The Victim
When there is a crime, the recipient
of the injury is the victim. Injuries are of different natures, but God being
supra-natural, His injuries are not of nature. Before God’s injury is
understood, God’s “nature” must be. In
Herrin’s Lexicon “nature” is what God created. It is what exists as a result of
Existence. Within nature there are the tangible and the characteristics which
are intangible. For instance, man can be seen but his thoughts can only be
detected with behaviors. The man is tangible; his mind intangible.
On the other hand, the
supra-natural is only intangible to the natural senses. The obvious five are
sight, hearing, taste, touch, and smell. Some submit that there are others such
as intuition. The senses are how animal-kind perceives nature and are
themselves natural. Since mankind’s
knowledge is limited to the natural things, science can only deal with what is
tangible. Before knowledge can be explored, it must be operationalized, or
figuring out how to measure the phenomena. Those measurements are metrics and
are used for testing null hypotheses.
Scientific testing precludes proving any hypothesis. The experiment
is testing it’s null. For instance, if one hypothesizes that “tomatoes are a
fruit”, then aspects of fruits must be operationalized. Internal seeds are one.
Some degree of sweetness may be another. The metrics are one or more seeds and “percent
sucrose equivalent” is the metric for sweetness. 56
The null hypothesis is “tomatoes
are not a fruit”. Testing the null is
“inferential statistics”, 57 using data to infer statistical
relevance or probability. The probability that “tomatoes are a fruit” is
accepted if the null, “tomatoes are not a fruit” is rejected. Inference is
merely one step in reasoning, the
gift of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Logic is using the thought processes for the
mind to reason. Mankind’s mind is limited in both knowledge and wisdom – right reasoning
or using knowledge effectively. The very words “inference” and “probability”
denote lack of proof. Hence, the tomato cannot be proven to be a fruit but only
accepted as such! Many choose to accept the tomato as a vegetable because it is
more often used as one and lacks the intensity of sweetness associated with
fruits.
God revealed to mankind one of
his characteristics – Creator 58 That claim cannot be proven; that “God created the Heaven and the earth”. That is a hypothesis, reasonably
based on a claim. That claim makes people indignant and even angry. Those who
reject that hypothesis, reject God because “gods” are believed to have
supernatural powers. Rejecting God is rejecting His Word. It is implied in
scripture that rejecting God is hate because God is love, 59 and
those who deny that do not know God. It
seems that the metric for God’s Existence is His divine love. From John 3:16
(already mentioned) that divine love is God’s will “that none should perish”.
The metric is “zero eternal deaths”. That is the measurement of agape love, and likewise how “love thy
neighbor” is metricized – we must want that zero should perish.
The null of our hypotheses is “God
did not create the heaven and the earth”. That null hypotheses can neither be
accepted nor rejected because the methodology is flawed. Science rejects what
cannot be measured or sensed. Thus, they cannot rightfully infer nor state with
high probability either premise. Hence, “God did not create the heaven and the
earth” must be accepted by faith since it cannot be proven nor disproven.
Religion is more honest than science. It admits that the claim, “God created
the heaven and the earth” cannot be proven but can be accepted by faith because
it is a reasonable claim and makes sense. Logic supports faith! If God did not
create the heavens and the earth, who did? Science says it just happened by
chance. Hence, their “unknown god” can
now be named; its name is “Chance”.
God’s traits are many. The first
one that is known is His “Almightiness”. Because God claims to be Creator,
people “kill” God for that claim. They deny that God created. Their faith is in themselves. God’s Almightiness is
rejected without proof – based only on the whim of limited knowledge. Science
admits its weakness. If there is anything beyond the natural, they have no
metrics for all of existence. The Judeo-Christian community hypothesizes that
God created the heaven and the earth because it makes sense and is reasonable.
They reject the null because it can neither be proven or disproven. There are
no metrics to operationalize the null hypothesis.
What is God? One who can create
and/or control the natural. Some existence who is Almighty. The Judeo-Christian
God is the “Almighty God”. 60 We know that because it is written. Many gods make that same claim. Of course, the
“unknown god” 61 does as well, and so do many false gods. However,
the proof of the Judeo-Christian God does have a metric. Jesus is God in the
flesh. No other religion claims that, although many have claimed to be Christs.
