Symbiotic Economics: Natural Theology
05/March/2008 07:58 Filed in: Weekly Column
Volume 10, Issue 10
PDF copy
In this Symbiotic Economics series we began by criticizing a worldly economic system that treats human beings as production tools, consumer machines, or some sort of livestock. We stated that this should be expected because evolutionary religious dogma is without foundation in deeper human attributes, simply because it is designed naturalistically. We somewhat blamed evangelical Christianity for allowing this to happen, because in this time after Christ, the church has been given the responsibility of proclaiming the message of God. Instead basically for a bowl of soup or a piece of the pie, the church has adopted programs with very few differences than the world they say they oppose.
We have just spent six weeks looking at the difference between God given wealth and worldly money and riches. Simply they start from, or are based upon, two different paradigms and never the twain shall meet. Our current world monetary situation, because it is devoid of true wealth, uses basic debt leverage to make everything run, sort of. We have now however, reached the point where debt has no basis other than other debt. In other words, we are to have faith in debt because we need to have faith in debt.
There is a link to a very relevant article from the Telegraph.co.uk website posted below this article. It basically describes how the Federal Reserve’s plan to rescue the economy has so far failed miserably, and some of the repercussions that have been felt in Europe.
So today we embark on the last phase of this Symbiotic Economics scenario by looking at Natural Theology. So what do I mean by Natural Theology, the birds and the bees? Sort of, but more to the point natural information and energetics. As you may remember our big concern with debt is not debt for debt sake, but that debt has so little energetic value and there is so much debt leverage available with no place to go, people do insanely stupid things to make it grow. This is proven in the sub-prime mortgage fiasco. Planting illusionary seeds and expecting them to produce real gains, makes someone trying to con you into buying the Brooklyn Bridge look like a stunning genius.
This is a “word,” one Word. This sentence is made up of ten words, sure enough. Logarithmically it is two Words. When I write a hundred words it is three Words. I don’t know how many words I have written since I began “Chronicles of Diversity” but totally it might be six Words. Add to that all the other words I have written in my life it will probably still be six Words. Maybe if I continue to write for another 20 years I might reach seven Words.
I have in my library, now in boxes in storage, a book written by a theistic creation Christian that goes into this information science to prove, information wise, the existence of God. Since I don’t have his data, I will sort of try to remember the general premise, and besides this is for illustration only. So let us say that all the information of mankind throughout history is 50 Words, if I remember correctly his number was quite a bit less than that. Then looking at the information structure of the natural universe, just the matter itself, rocks, stars, planets, water, that type of thing, the number of Words was approximately double the Words of humanity, so say 100 Words. He then went on determining that the structure of a simple protein was in the thousands of Words, and finally making that all work in some sort of living organism was virtually impossible to calculate. That Word infinity is the Essence of God.
This all goes to prove that as mankind, we really are not all that smart, compared to the universe of total information, definitely created, not divine. Furthermore, when God created us in His image, and through the natural laws of Thermodynamics we are not as smart now as we were at the beginning. Of course we all will respond, “Look at all the stuff and technology we have produced!” Ya, so? We have foregone the knowledge of the Creator and all things spiritual, for a mound of stuff, or to put it more bluntly a pile of idols. These are not just pieces of trees and stones of primitive peoples, our idols need to be fed continually, and we work day and night to earn enough money to feed them, and borrow heavily to buy more. Just how intelligent is that?
Information Words all lead us to some sort of religious paradigm, even if that paradigm is completely atheistic and natural, it is a religious paradigm none the less. That paradigm is by nature broken into two subsets, a general revelation that is available to all people, which flows from observation and living in the natural environment, and from that flows a specific revelation that is a learned behavior, or precepts of doctrine. That is true in Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and all the other higher spiritual religions, but also includes atheism, naturalism and other non spiritual beliefs.
