Posted on 04/05/2009 8:10:35 PM PDT by betty boop
The Atheist Perversion of Reality
By Jean F. Drew
Atheism we have always had with us it seems. Going back in time, what was formerly a mere trickle of a stream has in the modern era become a raging torrent. Karl Marx’s gnostic revolt, a paradigm and methodology of atheism, has arguably been the main source feeding that stream in post-modern times.
What do we mean by “gnostic revolt?” Following Eric Voëgelin’s suggestions, our definition here will be: a refusal to accept the human condition, manifesting as a revolt against the Great Hierarchy of Being, the most basic description of the spiritual order of universal reality.
The Great Hierarchy is comprised of four partners: God–Man–World–Society, in their mutually dynamic relations. Arguably all the great world religions incorporate the idea of this hierarchy. It is particularly evident in Judaism and Christianity. One might even say that God’s great revelation to us in the Holy Bible takes this hierarchy and the relations of its partners as its main subject matter. It has also been of great interest to philosophers going back to pre-Socratic times — and evidently even to “anti-philosophers” such as Karl Marx.
In effect, Marx’s anti-philosophy abolishes the Great Hierarchy of Being by focusing attention mainly on the God and Man partners. The World and Society partners are subsidiary to that, and strangely fused: World is simply the total field of human social action, which in turn translates into historical societal forms.
Our principal source regarding the Marxist atheist position is Marx’s doctoral dissertation of 1840–1841. From it, we can deduce his thinking about the Man partner as follows:
(1) The movement of the intellect in man’s consciousness is the ultimate source of all knowledge of the universe. A human self-consciousness is the supreme divinity.
(2) “Faith and the life of the spirit are expressly excluded as an independent source of order in the soul.”
(3) There must be a revolt against “religion,” because it recognizes the existence of a realissimum beyond human consciousness. Marx cannot make man’s self-consciousness “ultimate” if this condition exists.
(4) The logos is not a transcendental spirit descending into man, but the true essence of man that can only be developed and expressed by means of social action in the process of world history. That is, the logos is “immanent” in man himself. Indeed, it must be, if God is abolished. And with God, reason itself is abolished as well: To place the logos in man is to make man the measure of all things. To do so ineluctably leads to the relativization of truth, and to a distorted picture of reality.
(5) “The true essence of man, his divine self-consciousness, is present in the world as the ferment that drives history forward in a meaningful manner.” God is not Lord of history, the Alpha and Omega; man is.
As Voëgelin concluded, “The Marxian spiritual disease … consists in the self-divinization and self-salvation of man; the intramundane logos of human consciousness is substituted for the transcendental logos…. [This] must be understood as the revolt of immanent consciousness against the spiritual order of the world.”
How Marx Bumps Off God
So much for Marx’s revolt. As you can see, it requires the death of God. Marx’s point of theocidal departure takes its further impetus from Ludwig von Feuerbach’s theory that God is an imaginary construction of the human mind, to which is attributed man’s highest values, “his highest thoughts and purest feelings.”
In short, Feuerbach inverts the very idea of the imago Dei — that man is created in the image of God. God is, rather, created by man, in man’s own image — God is only the illusory projection of a subjective human consciousness, a mere reflection of that consciousness and nothing more.
From this Feuerbach deduced that God is really only the projected “essence of man”; and from this, Feuerbach concluded that “the great turning point of history will come when ‘man becomes conscious that the only God of man is man himself.’”
For Marx, so far so good. But Marx didn’t stop there: For Feuerbach said that the “isolated” individual is the creator of the religious illusion, while Marx insisted that the individual has no particular “human essence” by which he could be identified as an isolated individual in the first place. For Marx, the individual in reality is only the sum total of his social actions and relationships: Human subjectivity has been “objectified.” Not only God is gone, but man as a spiritual center, as a soul, is gone, too.
Marx believed that God and all gods have existed only in the measure that they are experienced as “a real force” in the life of man. If gods are imagined as real, then they can be effective as such a force — despite the “fact” that they are not really real. For Marx, it is only in terms of this imaginary efficacy that God or gods can be said to “exist” at all.