What they miss is “Almightiness”. None of them had the power to create much
besides lies! The well-known pretender of God is Simon the Sorcerer: 62
Justin Martyr (in his Apologies,
and in a lost work against heresies, which Irenaeus used as his main source)
and Irenaeus (Adversus Haereses)
record that after being cast out by the Apostles, Simon Magus came to Rome
where, having joined to himself a profligate woman of the name of Helen, he
gave out that it was he who appeared among the Jews as the Son, in Samaria as
the Father and among other nations as the Holy Spirit. He performed such signs
by magic acts during the reign of Claudius that he was regarded as a god and
honored with a statue on the island in the Tiber which the two bridges cross,
with the inscription Simoni Deo Sancto, "To Simon the Holy God" (Apologia, XXVI). 63
Gnostics accept Simon’s claim
because he performed magic! It’s obvious that to create the heaven and the
earth takes much more than a magician performing magic. Simon can be
disqualified with ease. He never claimed to have created the heaven and the
earth. Likewise, neither did the unknown god! Trusting God’s claim is called “faith”
Trusting happenstance is called “faith” but is folly. Faith is defined for us in scripture:
Now faith is the substance of
things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. 64
“Substance”
is easy one. It’s a portion of existence. The hupostasis in the Greek which is “a setting under”. 65
That fits “foundation” quite well.
Jerusalem in the Hebrew means “foundation of peace”. 66 “The
City of God” is New Jerusalem, 67 and as such, the “foundation of
peace will return to earth.” 68
“Hope” is an abstract word. It
cannot easily be operationalized. There are no degrees of hope, thus no
metrics. One either has it or not. Possibly “hope” is another sense. It too is
natural but obviously is an affect of the supernatural. Hope is associated with
positive outcomes. What are the three outcomes possible? Fatalism, Hell, and
Heaven. Fatalism is moldering in the grave for eternity. Heaven is a reward for
keeping the faith, and Hell is the penalty for blasphemy – having no faith and
denying God. Fatalism and Hell are philosophies which deny God. “God is dead”
is the saying. That saying admits that there is a God but the Laws of God are inconsequential.
The atheists deny the existence of God while the blasphemer kills Him with
philosophy. Why do they do that? Philosophy is the love of knowledge! That is recognized as an outcome of eating of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good
and Evil.
Philosophy is not another
religion. They don’t really have an unknown God! Their god is well-known –
philosophy is essentially the study of the self. There are many “other gods”.
We are born that way because of self-indulgence. All mankind must appease their
flesh which is their idol.
The flesh is not just the dermal
layers but is the individual wills of mankind. That is in contrast to God’s
will. The law of sin is doing Satan’s will by doing our own will. Satan is
intelligent and is satisfied with worshiping him vicariously. After all, as the
serpent, Satan hung upon a tree as well; it was just the wrong tree! There may
have been real trees in the Garden or the entire Garden may have been a Garden
of metaphors. In the Book of Genesis,
the Garden may have been both real and a simile. We know that it is a simile
because of the message. We don’t know if it’s real because the only evidence
that the Garden remains is Jerusalem – the very foundation of peace. Hebrew
sacred literature names Jerusalem as the site of the Garden of Eden with Mount
Herman – the Holy Mountain nearby - 69 where the “watchers” came
down.
Thus, Jerusalem, “the naval of
the world” is historical evidence that the Garden of Eden existed in the
Kingdom of God, later to have the boundaries of the Kingdom of David which
seems to be Eden with the Garden eastward in that land. 70
Thus, there is "proof", although
only probability, that Jerusalem is where mankind was created, and
subsequently, the creation story is more than myth!
When God’s main attribute is
denied, it is attempted murder. Disdain is demonstrated for God’s Word (more on
Him later). Is it necessary to believe in God the Creator?
Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them;
for God hath shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the
creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are
made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse. 71
Belief in God is manifested in the
creation. When we look at the complex universe, only God could do that intelligent
design. On the flip-side, if one does not believe in the Creator God, the idea
of God is crucified. Science, eating vociferously from the Tree of the
Knowledge, fattens itself with theory while killing God. Those who eat of their
fruit are accomplices in killing off God! This is the beginning of realizing
that the “butler” didn’t do it, and neither did the Jews; it are those who buy
into the knowledge from the forbidden tree!
It must be remembered that there were many trees in the Garden. The
peripheral trees were a simile of mankind. Adam and Eve were to tend to them,
and all the trees were to be kept and dressed. 72 That was how Adam
and Eve were to “love thy neighbor” like unto the Greatest Commandment! In the midst of the Garden were two other
trees: the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.73 These Trees were a simile of two religions: Messianic Christianity and humanism
or philosophy, although “self-esteem” is even better coinage. Under the Tree of
Life, representative of the Godhead, was Messianic Christianity. And under the
forbidden tree is mankind, standing together under the crucified serpent for
Satan had stolen his existence!
It was not the fruit which caused mortality to come on Adam and Eve; they
crucified God because they stood under the perceived “better” tree, and robbed
God of the love He was due. Mankind killed God because they withheld love from
Him, and bestowed it upon themselves! Paul spoke on those philosophies in
Athens. 74
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