Now again back to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, over time there is a tendency, no a requirement, that there will be mixing, again dumbing down the specific revelation and also the general revelation, for all the good reasons and all the bad. Hence, in all religions there are those who feel called to maintain the tenants or doctrines of the specific faith, these are the theologians, even if the “theos” is man himself.
For those who believe in an Almighty who created everything, there are two groups of people who have been charged with maintaining that specific revelation of doctrines. From it’s beginning as a nation until about two thousand years ago, that gift and burden fell upon the nation and peoples of Israel. Those doctrines from the beginning of time until the present day looked toward a coming Messiah to free humanity from the sentences of death and sin, and to create a just life for all.
Christianity, by accepting the revelation of Jesus of Nazareth as Messiah, has taken over responsibility of that specific messianic doctrine. Christianity is essentially based upon the Jewish religion of the Old Testament, but revealed to the Gentiles, or the pagans, heathen, and infidels. This great mass of the rest of the peoples outside Israel, for the most part like to forget, that they were not chosen for their intellect, but by the grace of God alone, so that they, and all of the human family, may come to understand more fully the Elohim that created the universe. What we so easily seem to miss in their Bibles is the “words” of that Jewish Apostle Paul in Romans 11:13-27:
For I speak to you Gentiles; inasmuch as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry, if by any means I may provoke to jealousy those who are my flesh and save some of them. For if their being cast away is the reconciling of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead?
For if the first fruit is holy, the lump is also holy; and if the root is holy, so are the branches. And if some of the branches were broken off, and you, being a wild olive tree, were grafted in among them, and with them became a partaker of the root and fatness of the olive tree, do not boast against the branches. But if you do boast, remember that you do not support the root, but the root supports you.
You will say then, “Branches were broken off that I might be grafted in.” Well said. Because of unbelief they were broken off, and you stand by faith. Do not be haughty, but fear. For if God did not spare the natural branches, He may not spare you either. Therefore consider the goodness and severity of God: on those who fell, severity; but toward you, goodness, if you continue in His goodness. Otherwise you also will be cut off. And they also, if they do not continue in unbelief, will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again. For if you were cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and were grafted contrary to nature into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, who are natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree?
For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written:
“The Deliverer will come out of Zion,
And He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob;
For this is My covenant with them,
When I take away their sins.”
All Christianity has done a very good job of trying to distance it’s doctrines from Israel. The general modern phrase used here is, “We are not under the law, we are under grace.” However Paul, that redeemed Jewish rabbi, here in Romans is pretty heavy into the doctrines of law, and grace is only peripheral to the discussion.
My summary of the specific revelation of Christianity can be summed up in the five solas (alone), of the Reformation. These solas are held by both historic Calvinists, Lutherans, and some other Protestants. While there are other profound differences in the application of those solas, basically in a different nature of God, they do agree pretty firmly on these principles, at least in their historic Protestant writings, creeds, catechisms, and doctrines. This is in contrast to Roman Catholic doctrines enumerated in the Council of Trent in the 16th century. The five solas of the Reformation are in English, by scripture alone, by grace alone, through faith alone, by Christ alone, for God’s glory alone.
What I would like to focus upon for the rest of this week’s article is to get back to the general revelation of God in creation. Both Jews and Christians, as well as all of humanity are afraid of the “wildness” of Creation, theologically known as natural law and common grace. To overcome that problem people have huddled together in cities to keep from fulfilling the command of the Almighty in Genesis 9:1, So God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them: “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth.” In Genesis Chapter 11 we see that fear and personal arrogance toward the Almighty fulfilled in Babel, where God sent confusion creating the beginning of different languages, This confusion was required to get humanity to obey this fruitful and multiply indicative.
Both the information content and the spiritual energetics of Creation are so much more profound than what we find in all the knowledge and wisdom of mankind, it really makes no logical sense not to use Creation and it’s reality to help frail humanity understand the magnificent Glory of God. Now the response to this from Christian circles goes something like, “We don’t want people to worship creation rather than the Creator.” Since it was God who created creation or nature in the first place, that should signify that is God’s problem, and we must assume that His planning and creative reality does take that into account. We should proclaim Jesus Christ crucified and resurrected and let God handle His end of the deal.
