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Appendix IV

METHOD of APPROACH

Biblical Christian Apologetics

This is sketched in the following two chapters from

What is the Chaff to the Wheat!

Chapter 3

of What is the Chaff to the Wheat!

GODLESS MUSINGS ARE BUT CHAFF,

WHILE WHEAT GROWS OF ITSELF

For convenience, this is broken into two chapters;
but it is in fact one whole. Ch. 4 completes it.

PROCEDURES AND METHODS

On this occasion, we are outlining some matters of approach in Biblical Christian Apologetics, each one of which is abundantly exhibited in the Site; but here the compilation focusses method only, as a perspective platform in this area, and arena.

I

When acting, you need meaning for your mentality.  Without God, it is not there.  If you declare it void, you are perforce to be equipped with necessary meaningfulness in order to make such a statement, so that it is an antilogy. If you seek a viable basis, then you first need God for any meaning, since His objective knowledge alone is able to transcend ignorance, constraint and limit,  and supply actuality; and you need validity for any logically allowable consequence to it. Truth does not grow on thistles, nor does it find its lair in thin air.

As to validity, see Ch. 10 and Ch. 11 below, as also Ch. 8 and Licence for Liberty Ch. 2.

As to procedure,  first as in SMR Chs.1-3,5, 8-1 0, we prove that God is there, and then that He must have spoken. This is a process of following reason, the absence of which leads to inability to argue at all. While its omission is irrationality, and models denying or defying it need not other contradiction than their own self-contradiction, on the other hand, what includes reason as it is used continually, even in efforts to state why it is not valid! is so far rational. Its validation proceeds as we shall see. It is therefore a barrier to what denies it, annuls its objective significance or makes travesty of its powers, but a triumphant victor over what omits it.

This latter includes the Irrevocable and Rewarded Results of Rationality consideration (I), and it stands happily bereft of contrary models: since the denial of reason makes reasoning vapid against those who do not chose such a model, and similarly the denial of objective causation similarly requires an antilogism on top of antinomy, and is impossible even for any rational speech, that very verbalisation requiring this same causality to enable the very category of definition. All of this has been shown at length (cf.  SMR Ch. 1, Ch. 3).

We cannot, however, even on such a basis, read the mind of God for His plans; yet our created minds both can and should follow the work "of His fingers" of His deity in functional action, including action to find His word and face.  To be sure, this would be impossible if He did not choose to disclose such things; but as His word shows, He has done it. 

But where is His word ? As to His word,  it is irrevocably identified 

1) by the necessity that He speak in such a world as this (cf. The Meaning of Liberty and the Message of Remedy), and

2) the fact that objectively and scientifically both, there is no match but this, not even anything in the field claiming to be the word of God, for test at this level, whatsoever.

Indeed, there are many other ways to proceed in Biblical Christian Apologetics, including X-XII below. These are complementary.

Next, from SMR Ch. 3, we present a short coverage of this aspect of our procedures in reasoning for the faith, as provided for in I Peter 3:15, for all who are interested in such a thrust. In any rational consideration, this will include all who ever argue against the Bible or Jesus Christ as the only begotten Son of God. In this excerpt, there is addition for our present purpose.

*18 THE METHOD IS THIS.

Logic has its own validity, laws and principles. These work in our ordinary lives and as shown earlier, and are not subject to rejection by reason, for that assumes them. By logic we show that God is, is Almighty, may be known, and by Him only is truth to be known. By logic, we also show that those who reject that proposition are involved in irresolvable antinomies, are in an irrational and self-contradictory position, and can make no logical affirmation concerning the truth. Since we do not reject it, we are not so involved and our rational demonstration is unrestricted. It is in fact also confirmed and attested, as in ordinary processes or reasoning, by total and absolute verification. Moreover this is shown to be multi-dimensional, rollicking, and exuberant with the self-attesting dynamics of reality. The independent power to prevail, in attested ways, of both the identified word of God and the God of this word, in ordered experience and in history, provides an unlimited flush of a fortiori demonstration. (Cf. pp. 36, 265, 291-315 supra, 934-936, and 437-445, 592, 755-843, 316C, 332E infra.)
 
 

 

Notation on Reason and Revelation
Reason
Declares Treason:
Except it's used aright.
When used - and not abused -
To Divinity
(Not Mulched Infinity)
It Leads,
Divinity with words -
(Not intellectual surds)
Called Revelation,
That cause considerable
Consternation,
disinclination or
Desire:

But abide and override.

That Biblical Revelation
addressed to any nation,
person, individual
puts in focus
not hocus-pocus,
But Jesus Christ
who by word and Spirit leads,
like water to its source,
back on its rushing course
those who wash in Him
and come . . .

to life in, by,
and with
that Trinity
called God.

 

*19

IDENTIFIABLE COMMUNICATION . . . REMEDY : THE GOSPEL

It may be useful to prompt the mind on this topic of communication and remedy from the Almighty, as developed in some detail in Chs. 1, 2 and elsewhere. (Cf. pp. 28-36, 43-48, 81-87, 89-91, 127, 580, 592 ff., 1186B; and Index - 'Remedy'.)

It is shown in Chapter 1 et al., that there must be, of logical necessity, a remedy for the situation man makes and finds - on the part of God. It is useless to argue that man is dead, or God is dead, or both are dead, or that nothing matters. That is to deny the conditions of discourse, and simply sidestep the issues made. The mobile character of mankind does not remove his deadly operational functionality and facility. It is in vain to imagine that man does not live, move, operate, torture, contrive, create, construct AND deviate, caricature truth with gusto on millions of occasions, often on purpose, fraudulently crush justice in demeaning death, destroying reality and living in squalid and often sordid substitutes for the dignity and profundity which life may provide.

This action, multiplied amidst mankind, constitutes a perpetual thrust
against the God of creation. It is moment by moment, idea by idea,
perverted practice against truth by its fellow, polluted squirming of mind, moral and spirit by its mate, fiery thrust against God Himself and against His creatures by its companion, as against His principles, name, character and people:

while history itself is frequently distorted, truth lies fallen, equity is slain,
lies rage and ravage, and the world watches, misleading and misled.

(Refer : Psalm 50:17-23; also Jeremiah 7:8-15, 23:14-30.)

Some may worship the dead, but in terms of the living God, as demonstrated, this is distortion of Himself and/or His creation by His still living creation: like berserk moral mongols, or devastating inert moguls, run amok. As has been demonstrated at the outset, this DEMANDS a GOD who is not there; or divine response (either remedy for, or removal of - man). We established the presence of God, so we came for this continuing world to the latter:
divine response incorporating remedy.

It is a case of WAR on God at the most basic level; of being contrary to what we saw at the minimum God is and must be; of misrepresentation not only of God but of man in philosophies, various spurious religions - labelling and libelling man, God and the divine remedy itself. Either God is negated or remedy is affirmed. Since God has power, the remedy is found: identified as the Bible. (Cf. pp. 44-60, 422S-T, 644, 973A; Chs. 5-6, 8.)

The logical consistency of these divine affairs, in a world for the time being permitted to continue (II Peter 3:9), is in the most marked contrast to the enduring hilarity of contrary philosophy: not so much meanly, as necessarily exposed by successive generations of the disillusioned. The communication of God however needs neither extenuation nor alteration. It simply stands from each standpoint. Refer pp. 384-385, 873, 973A, 999-1002C infra; Index - Remedy; Psalm 50:17-23.

Thus reason is a necessity for thought and words (cf. SMR pp. 3ff.); and with it you proceed where our abilities show and the creation requires us to go; but without it, or with a system which does not provide objective truth and ground for its accurate and adequate conveyal to man, you deny the possibility of objective or absolutely true discourse, so removing irremediably your own theory, model or view from rational consideration. On the other hand, using logic, and so being rational, by this method as in SMR Chs. 1, 3, 5, 10, you find God's word, and hence the depiction of His mind, on which see also Barbs, Arrows and Balms 6   -7.

