B. U. G. S.

The HUMAN PARADIGM

Consider:
The way we define ‘human’ determines our view of self, others, relationships, institutions, life, and future. Important? Only the Creator who made us in His own image is qualified to define us accurately. Choose wisely… there are results.

In an effort to diminish the multiple and persistent dangers and abuses which have characterized the affairs of man in his every Age, and to assist in the requisite search for human identity, it is essential to perceive and specify that distinction which naturally and most uniquely defines the human being. Because definitions rule in the minds, behaviors, and institutions of men, we can be confident that delineating and communicating that quality will assist the process of resolution and the courageous ascension to which man is called. As Americans of the 21st Century, we are obliged and privileged to join our forebears and participate in this continuing paradigm proclamation.

“WHAT IS MAN…?” God asks – and answers:
HUMAN DEFINED: EARTH’S CHOICEMAKER
by JAMES FLETCHER BAXTER (c) 2005

Many problems in human experience are the result of false and inaccurate definitions of humankind premised in man-made religions and humanistic philosophies.

Human knowledge is a fraction of the whole universe. The balance is a vast void of human ignorance. Human reason cannot fully function in such a void; thus, the intellect can rise no higher than the criteria by which it perceives and measures values.

Humanism makes man his own standard of measure. However, as with all measuring systems, a standard must be greater than the value measured. Based on preponderant ignorance and an egocentric carnal nature, humanism demotes reason to the simpleton task of excuse-making in behalf of the rule of appetites, desires, feelings, emotions, and glands.

Because man, hobbled in an ego-centric predicament, cannot invent criteria greater than himself, the humanist lacks a predictive capability. Without instinct or transcendent criteria, humanism cannot evaluate options with foresight and vision for progression and survival. Lacking foresight, man is blind to potential consequence and is unwittingly committed to mediocrity, averages, and regression – and worse. Humanism is an unworthy worship.

The void of human ignorance can easily be filled with a functional faith while not-so-patiently awaiting the foot-dragging growth of human knowledge and behavior. Faith, initiated by the Creator and revealed and validated in His Word, the Bible, brings a transcendent standard to man the choice-maker. Other philosophies and religions are man-made, humanism, and thereby lack what only the Bible has:

1. Transcendent Criteria and
2. Fulfilled Prophetic Validation.

The vision of faith in God and His Word is survival equipment for today and the future.

Human is earth’s Choicemaker. Psalm 25:12 He is by nature and nature’s God a creature of Choice – and of Criteria. Psalm 119:30,173 His unique and definitive characteristic is, and of Right ought to be, the natural foundation of his environments, institutions, and respectful relations to his fellow-man. Thus, he is oriented to a Freedom whose roots are in the Order of the universe.

At the sub-atomic level of the physical universe quantum physics indicates a multifarious gap or division in the causal chain; particles to which position cannot be assigned at all times, systems that pass from one energy state to another without manifestation in intermediate states, entities without mass, fields whose substance is as insubstantial as “a probability.”

Only statistical conglomerates pay tribute to deterministic forces. Singularities do not and are therefore random, unpredictable, mutant, and in this sense, uncaused. The finest contribution inanimate reality is capable of making toward choice, without its own selective agencies, is this continuing manifestation of opportunity as the pre-condition to choice it defers to the natural action of living forms.

Biological science affirms that each level of life, single-cell to man himself, possesses attributes of sensitivity, discrimination, and selectivity, and in the exclusive and unique nature of each diversified life form.

The survival and progression of life forms has all too often been dependent upon the ever-present undeterminative potential and appearance of one unique individual organism within the whole spectrum of a given life-form. Only the uniquely equipped individual organism is, like The Golden Wedge of Ophir, capable of traversing the causal gap to survival and progression. Mere reproductive determinacy would have rendered life forms incapable of such potential.

Only a moving universe of opportunity plus choice enables the present reality.

Each individual human being possesses a unique, highly developed, and sensitive perception of diversity. Thus aware, man is endowed with a natural capability for enacting internal mental and external physical selectivity. Quantitative and qualitative choice-making thus lends itself as the superior basis of an active intelligence.

