Ecclesiastes 1:9 –
“That which has been is what will be
That which is done is what will be done
And there is nothing new under the sun.
Is there anything of which it may be said,
‘See, this is new’?“
Ecclesiastes 3:15 –
“That which is has already been,
And what is to be has already been
And God requires an account of what is past”
Isaiah 46:10 –
“Declaring the end from the beginning,
And from ancient times things that are not yet done
Saying, My counsel shall stand,
And I will do all My pleasure”
Playing with premises
1) The natural-immeasurable
The verses of Solomon and Isaiah assume the premise that nothing was before God.
These verses assume a prime force caused all energies to “be”.
These verses evoke two types of responses from several types of people:
As a believer might respond, ‘there is intention by an Intender’.
As a scientific agnostic might respond, “there is nothing incompatible with Thermodynamics in these verses—all energies that be require past, present and future and nothing can be separated from this ‘gearwork’ “
As an agnostic might respond: “I don’t know”
As an atheist might respond: “I don’t believe it”
Under this first premise I find it beautiful that the qualities within this universe such as: love, charity, humility, respect, lifting others up over yourself, kindness, etc. have existed before the universe was created or ‘came to be (for the secularist for now)’. These qualities are ‘energies-that-be’ because they ‘act’ in the physical universe. These acting qualities mean that these energies had their ordained (whether you hold to quantum physics alone or not) place in the unfurling of time and space. As two people drive 100 miles to see one another because of their friendship, the *why question* is measured only in the sense of the immeasurable motivating factor to drive the measurable distance. To reduce the act of friendship down to a measured distance and consumption of gas, oil, time, etc. is to do an injustice to the fullness of meaning as to why they sit at a table and bother to drink, talk, smile, laugh, etc.
The measurable certainly indicates the immeasurable here, but, to do violence to that which is immeasurable for the atheist is much better than having to attempt to measure the immeasurable. Notice I didn’t include the agnostic.
2) The Intentional Intender
Romans 8:28-31 makes it clear that God “foreknew (pro-ginosko = ‘prognosis’/ ‘pre-knowledge’) ” AND ALSO DID “predestinate (pro-horidzo = set before the horizon)” our Salvation. “Our Salvation” came out of the “what is to be has already been” of Ecclesiastes 3:15. Ephesians 1:4 states that God ‘chose us in Him before the foundation of the Cosmos’. Ephesians continues in this predeterministic relation to say in verse 5 of Ephesians chapter one that He predestined us unto the adoption of His sons according to the purpose of HIS will. We know that in “biblical speak” that the term ‘sons’ means to ‘carry on the Name’. This does apply to male and female. “Name” or “Shem” means, “authority”, “genealogy”, lineage, house, proprietorship, etc. Therefore, Ruth and Esther are good examples of ‘sons’ in the sense of “Shem”.
3) Forced delusion
The renowned and late Physicist, Stephen Hawking, who is an unbeliever in the Judeo-Christian God, made clear that all things were predetermined but they might as well not be because we can never know what is determined (i.e., if we were conscious to that level, what other levels could we not be conscious to and what focus would one have in a quantum field if ‘one’ is relatively standing in time and specific location?)—-therefore, we stay in the illusion. Scientifically-honestly-Sad! Our Bible gives us ‘the walk through’ of this Quantum field in the ‘vehicle’ of: obedience, long-suffering, compassion, love unending, faith, joy in His Salvation, etc. THIS IS WHAT IS OMITTED consistently by the ‘measurers without meaning’’. At the end of Professor Hawking’s lecture, Dr. Zacharias said that many students and scholars, including Dr. Ravi Zacharias, left dismayed and disheartened. Science gives no answer to that which has meaning…..it only gives a meaningless measurement. Another sad part is that there is a hidden desire from the greatest of scientific minds (as is all of ours) to find ‘the answer’, ‘the ultimate source’, ‘the ultimate cause’, ‘the ultimate meaning’. The ‘religion’ of the immeasurable measuring will continue until that Christ Omega point occurs. Sadly, without the relationship of the true Intender, Causer and Maker of physics, us, and meaning, etc…..life will continue as viewed through the eyes of the ‘rational-scientific-thinker’ as either meaningless determinism with an undefined source, random luck (a misnomer which even science cannot accept), naturalism (appreciation for the status quo of natural events without meaning past that) or nihilism (again, illogical).
4) The Heathen’s language/ The Honest language-non scientific/ non-Theological/non-moralistic
In answering to the religious ideas of ‘free’, ‘will’, ‘predeterminism’, ‘determinism’, and ‘fate’ we need to look at the simplistic natural heathen (untouched/ in the field of nature/ the heath) from how time-specific/ culturally based-endonymic usages of these words were employed. Then, we should see how these ‘natural terms’ were brought down, borrowed and completed into the Jewish and Christian vocabulary. I believe that in the fullness of times words evolved and met the eras match from which they were necessitated. Words, therefore, dictated the meaning of the actions by definition and function. In other words, “words” explained what we did, exactly and consistently.