American evangelicalism however, is really not based upon the full council of the Holy Scriptures, but hard core emotional manipulations, more in line with that now out of style practice of selling cars, or in marketing generally, the one call close. You might get the sale, but you lose the client.
Back to that faulty creation worship argument. There are in the world a rapidly growing number of Creation Scientists. Most of those are young earth Creation Scientists. Both “Answers in Genesis” and the “Institute for Creation Research” maintain such lists here in the United States. All of these people have been initially indoctrinated, or brainwashed, into the dogma that evolution is good science and truth. What all of these people have found, not just in a passive sense, but in a form strong enough to go on the record and risk there jobs, is that the evolutionary model is way to simple to adequately describe even the most simple facts of observational scientific reality. Furthermore, the creation account as found in the Bible, even in the nature of it’s short specific revelation, is closer to observed reality than anything atheistic naturalism can begin to describe.
To somewhat accommodate these people, the church recently decided that in order to reach the world, what we needed was not the God of the Bible and its Jesus, but an Intelligent Design theory, to counter the theory of evolution. I just happened to be channel surfing when I ran across the judge who ruled in a recent school Intelligent Design case. His conclusion was that there was no science to back up Intelligent Design. What he was saying is basically Intelligent Design is an evolutionary dead end. It leads neither to evolutionary science, or Biblical Creation science. What he was saying is that creation and evolution are both just religious arguments and unless you force the judgment that evolution is not science but religion there is nothing the legal system can do in the terms of separation of church and state. This is something American Christianity is too cowardly to do, because it might offend some people, and they might hate us like they truly hate the Jews.
The fact is in the world today, “The people of the Book” must support each other because it is only that unity and the grace of the Almighty that sustains any reality in this world. We must either hang together or hang separately.
We will continue these thoughts next week, with some specific examples or models.
PDF copy
In this Symbiotic Economics series we began by criticizing a worldly economic system that treats human beings as production tools, consumer machines, or some sort of livestock. We stated that this should be expected because evolutionary religious dogma is without foundation in deeper human attributes, simply because it is designed naturalistically. We somewhat blamed evangelical Christianity for allowing this to happen, because in this time after Christ, the church has been given the responsibility of proclaiming the message of God. Instead basically for a bowl of soup or a piece of the pie, the church has adopted programs with very few differences than the world they say they oppose.
We have just spent six weeks looking at the difference between God given wealth and worldly money and riches. Simply they start from, or are based upon, two different paradigms and never the twain shall meet. Our current world monetary situation, because it is devoid of true wealth, uses basic debt leverage to make everything run, sort of. We have now however, reached the point where debt has no basis other than other debt. In other words, we are to have faith in debt because we need to have faith in debt.
There is a link to a very relevant article from the Telegraph.co.uk website posted below this article. It basically describes how the Federal Reserve’s plan to rescue the economy has so far failed miserably, and some of the repercussions that have been felt in Europe.
So today we embark on the last phase of this Symbiotic Economics scenario by looking at Natural Theology. So what do I mean by Natural Theology, the birds and the bees? Sort of, but more to the point natural information and energetics. As you may remember our big concern with debt is not debt for debt sake, but that debt has so little energetic value and there is so much debt leverage available with no place to go, people do insanely stupid things to make it grow. This is proven in the sub-prime mortgage fiasco. Planting illusionary seeds and expecting them to produce real gains, makes someone trying to con you into buying the Brooklyn Bridge look like a stunning genius.
This is a “word,” one Word. This sentence is made up of ten words, sure enough. Logarithmically it is two Words. When I write a hundred words it is three Words. I don’t know how many words I have written since I began “Chronicles of Diversity” but totally it might be six Words. Add to that all the other words I have written in my life it will probably still be six Words. Maybe if I continue to write for another 20 years I might reach seven Words.