Man is earth’s Choicemaker. His title describes his definitive and typifying characteristic. Recall that his other features are but vehicles of experience intent on the development of perceptive awareness and the following acts of decision. Note that the products of man cannot define him for they are the fruit of the discerning choice-making process and include the cognition of self, the utility of experience, the development of value-measuring systems and language, and the acculturation of civilization.

The arts and the sciences of man, as with his habits, customs, and traditions, are the creative harvest of his perceptive and selective powers. Creativity, the creative process, is a choice-making process. His articles, constructs, and commodities, however marvelous to behold, deserve neither awe nor idolatry, for man, not his contrivance, is earth’s own highest expression of the creative process.

Man is earth’s Choicemaker. The sublime and significant act of choosing is, itself, the Archimedean fulcrum upon which man levers and redirects the forces of cause and effect to an elected level of quality and diversity. Further, it orients him toward a natural environmental opportunity, freedom, and bestows earth’s title, The Choicemaker, on his singular and plural brow.

Deterministic systems, ideological symbols of abdication by man from his natural role as earth’s Choicemaker, inevitably degenerate into collectivism; the negation of singularity, they become a conglomerate plural-based system of measuring human value. Blunting an awareness of diversity, blurring alternatives, and limiting the selective creative process, they are self-relegated to a passive and circular regression.

Tampering with man’s selective nature endangers his survival for it would render him impotent and obsolete by denying the tools of diversity, individuality, perception, criteria, selectivity, and progress. Coercive attempts produce revulsion, for such acts are contrary to an indeterminate nature and nature’s indeterminate off-spring, man the Choicemaker.

Until the oppressors discover that wisdom only just begins with a respectful acknowledgment of The Creator, The Creation, and The Choicemaker, they will be ever learning but never coming to a knowledge of the truth. The rejection of Creator-initiated standards relegates the mind of man to its own primitive, empirical, and delimited devices. It is thus that the human intellect cannot ascend and function at any level higher than the criteria by which it perceives and measures values.

Additionally, such rejection of transcendent criteria self-denies man the vision and foresight essential to decision-making for survival and progression. He is left, instead, with the redundant wreckage of expensive hind-sight, including human institutions characterized by averages, mediocrity, and regression.

Humanism, mired in the circular and mundane egocentric predicament, is ill-equipped to produce transcendent criteria. Evidenced by those who do not perceive superiority and thus find themselves beset by the shifting winds of the carnal-ego; i.e., moods, feelings, desires, appetites, etc., the mind becomes subordinate: a mere device for excuse-making and rationalizing self-justification.

The carnal-ego rejects criteria and self-discipline for such instruments are tools of the mind and the attitude. The appetites of the flesh have no need of standards for at the point of contention standards are perceived as alien, restrictive, and inhibiting. Yet, the very survival of our physical nature itself depends upon a maintained sovereignty of the mind and of the spirit.

It remained, therefore, to the initiative of a personal and living Creator to traverse the human horizon and fill the vast void of human ignorance with an intelligent and definitive faith. Man is thus afforded the prime tool of the intellect – a Transcendent Standard by which he may measure values in experience, anticipate results, and make enlightened and visionary choices.

Only the unique and superior God-man Person can deservedly displace the ego-person from his predicament and free the individual to measure values and choose in a more excellent way. That sublime Person was indicated in the words of the prophet Amos, “…said the Lord, Behold, I will set a plumbline in the midst of my people Israel.” Y’shua Mashiyach Jesus said, “If I be lifted up I will draw all men unto myself.”

As long as some choose to abdicate their personal realityand submit to the delusions of humanism, determinism, and collectivism, just so long will they be subject and reacting only, to be tossed by every impulse emanating from others. Those who abdicate such reality may, in perfect justice, find themselves weighed in the balances of their own choosing.