My contention has always been that the true ‘bastardization’ of words, and the disenfranchisement of their correlative cultures from which they were held, happened when words became “moralized” to ‘fit’ a doctrine, especially of the vagaries of medieval christianities. I am not referring to the first century’s usage of Christian terminology and expression of the New Testament Text which indeed used the pagan’s reasonable tongue but that of the ‘moralists-Christians’ of the Roman and Anglican Churches. Not only words, but the liturgies became so sacro-sanct that you would be damned by men’s hands to challenge a man made idea of God. Daniel Webster, as much as I respected, did moralize with his dictionary and displace the natural ‘Heathen (amoral)’ tongue by which it was used in it’s unaltered and naturally evolved usage. I also refer to the ‘modernization’ and adaption of current cultural flows which ‘influence’ the verbiage of the New Testament as presented in English/ American. Such blasphemy has crept into our modern “baptisms” of the modern ‘church’. Even historically, such ‘baptisms’ blasphemy the entire evolution of “baptisms” leading up from the ‘tauraboolum’ of the pagan Greek. Built on from the Tauraboolum, we have the Jewish Priest’s ‘ritual washings’, which, indeed, did not counter the secular meaning of “baptism”. Then, built from these, we have the ordinance of washing in the brazen sea to enter Jerusalem which signifies death unto life. That is, one who has walked on ‘Heathen land’ into the heavenlies. Furthered to John the Baptist’s “prophetical pantomime” —as a Prophet, John the Baptist, did *ritual washing* to show that Christ was coming then! Finally, the Christ who would ‘baptize’ with the Holy Ghost and Fire. Such are the very words of the John the Baptist in Matthew 3:11 – “I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance: but HE that comes after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: HE shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and fire”. So, how can we return to a prophecy once it has been fulfilled?! How can we return to ordinances made by man’s hands?! How can we do the pagan’s tauraboolum which was the natural starter for the allegory to ‘blood sacrifice’ that would be fulfilled in Christ?!? The last and ONLY Christ sanctified “baptism” was the continuance of the Holy Ghost and Fire. Do we not have that daily? Do we not have fiery trials daily? Do we not have the Comforter guide us when we pray? There you go.
Paul brought us from the ‘foundations’ of our paganism to this glorious ‘baptism’ found in Ephesians 2, 3 and ending in Ephesians 4:5–there is now: “one Lord, one Faith, one Baptism (baptisma-Greek/ noun/ nominative/ singular/ neuter) This “baptism” was in the nominative/ noun ‘state’-yet, “bapto”, in its root form is an active verb. What does this mean?! It means that the verb, ‘baptism’, has taken on its ‘stative’ or ‘state of being’ sense. It is a fuller sense than the ‘one-time-washing’. It is continual now. It is allegorically eternal. Therefore, if water was employed in this ‘state’ of baptism, we would continually be submerged, therefore, drowned. When the Bible uses, “Bapto (fully submerged)” an enactment of the water ritual was exemplified. Neither is the case found in Ephesians 4:5.
So many other Greek New Testament words depict the historical, cultural and dynamic usage of their intended meaning and isoglosses pick and choose words out of the Bible to ‘fit’ their respective doctrines. The English and American languages are in continual flux driven by continual trending. Not so with the time capsulized original Greek of the New Testament1.
Quantum thinking
Take for example our Proto Indo European (P.I.E.) root meaning for ‘unfurl, unfold, roll out’-etc. We have the P.I.E root word, “Dran”. Dran is the root word for “drama” and “trauma”. They mean the same thing under the etymological ‘jurisprudence’ of Dran. Such a word might depict: *to roll out* or ‘unfold (p.i.e.—*dran*->tran, tram—“trauma”/ “drama” -to watch the full act unfurl/ ‘to watch the quantum-gestalt of the ‘thing {*p.i.e. – *tnk* = ordered system})’.
From the linguistic amoral-pagan-secular (saeculum-‘the sack’-‘the full bag’), and/ or heathen’s usage of such a word, we would have a ‘secular-faith-based’ word. It would mean that there was a beginning and end and connective tissue to the events from beginning to end.