Here’s the beautiful thing from Marx’s point of view: Deny that God or the gods can be efficacious as real forces in the life of man — on the grounds that they are the fictitious products of human imagination and nothing more — and you have effectively killed God.
This insight goes to the heart of atheism. In effect, Marx’s prescription boils down to the idea that the atheist can rid himself and the world at large of God simply by denying His efficacy, the only possible “real” basis of His existence. Evidently the atheist expects that, by his subjective act of will, he somehow actually makes God objectively unreal. It’s a kind of magic trick: The “Presto-Changeo!” that makes God “disappear.”
Note that, if God can be gotten rid of by a stratagem like this, so can any other aspect of reality that the atheist dislikes. In effect, the cognitive center which — strangely — has no “human essence” has the power of eliminating whatever sectors of objective reality it wants to, evidently in full expectation that reality itself will allow itself to be “reduced” and “edited down” to the “size” of the atheist’s distorted — and may we add relentlessly imaginary? — conception.
To agree with Marx on this — that the movement of the intellect in man’s “divine” consciousness is the ultimate source of all knowledge of the universe — is to agree that human thought determines the actual structure of reality.
Instead of being a part of and participant in reality, the atheist claims the power to create it as if he himself were transcendent to, or standing outside or “beyond” reality. As if he himself were the creator god.
This type of selective operation goes a long way towards explaining the fanatical hostility of many Darwinists today regarding any idea of design or hierarchy in Nature — which, by the way, have always been directly observable by human beings who have their eyes (and minds) open. What it all boils down to seems to be: If we don’t like something, then it simply doesn’t exist.
We call the products of such selective operations second realities. They are called this because they are attempts to displace and finally eliminate the First Reality of which the Great Hierarchy of Being — God–Man–World–Society — is the paradigmatic core.
First Reality has served as the unifying conceptual foundation of Western culture and civilization for the past two millennia at least. What better way to destroy that culture and civilization than an all-out attack on the Great Hierarchy of Being?
Thus we see how the gnosis (“wisdom”) of the atheist — in this particular case, Marx — becomes the new criterion by which all operations in (the severely reduced and deformed) external reality are to be conducted, understood, and judged.
Conclusion
Marx is the self-proclaimed Paraclete of an a-borning utopia in which man will be “saved” by being reduced to essentially nothing. With God “gone,” man, as we denizens of First Reality know him, disappears also.
But whatever is left of him becomes a tool for social action. He becomes putty in the hands of whatever self-selected, self-proclaimed Paraclete seeking to promote his favored Second Reality du jour (usually for his own personal benefit) manages to stride onto the public stage and command an audience.
Such a charmed person blesses himself with the power to change human society and history forever, to bring about man’s self-salvation in a New Eden — an earthly utopia— by purely human means.
Of course, there’s a catch: As that great denizen of First Reality, Sir Thomas More, eminently recognized, the translation into English of the New Latin word “utopia” is: No-place.
In short, human beings can conjure up alternative realities all day long. But that doesn't mean that they can make them “stick.” Reality proceeds according to its own laws, which are divine in origin, and so cannot be displaced by human desire or volition, individually or collectively.
And yet the Marxian expectation argues otherwise.
Out of such fantastic, idiotic, specifically Marxian/atheist foolishness have great revolutions been made. And probably will continue to be made — so long as psychopaths hold the keys to the asylum.
Note:
All quotations from Eric Voëgelin’s article, “Gnostic Socialism: Marx,” in: The Collected Works of Eric Voëgelin, Volume 26 — History of Political Ideas: Crisis and the Apocalypse of Man. Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 1999.
©2009 Jean F. Drew
April 4, 2009
[[Jesus left us the Holy Spirit to guide us.. not some written text..]]