I have in my library, now in boxes in storage, a book written by a theistic creation Christian that goes into this information science to prove, information wise, the existence of God. Since I don’t have his data, I will sort of try to remember the general premise, and besides this is for illustration only. So let us say that all the information of mankind throughout history is 50 Words, if I remember correctly his number was quite a bit less than that. Then looking at the information structure of the natural universe, just the matter itself, rocks, stars, planets, water, that type of thing, the number of Words was approximately double the Words of humanity, so say 100 Words. He then went on determining that the structure of a simple protein was in the thousands of Words, and finally making that all work in some sort of living organism was virtually impossible to calculate. That Word infinity is the Essence of God.
This all goes to prove that as mankind, we really are not all that smart, compared to the universe of total information, definitely created, not divine. Furthermore, when God created us in His image, and through the natural laws of Thermodynamics we are not as smart now as we were at the beginning. Of course we all will respond, “Look at all the stuff and technology we have produced!” Ya, so? We have foregone the knowledge of the Creator and all things spiritual, for a mound of stuff, or to put it more bluntly a pile of idols. These are not just pieces of trees and stones of primitive peoples, our idols need to be fed continually, and we work day and night to earn enough money to feed them, and borrow heavily to buy more. Just how intelligent is that?
Information Words all lead us to some sort of religious paradigm, even if that paradigm is completely atheistic and natural, it is a religious paradigm none the less. That paradigm is by nature broken into two subsets, a general revelation that is available to all people, which flows from observation and living in the natural environment, and from that flows a specific revelation that is a learned behavior, or precepts of doctrine. That is true in Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and all the other higher spiritual religions, but also includes atheism, naturalism and other non spiritual beliefs.
Now again back to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, over time there is a tendency, no a requirement, that there will be mixing, again dumbing down the specific revelation and also the general revelation, for all the good reasons and all the bad. Hence, in all religions there are those who feel called to maintain the tenants or doctrines of the specific faith, these are the theologians, even if the “theos” is man himself.
For those who believe in an Almighty who created everything, there are two groups of people who have been charged with maintaining that specific revelation of doctrines. From it’s beginning as a nation until about two thousand years ago, that gift and burden fell upon the nation and peoples of Israel. Those doctrines from the beginning of time until the present day looked toward a coming Messiah to free humanity from the sentences of death and sin, and to create a just life for all.
Christianity, by accepting the revelation of Jesus of Nazareth as Messiah, has taken over responsibility of that specific messianic doctrine. Christianity is essentially based upon the Jewish religion of the Old Testament, but revealed to the Gentiles, or the pagans, heathen, and infidels. This great mass of the rest of the peoples outside Israel, for the most part like to forget, that they were not chosen for their intellect, but by the grace of God alone, so that they, and all of the human family, may come to understand more fully the Elohim that created the universe. What we so easily seem to miss in their Bibles is the “words” of that Jewish Apostle Paul in Romans 11:13-27:
For I speak to you Gentiles; inasmuch as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry, if by any means I may provoke to jealousy those who are my flesh and save some of them. For if their being cast away is the reconciling of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead?
For if the first fruit is holy, the lump is also holy; and if the root is holy, so are the branches. And if some of the branches were broken off, and you, being a wild olive tree, were grafted in among them, and with them became a partaker of the root and fatness of the olive tree, do not boast against the branches. But if you do boast, remember that you do not support the root, but the root supports you.
You will say then, “Branches were broken off that I might be grafted in.” Well said. Because of unbelief they were broken off, and you stand by faith. Do not be haughty, but fear. For if God did not spare the natural branches, He may not spare you either. Therefore consider the goodness and severity of God: on those who fell, severity; but toward you, goodness, if you continue in His goodness. Otherwise you also will be cut off. And they also, if they do not continue in unbelief, will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again. For if you were cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and were grafted contrary to nature into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, who are natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree?