Now, a beautiful step further: we, as Christians, if we believe in God’s Predeterminism could take such an honest pagan (amoral {not moral}) term and understand-believe that God has brought us to a more evolved sense to ‘see’ that we are in the fullness of time and are allowed to see such truths’—that is, “If God predestined ALL things, then, the “trauma”, “drama”, “unfurling” IS the WILL of God—-just as Ecclesiastes has said!! But, we want to eradicate such ‘traumas’ and ‘dramas’ from our memory as being ‘evil’ though neo-designer psychology and failed nouthetic counseling of only ‘theologies’ and ‘neo-christian-based ideologies’. Then, we have the demonic (literally meaning: ‘dao= ‘to dispense’ + midzo =‘riches’/ ‘abundance’= ‘daomidzo’ = ‘demon’) such is the case of the Health and Wealth prosperity movement ( ‘daomidzo’) which would condemn the God who would bring “Trauma” to someone’s life.
In Job 1:21, Job had just lost all of his possessions and family, save that of his wife. Job said, “God gives and takes away, Blessed be the Name of the Lord”. I wonder what the literal ‘daemonic’ Joel Osteen would say to this? Wasn’t Job blessed? Wasn’t Job in the ‘trauma’, ‘drama’ of God? Wasn’t Job written in the unfurling of the Plan of God?! Then, WHY would anyone who knows their Bible condemn the logical acts that are leading to a logical conclusion from a logical starting point?!?
If God wanted to, not being bound to time, could HE erase you and I right now? As an author of a book, could an author not say, “this is not worthy to be here”? But, thankfully, God is INTENT on what HE does and does not make mistakes. Physics doesn’t make mistakes when applied properly. Nature is an expression that doesn’t lie. True expression has truer intention—-and mostly, the truest of all must be the Intender, the Author, the Causer, the Motivator, The Holder, The Verb, The Existing One, YHVH—“That which holds all, That which causes all, The Verb, None Other”.
We blame others and ourselves for destruction of our plans, other’s outcomes, wealth, lack of wealth. We complain at the ‘break down’ of our moral situations on a global or nationalistic level. We say, “it’s not like it used to be”, etc. Show me, please, where chaos (exemplified entropic “progression”) makes a mistake. It doesn’t. Complex, yes, orderly disorderment, yes, predetermined, yes, final expression of Thermodynamics, yes, all energies required from the point of origin to make a predeterministic expression from beginning to end without flaw of expressed formula, yes, the end needing the beginning and middle of events, yes—— hence, our first Maxims from Solomon and Isaiah.
Finally, if all that I am presenting is fiction, fantasy, folklore or myth, etc., you’d still have hope. I believe that this is not the case. We have rules regardless of what we think. We claim to be free in our wills but free from what? “Free” is a relative word as I have said. “Free” means to will without the shackles of something. But, being ‘free’ means to be in the case or state of “Freedom’. What is “freedom”? How is it possible to not be in the shackles of something? Well, “shackles” might be redefined. Being bound to something such as a good wife or good husband is an expression of being committed to a person in a case or state of freedom from another wife or another husband. This is the definition (at least the meaning of ‘adultery’) when one is free from others and bound to one and then released from one to bind oneself to another.
Such practice would rend the adulterer in half if this system of ‘loosing and binding (Jewish way of saying, “setting your own rules and living by them and all the other rules that you deem to be irrelevant to not bother with/ to relinquish them” – {‘relativism’})” is not resolved. By attempting to be ‘free’ to do what you wanted in your marriage with someone outside your marriage (or binding) you have bound yourself even more. Less freedom to move. More to answer to. A life where you are bound to lie to get from point A to point B. Meaning is reduced to survival and feeding of your desires like the addiction to heroin. Misery from shackles and begging to be released is now the thing. Where’s the “Free Will”? If that’s what “Free Will” is I’d rather be infinitely bound to God with infinite possibilities of joy and Freedom which HE is. This is why it’s so important to be severely bound to HIS Will and not yours here and now. This is why it is so important to understand that “Free Will” is not a moral choice. Free Will is an ordained state of being that allows us to ‘will’ in HIM only and not our desires. We are too spiritually myopic to ‘will’ without being bound to our will once again.
1.Such an example might follow in Revelation 20:10 concerning the Devil, the Beast, and the False Prophet and ‘those who were deceived’ by them. In many commentaries and ‘biblical translations’ one is led to believe that all 4 will be cast into a lake of everlasting and tormenting fire. Not so in the Greek!!! “Those who were deceived” modify those which will be damned. There is absolutely no mention of the ‘misled’ being sent into the lake of fire in the original Greek text!
Revelation 20:10–“and the devil who misleads them was cast into the lake of fire and of brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are; and they shall be tormented day and night for the ages of the ages”. – a direct translation from the Antiochus/ Textus Receptus Greek New Testament.
Yet, many use this verse in drunkenness of windy ‘doctrines’ to say, “see! — many will go to hell”… I say, don’t believe them! This is NOT the Gospel of Grace from OUR Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, Who has saved us when we did not deserve Salvation!!!