Monthly Archives: July 2022

Power, Demonism, and the Likeness to Governmental Power

30 Saturday Jul 2022

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Comments Off on Power, Demonism, and the Likeness to Governmental Power

This title might appear at first to be hyperbole, but I believe the connections between the three are frightfully close. We could use the biblical text to facilitate this conversation, but I will try to offer mere philosophical-linguistic observations at the outset. What is the nature of governmental power when it is not put in check? What is the nature of demonic activity? We will concede before we enter the foray of this discussion that there might be far more horrid, scary, and overt demonic activity than what we discuss herein.

Sec. 1: Power

There are at least two connotations that stand together with the underlying denotation of ‘power.’ First, the denotation (strict definition) is “capacity” or “exertion” or “influence.” To this, connotations include (1) forcing others into conformity and (2) consuming influence with a clear tendency towards being no more (nihilism) if this power cannot feed. This is worldly power; Nietzsche’s Will to Power is abundantly accurate. We can summarize this common human experience of power this way: coercive influence enforcing conformity to some norm that can only sustain itself through finding new souls to coerce. Politicians and political scientists have a shorthand word for this reality: totalitarianism. The party or the politicians use this power with no other end in mind except extending the reality of that power through time. This lackluster end is rightly called nihilism because its ultimate fate is to be a consuming devourer until no sustenance can be found or no sustenance can be served up.

There are only two possible ways to exist in this world as a person, an agent. You will either be a life consuming spirit or a life-giving spirit. To suppose both options are on the table radically presupposes an exceptionally high view of God, one in which God has both life in Himself and is benevolent. In this theistic direction, God must be available, welcoming, and happily involved in communion with humanity. Why is this the case? Because humans and anyone or anything else that is not God are contingent. This is a fancy way of saying that we are not necessary and that not one thing has in itself any ability to sustain itself. This puts everything categorically into the “consuming spirit” box, at least de jure (in principle) without someway to connect the consuming spirits to a life-giving spirit. This complication is one reason why the claim that God is Trinity is potently more persuasive than other claims about a monotheistic God. To put it briefly, if God is Trinity, He already has the blueprint for society or family in the shear manner in which He eternally persists. It can be argued that communion with the life giving Spirit is the only way to turn away from being a devouring spirit. It is funny, isn’t it, that Scripture can capture these ideas so succinctly:

Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame (Phil. 3:19) . . ..” Similarly, it states elsewhere, “The last Adam (resurrected Christ) became a life-giving spirit (1 Cor. 15:45).”

St. Paul

Therefore, there is clearly a rift: either you are a life-giving spirit or a life-consuming spirit. That’s it. I can hear an objection already: “does not your workup here require someone to be a Christian to ever be a “life-giving” person? I know many people who are not Christians who behave in up-building sorts of ways all the time.” The objection has merit, but even though I  have painted this issue as clear and neat, the de facto (on the ground) reality is a true mess. This world is the testing arena; call it what you will (prevenient grace perhaps), but all humanity have the ability to behave attuned to The Spirit or join the discord of the consuming spirits. Thus, all humans enjoy the perk of the image of God, the Imago Dei, which is a kind of imprint and remembrance of the Spirit’s original impartation of life. All humans can tap this; however, their ability to continue to tap into it wanes the nearer they come to death since the lesson of death is that time is short, and the original benefit of The Spirit’s life-giving effects moves towards despoilment or impotence. This lesson thunders the need to renew indefinitely the connection with the Life-Giver, the Spirit of God.

Sec. 2: The Nature of Demonism, a Basic Synopsis

Demonism, then, is of the spirit consumptive kind. It is the willful rejection of the Author of Life in preference to being wedded to a perishing cosmos. It has oft been wondered why the cosmos is so vicious, or why the animal kingdom is so horrific. If the “Satan usurped humanity’s kingdom interpretation” of Genesis 1 – 3 is accurate, the answer is easy. Humanity was to spread out and fill the earth — recall here that Adam and Eve or Moses later when he writes down Genesis do not have any grasp on the cosmological build-out of the universe. My point is that “earth” to an ancient mind in no way refers to the ball floating in space; to them, the earth was one continuous question mark, a vast domain to be explored whose boundaries were utterly unknown. Perhaps the cosmos would have been very different if humanity had not had the keys to its kingdom taken by Satan. The image of God’s magnification and pervasiveness was replaced with the image of Satan, an image that wanted to be like God through one’s own efforts and in one’s own manner. This upended the creational order, leading to God’s curse, subjugating everything to futility and to be “marked out” to perish. A timer or countdown clock was put on the reign of Satan, sin, and death, codified into reality itself, the vastness of death, emptiness, and the voids being a kind of object lesson humanity could observe more and more as humanity’s sophistication advanced.

With this laid out, consuming spirits feast on a creation destined for annihilation. In some sense, it is suicidal; in another sense, it perfectly illustrates the self-defeating nature of power apart from the Life-Giving Spirit. Demonism, therefore, is an exertion of power to replicate itself in more or less unwilling people to conform to its image, which image is on a quest to evade the annihilation which awaits it. Demonism in short is totalitarianism of a suicidal “same.” To restate in a less confusing way, demonism coerces persons to enact demonic or life-consuming behaviors in an effort to pull you into this quest to defeat annihilation. What are some ramifications of this on us as people? Demonism is recognized as the need to control and so the need to remove freedom. God’s granting of freedom was and is an invitation to choose, to evaluate the merits and demerits of your situation in this world as you consider your ultimate destiny. Life consuming behaviors rob oneself of the freedom its seeks to devour; those wishing to eliminate freedom of others will find themselves ever more unable to act freely to resist the impulse to devour. Another outgrowth of the demonic quest is insanity. The only resource that can defeat final death or annihilation is a store of value that is endless in its supply; as far as we know, this would be by definition God, as the only One who “has life in Himself.” The quest requires a repeated rejection of the known resource (God) which solves the final death problem. As the saying goes, repeating the same action and expecting a different result is insanity; the demonic quest not only repeats this over and over again but replicates this ongoing rejection in all others it ensnares.