For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written:
“The Deliverer will come out of Zion,
And He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob;
For this is My covenant with them,
When I take away their sins.”
All Christianity has done a very good job of trying to distance it’s doctrines from Israel. The general modern phrase used here is, “We are not under the law, we are under grace.” However Paul, that redeemed Jewish rabbi, here in Romans is pretty heavy into the doctrines of law, and grace is only peripheral to the discussion.
My summary of the specific revelation of Christianity can be summed up in the five solas (alone), of the Reformation. These solas are held by both historic Calvinists, Lutherans, and some other Protestants. While there are other profound differences in the application of those solas, basically in a different nature of God, they do agree pretty firmly on these principles, at least in their historic Protestant writings, creeds, catechisms, and doctrines. This is in contrast to Roman Catholic doctrines enumerated in the Council of Trent in the 16th century. The five solas of the Reformation are in English, by scripture alone, by grace alone, through faith alone, by Christ alone, for God’s glory alone.
What I would like to focus upon for the rest of this week’s article is to get back to the general revelation of God in creation. Both Jews and Christians, as well as all of humanity are afraid of the “wildness” of Creation, theologically known as natural law and common grace. To overcome that problem people have huddled together in cities to keep from fulfilling the command of the Almighty in Genesis 9:1, So God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them: “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth.” In Genesis Chapter 11 we see that fear and personal arrogance toward the Almighty fulfilled in Babel, where God sent confusion creating the beginning of different languages, This confusion was required to get humanity to obey this fruitful and multiply indicative.
Both the information content and the spiritual energetics of Creation are so much more profound than what we find in all the knowledge and wisdom of mankind, it really makes no logical sense not to use Creation and it’s reality to help frail humanity understand the magnificent Glory of God. Now the response to this from Christian circles goes something like, “We don’t want people to worship creation rather than the Creator.” Since it was God who created creation or nature in the first place, that should signify that is God’s problem, and we must assume that His planning and creative reality does take that into account. We should proclaim Jesus Christ crucified and resurrected and let God handle His end of the deal.
American evangelicalism however, is really not based upon the full council of the Holy Scriptures, but hard core emotional manipulations, more in line with that now out of style practice of selling cars, or in marketing generally, the one call close. You might get the sale, but you lose the client.
Back to that faulty creation worship argument. There are in the world a rapidly growing number of Creation Scientists. Most of those are young earth Creation Scientists. Both “Answers in Genesis” and the “Institute for Creation Research” maintain such lists here in the United States. All of these people have been initially indoctrinated, or brainwashed, into the dogma that evolution is good science and truth. What all of these people have found, not just in a passive sense, but in a form strong enough to go on the record and risk there jobs, is that the evolutionary model is way to simple to adequately describe even the most simple facts of observational scientific reality. Furthermore, the creation account as found in the Bible, even in the nature of it’s short specific revelation, is closer to observed reality than anything atheistic naturalism can begin to describe.
To somewhat accommodate these people, the church recently decided that in order to reach the world, what we needed was not the God of the Bible and its Jesus, but an Intelligent Design theory, to counter the theory of evolution. I just happened to be channel surfing when I ran across the judge who ruled in a recent school Intelligent Design case. His conclusion was that there was no science to back up Intelligent Design. What he was saying is basically Intelligent Design is an evolutionary dead end. It leads neither to evolutionary science, or Biblical Creation science. What he was saying is that creation and evolution are both just religious arguments and unless you force the judgment that evolution is not science but religion there is nothing the legal system can do in the terms of separation of church and state. This is something American Christianity is too cowardly to do, because it might offend some people, and they might hate us like they truly hate the Jews.
The fact is in the world today, “The people of the Book” must support each other because it is only that unity and the grace of the Almighty that sustains any reality in this world. We must either hang together or hang separately.
We will continue these thoughts next week, with some specific examples or models.