Reason, on finding the word of God, is validated, so that rationality joins hands with validity, all being enhanced by the find of the word of God, which then verifies and validates itself by its intrinsic and verifiable properties.

II

This of course is not what is called presuppositionalism, which requires that one start with God, or else confess that anything characterisable as truth be forgotten, including argumentation to abort it or capture it. Reactions are not actualities, but responses of one governed thing to another. That says you cannot get as knowable, a rational reality without starting with God

It is better to go much further. There is nothing else reason will suffer, as you proceed with it, in its own terms of validity, but God. This is no mere thrust to require a given beginning, but one to show there is no other end. It has a greater scope for procedure, and no less for possibility. It is not: Start here or end nowhere (which is true, but not entirely sufficient); but when you start with the very reason with which you argue, you ALSO find there is NOWHERE else valid reason CAN let you go. It is therefore a more exclusive schedule in terms of reason.

One could proceed: Further, you cannot logically abuse what is determinative, or there is no determination and hence your argumentation has all the substance of vacuity. What is itself baseless is base for nothing. If you are going to use reason, you cannot abuse it as a method. Once of course, you find by reason what, because of our construction and that of the world, it requires unless violated, that is the God of the Bible and the Bible of God, then you  need to validate this. ONLY the Bible and the Lord are required by reason; but then, this done, we require reason to show its standing. This cannot be done except by two means. First, it must be consistent and coherent in itself, and correlate with consequences, showing itself empirically sufficient; and then the result of its finding must validate itself in its own performance criteria. 

To be sure, we cannot argue AT ALL, without using reason in its internal validity and empirical justification; but more also, we cannot argue against its use WITH IT. That is out from the beginning, while reason's own operational validity shows itself in its works and pellucid ways. THEN we show that this instrument, in its result at so great a level as showing and requiring God (for not without reason are we made with reason), is validated externally in this, that His Being and Revelation alike, the knowledge in Him, which results, and of Him, which is shown, and the impact of His declarations are as unvoidable as impactive,  as consistent as secure, as beyond all other production means as indicative of His own.

This external validity added to the internal validity, the latter in the result of reason in its identification procedure, through the result, and the former in the internal conformity, coherence and power to perform, leaves no other option. You abandon reason and so cease all argument about truth (including argument that absolute truth does not exist); or you receive its results. Reason demands God; God's existence,  nay His word to mankind can be proved, is proved and is so presented here in this site. 

His divine nature and power are indeed manifest, as Paul declares (Romans 1:17ff.). The only alternative is irrationality, which of course can prove nothing, and disprove the same amount, nor even be relevant to such thing. Ignore reason, and all cause and effect, characterisation and definition departs, as well as power to argue, for characteristics and criteria are themselves codes and nodes, which have results of which they are the occasion and cause, moving us with irrevocable reason on and back, to all levels, and at last to that of the institutive cause of these causes, and of temporal causality itself, where one must await the delimited dynamics, in their outcome, because they are there and operative (unless the Creator chooses to act in direct power in His creation, as empirically, beyond the laws of restriction, He does at His will).

It is God or nothing; and it assuredly is not nothing.

What then ? Of course, this itself IS argumentation, so that you cannot ignore or outlaw or bypass reason; but it becomes in this qualified manner, a thrust of a kind apt and appropriate when conjoined with the other positive aspects of following reason and finding ultimate verification on arrival at the end of that quest. In reality, it is not that reason is defunct or unavailable, but subject to licence which must be validated from its basis when its job is done and this infinite eminence is reached, from its source, confirmation and creator in this universe of man, from that eternity which in self-existence has made possible all that is delimited and defined, for which qualities it is the cause, as of all the others.

Creation is for Him not a mere invasion of possibility, but the institution of actuality for which we see the scope, and for which we admire the choice - not a choice among what is there, but FOR what is to be there, with its parameters as they are made to be, that it might have character, its beginning as wrought and its destiny as seems fit. In this is freedom for man but not autonomy, in this too is its befouling by human will and His redemption by HIS will; yet this without His either indulging its lapses or devouring its reality. Of this we shall see more, but it is fitting at this early stage to realise that functional place of reason in such dower and construction, so that according to our image-bearing function before the God of creation, it is able to mirror but not to engulf aspects of the very mind of God, who according makes its journey felicitous, and when He is found, its place both secure and efficacious in all realms.

What then of presuppositionalism ? If of limited application constructively, nevertheless, on the negative side, this (II) is a sound procedure, and is used here in harmony with I above; for that shows not merely that without God you are involved in antinomy, but that BY REASON you cannot fail to reach Him and His word. Thus these two are in obverse relationship, complementary and harmonious in the process.

We could call this the Place of Presuppositionalism. That is, it is that in which it has a place accorded it, without constituting the essence. Its point: Irrevocable Reason for Christian Faith.

In this method, it does not at all depend on this; but it uses it as part of the mutually confirmatory totality which is apparent on all sides, not merely one.

III

The Salient of Scientific Method enters in because firstly, there is no other religion but that of the Bible which is able to meet the requirements of rigorous, relevant test; secondly, because this is exposed in many fields to such tests; thirdly, because some of these tests, such as infallible performance are exceedingly exacting for counterfeit, and decisive against it, but not too hard for God!; fourthly, because this was personalised when Jesus Christ came as God in flesh, for sacrificial and illlustrative purposes, and healing power, so that the test could be immediate and historical at a contemporary level; and fifthly, because there had been and has been ONLY ONE thing needed to falsify the claim of divine word in the Bible,  in ANY field, personal or historical reaching backwards to statements about former times, or reaching forwards to falsifiable prophecies; and this is even intensified in the person of Christ, since any failure to meet ANY prophetic requirement under the searing eye of those who hated Him would be at once apparent, fatally damaging and able to be found, if available, from the profound resources of the entire Rabbinical body at the time. Not merely is this so, but ANYONE on ANY topic, and ANYTHING, in ANY realm of power, wisdom or fact, would suffice to overthrow the Christ, just as this applies to the written word of God. In fact, the more it is tried and tested, the more it is staggering in the immensity of its irrefutable assertions, fulfilled to the jot, in its multiplicious predictions and confirmed in unchanging principles. Not merely is this so, but sixthly, Jesus the Christ had to meet personal requirements as a person, in terms of knowing enough to counter on the spot any attack at levels personal or propositional alike, in challenges historically, culturally or scripturally based, and to possess power to meet any word of promise, such as "ARISE!" (Mark 2:1ff.), His command to a paralytic when the Sabbath people challenged Him; and there are many such things. For the believing Jew, the standard is to be that of deity. To the enemy, the standard exactable of One making such claims (John 10:29ff.), is no less. Weakness is not a quality of God, in terms of what HE STATES, whether in person or in a written form: the Bible. The tolerance was zero; and it is for this reason, that such a standard being met and met majestically, death became the outright favourite of His enemies. That seemed sure; but then predicted resurrection, with the arithmetical correlate of having to occur on the third day after the murder, not merely answered the new assault test, but did so while simultaneously verifying not only the point of the murder, which in God's millenial message, was as a sacrificial atonement for man, since Christ was willing, but the additional prediction of the result. Nor is this all: the totality became the predicted Gospel as Isaiah made clear, and then circled the globe, taking kings in its course, as this same prophet forecast from centuries before. The more God is tested, either in His incarnate or His written word, the more unyieldingly He fulfils who He is and what He is, before the eyes of all, whether they believe or not. Disfaith neither alters faith's credentials nor constitutes less than still further verification, since this too is forecast both of Israel in its dealings as a nation with Christ (49:7), and of the final Gentile trend to discard truth and find satisfaction in naturalistic follies (cf. Romans 1 with II Timothy 3:5, II Peter 2, 3:3-5), such irrationalities coming even into the purlieus of many churches, as covered by parallel prediction.

