Posted on 09/20/2013 4:29:03 AM PDT by spirited irish
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)
Falling Stars and Damnable Heresy
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 Kellers 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 Gods 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 Darwins 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 Gods 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 Romewhat 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? (Darwins Bulldog---Thomas Huxley, Russell Grigg, creation.com, Oct. 14, 2008)
Pouring more contempt on them he asked,
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 Noahs 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 Gods 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 Jonahs 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)
Concerning Matthew 19:5:
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)
And concerning Cor. 15:21-22:
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 Pauls 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
You know, FRiend, you started off here on a great foot, after poor YHAOS descended into insane mockeries and total incoherence, you shamed (presumably) him into logging out of the thread, and I appreciate that. Thank you.
But now you yourself have become simply an unbridled scolder, who won't take "yes" for an answer, who won't accept "I agree" with grace, who literally can't think of anything except some minute point of word-definition to quarrel over.
And at the same time you scold me for "quarreling over words".
The worst part of it is, your accusations, almost without exception, are false and so they tell me that you have some kind of problem.
In religious terms, some kind of devil has grasped hold of your soul and just won't let it go.
So I'm telling you to release it, and if it won't leave on it's own, see a pastor or somebody who can help you with it.
Might I suggest: if you think praising God requires you to ceaselessly scold and belittle me (falsely!), then that's a problem, FRiend, and you may need help with it?
If you think it's appropriate to discuss as a matter of political activism, can you at least tell me what you'd propose as a political solution to the problem of heresy?
It warms my heart to see that at least some of my points have reached home.
Nevertheless, Aquinas' clear distinction between theology and science has allowed scientists to continue to operate outside most theological restrictions, a benefit of Christianity whose overwhelming importance can be seen when compared to the severe restrictions on science imposed by Islam
Likewise, a point boop and I (Alamo-Girl and many another) have been making for years (literally for years, even decades). Aquinas, or not, aside.
No, that is precisely where youre wrong
Now, heres where youve stepped in it. So . . . Ill leave it to you to explain to boop (and others) 5500 years known history of how one branch of Philosophy evolved first into Natural Philosophy, then Natural Science, then just plain Science, and now finally to what sometimes is called the Hard Sciences.
Indeed, there seems to be a lot of “projecting” going on around here. Of course, bb’s mind may well be a “steel mouse trap”, but she endlessly misrepresents my views, and now complains that it’s I who am ad-hominin-ing her.
Yer projecting again with a turnabout morph ... jeese..
Course you could be dyslexic or autistic or something..
My Pitymeter is pegged out..
She seems to quote you VerBatim.. along certain selected specific lines..
Well nobody’s perfect... but then.. I’m talking about YOU..
You’re a bit wordy but entertaining..
Well here's the nuance you missed: I regard the indicated "specific group of people" to be cranks. As cranks, I do not regard them as eligible to be "personifying science."
Whoever gets to control the terms, gets to control the debate.
;-)
But then, from the above, it is unclear where to locate the "beginning" "from the time of St. Thomas Aquinas"?
I'm sure that would come as a surprise to Aristotle, on whom St. Thomas Aquinas principally relied in the development of his own thought.
On one fairly widespread view, the great Aristotle was working against the grain of natural theology as epitomized by his great teacher, Plato. I gather that is why he so often is recognized as "the father of the natural sciences." The principal difference between the two seems to have devolved around the question: Where to "locate" the "form" of a natural object: In a transcendent realm, or in the natural object itself? Both men were theists (as we define that word nowadays).
Moving on, you wrote in reply to the statement I made, as follows:
"Once upon a time, science was understood as the quest for the truth of Reality of the natural world (which is a participation in Being), following all roads wherever they may lead that seem promising in that quest. Now you suggest that what science really is, is a jail for the human mind? Because there are certain things it refuses to engage or talk about? Like Being, for example?"To which you replied:
No, that is precisely where you're wrong.... "science" was never, ever, ever a "search for Truth". "Searching for truth" is what theology did. "Natural-science" then as now meant mostly what we call "technology" "how to do it" and more basically: "what works".Jeepers, is that really how you define "science," dear BroJoeK? But surely, you can only be speaking of applied science here. Don't you recognize that applied scientists need scientific theorists in order to get "grist for their applied-science mills?" And that "blue-sky thinking" is actually valued by scientific theorists?
I am merely a humble student of the history of science. On that basis, I applaud my dear brother YHAOS' observation that historical science dates as far back as 5500 B.C. to an anonymous yet persisting intergenerational class of persons designated as Priests of Egypt, who must be regarded as some of the greatest astronomers/mathematicians who ever lived on Earth. Also the folks who built Stonehenge were masters, not only of mechanics, but of astronomy as well.
What I find so intriguing is these ancient scientists started their investigations on the scale of the very large at the level of the whole cosmos itself, as it yields itself to keen human observation and measurement.
But this is the very reverse of how science nowadays so often finds itself dealing, no longer with "wholes," but with fragments. Modern science has generated a plethora of specialities, which have sub-specialties, and even sub-sub-specialties. Such that we know "more and more and more" about "less and less and less."
Without the "cosmic picture," such fragments do not cohere, and cannot make any sense.
That insight is the entire motivation for me even to be talking to you at this point, dear BroJoeK.
Thank you so much for writing!
Such that we know “more and more and more” about “less and less and less.”
WHAT a concept..
Such that we know “more and more and more” about “less and less and less.”
WHAT a concept..
When I saw HiTech Redneck spout Churchian feminist talking points right after calling damnation on other people, I decided to have fun pouncing on his (her?) hypocrisy. Subsequent responses by HiTech Redneck were quite revealing.
Confess that you're a churchian feminist. Out with it! Confess!
See I can play that game too.
It's too bad the concept of the difference between the Christian concept of Absolute Truth vs the Islamic concept of Divine Absolute Sovereignty (even over truth) passed over your head.
Is this more of that "Jesus is my alpha sparkly vampire boyfriend" theology again?
Speaking of heresy...
With modern American "marriage", it's more like bankruptcy
The word "science" itself is simply the Latin word for knowledge: scientia. Until the 1840's what we now call science was "natural philosophy," so that even Isaac Newton's great book on motion and gravity, published in 1687, was The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy (Principia Mathematica Philosophiae Naturalis). Newton was, to himself and his contemporaries, a "philosopher." In a letter to the English chemist Joseph Priestley written in 1800, Thomas Jefferson lists the "sciences" that interest him as, "botany, chemistry, zoology, anatomy, surgery, medicine, natural philosophy [this probably means physics], agriculture, mathematics, astronomy, geography, politics, commerce, history, ethics, law, arts, fine arts." The list begins on familiar enough terms, but we hardly think of history, ethics, or the fine arts as "sciences" any more. Jefferson simply uses to the term to mean "disciplines of knowledge."
Bro: from the time of St. Thomas Aquinas, “science” was never, ever, ever a “search for Truth”.... “Searching for truth” is what theology did.
Spirited: According to BroJoeK, science has nothing to do with truth; truth falls within the realm of theology. This of course is a truth-claim so we must assume that Bro was wearing his “theologian label” at the moment he made his claim.
If theology is a search for truth but science has nothing to do with it, then BroJoeK must surely be attracted to the opposite of truth since he is a fervent defender of ‘scientific’ evolutionary theism.
Similarly, BroJoe is offended by the posted essay because as he has gone to great lengths to point out, it belongs in the religious forum where theological discussions take place, and since theology is a search for truth and BroJoe prefers its opposite, in this light we can plainly see that truth offends him.
If you play stupid games, you win stupid prizes.
Zing!
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