It’s not just some ‘written text’ it’s THE written word of God-
Noone I know of worships the bible, or has made it hteir
‘idol’- they don;’t sacrifice to it, don’t bow down to it, Don’t give thithes to it- but rather they worship the One who spoke it to us through His elected writers who were writing in the Spirit, through divine inspiration.
you have well said the Holy Spirit teaches as He will through whatever medium He so chooses, however, the ifnallible Word of God is the Primary book of TRUTH written by the TRUTH Himself, and is of paramount importance to beleivers. In hte beginning was the Word, and the Word was God- and hte Word of Truth was relayed in a manner that makes it infallible and reliable and trustworthy, and certainly makes it more than just a ‘good book’ full of ‘good thoughts- it contains the Very TRUTH, it Contains the Essence of Christ Himself who was and is and always shall be the TRUTH. And again, if we begin pickign and choosing which passages are metaphorical, begin twisting meanings, doubting events by takign passages out of context, we subject ourselves to a world where the TRUTH means nothing and is open to any subjective itnerpretation we like.
While I agree the Holy Spirit listeth where He will, the primary source of His teaching is through the infallible TRUTH of God’s very own words to us , and using hte word as our infallible and trustworthy guide certainly doesn’t amou nt to worship of the bible.
It seems Rosen's concept of "chasing" does invoke communication processes. Rosen doesn't speak much of Shannon at all in Life Itself; but he briefly cites him three times in another work, Essays on Life Itself. There, Rosen identifies Shannon's theory as a syntactical model. But I don't necessarily infer from that that Rosen disparages Shannon or his theory. For one thing, its very syntactical character is what lends the Shannon model its universal "portability" to all communicating systems alike in any language.
Boiling it all down, my sense (at this point!) is Rosen is working more on the semantic side of the problem, "What is life?" [in the sense that complex systems inevitably feature self-referential "loops" that cannot be reduced to purely syntactic terms because any instance of self-reference implies "meaning" [e.g., metabolism, repair, respiration, reproduction, etc., etc.), which is semantics, not syntax; and anyway, syntax is just "grammar"; thus it can eliminate all connection to "external referents" altogether, by which strategy it gains its universality — i.e., by sacrificing any idea of a "tie" between any particular system to any particular meaning]; Shannon simply focuses on one generic function: the successful communication of information. I.e., on the "medium" (syntax), not the "message" (semantics).
In any case, Shannon's syntactic model seems well suited to provide the rules that apply to the successful communication of a semantically richer model, be it Shakespeare's Hamlet or Robert Rosen's theory of relational biology — or any other communication whatever, including communications transpiring "inside" an organism itself.
I am pretty sure that if Rosen had a "problem" with anything Shannon did, he would not have hesitated to mention it. But so far, I have found no criticism. [But jeepers! You should see what he does to Jacques Monod! LOLOL!]
But then you never know — if, as I go through Essays, I should find a critical discussion of Shannon, I'll let you know!
Thank you for your magnificent essay/post, dearest sister in Christ! You lift everything up into the context of the spiritual — which ultimately seems to be the "largest model" (so to speak). [Rosen doesn't "go there"; but he seems very careful not to rule it out.]
You nailed it right here!
It is disallowed by the Newtonian Paradigm. But in the Newtonian Paradigm, everything is assumed to be a mechanism, a "simple" closed system. The type of closure involved in what Rosen is doing is a logical closure that does two things: (1) It obviates problems of infinite regress; (2) it helps to elucidate how living systems instantiate causal entailments beyond those available to mechanisms and machines.
Anyhoot, Rosen has written a couple of enormously powerful books, potential "game changers." I suspect you would find his ideas of great interest LeGrande.
Sure they do.. They do it even while denying that they do it..
They rationalize the word "worship"..
I am always looking for new ideas. If I like them I will steal them too : )
wagglebee: You nailed it right here!
Kant had something interesting to say about mechanistic presuppositions (in Critique of Judment):
For it is quite certain that in terms of merely mechanical principles of nature we cannot even adequately become familiar with, much less explain, organized beings and how they are internally possible. So certain is this that we may boldly assert that it is absurd ... to hope that perhaps some day another Newton might arise who would explain to us, in terms of natural laws ... how even a mere blade of grass is produced (the "Newton of the leaf").Kant and Newton were contemporaries (~1650). Since their time, seemingly no "Newton of the leaf" has yet appeared....