These testable aspects are myriad; the results are one. This is the SCIENTIFIC PHASE.

Further, in the whole gamut of philosophy, the Bible, as the word of God written, has to be able to stand in the face of any threat to its validity, knowledgeability, perception, perspicuity or power in practical promises. It has not merely done so, but as has been shown repeatedly (cf. SMR Chs.   3, 5, Wake Up World... Chs. 4-6), it leaves all contestants rather like Autumn leaves, slightly ridiculous at this level; except for this qualification, that it is perhaps more normal for it to leave them utterly nonsensical in their claims (cf. The gods of naturalism have no go!).

On the other side, this same Bible shows a capacity to give an all-encompassing perspective which explains all with nothing left over (cf. SMR Ch. 5), and beyond even that, as shown in The PQ, it even provides a solution with the ingredients both necessary for validity and unique in the same field, in such fields as predestination, freewill, responsibility and natural law. To this we turn in the next Chapter, near
its end.

Having successfully stated directly or otherwise what became, according to Professor Tom Barnes, Physics Head some  time  ago, at El Paso University of Texas, the three most important laws of science at the most fundamental level (cf. TMR Ch. 1), the Bible stands the maestro of science. It does not allow man to escape the work (and delight) of finding out more of His laws; but it sets the tone and gives the perspective from the outset.

THIS is the sort of achievement which one would EXPECT at the level of knowledge and majesty from the ACTUAL God, and it is there; and such is all and in every facet  and department noted, a scientifically relevant VERIFICATION: indeed it constitutes a realm of verifications which multiplies in its constituents and components on every side. One has merely to look.

Indeed, SMR in no more measure, includes an attestation of verifications in multiplied fields, of the accuracy of biblical perspective and depiction whether in archeology or psychology, sociology or in history, morals or disasters, revivification of the Jewish Israel, or the defence of Jerusalem; and other volumes continue these pursuits, and add to them. In moving into so many fields, we come to a new emphasis on method.

IV

This we call the Exhaustive Resolution Phase, in apologetic method for Biblical Christian Theism.

Sub-sets of this may be considered. These include the Historical Prognosis Phase, itself in close harmony with the Prophetic Prognosis aspect of the Scientific Verification Phase in Method. All these relate in turn, intimately, with the Exhibitive Resolution sub-set of the Exhaustive Resolution Phase. There is in all truth precisely what is both naturally and necessarily lacking in all the incoherence of monism, a distinguishability on the one hand, of elements, and a congregation in integrity on the other, so that nothing is missing, and ALL relates, and that closely. One aspect of this field is that very dismissive rebellion - an aspect of liberty which can arise as we shall remind ourselves in the next Chapter, only because of love, or else that reciprocity to love which betokens an inclusive unity in the Source which is the Author and Creator and Redeemer, which also confirms the operability of liberty as noted in The PQ, the Predestination Quaternion and constitutes its ground of action.

Whether however we consider the scientific, the qualitative, the quantitative, the prophetic or the resolving aspects, there is in this field an EXHAUSTIVE resolution which by being so categorically, constitutes one aspect of method for the apologetics of Biblical Christian theism.

V

Now we come to the Consistent Corollary Phase of method.

Thus the very seasons illustrate the LIVING pulse of a power which having created, remains creative, just as does the mind of man which, having being created creative, creates: and how it creates, for good and for evil, whether marshalling thoughts or trains in the tumultuous megapolis, mechanical marvels or astute legal diction, musical exultancy or pathos, tender brilliance or appalling self-demonstration!

 Creativity is a MUST FOR MAN, and he cannot stop; so that where good is too hard, evil is as vast as the oceans, which currently, as is fitting in intimate corollary with man's exalted place as made in the image of God, he pollutes almost to extinction, along with the atmosphere and the waters of the globe; just as he has long done in philosophy, now able to find a physical reminder and adequate venue for its folly. This it does as knowledge increases, as Daniel predicted for the long-range depiction of the world as its last days should come before devastation and judgment (Daniel 12). So does prediction and principle unite, and so do the tartans of truth continue their eloquence.

It all fits and it all runs like a team of greyhounds that know nothing but winning, getting to the lure; and with man it is not very different; for having forsaken God, he NATURALLY ruins nature, which God made, and his own in the process; and to add to the correlative deployment of it all, he does so very often in the grip of gods without meaning or evidence, which he erects in the very ebullience of his imagination, as if nothing but arrogance could suffice for what is made in the image of God. Yet, without His self-sufficiency, man looks rather ludicrous in the process, like a verbal bubble bag, which also is predicted as one massive ingredient of the last days before the Lord comes in person to deal with the sheep and the goats (II Peter 2:10,18, Matthew 25).

Indeed, one cannot help feeling like a doctor being shown by the patient every conceivable symptom of some intricate syndrome, classically signifying his disease, and having in all honesty to TELL him. In this case, fortunately, the remedy is at hand! Indeed, it is this which is in the very sub-title of the preceding work: The Meaning of Liberty and the Message of Remedy.

 Everywhere and in everything, the caps fit on the bobbing heads, and man insists on wearing them, while using the blackened glasses of obscuration to frustrate realisation of his folly.

Folly runs, however fast one runs. Man is mastering speed, but not direction. This too is not only in line with the analysis of his condition in the Bible, but fulfilment of its specific prophecies, giving but one more illustration of the immense, intense intimacy of correlation of all the phases, as is fitting for truth.

Isaiah 30:15-16 puts it of ancient Israel, but God does not change, nor yet His principles (Psalm 102, Hebrews 1, Malachi 3): hence His words remain. These words as so often are applicable now to the Gentiles as to the Jews then, and indeed to all who forsake the Lord and His word:

                                      ^"For thus says the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel:

                           Blessed are all those who wait for Him."

VI

These things then closely relate to the Qualitative Explication Phase of apologetic method for Biblical Christian Theism.

Not only are things RESOLVED which secular, humanist, irrationalist, or rationalistic philosophy seeks over millenia in vain to comprehend cohesively, but there is a certain facility in the process and procedure. You see this illustrated in SMR Ch. 5. It becomes furthermore intriguing and entrancing, like watching a careful construction of cards all collapse almost momentarily, into a heap, to find no resistance to the perspective which explains. There is nothing left; the issue is over. Only heat can proceed; the issue of light is long past.

Again, in the word and work of God,  the more you burrow, the more ore you find; and what had been mere ground of swamps, becomes on a little drainage and investigation, the repository of a wealth of understanding so direct and dire to confusion, that it is like a Summer breeze in Winter, rose perfume in the desert and a fountain in the very midst of  the aridities of thought, transforming all into a terrain of incalculable utility, beauty and productivity.

In turn, this allows you to see WHY philosophy failed, and WHERE! while at the same time delighting in finding HOW truth prevails and in what way! Indeed it is surpassing wonder to behold it all, coming into place, just as when a mathematical conundrum on being rightly viewed becomes so simple that one wonders how it ever became a problem at all! Ah! but that is the point, to see the elements as they are, and not as they are not!

For this light is needed; reason loves it, but God gives it.

VII

If however there is an intimate and brilliant perspective which shows how failure became such and triumph is so, as to quality, there is also the sheer QUANTITY of the explication.

This becomes the Quantitative Explication Phase.

Here you find that the entire realms of morality, aesthetics, liberty, program and determinism, love, reason's integrity and so forth, are resolved like so many mice caught in a bevy of traps. Before they ran wild in the house, a menace to health and tripping on all sides; now they are departed, not being desired.