That human institution which is structured on the principle, “…all men are endowed by their Creator with …Liberty…,” is a system with its roots in the natural Order of the universe. The opponents of such a system are necessarily engaged in a losing contest with nature and nature’s God. Biblical principles are still today the foundation under Western Civilization and the American way of life. To the advent of a new season we commend the present generation and the “multitudes in the valley of decision.”

Let us proclaim it. Behold!

The Season of Generation-Choicemaker Joel 3:14 KJV

CONTEMPORARY COMMENTS

“I should think that if there is one thing that man has learned about himself it is that he is a creature of choice.”
Richard M. Weaver

“Man is a being capable of subduing his emotions and impulses; he can rationalize his behavior. He arranges his wishes into a scale, he chooses; in short, he acts. What distinguishes man from beasts is precisely that he adjusts his behavior deliberately.”
Ludwig von Mises

“To make any sense of the idea of morality, it must be presumed that the human being is responsible for his actions and responsibility cannot be understood apart from the presumption of freedom of choice.”
John Chamberlain

“The advocate of liberty believes that it is complementary of the orderly laws of cause and effect, of probability and of chance, of which man is not completely informed. It is complementary of them because it rests in part upon the faith that each individual is endowed by his Creator with the power of individual choice.”
Wendell J. Brown

“These examples demonstrate a basic truth — that human dignity is embodied in the free choice of individuals.”
Condoleeza Rice

“Our Founding Fathers believed that we live in an ordered universe. They believed themselves to be a part of the universal order of things. Stated another way, they believed in God. They believed that every man must find his own place in a world where a place has been made for him. They sought independence for their nation but, more importantly, they sought freedom for individuals to think and act for themselves. They established a republic dedicated to one purpose above all others – the preservation of individual liberty…”
Ralph W. Husted

“We have the gift of an inner liberty so far-reaching that we can choose either to accept or reject the God who gave it to us, and it would seem to follow that the Author of a liberty so radical wills that we should be equally free in our relationships with other men. Spiritual liberty logically demands conditions of outer and social freedom for its completion.”
Edmund A. Opitz

“Above all I see an ability to choose the better from the worse that has made possible life’s progress.”
Charles Lindbergh

“Freedom is the Right to Choose, the Right to create for oneself the alternatives of Choice. Without the possibility of Choice, and the exercise of Choice, a man is not a man but a member, an instrument, a thing.”
Thomas Jefferson

THE QUESTION AND THE ANSWER

Q: “What is man that You are mindful of him, and the son of man that You visit him?” Psalm 8:4
A: “I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live.” Deuteronomy 30:19

Q: “Lord, what is man, that You take knowledge of him? Or the son of man, that you are mindful of him?” Psalm 144:3
A: “And if it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the river, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” Joshua 24:15

Q: “What is man, that he could be pure? And he who is born of a woman, that he could be righteous?” Job 15:14
A: “Who is the man that fears the Lord? Him shall He teach in the way he chooses.” Psalm 25:12

Q: “What is man, that You should magnify him, that You should set Your heart on him?” Job 7:17
A: “Do not envy the oppressor and choose none of his ways.” Proverbs 3:31

Q: “What is man that You are mindful of him, or the son of man that You take care of him?” Hebrews 2:6
A: “I have chosen the way of truth; your judgments I have laid before me.” Psalm 119:30 “Let Your hand become my help, for I have chosen Your precepts.” Psalm 119:173

References:
Genesis 3:3, 6 Deuteronomy 11:26-28; 30:19; Job 5:23; Isaiah 7:14-15; 13:12; 61:1; Amos 7:8; Joel 3:14
Ecclesiastes 3:1-8; Psalm 119:1-176

DEDICATION

Sir Isaac Newton
The greatest scientist in human history
a Bible-Believing Christian
an authority on the Bible’s Book of Daniel
committed to individual value and individual liberty

Daniel 9:25-26 Habakkuk 2:2-3 KJV selah

“What is man…?” Earth’s Choicemaker Psalm 25:12 KJV
http://www.choicemaker.net/
jbaxter@choicemaker.net

An old/new paradigm – Mr. Jefferson would agree!
(There is no alternative!)