Thus Robert Rosen argues (after Schröedinger) that the "old physics" can't cut it with biological systems. A "new physics" is sorely needed.
To this day, today, the formidable powers of theoretical physics find nothing to say about the biosphere, nor does any physicist contemplating the mysteries of life speak of them qua physicist. This, I would argue, is because biology remains today, as it has always been, a repository of conceptual enigmas for physicists, and not technical problems to be dealt with through mere ingenuity or the application of familiar algorithms. Somehow, the life gets irretrievably lost whenever this is attempted. Is this merely because we are doing it badly or remain lacking in our data? This is hardly likely.In short: Any mechanical model is the WRONG MODEL to begin with. Such models are simply too "impoverished" to deal with biology....
This is not to say that biological organisms are not material systems, or that they do not project into the objective world just as any other material system does. The point is, biological systems cannot be reduced to material systems only. They come with something "extra." Now contemporary physicists have been known to start yelling "Vitalism!" whenever anyone simply notices that, in fact, they obviously do. As Kant did, above. Thus, writes Rosen, "Their response has always been to try to suck the subjective life out of them; to reduce them to immaculately objective things designed to be orthogonal to them."
That is a rather stunning statement when you think about it. Rosen elaborates:
My suggestion here is that this objective world, which constitutes the goal of physics, the ideal for which it strives, is in fact a highly non-generic one, far too restrictive and specialized to accommodate things like organisms. Biology is not simply a special case in that world, a rare and overly complicated anomaly, a nongeneric excrescence in a generic world of objective things. To the contrary, it is that world itself that is nongeneric, and it is organisms which are too general to fit into it. This too counts as an objective fact, and it is one with which (contemporary) physics must come to terms, if it indeed seeks to comprehend all of material nature within its precincts. It cannot do this and at the same time maintain its claim to only allow objective things into it. Biology already will not pass through that extraneous filter, a filter which, ironically, it itself quite subjective in character.
LOL!!! They don't come for cheap, that's for sure! Suggestion: If you're deep into the maths, you'd likely enjoy the presentation Rosen gives in Life Itself (1991). If you prefer a more narrative approach, then perhaps you'd find Essays on Life Itself (2000, published posthumously) of greater interest.
I loved the first; I'm in progress with the second, and loving it too.
There really are some hugely interesting ideas here LeGrande! JMHO FWIW. I'm pretty sure it's okay to "steal" them....
[[Sure they do.. They do it even while denying that they do it..
They rationalize the word “worship”..]]
so now we’re into arbitrary definitions of words? The word worship means just that- worship- to devote your life to somethign or someone- We Christians do not worship the bible, do not sacrifice to it, don’t burn incense to it etc- Your insinuations are not so subtle- if you think I ‘worship’ the bible while ‘rationalizing the word worship awasy’ just come out and state so isntead of beating aroudn hte bush-
I’ve been in many threads where Christians are accused of making idols of this that or the other thing, and of supposedly practicing cult worship because the celebrate thigns liek Christmas with trees, stockigns etc, and htis is pure crap- Again- we do NOT bow down to hte tree- don’t sacrifice to the tree, nor do we call it god and certainly don’t fashion hte tree after a god0 those i nthe ibble who DID worship false gods did so in obvious cult worship manner- making idols which they sacrificed to-
You are apparently equating revering God’s word as God’s word with cult worship, and htis is rediculous- but if that’s how you think- then whatever- apparently, those who put hteir trust in God’s word, along with trust in the Holy Spirit, in your mind, isntead of simply relying solely on the Holy Spirit, and beleiving hte word of God is nothing more than a ‘good book’ apparently written by ‘good people’ who happened ot walk with Christ, who may or may not have existed, depending on a person’s subjective view of ‘biblical stories’, can’t be ‘true Christians, and are ‘worshipping false gods’- whatever- Talk about ‘rationalizing’
But without it, there would be no model for the "chasing" in Rosen's model. Actually, Rosen implies as much by his appeals to Turing et al.