See for example

 News 19, Wake Up World!... Chs. 4, 5, 6,

Little Things Ch. 5, The gods of naturalism ... Ch. 14,

Stepping out for Christ Ch. 8, Licence for Liberty Ch. 9,

Red Alert ... Ch. 9, Ancient Words, Modern Deeds Chs. 7,   12,

Question and Answer esp. Excursion, 3;

Beauty for Ashes Ch. 5, Beauty of Holiness Ch. 3.

We can go into any level in this way, rightly based. Thus you not only find it relatively easy to define what BEAUTY IS, but what is its MEANING. In other words, there is even scope for what may be a new subject, the Metaphysics of Aesthetics! Everything yields not merely as if painfully to a victor, but far more readily to the perspicuity of the word of God: it does so even  artistically, as a view yields its INTRINSIC WONDER to the investigatory eye! You find what is THERE! This aspect is found in Ancient Words ... Ch. 7 for example. Again, metaphysics revels in SMR Ch. 3, as validity in SMR Ch. 5 and TMR Ch. 5, while monism writhes in Repent or Perish Ch. 7, which unleashes the vision of truth, rather as one releases a beautiful setter, long held in captivity! Liberty finds itself a delight, as we see in The PQ and in Licence for Liberty and such things we shall consider a little further on.

Like lightning, the light flashes everywhere you turn, when you first turn to the God who made you, and then to the recognition and realisation of what He desires, the way He works and how He is to be found. This leads on to the personal aspect.

VIII

Eighthly, in terms of method, this allows for Irresistible Reason for Certain Faith in Practice. This is not only because of its logical uniqueness in meeting and surpassing every test, consideration and requirement; but because in the personal level, it CAN only be verified by having faith and applying it.

Since millions do this, many in the most conspicuous fashion, from Moses to Elijah, from David to the very day of that Christ who Himself as predicted, embodied deity but used it towards the heavenly realm from which He came while in the format of mankind: it is not difficult to test. The many works of Corrie ten Boom are a good illustration of this as is that delicious little work of the wife of Chinese missionary, Jonathan Goforth, namely Rosalind, who gives staggering and eminently practical expression of this fact in How I Know God Answers Prayer! The works of the great Orphanage promoter and exponent, George Mueller is similar, detailed, practical, constant, as promises made declare themselves the same met.

It is when not comfort or convenience, not 'success' in carnal terms but service and spirituality are goals, and the love of God constrains that answers to prayer become as natural as breathing: not the hot breath of lusty desire, but the organised breathing of the one who runs a race ... wisely!

It is virtually normal in this Age, for people to seek to use Christianity for their comfort or pleasure, rather than to be used for the glory of God; but this, though predicted (II Timothy 3),  is merely irrelevant to the point here in view. We are looking at what is, at what is spiritual and godly and hence effective and realisable.

Faith grasps invisible reality, and through it man is grasped by the same, so that in the concourse, the power of God works as specified in the Bible, His word. It does not mean pleasure without pain, success without travail (the Cross of Christ was acute travail and was so specified in Isaiah 53, while taking it up becomes mandatory not optional for His people - Luke 14:27ff.), nor does it give funds or wealth, prosperity or prestige; but as is the nature of a cross, emblem of execution by social means, it rather guarantees assault of one form or another.

IX

THIS too is promised (John 16:2, Matthew 10:18ff.); but the power and presence of God is the point (Luke 21:15), and when you love Him, this suffices. His peace overflows when you walk in His way, and His wisdom is on hand for HIS purposes in the same realm (as promised in James 1). In this, it all works, and faith thus leads to faith, while pious fraud leads predictedly, to leanness and darkness. These things are illustrated daily.

This becomes Irresistible Reason for Certain Faith in Vitality, principle or quality.

It is one thing to behold EXAMPLES of faith at work and promises paid up from the Lord; it is another to find life itself exemplary of such spiritual quality, such divine comradeship and such empowering equipment that it becomes rather at times like some pounding waterfall which breaking on the rocks below, thus bringing such a flourish of spray and the rainbows of mercy that it is not even comparable to living without such exultant melodies of delight, replacing the maladies of confusion or corruption.

X

At the personal level, we follow the scripture to Christ as a vast focus of many prophecies.

In this we find not only spectacular confirmation at every level of archeology and history, logic and law, but in this, that no one of the almost innumerable features He had to fulfil as identification and exhibit of God on earth as man (an infinitely difficult task in principle, when the God is infinite), has ever been shown false. When one adds the circumstance that the nation of Israel killed Him (via Pilate), was that Israel in which He stirred the Jewish traditional nest to the uttermost, showing invulnerability in knowledge or logic to all attacks which were of course only a prelude to death if they failed (there then being no other way for removal of the 'threat' of truth), so that motivation to discredit was maximal, we find what science relishes and reason approves.

His triumphs were of course, then, fatal; but this fatality was temporary only; and it was designed to demonstrate power over death, as proclaimed and placarded in the prophets for centuries before, even the date for it being specifically set (and of course fulfilled - see Highway of Holiness Ch. 4).

Thus even His mortal enemies could not show ANY inconsistency with prophecy or morality or power or healing thrust, and when His works were so numerous, the challenges so frequent, the power required so divine (cf. Mark 2, John 11), His words often preceding His actions: then this becomes a vast mountain of testimony.

Not only was there for Jesus Christ a veritable cauldron of potential for being 'burnt', but the facts in contrast to this liability,  never even fail to nourish when they are investigated. Surpassing vigour, supernal rigour and total triumph are the continual and unvarying testimony which in turn was the warrant for death in those contending; since that was one avenue available!
 

Similarly, to the smallest detail, nothing is able to be shown wrong in millenia of intensive hatred and research alike; and the scope is like the great valleys, the height of requirements like the mighty summits in the huge ranges. Thus the scripture is logically required, evidentially confirmed, in terms of its major focus, a fortiori re-confirmed, in the scope of vulnerability, uniquely maximal, in the field of rebuttal, uniquely inviolate.

This is the Lineage of Christ Phase.

See SMR Ch. 6, Christ the Wisdom and the Power of God Ch. 8, Repent or Perish Ch. 2 for example. See also SMR Appendix C, Ancient Words, Modern Deeds Ch. 2.

Thus the personal experience of God, and the Person who as God by prediction and detailed prophecy came to earth and by power did what was required to make a testimony unequalable in principle and invulnerable in practice: these meet in an intimacy of correlation which is its own field.

XI-XII

Turning now from the personal, and in particular the historical testimony of the Christ, 

	that wonder of a subject enabling man to experience direct,  the self-demonstrating objective reality (cf.  TMR Ch. 5),
	who also has become the self-revealing exhibit to man in his own terms:

we come to the criteria of the demonstrable word of God, the Bible, the sole authorised word from Him to mankind.

This matches and correlates with VIII above, but has the beauty of being His own diction, not the living of life on the part of an imperfect being, such as each of us is. As such it has its own intense and intensive contribution to method.

In method, then, here we come to Sublimity for the Sublime, in Scripture, which in measure has already been noted, in terms of the just expectation that if GOD is back of this book, if GOD is the Father uniquely of Christ, from whom come adoption papers, if you will, for His brothers by their faith in His Gospel, then there should be a majestic and all but immeasurable might and lustre, superiority beyond mere calculation in the exhibition of His power and wisdom, in the Book. As already noted and often expounded on this site in detail, this is precisely the case. This phase is more than mathematical measurements, and predictive flourish including dates and names: it concerns the surpassing splendour of the totality. Just as the walk of an athlete is not entirely what displays his skill or power, nor yet his face, though both relate, but rather the composite capacities wrought for the purpose of his speciality, so here it is not merely this or that aspect, but the impression of the whole, where features and facets, foci and powers intermingle with the facility and naturalness of a family given to one aim, one purpose, one love, who love moreover each other. Here that impression is of a sublimity which stops nowhere, hates display, delights in teaching and opens up time and space, heart and spirit as if a mere library item taken for loan. (See for example, Let God be God Ch. 6, The Christian Pilgrimage Ch. 5 and Highway of Hoiness as one whole. These aspects are almost pervasive on the site.)

