CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
THE BATTLE AT HAND
It is not true that the only reality available to unbelievers is the subjective interpretation of reality that exists in the minds of Christians. There are two other realities available: the subjective interpretation of reality that exists in the minds of unbelievers, and the reality that exists in the mind of God. I believe God gave us the Holy Scripture in order to allow us to view reality from God's point of view. To so view reality is to become equipped to do all the things Scripture tells us we have received Scripture to accomplish. We have received Scripture from God because it "is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work." This equipment comes to us not because we have received a subjective interpretation of reality but because we are transported in Christ so that we become equipped to view reality from God's point of view. In Christ we have access to this lofty standpoint. Even though we carry around this treasure in vessels of clay, so that God will receive the glory, we do have this treasure. But this treasure is only received by those who, from our subjective point of view, understand our union with Christ as a material fact, no different in category than any other fact that guides our thought process.
I differentiate "material facts" from "faith facts" this way: material facts are formed out of our interaction with the things and events found in the material world around us; faith facts are found in our interaction with the message in the book. As I tried to demonstrate earlier, I am in complete agreement with Van Til that there is no such thing as "brute fact." Material fact tends to normally be understood as "brute fact", the raw, unfiltered stuff in the objective world. I deny that we can ever know the objective world in an unfiltered way. But I do see that there is a clear distinction between facts formed by our interaction with the objective, material world, and facts formed in our mind by interacting with messages we receive from other sources.
At this point, a clear distinction must be made between the messages we receive from others and the messages we receive from our own senses. It is very difficult to see this distinction because messages we receive from other people are messages that have been received by senses too. The fundamental difference between messages is whose senses did the message originate in. When we receive a message from another person, a message that we decide to receive as a true message, that message is received as if we had actually sensed the message for ourselves. Communication between people is like water coursing through a pipe, unless a blockage occurs in the pipe, it virtually impossible to distinguish how the water gets from one part of the pipe to another. Because it is so difficult to keep the process through which messages are transmitted in view, it is possible for us to receive the witness of the Apostles about what their senses perceived of the risen Jesus, and to receive it as if our senses had perceived exactly the same thing the Apostles had sensed.
But there is a distinction. In our hearts we know this distinction exists. They saw the risen Jesus. They heard the risen Jesus. They touched the risen Jesus. The world knows that we learned about what the Apostles said they experienced by reading a message in a book. The world stands in judgement over the Church today because the world knows people who base their life on a message in a book are on shaky ground, ground even more shaky than the shifting tectonic plates upon which the world perceives itself to stand.
I believe we can stop the world from going to hell when we demonstrate that we know more about the world they're living in than they presently know. To the extent that the Church has ever had a positive influence in stopping the world from going to hell it has occurred because God granted His people insight into the reality around us sufficient to demonstrate to others that we knew more about reality than they did. That's all it takes to establish meaningful communication with people. But that's not an easy thing to do. The things we say have to make sense.
Most people today are oblivious to the fact that everything we know about the universe is known because we have received a message about the thing known: all knowledge is formed by messages. Different categories of knowledge--of facts--exist because we receive messages from two distinct sources: people outside ourselves, and our own senses. Since we have difficulty distinguishing between the sources that create the messages that comprise the "facts" we hold as Truth, we have a difficult time distinguishing between material and faith facts.
We Christians have always had an exceedingly difficult time distinguishing the message from the messenger. The reason this is difficult for us is because the subject of the message we have received in the Bible--the messenger--is invisible, but the message is visible. God is invisible; the Bible is visible. God is the messenger and invisible though He may be, you are still reading this book because, to you, God is a material fact. The question I have to ask is this: is God only a material fact because you have decided to believe the message, or have you met the messenger with your own senses? I suggest to you that if you have not met the messenger with your own senses, you are in great danger of seeing the faith facts that support your peace of mind greatly shaken in the next few years.