+ + +

“Man cannot make or invent or contrive principles. He can only discover them and he ought to look through the discovery to the Author.”
— Thomas Paine 1797

While we are discussing the intricacies of evolution and creation, let me ask this.
A barber in a small town cuts the hair of everyone except those who cut their own hair.
Who cuts the barber’s hair?

Has there ever been a creature born who was a cross between a human and a non-human?

I may not know how life began, but I do know the difference between an African Aborigine and a Swede.

For those who quote the Bible, let me make an observation. Presumably you are just trying to sway the opinion of those who already regard the Bible as a special book. For the skeptics, “The Bible Says” does not carry any weight.

For myself, I judge a religion by how it affects the behavior of its adherents. If it causes them to do foolish things, like engage in miscegenation, it is bad.

The greatest writer that ever lived once said something to the effect that the real question in biology is just how much does one believe that Darwin’s special theory of evolution explains? I think Plato or Goethe or Shakespeare said that (so far ahed of their times!) — or was is it a greater man?

Evolution = growth.

Thank God He didn’t leave me as a fat bald baby. I am a lot better looking now.

Life is dynamic. Death is static. God didn’t make a static universe. The universe is full of life and it grows. Just what all the details are is up to the Logos.

If Christ is making me into a new man, then I haven’t stayed the same. Something grew. So it is with life itself.

Yes, life produces itself after its kind, and that kind blossoms, it becomes something better than it was before. And God is glorified.

Actually, the whole problem resolves through a proper understanding of the Logos. I don’t have time to elaborate, but I will tease you all instead.

The concept of the Logos was developed by the philosopher Herakleitos, who the primitive church said foreshadowed Christianity and provided the philosophical basis of advanced Christian theology. His corpus has sadly been lost, but shadows of his thought can be found in early Christian writings, and the occasional quoted snippet from Herakleitos himself.

In John’s gospel, the world was created through the Logos: through the thought, the mind, the word, the creative faculty, the rede of God. The Logos is present in creation. The Logos is God’s imminence (whereas the Holy Ghost proceeds from God transcendent). The Logos is the life-principle. The Logos is God.

Another inferior mind, Philo, twisted the Logos back to its opposite — to the static. He redefined the Logos into the physical utterances of God. Thus, to him, the world was created through a once-and-for-all verbalization; thus, to him, the Logos was just God’s magical words uttered at the time of creation.

Philo was not a Christian. A Christian believes that God the Father is transcendent, and as such it is laughable to insist that He has a finite, physical body whence physical words emanate.

However, Philo has been made influential on some Christians, who implicitly believe him that the Logos is but God’s uttered words. From this comes worship of the words in scripture, especially the Old Testament. (And most especially of the Masoretic text which through textual changes the Masoretes hoped no Christian would notice, hides the prophecies of Christ’s coming, and hides the ascendency of the Lord over the Old Testament god of storms and floods, chaos and genocide.)

It is Philo’s complete misunderstanding of the Logos that has in part led to the misunderstanding of the nature of creation. The brief account in Genesis says very little specific about creation; it’s just a quick summary of what was already believed by the ancients as a preface to the rise of old Judaism. More recently, what Genesis does not say has been filled in by people dependent on Philo.

Christians believe that Christ is the Logos made flesh. Indeed, Christ is far more than the mere verbal utterances of God. John’s gospel tells us that the creation was made by means of Him. This does not compare with Philo’s strange system wherein the Logos was a magician-god’s uttered words causing creation in stasis.

If Philo’s misunderstanding of the Logos were at last rejected, then I think much of the tension between creation and “evolution” would vanish. The eastern Churches understand the Logos much better than we in the West do. They don’t have the same verbal traps we have adopted — which confuse so many of us in regard to creation. I think a proper and thorough study of the Logos — liberated from Philo’s verbal traps — would end Christianity’s competition with science.

I have not read this thru completely, but it looks like it has some interesting ideas.

http://www.garlikov.com/philosophy/evolution.htm