One of these aspects includes what is called here the Resonance Phase.

This refers to the way in which one scripture presents a similar impact to another,  yet with all the reality of individuality, even though each comes from a different writer in a different period of history, or even culture. There is a certain intimacy of correlation, precisely as one would expect of a single author of incisive purpose and unitary mode!   Answers to Questions Ch.  9, Light of Dawn ...  1; Pall of Smoke, Diamond of Joy Ch.  11 give numerous illustrations, and these may come in the form of verbal parallel, phrased ricochets, resumed expansions of concepts or prefigurings, as if a century merely was a pause before the 'lecturer' resumed, of  historical illustrations of principles or depiction of principles applicable to cases, so that foci on Christ that arise so frequently, may repeatedly be adumbrated by foreshadowings, with different degrees of directness (cf. Highway of Holiness Ch. 10). It is like a family, each member accustomed to the other, all in one purpose with one language and one insight into what is denied to all others!

Let us however resume now our more general dissertation on the majesty of the utterance, reflected in myriadfold manners in the writings.

Naturally, at this point, we are merely considering the phases in TYPE, of method. In this, both at the personal level and in the written one, there is just that supernal marvel which excites delight and stirs worship, being objectively beyond all that might be expected, but in the very level to which one might in general terms, have looked. What is found in the ricocheting verbal modes, is likewise seen in the connotational and principial exhibits.

Thus meaning comes into harmony with assertion, not contrariety, knowledge has its basis, truth its origin for man, order its genesis, brilliance of originality in the universe as in the mind of man, its security of causative conception, freedom its fabric; and the varied orders and liberties observable in man, and ready for realisation logically (cf. The Meaning of Liberty and the Message of Remedy), these gain their validity of source just as this matches their insistence in application. There is no need to seek to make one particle, one sort of personality, one dynamic, such as an elimination concept for an 'explanation' of an arrival requirement for all the brilliance and diversity of life. All things lie bare in this light, and more you look in any corner, the more both simplicity and abundance of coverage are found. This is one of the characteristics of truth, both scientific and other, in its various fields.

In this respect, to use analogy, it is like a case in tennis, when you not only see the amazing score line, in verification of truth, reality, but witness the shots, their classic proportions, abundant brilliance and intelligent design, evocative of more than admiration, for here is a Champion indeed, come as man but so far surpassing him as to constitute the very standard and inspiration both!

FOR METHODOLOGICAL PHASE  XIII see below, next Chapter.

Chapter 4

of What is the Chaff to the Wheat!

This is in fact the completion of Ch. 3, for both constitute one whole.

A MORE INTIMATE COVERAGE

Now that we have seen some headings and outlines, let us luxuriate a little. First, some might like to survey in a slightly more specialised way, some aspects of validity and reason, and for this an Appendix is provided. However, it is good to proceed in the precise vein above for pleasantness, so let us now do so.

AT THE OUTSET

Thus we see that Reason for the Faith, as provided for in I Peter 3:15, with its earthly setting shown in Romans 1:17ff., as also the result, can be phrased and phased into a

Comprehensive Bible Christian Apologetic Method. 

This in turn is self-confirmatory on every side, as in science ideally various hypotheses are sought to be intertwining, each approbative and sometimes even illustrative of the other.

In general perspective, if you pre-suppose no God, because it suits you, then you find no rationality or validity^*1.  Presuppositionalism specialises in this fact.

If you pre-suppose God, antilogies disappear.

However it is not our path merely to do this, grievous as it is to all unbelief at the outset. This is merely one phase.

In our next step, instead of adding to the presuppositional, beyond the first aspect, we proceed to follow reason, which after all for anyone seeing man in the image of God has no problems, rationalism being merely a debasement of a facility into an idol.

If then you set out to follow reason in order to inspect results, while also affirming any model which destroys its own validity, then you find antinomy, its voidance and deletion of argument, meaning and even words. If reason were an oddity of correlation merely, then it would be in a self-contained system of thought which would breed nothing of truth, merely of happenstance.

Thus again if causality were denied, then even the meaning of words would become insupportable, since characteristics are necessary for definition, and these in turn have their innate grounds and nature, which instead of being erratic, in order to become describable, are affirmable so that a source of results is correlative to a possibility of definition. Remove the one and you remove the other, so leaving yourself speechless, and hence unfit for argumentation. See Causes.

Character must BE in order that DEFINITION might be! Character must have ground, and does, in order that it might become characterisable. The process is a causative one, in which what is  produces what appears, through sufficient ground. Science being built on this, finds its matrix in it, and hence its power. A realm of causality caused by some imaginary cause, does not thereby become void; for on the contrary, IN ORDER to imagine a cause for causality, you have to ASSUME IT OPERATIONAL FIRST, so that something or other may CAUSE IT. The concept of such a thing is thus merely illusory and self-contradictory.

The mere fact that you are imagining a cause for causation does not alter the fact that you are using it in order to derive it, which has the common name in logic, of begging the question. This is an entirely vain thing, suitable only for school-masters who seek to teach the elements of logic to fledgings in Year 11 High School.

If however you avoid the voidance of reason and of causality, then no longer are you barred and harried, harassed and impotent at the outset by compulsory, pervasive irrationalism (cf. SMR Ch. 5). If you FOUND yourself on irrationalism, you cannot escape its quality, merely immersing yourself in the magic of its cessation.

If then you follow reason as shown in SMR Ch. 1 for example, you are forced to find God. This it does, even moving to His only authorised word to mankind, the Bible, by irrevocable necessity (cf. The Meaning of Liberty and the Message of Remedy). This Bible in turn confronts you on inescapable terms with the Christ of God, the remedy of God, and the Gospel of grace, of which it is full (cf. SMR Ch. 7, and pp. 520ff.). This becomes then an entire solution to seeking, involving metaphysical, epistemological, aesthetic, moral, political and physical resolution of mutual and specific principles (cf. SMR Ch. 4, Question and Answer   7, Ancient Words, Modern Deeds Ch. 7, Little Things Ch. 5, It Bubbles... Ch. 9, Repent or Perish Chs.   7,   2).

It resolves antinomies, excludes antilogies, and institutes not only individual meaning, but a nexus of meaning, coherent and integrated, while dependent and created.

This result is then subjectible methodologically (though it is already sure) to scientific method and is left alone with the criteria it requires, so validating reason, as is normal practice in other spheres. There being no competition in religious fields in this specific level, there are no issues; but the different heights and depths of verification when there, constitute an integral and personal answer; and since we are personal, this is necessary as one aspect.

Simplicity and integrity of all fields and powers of man, in resultant is its own additive to verification and integrity, and in fact, this could be looked on as aspect XIII in method, since it not only, as in VII above is a quantitative corollary to truth, but a systematic one in depth as well, a methodological surplus.

This then is the METHODOLOGICAL SURPLUS PHASE, which juts into view.

It is a matter of total structure in architectural simplicity, and its wings not only meeting logical need, but surpassing it in just that way that the mind of the Author of man in His own image might be expected to do. It has the savour of regality and the originality of the unlimited, with the cohesion of coherent thought and the superb correlations of design at the metaphysical level, as in the more apparent meeting places of thought's envisagement that are correlative to power without limit and understanding that is majestic. To look and learn is privilege and wonder both!

Let us now amplify a little.

Since the Bible, verified and validated as from God, is both a revealing of His plans, personal nature and purposes, and of His actions towards man and his environment, it opens a new test, that is likewise an opportunity. Truth loves and rushes to its exhibition, for that is one of the most conspicuous aspects of light: it reveals by nature!