Newsweek magazine, in its March 2, 1992 issue, carried an interesting review of a new book entitled The Dead Sea Scrolls Deception. The review reads, "For anyone who came in late, the scrolls are more than 1,000 fragments of parchment and papyrus discovered, beginning with one find in 1947 by a Bedouin boy, in caves at Qumran overlooking the Dead Sea. After assorted clandestine deals and midnight digs, they wound up in the control of scholars at the Dominican Ecole Biblique on what is not the Israeli-occupied West Bank. And there they stay. Little scroll material has been published, and when outsiders request copies, they are rudely rebuffed. It is the thesis of 'Deception' that the scrolls remain secret because the Vatican is terrified that they will demolish the entire edifice of Christian teaching and belief...When it is not pursuing bogeymen in Rome, 'Deception' spins a lively tale of one controversial interpretation of the scrolls. It's a theory advanced by Robert Eisenman of California State University in Long Beach. Eisenman argues that the scrolls date from the early Christian era, not from long before, as the official line has it. He concludes that the scrolls' authors were not members of the ascetic, pacifist Essene sect of Jews, but of the Zealots, who spearheaded the revolt against Rome in A.D. 66. He says that the leader of the Zealots was James, the brother of Jesus...James's archenemy was Paul, who never knew Jesus, yet tried to turn him into a god through a bizarre mythologised account of his career." A graphic inset in the article pictured a scroll fragment, and underneath the inset was printed these words: "The scrolls may 'compromise Jesus's...uniqueness [and] show some of his...concepts to [be] not wholly his.'"
I mention this article because I think I can see what is in store for the Church over the next few years. I do not have to have a special revelation from God to make this forecast. You can see it coming too. If you have studied what now passes for "wisdom" in this world, you understand that many of the "wisest" people on this planet are now more convinced than ever that the mind of man is the only referent that actually qualifies to receive the title god. The "wisest" have decided that the Christian world view is not just a benign superstition but an actual impediment to progress in this world. For this reason, they feel justified in doing what is necessary to eliminate the Christian world view from being able to influence the new age in which we live. Since the "wisest" understand that using raw political force to suppress the Christian world view is ineffective and counterproductive, they have devised a much more sophisticated method of removing the Christian world view from influence.
The strategy centers around destroying people's ability to believe that the message in the Bible is built on material fact. The Bible is to be perceived to be myth constructed and utilized by individuals interested in controlling the minds of ignorant and naive people for the purpose of perpetuating the personal power of those interpreting the message in the Bible. The tactics used will consist of an unremitting series of attacks on the historicity of the message in the Bible and an unceasing attention to the fact that the Christian world view is a subjective interpretation of a message in a book, a message that will constantly be held up to the world to be historically inaccurate. In this way, the "wise" teachers of this world will attempt to destroy the faith of Christians and prevent any more people from being led to message contained in the Bible.
I am writing this book because for years now I have seen this coming. I have known the attacks could be launched. How did I know this? There have been stirrings in this direction for the last two hundred years. Any Christian who has listened closely to the messages coming from theology and philosophy for the last two hundred years could have seen it coming. But for two hundred years, the stage was not set. The masses simply could not be expected to understand the awesomely complicated and grimly prideful announcements of the "wise" theologians and philosophers.
All that has changed now. It is not only the theologians and philosophers who are steeped in pride over the awesome powers of their intellects: The masses themselves are proud now. The stage is set for "wise" men to stand up and boldly proclaim that the God revealed in Holy Scripture is a figment of the imagination of man, a projection from the consciousness of man--and woman--a projection that is an image of the real god: man himself.
If you do not understand how anyone could actually believe this, you need to get in touch with the new age dawning around you today. You need to study the books written by the prophets of the new age: men like Hegel, Fuerbach, Marx. But if you want to see the most recent incarnation of those men, get in touch with Joseph Campbell. Listen to Campbell tell you about the Masks of God. You will see for yourself exactly how the Church of Jesus Christ is going to the threatened with extinction on this planet.
I must confess what I saw scared me for awhile. But the way things stand now, I look forward to the scuffle. I see it as a great opportunity for us to get past the message and lead the world to know the messenger.
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