Thank you oh so very much for your beautiful insights and these illuminating excerpts, dearest sister in Christ!
I said nothing about you.. Just commenting on people I know and have known.. what appears to me to be so.. They would'nt use the worship themselves, but I do.. after close dealings with them..
My opinion cannot be stolen... I watch it pretty close..
Totally agreed. Shannon's model is about effective or "successful" communication that reduces uncertainty in the receiver. Where I suspect this may fit into the Rosen picture is on the question of how does an efficient cause realize its effect on a material cause — under the "auspices" (so to speak) of a formal cause globally moving the system towards a final cause (not in this context a reference to teleology)?
I do recall that somewhere in Rosen's relational diagrams there's some "chasing" going on. The fact is, however, I don't now recall the details of Rosen's argument.
Please give me a page cite, dearest sister in Christ? I'd like to revisit that very much. I think that's key to understanding of how Shannon Communication Theory "dovetails" with the Rosen theory.
Intuitively, I think it does. [Hypothesis: To actually be effective, the efficient cause ("sender") depends on "successful communication that reduces uncertainty in the receiver" (i.e., the material cause.)]
Thank you ever so much for your thought-provoking essay/post, dearest sister in Christ!
Said Hosepipe:Oh, so first my reasoning falls apart and I'm suckered into something, and now I'm couching alluded questions in snarky similes? oh I wonder what I'll do next! ha ha.
I read your "earlier post" and this one too.. there seems to be way to many questions and allusions to questions.. couched in snarky similes.. to approach seriously..
Said Hosepipe:Well, TXnMA's original question to me about how my reasoning could fall apart to let me get suckered into believing YEC - his original question was simple enough. And I answered it as simply as I could - as a matter of fact I bared my soul so as to speak - for any to poke holes in - if they can - in other words, I explained how I had arrived at my current position on the matter - which is what he had asked.
This forum works best with simple questions not all tangled up like a birds nest..
Said Hosepipe:Ahh-huh! Could be?! Hmm. I could be a 747.. Or the king of old England.. or the son of papa-knew-Guinness.. Or a millionaire... But I'm probably not and all the the things I could be but can't demonstrate are sort of besides the point.
However; the time-line on when/how the earth was "formed" and the time-line of when humans appeared/were created could be different..(Emph. Mine.)
Said Alamo-Girl:Thank you kindly for that encouragement! I really appreciate it.
Thank you both for sharing your insights, dear brothers in Christ!
I agree with hosepipe that it is much more productive to simplify the questions you'd like answered and to present them one at a time.But you see I have found that folks who look at a list of questions and refuse to answer them all are just about as likely to look at any single one of them and refuse to answer that one as well. It's not like my approximately 8 questions were hard, lengthy, or confusing:
Said MrJesse:It would be quite easy for someone to just copy those into their reply and insert their answers - and now I've even numbered them so as to make it easier still!
1: Did God create Adam and Eve, or did all life start from a single primitive cell?
2: At what point did non-man become man? Has it happened yet?
3: At what point did the generations become literal?
4: Was Noah an actual person?
5: Was Abraham an actual person? What about Issac, Jacob?
6: What about Jacob's 12 sons? King David? Solomon?
It is clear that you don't believe in the 6-day 7k year ago creation. But what exactly do you believe?
7: Do you believe that Noah built the ark?
8: And that God closed the door thereon?
Said Alamo-Girl:Exactly! It is extremely helpful to concentrate on the questions themselves. And that's what I did in explaining how I've arrived at my position when TXnMA wanted to know how my reasoning fell apart such that I could be suckered as he put it. And concentrating on the questions is exactly what I did when I asked about "Was Abraham a real person" and so on.