Thus, through these inscripturated words, the Bible, validated as authentic in every way and wise, the Creator provides a way for a stable platform of communication with God, in the plan of salvation. More, these same words provide personal access to  God as by children to a father, and even, in Christ authenticated therein as Saviour of mankind, it provides reasonable grounds for such access (cf. SMR pp. 582ff, 611ff., 620ff.). It provides personal supervision to ensure adequacy and fidelity of the communication, and grounds for this being not only possible, but actual in a coherence of concept brilliant in disposition, all-encompassing its provision, like a prodigy of mountain peaks, each an independent summit, all a glorious totality, beyond need, superb in configuration and elevation.

In this way, the necessity of absolute truth revealing itself willingly is met, and at the same time, a rationally affirmed procedure is in place. It is not as if reason creates, but that in its fossicking and ascertaining office, it LOCATES the word of God! Further, in making available such a thing as becoming children of this God  of creation, there is from this same word provided a change of nature to the dashed image of God in sinful man, so that freedom has meaning to its very depths, and one's nature is not one's ultimate at all, merely a phase for consideration! So does liberty become meaningful; and in love, which is willing to do such work on man, there is the basis of the change for it is costly to redeem, restore and re-make.

It always is! (cf. Question and Answer   2).

This means of access provides for the negation of the offer (cf. John 3:19, Matthew 23:37ff.), which makes it meaningful in terms of liberty. If indeed, sin precludes the healthy operation of will, yet God in love is able to know and find His own, having desired all, while willing to violate none (cf. Luke 19:42ff., John 1:12ff.). In the end, as for creation, so for re-creation or regeneration as it is called (cf. Colossians 3:10, Titus 3:5ff.), God is author of initiative; but having founded man in His image, He is also with authority, the exponent of a love which never defiles itself by becoming force. Hence the endless seeming parade of paternal laments in the scriptures. You see this for example in as in Isaiah 48:16, and Jeremiah 48:36 -

"Therefore My heart will sound for Moab like pipes, and My heart shall sound like pipes for the men of Kirheres:
because the riches that he has gained are perished."

It is the LORD who is speaking as announced in 48:35. Poignant likewise and expressive of love in its integrity is the Isaiah passage:

                           Nor destroyed from before Me.' "

There incidentally, in 48:16 you see the sending of the Saviour from the Godhead as in the book of Isaiah, God the Father sending God the Son here prefigured with that majestic ease that relates to absolute truth speaking beyond time, and into it, so that we may listen! This example, while confirming our present purpose, also and in turn finds its place in XII as exhibiting the phenomenon of resonance. Facility without being facile, multiplicity of truth without strenuousness: here are some of the criteria of that majesty for whom truth is more than environment. It is His own nature!

Thus we are considering the divine provision in the Bible, the word of God validated and verified, so that this not only gives scope for liberty as noted above, in order to allow people to NEGATE (John 3:19), but provides personal VERIFICATION of the reality of what is freely supplied in practice to believers: and that in the special case of PERSONAL inter-relationship with this God, which as in knowing the artist and not merely surveying his works, is of the most intense and intrinsic gain.

It is an integral reality and a valid integrality, not in terms of parts as gods, an office they writhe to avoid despite the most invasive experiments over long years (cf. TMR Ch.  1), but as a created system inter-active indeed, but a derivative of design, each agent and aspect having place not by it own power, but by imaginative construction and deft correlation. On such part is man; all of whose personal aspects are explained in the ways we have begun to exhibit under XIII, and have often exhibited before

(cf. It Bubbles ... Ch. 9,
Little Things Ch. 5,
Earth Spasm ...   6,   7,
SMR Ch. 4,
Calibrating Myths ...Ch. 3,
Spiritual Refreshings ... Ch. 16, Ch. 13,
Predestination and Freewill).

To this we shall return near the end of this Chapter.

Meanwhile, let us perceive that it is for this reason, again in verification, that you find one such as Paul the apostle saying this:

"For I am hard pressed between the two, having a desire to depart and be with Christ,
which is far better;
nevertheless to remain in the flesh is more needful for you,
and being confident of this,
I know that I shall remain and continue with you all for your progress and joy of faith,
that your rejoicing may be more abundant in Jesus Christ by my coming to you again."

(Bold added.)

IN THE ONSET

Thus at the level of test (not that faith needs this, but method supplies it!), there is verification scope at the personal and inter-personal level with no less a personal being than the infinite God; and it is not in terms of His promises and principles, which merge like mountains on the horizon, the way and the result being correlative in intimacy.

These aspects include that chastening as required from any father (Hebrews 12), but the more especially from the Father of spirits; and this is present also: for it is not pleasure but company in the beauty of holiness which is at issue, and no more can the child of God fiddle about than can the scientist fool with his records or the athlete with his training. The fact that the end result is guaranteed (John 5:24), when it is LIFE which is operative, is no more relevant than is the knowledge that if one follows a path one will not get lost. It is not a question of motive but merely the characteristic of a highway, in fact the highway of holiness described as such in Isaiah 35.

This provides greater richness and depth of test, for love is as far removed from pleasure as is gluttony from appetite.

Now this liberty for man, however corrupted and polluted, implies and denotes, and indeed this the more from the pollution, a spiritual evil and disease in man without God, by which freedom, in excess of pathological zeal, frequently elevates man to god. It is not so actually, but in spirit; and often is this found in practice but without the power or the wisdom! It is indeed to pseudo-god-like status that he elevates himself, if you desire it expressed more fully. Thus is created collision, confusion and vast evil. This in turn expressly as well as logically by implication, is prelude to a rebellion which has results in every phase of human life.

This is an application of the onset, of the scope of liberty despite love, in the realm of creation.

One result of the rebellion is mental, so that men invents countless philosophies, none of which endures, any more than fashion does (cf. I Corinthians 7:31, Romans 1:17ff., I John 2:16, II Chronicles 36, II Kings 17, Matthew 23:37ff., Luke 19:42ff.), so accentuating and aggravating man's rebellion. These are predictable, since man has mind and warped spirit; and it is predictably invalid, as succeeding generations continually attest of the failed mental flights of predecessors without the governance of God in their thinking (cf. SMR Ch. 3, News 82, Repent or Perish Ch. 7, with Spiritual Refreshings 13 and 16).

Thus these mental paradigms of pollution called philosophy, be it moral or political, metaphysical or epistemological, logical or other, when secular and without God as is usual, often lead to imaginary gods to enshrine their ambits (cf. Deuteronomy 32:17ff.), which can arise in detached hearts and so create the confusion which, to overview it in biblical terms, merely confirms the pollution.

The results are inoperable logically, politically as being seen the more in recent times with the militant Moslem phenomenon, abundantly provided for in much of its excesses in the Koran (cf. More Marvels... Ch. 4, Divine Agenda ... Ch. 6); and indeed, it is precisely the folly of ignoring the invisible (cf. It Bubbles ... Ch. 9) which has led so such visible results in our philosophically debauched generation (cf. TMR Ch. 8, News 121, 122). If you ignore basics, then your ignorance will lead to what become for you increasingly, insoluble puzzles and ultimate vulnerabilities.

Blindness that is wilful always has this result that is woeful, whether mentally or morally with its aids in Aids, or politically as with aides-de-decamp in Hitler and Stalin, Mao and Lenin.

It does not work, for man simply is not so made; you can FORCE it for a while, and when as biblically predicted, such a method is used by a world power based in Europe (cf. Cascade ... Ch. 12, News 151, With Heart ... Ch. 10, His Wounds ... Ch. 3), it may last as did Hitler for a little while. Then it may seem that this power of pollution is ultimate; but it is merely an asininity of the highest order, and its overthrow temporarily by man or finally by God, by reality at last, is as assured ... as is its coming. As to that, it is soon (cf. Answers to Questions Ch. 5), in terms of the biblical criteria.

