacticalogic, at last the truth comes out!
They can't stomach spirited irish on the religion forum -- she's been banished! Or should I say shunned!
Isn't that wonderful?
Thank you, Free Republic.

Now I think my work here is done, we've coaxed out a small truth, I doubt if we'll ever get more, and besides it's Thanksgiving, so I'm going to visit family.

Oh, and by the way, dear Ms irish, I certainly had nothing to do -- had no knowledge of -- getting you shunned from the FR religion forum.
But thanks so much for telling us the truth.
It has had tacticalogic, myself and others wondering for a long time.

Have a great Thanksgiving, all!

:-)

The word "Truth" refers to God's Truth, derived from the Bible and other recognized theological thinkers. At least that's my understanding. Do you disagree?

Well, er — yes I disagree. You describe Truth as, in effect, the utterance of "recognized theological thinkers." That is to say, the only access to Truth comes "second hand" to the thinker, by way of human authorities.

I see Truth, however, as the very Order of the universe, as embedded in all aspects of Nature. The world is the way it is and not some other way because it is the reification of its essential organizational principle which is its Truth.

Truth is not just a matter of epistemology; it is profoundly ontological. God's Truth was in the world before the Holy Scriptures, before Plato, before Aristotle....

FWIW.

Let me wish all my friends here gathered a happy, blessed Thanksgiving!

betty: Truth is not just a matter of epistemology; it is profoundly ontological. God’s Truth was in the world before the Holy Scriptures, before Plato, before Aristotle....

Spirited: Absolutely. Thus God’s Truth, His Living Word must therefore be our appeal and authority. But against God’s Truth is the “new” Christian, the modernist who claims to be a new man by virtue of his independence from God and his declaration that he is his own reference point. He therefore opposes his own word against the Word of God.

As the ‘new’ Christian reasons according to the relative principles of the new man within him there can be no meeting of mind with those for whom God’s Word is the sun by which they see and interpret all things.

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