It is also helpful to concentrate on the questions themselves ...
continued Alamo-Girl:Again, I agree! But you see, the other parties are refusing to concentrate on the questions. Both TXnMA have accused me of different things like being suckered into things or couching alluded questions, and, with all do respect, and even in your most kind way, you yourself wrote your whole little post almost entirely about the parties involved (myself and hosepipe) and prior dialogs and you completely neglected to address any of the actual questions at hand!
... rather than the parties involved ...
continued Alamo-Girl:I'm not sure what you're talking about on this one. TXnMA's challenge to me was number 837 and my response to it was 874 on the same thread. What's the prior dialog?
... or prior dialogues.
Said Alamo-Girl:Absolutely! I'm doing my best. But sometimes folks come along and try to prove their point by saying unfounded insulting things, then go away as if they were right and I was wrong, even though they never actually demonstrated that I was wrong. But when we try to have a discussion, but we refuse to discuss certain foundational issues, and if we are silent about dishonesty, we are going to find ourselves working on an unstable foundation - for a house built not upon truth cannot stand.
These two steps would help all of us to follow and perhaps learn or contribute along the way.
Think whatever you wish.. Its just your opinion..
Conclusions are like elbows.. everybody as a few..
[ And I answered it as simply as I could - as a matter of fact I bared my soul so as to speak - for any to poke holes in - if they can ]
As we all do.. all posts are simply opinions.. not absolute facts..
[ As a scientist, I'd rather discuss the facts - the things that we do know - rather then whimsical "could be's". ]
I would rather discuss "could be's" as opposed to what some consider "facts"..
I am in the right place for that to happen, you are not..
What do you know for sure?, and how do you know its that way and not some other way?..
This forum shows opinion, yours, or some other..
Perhaps you thought you were at some scientific choir meeting..
Or that your opinion should be treated as a Scientific Shaman..
Your opinion of others opinions is just an opinion..
Science is often merely a Cargo Cult.. more often than not..
Please give me a page cite, dearest sister in Christ? I'd like to revisit that very much. I think that's key to understanding of how Shannon Communication Theory "dovetails" with the Rosen theory.
In any case, we have passed with some difficulty from a natural system that is a machine to a formal representation of it, of the form [9B.6], or, in abbreviated form, [9B.5]. This is what I shall call a relational model of the machine. As we see, there does not seem to be much left of the machine itself in this version of it. For instance, we see no explicit encoding of time, have no dynamics in the diagram. The diagram does, however, embody the basic polarity of the machine, the progression in time from afferent to efferent, from input to output. This will turn out to be the essential temporal feature for us, not time divided into minutes and seconds, but time encoded as a chase through a diagram.
Robert Rosen, “Life Itself”, pgs 222-223
Thank you so much for sharing your insights, dearest sister in Christ!
You posed a set of questions what would seem to elicit simple, point-by-point answers:
For a Christian the question reduces to “Who do you believe?”
My reply is that I love God surpassingly above all else, I believe Him and I trust Him.
To the epistemological question, my reply from a previous thread is that I perceive the following types of knowledge and their certainty in this order, top to bottom:
1: Did God create Adam and Eve, or did all life start from a single primitive cell?
2. ruach - the self-will or free will peculiar to man (abstraction, anticipation, intention, etc.) – by Jewish tradition, the pivot wherein a man decides to be Godly minded or earthy minded (also related to Romans 8, choosing)
3. neshama - the breath of God given to Adam (Genesis 2:7) which may also be seen as the “ears to hear” (John 10) - a sense of belonging beyond space/time, a predisposition to seek God and seek answers to the deep questions such as “what is the meaning of life?"
4. ruach Elohim - the Holy Spirit (Genesis 1:2) which indwells Christians (I Cor 2, John 3) – the presently existing in the “beyond” while still in the flesh. (Col 3:3) This is the life in passage : "In him was life, and the life was the light of men..." (John 1)
3: At what point did the generations become literal? After Adam was banished to mortality at the end of Genesis 3
4: Was Noah an actual person? Yes
5: Was Abraham an actual person? What about Issac, Jacob? Yes, yes and yes
6: What about Jacob's 12 sons? King David? Solomon? Yes, yes and yes
It is clear that you don't believe in the 6-day 7k year ago creation. But what exactly do you believe?