Already the world has had two millenia to experience the power of God and the fulfilment of the Messianic thrust to the uttermost in Jesus Christ; God is not impatient, but utterly sure (cf. II Peter 3:9). It will come. It is invested in His word, with a place; and it will meet this race as did the rest of His declarations.

The increasing numerical power of Europe, the rise of its currency relative to the US dollar in stark contrast, its increasing concern about its Constitution, its divorce from real ideals in this, in favour of pragmatic devices (cf. Christ, the Cumulative and the Culmination Ch. 4) : all these features are in line with the predictions, as this growing Euro-cluster is faithfully following the follies of dead philosophies, which become morbid mortuaries for the deceased in the long run, because truth hurts, and its avoidance assures collision, as throughout human history.

Thus the liberty in the concave of unbelief leads to erratic philosophy, conformable politics, oppression and antagonism between false religions and false versions of religion, all using force here or there; and these mutually antagonistic power blocs, continually re-emerging as if a kaleidoscope of very certain parts has been well shaken. This has accelerated since in particular, the German invasion of France in 1870, in the Franco-Prussian war, through 1914-18, 1939-45 and the 1945-1990 cold War with its partition problem for Europe,  and now through its increasing directive status (as in the Madrid Quartet - towards Israel of all places!): all these features of development confirm the mass of mess which folly invents and obstinacy consummates, so accounting for no small measure, on the negative side, of modern European history.

Episodes of desolation have led to an era of mutual co-operation and even co-ordination. Power, unity and religious vagueness with vagaries of 'destiny', this is the documented situation now facing us in Europe (Christ the Cumulative ... Ch. 4), an ideal preparation for the power to come and its devastating destruction in its day. Europe is a pivot to be; but it is its coming incumbent who is crucial (cf. Highway of Holiness Ch. 2, SMR pp. 683ff., His Wounds... Ch. 4,   *5, Let God be God Ch. 8, Biblical Blessings Ch. 2, SMR pp. 904ff., 886ff.).

More generally, racial hatred, survival of the fittest as a new political game, through pride as in World War I cardinally, through aspiration as in World War II, through the heat of ideological desire on the part of a defunct system parasitic on others, in the Cold War, the resurgence of money for oil with Islamic triumphalism, as was present not a little from the capture of Mecca on, with Muhammad (he was not ASKED to rule them by all! but invaded with power and passion), the exploitation of moral barbarism in the name of religious immunity, the pragmatic KGB-style utilisation of resources as they may be found, with results as they may occur: this and that, these and those, and many more such framed philosophic putsches have polluted the air of this earth till it becomes more and more difficult to breathe at all.

This is metaphorical, but it even has literal application for some! Sour power becomes glower power which brings nearer that hell which life without God comprises.

This development and direction of flow of course is specifically predicted in overview in Matthew 24, Luke 21 (cf. Matthew 24:7-8,12,21-22), but it is the DIRECTION of flow which is our current interest, and its predictability on the biblical basis to which we are attending!

Incidentally, this is an example of the PRINCIPIAL-PRACTICAL CORRELATION (XIV) which is a fourteenth feature of our method, in that it is forced on our attention by reality!

If XIII is architectural, structural: then this phase is dynamic, functional.

This differs from V above, in that that was an episodic matter, whilst this is a systematic one; and it differs from other aspects in this, that it belongs to the application of biblical data to the world in two concordant phases. It differs from the qualitative and quantitative aspects in that it is inter-systematic. Indeed, it is the very plethora of considerations and the intrinsic-extrinsic relationships between them which is like a texture or fabric, and is the very testimony of the substantial and underlying reality which one would expect. This, in turn, is verification of the biblical perspective all over again, at this precise level as well as in correlative other ones. Indeed, it is doubtful if there is any limit to such phases; and it is here merely a selection which is made for the purpose of showing method, and marvel simultaneously; but then again, when you know God, while it is no less marvellous to SEE such things, it is far less surprising.

Champions serve aces, may not be universally true in the tennis world, but it is near it. Deity deals in depths and heights that reveal themselves from infinitude without cease to the finite mind: this for one in the image of God, is not merely unsurprising, but in accord with expectation!

AT THE UPSET

These and many such features seen frequently on this site, then, not only further verification, something that is quite pervasive, but fulfil specific biblical analysis and prediction, as does a vast area of the scope, sequence and underlying content of modern history, not least with the noted elevation of Europe on the one hand, and even more marked, the Jewish presence once again in Israel. This is found together with  the inveterate detestation of the same as seen both in the UN's invidious and destabilising negativity (cf. His Time is Near  Ch. 10), and in the camp of the false prophets, such as the Muhammad fanatical camp of fundamentalistic militants.

Zechariah 12 forecast just such pre-occupation with 'dealing' with Jerusalem (cf. SMR Appendix A, It Bubbles ... Ch. 10), and just such cost for the presumption! Ezekiel predicted just such restoration into the very wantonry of the nations (as did Moses in Leviticus 26 with Deuteronomy 32), for an Israel restored to its national place. This however, it is most clearly and emphatically depicted in the Bible,  in God's faithfulness because of His desire and word, not because of their honour or faithfulness (cf. Ezekiel 36:22, cf. 37:28, 39:27); and if it to one, then it is to all that the message will come. When the mind of God is expressly set on a target, it is not man who alters it (Ephesians 1:11).

 It is thus a divine vigour which is being enacted, and the issue is not in the end what who will 'do' to or 'for' Israel, but the mind of God. This being written and propositional in scripture, the waves of horror killing become mere flagrancies of human obstinacy, which like all other, have dim and dismal future awaiting them (Ezekiel 38-39, Joel 3, Habakkuk 3, Micah 7).

Moreover, it is not only the Jewish presence in Israel (cf. SMR Ch. 9, Appendix A), but in Jerusalem which Zechariah and Christ (Luke 21:24) connote; it was to be a return after many days before they reach their Messiah, first rejected (Zech. 12:10) at last. Many indeed were these to be, in its exile (cf. Leviticus 26:37-42, Deuteronomy 32:35-42, Hosea 3:1-5). For how long has the curse, not causeless, come (cf. Deuteronomy 32:22-29, Proverbs 26:2)!

Now after so long a time, after 1900 years it has come. Indeed, it is the Jewish re-take of Jerusalem which is, as seen there in Luke, the signal extraordinary, of the near return of Christ. THIS HAD TO HAPPEN FIRST; so here we find not only the general character of modern history, the return of the Jews, and indeed their glorious triumphs as forecast by that same Zechariah (loc. cit., cf.  SMR Ch. 9), but the Jerusalem re-capture (1948, first 'half', 1967 the rest) as a specific index to fit with the rest of the historic tartan of colours and strands predicted; and both compose together the signal of coming culmination.

It is here shown definitively that the river is near the mouth to the sea... It is sea-side time, but alas, not in any holiday sense! The signal here notable is one occurring once in nearly two millenia It is not a repetitive phenomenon in the Christian era, but a single and singular one, hotly disputed, burningly denounced, but divinely ensured. Jerusalem is Jewish again.

Thus explained in spiritual pollution, and predicted in divine power, both, is this world's disrelish of this Jewish fact in Jerusalem, and the UN's inveterate hostility to a Jewish national presence there. The nations have been thus and were predicted to be thus, to the end (cf. Psalm 2). WHY do the nations rage ? It is against the LORD and against His Christ, says the Psalm; but the end is clear, as that Psalm shows. It is a hostility which not only led to the crucifixion of Christ, but leads on to the very rebuke of God among the nations, which was to come and now approaches with all the energetic throb of a distant express train, ever now more clearly heard on the echoing rails.

Pragmatically as well as principially, no Physics text book is as sure as the Bible; it never errs. Physics - for all its to-do, a study with which modern man loves in his own inveterate declension from God and desire to 'handle' the universe as if it were is own construction, whereas he cannot even construct himself - is a discipline which varies its theories to meet ever-challenging facts. The Bible, by contrast,  in over three millenia controls facts, and hence has no need empirically, just as there is no scope spiritually, to change! (cf. Matthew 23:35, Isaiah 55). That of course, and this is further verification because it is a TESTABLE matter, was just what Christ said. Not a jot or tittle will pass till what ? It is till ALL is fulfilled. Hence ONE error and He is wrong. That is a standard no other branch of knowledge can or does meet.

THAT in turn is further verification: it would be unreasonable to impose such a requirement of man; it would be unreasonable NOT to do so with God when He so speaks, a fact which Christ indicates clearly enough in Matthew 5:17-20 in His famous jot and tittle statement, as in 24:35 in His God beyond the universe declaration!

Rebellion, biblically posited of man,  does not relish reality discordant with its hopes and dreams. Adolescent dreams are by NO means the only ones! (Jeremiah 23:25!). Thus this return of the Jews both confirms long-range prophecy over millenia (from Moses in Deuteronomy 32, Leviticus 26), something far more notable than successfully targeting a small moon from billions of miles away, and rebukes illicit hopes and puerile dreams lingeringly attached to errant manhood!

Since man is so potently destructive by INTENTION, and frequently in sad and even grievous actuality, and since he is so variable and creative in thought and deed, this scramble of human thrust against divine diction, in this eventual Jewish outcome patently connotes that this Age is nearly over. Therefore and quite predictably - indeed predictedly as in Psalm 2 and Deuteronomy 32 with Zechariah 12 - this antagonises the rebels against God, who see the writing on the wall, and can read.

This fact in turn arouses both fear and further hatred, as is normal in rebellion when authority is undented; and redoubled efforts to quash that Jewish State arise not only from Palestinian murder squads, Islamically financed assassins of children, whose punishment by Israel the Press rarely ceases to focus. It comes also from the UN, and  from the Madrid Quartet of the UN, EU, US and Russia. To be sure that name for the unholy alliance it denotes is now rather anachronistic;  but the intention is not! This group with its Road Map have a road to further removal by international power of more of what the Jews gained despite international armies, at the first in 1948.

These things jointly show not only a pervasive coverage of giant movements in history over vast ages, from the word of God written, the Bible, but a majestic splendour in scope, detail and accuracy, atmosphere, perspective and detail. This provides the MAJESTIC PERSPECTIVE, a major face of Biblical Christian Apologetics (No. XI above). We see in the predicting word of God the atmosphere of sustained shame for the Jew, shameless intervention by the Gentile, passion aroused and military victory against all 'odds' by the Jew by virtue of divine action, the seizing of Jerusalem and its embroiling in intervening busybodies who cannot leave alone what God has ordained. We see the case of one of Israel like a thousand as Zech. 12 declared would occur before they repented of the murder of the Christ (12:10), which follows. It is all there, in its zeal, its passions, it sequence and its style.

It is so like looking down on mountains from peaks, that the comparison is strangely arresting. It is the Lord who looks down on man in his place and sees him as he is (Isaiah 40:21ff.), and His word majestically attests this fact, just as it graciously directs man to the divine remedy (Isaiah 40:9-10, 52:7-55:6).

 ON THE FACE OF IT

Nor is the scientific verification at all levels testable (and as on mountains that one is climbing, there are MANY faces to survey and surmount), by any means, all! Problems insoluble without God, the revealed and known God, not some flummery of mere invention or calumny of idle contention, are resolved by the specifically biblical data about Him, His purpose and plans, and concerning man. Not merely is this without residue (the Exhaustive Resolution phase of Biblical Christian Apologetics), but it is with facility (another, more specialised aspect of the Majestic Perspective aspect of the method).

This applies to the fields of the meaning and nature of beauty, freedom, morals, responsibility, guilt, law and love, folly and arbitrariness, good and evil, meaning and 'Nature',  and many others that arise on this site and in the mind of man, and have done so for millenia; and some of these are given condensed reference in

SMR Ch. 5, Spiritual Refreshings Ch. 13,
Delusive Drift or Divine Dynamic Ch. 3,
Earth Spasm ... Ch. 1,
Defining Drama ...Ch. 4 (cf. list above at VII).

Problems man proposes, God disposes by revealing the reality in terms of which alone they are resolvable. Their resolution is so relatively simple when the blinders are off, that the scruffy discourses outside His truth become like dust of stallions kicking, in contrast to the peace of comprehensively resolving perspective when the word of God becomes the base for thought, and the stage for action of the mind.

Through the word of God, the Bible, not only are these chronic problems of philosophy without exception seen voided into clarity in composite collation and single perspective with meaning and substance, but they are so solved without that reductionism which is a mere evasion of issues, as common as deceit, and as useless as lies. Moreover, through His word and its principles and perspective, this resolution is wrought with facility, as if mountain ranges from a highest peak were seen in their relative domains, their river beds and correlations clear, as is the case at the South Australian Wilpena Pound, from St Mary's Peak.

In fact, the biblical perspective like such a summit of and for all, makes it easy to disentangle and review philosophic errors as shown for example in SMR Ch. 3 in general, and 307ff. in particular. Here then is rest for the mind as well as stimulus, delight for the question reason as well as a shield of reality for the seeker who finds in this a rock not only higher than he, but an eyrie which exposes from its sublimity, what the plain loses in its dust. (Cf. Isaiah 33:14ff. with 55).

	That is the Therapeutic Aspect  (XV)
	of the Exhaustive Resolution Phase (IV),

one more illustration of the intense and singular coherence of the whole body of method, since it but reflects the massive coherence of the realities when viewed from the word of God, like ranges spread out before the inspired eye. Made for man, it matches man and so enhances him, in internal verification.

Thus the inspiration of being able to see all things in coherent, rationally delicious, spiritually triumphant, explicatory penetration becomes an ease to the mind, a joy to the heart and a radical lift to the spirit, a thing of peace and nourishment, fortifying the personal; while the Spirit of Him whose word it is, at the same time brings personal meaning to the inter-relationship of the things, which are His, with one's own person. It is like some Summer cruise, with unending bliss on all sides. Not that there is no taking up of one's cross to follow Christ, since the world is hostile and it is war! (Ephesians 6); but there is an inward reality and a rational thrill which matches the depth of the spiritual experience of the One to whom all these things relate (John 14:21-23).

As is usual when the truth is exposed concerning a puzzle, mathematical, geometrical, or other, it becomes hard to see how on earth people could so have butchered the matter! That however is the nature of blindness, that it does not see; and when as biblically predicated of mankind without God, it is wilful, then shut eyes make sight the more difficult yet, as Christ indicated for many (Matthew 13:14-15). On the other hand, not only does God reveal to His children what He has done, as who He actually is, but He even strengthens them with might in the inner man, giving them illumination in a personal way (Ephesians 3:16, 1:17-19), as if a painter were meticulously to explain to an apprentice the wonders of his art.

When it is God who acts to instruct His creation, naturally, this supernatural zest becomes an illimitable privilege and delight. How clearly He shows that there is nothing too hard for the Lord! That too is verification, since just as He claims, so He does (Genesis 18:14). It is as natural to the supernatural as the light is to the sun.

Just as there is report that some who are physically deaf have come to consider their plight an advance or advantage, and delight in its usages, so here but in this case culpably, people tend to create a 'culture' which like a rampant vulture, pecks on, yes seeks to swallow up what is not desired (cf. Beauty for Ashes Ch. 3, TMR Ch. 8, SMR 252Aff., 252Iff.). In this way, convenient myths are created (cf. Delusive Drift or Divine Dynamic Ch. 7), as a substitute for the actual and demonst