I am neither an Old Earth Creationist nor a Young Earth Creationist. Nor do I lean to the Gosse Omphalus Hypothesis which says that the universe only looks old, it could have been created last Thursday.
I see no conflict at all in the revelations of God the Father in (a) Jesus Christ His only begotten Son, (b) the indwelling Holy Spirit (c) Scriptures and (d) Creation, both spiritual and physical.
In sum, I aver that seven equivalent earth days from the inception space/time coordinates (big bang) is equal to roughly fifteen billion years from our space/time coordinates on earth. For more on this point, Scriptures vis-à-vis Inflationary Theory and Relativity see Age of the Universe by Jewish physicist Gerald Schroeder.
Incidentally, often at the root of the theological differences over Creation Week we find Romans 5:12–14 and I Corinthians 15:42–48 - one side saying that Adam was the first mortal man (YEC) and the other saying that Adam was the first ensouled man (OEC.)
But I also have no “dog” in that dispute because I see Adam as created in the spiritual realm, the first man to become a “living soul” (Genesis 2) and I do not see him becoming earth bound until he was banished to mortality at the end of Genesis 3.
In other words, I assert that the first three chapters of Scripture deal with the creation not only of the physical realm but the spiritual as well:
These [are] the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens, And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and [there was] not a man to till the ground. – Genesis 2:4-5
God created the plants and herbs before they were in the earth (Gen 2:4-5)
The intersection or “types” in the physical realm and spiritual realm: Temple, Ark, Tabernacle, Eden/Paradise.
My understanding of the time appointed to Adamic men is very similar to the Jewish understanding and that of the early Christians - namely, that Adamic man [after he was banished to mortality in Genesis 3) - is appointed 7,000 years (corresponding to Creation week) the last 1,000 years being the Sabbath reign of Christ on earth (Revelation 20.)
But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. - 2 Pet 3:8
And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years: and he died. – Genesis 5:5
It was also the early Christian understanding. This, from the Epistle of Barnabas 15:3-5:
Returning to Scripture and evolution, God specifically mentions things He specially created – and He also leaves the door open to evolution theory here:
The Intelligent Design hypothesis is appealing to me and credible on the face. It simply states that “certain features of the universe and life are best explained by intelligent cause rather than an undirected process such as natural selection.” And because animals are known to choose their mates, it is obvious that “certain features” are best explained by those choices.
I find most of the ID disputes to be theological, ideological or political – rarely on the merits on the hypothesis which I consider to be more of an observation.
My main dispute with evolution theory is the improper use of the word and concept of “random” when the correct word and concept is “unpredictable.” Stochastic methods apply to either. But a person cannot say something is random in the system when he does not know what the system “is” – and science does not know – and can never know – the full dimensionality of space/time.
So the use of the word “random” overstates what is known and knowable by the scientific method.
I do however have a very strong objection to those scientists like Dawkins, Pinker, Singer and Lewontin who misappropriate the theory of evolution to proliferate anti-Christ and anti-God sentiment under the color of science.
Because of the self-imposed "methodological naturalism" science does not even look beyond the natural and therefore is way out of bounds to make judgments concerning God, spirit, soul, miracles, etc.
I do not endorse the "irreducible complexity" theory of some Intelligent Design proponents because it looks backwards. However, I do strongly advocate the forward looking point that order cannot arise from chaos in an unguided physical system. Period. There are always guides to the system.
Also, because of scientists who promote anti-God sentiment under the color of science, I do frequently assert several of the open "origin" questions of science to illustrate how little they actually know:
For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, [even] his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:
Because that, when they knew God, they glorified [him] not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. - Romans 1:18-21
Nevertheless, no matter what a Christian may see when he looks at Scriptures and the physical Creation, the bottom line is: to God be the glory!
8: And that God closed the door thereon? Yes
To sum it up, I could have answered your list of questions by saying these two things:
God’s Name is I AM!
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