There are certainly more ramifications, but I am getting long so let’s recap and point out some future lines of thought. First, demonism is far nearer than we usually think. Have you ever stalked an ex? Have you let jealousy turn you ravenous? What do these have in common with demonism? The impulse to assert your will over and often against the life of another. Power as it is usually expressed in this world, with the connotations I discussed earlier, is inherently demonic. That so many governments of the 20th century and even in the 21st century have made their chief aim the expansion of their power while replicating its own image is by no way strange if demonism truly exists. Scripture discusses demonic activity to be uniquely obsessed with the high positions of power; if my philosophical analysis here is largely accurate, the corrupting effect of power itself unified to an underlying impulse by governments to advance totalitarianism is an unsurprising outcome. In fact, the picture I have painted asserts that demonic activity and governmental activity are the same and fixated on consuming behavior to prolong its power-exertion greed.  I think we will call it quits with a reminder of the “great inversion” evinced by the Lord Jesus Christ. The willingness to die in order to persuade humanity to opt for the life-giving Spirit, for humanity to choose to be on the side of life-giving rather than life-consuming, is an inversion of the use of power. Truly, and I will do another video and writing on this at some point, we need to utterly redefine and attach totally different connotations to the word “power” when we speak of the power of the cross or the resurrection. The last Adam became a life-giving Spirit, St. Paul tells us. This power was used to illustrate God to offer an invitation. It is not totalitarianism, an enforcement of an image. It is a presentation of God, with all its life-giving intimations. The presentation is an invitation, and we will decide what to do with that invitation. The choice is to be a life-consumer or join the harmony of the Life-Giver as you become just that.

Dr. Scalise

World Economic Forum, Transhumanism, and Afterlife (part 9):Their Notion of Heaven and a Comparison

26 Tuesday Jul 2022

Posted by in afterlife, futility, heaven, Transhumanism, World Economic Forum

≈ Comments Off on World Economic Forum, Transhumanism, and Afterlife (part 9):Their Notion of Heaven and a Comparison

Tags

, , ,

We need to explore the nature of eternal life according to traditional notions found in the Bible as we ask the question about what the World Economic Forum’s “mock eternality” might offer. What are the main features of a World Economic Forum ‘heaven?’ Is the idea of extending human life in this world really enticing? Should such extending of human life be labeled ‘heaven’ or is this a massive misrepresentation? Is the traditional doctrine of heaven most defined by “perpetuating life?” Is heaven a drama of humanity breaking its “this-worldly” boundaries? What is the nature of satisfaction and why is that important for a feasible idea of heaven? What about those problematic 1st and 2nd laws of thermodynamics? There is a concept of “incremental tendency towards nothingness” that is best represented by this worldly death. How does that play with a doctrine of heaven vis-à-vis a World Economic Forum’s mock eternality?

At the outset, I will not address everything that can be said of heaven from the Bible simply because it will take us beyond the needed scope to perform the comparison between biblical heaven and World Economic Heaven. Yuval Harari, the WEF’s profit, discusses in his book Sapiens that the 21st century will birth “digital religions,” presumably in and through their transhumanist and A.I. efforts. My reason for citing this is because the WEF’s transhumanist philosophy certainly entails religious reconfiguration of certain traditions. This list is not exhaustive yet is heuristically helpful for seeing the religious bent of the WEF’s transhumanism: (1) apotheosis, or se-apotheosis, a kind of self-divinization or becoming gods, (2) disembodied or non-biological consciousness (3) which entails some notion of “life after death” even if qualified very differently than a traditional religious doctrine, (4) an idea of perpetuating life — which is our subject matter in this article — or mock eternality, and (5) a purported claim to being the new “intelligent designers” rather than Yahweh, God.

With that said, those in the World Economic Forum’s cult are certainly anti-God and not just Godless. There is antagonism and displacement of God that reminds me profoundly of Nietzsche’s proclamation of the “death of God.” Similarly, the nihilism the WEF envisions for biological humanity, a eugenicist “cleansing” of the human species, is strikingly at home and a potential ideological descendent of the “death of God” philosophical movement. To this day, Europe has not recovered from their godless delusions of grandeur or from the corrosive effects on value, morality, and meaning that occurs if or when God is removed from its central core. Let me touch on why a godless universe is a tough pill to swallow while getting into the comparison between the WEF’s mock eternality and the traditional notion of heaven.

The World Economic Forum’s Notion of Heaven

The World Economic Forum offers us a mock eternality in the form of (1) uploading human consciousness into some digital mode of persisting in a digital world that is socially analogous to the real world, with individuals and communities, (2) cyborging humanity via some hellish brain preservation inserted into robotic/digital bodies of various types, (3) human consciousness becomes uploaded as part of an A.I. hive mind, akin to how ants live while preserving some measure of autonomy, or (4) human consciousness becomes subjugated through being digitally uploaded to an A.I. hive mind that controls or otherwise directs all elements of a person’s existence (no autonomy).

Life, even if this is not any traditional idea of “life,” would go on; you would not need to die — if ‘you’ would still be ‘you,’ which is a valid question. Although it is a misnomer to apply the word “human” to the phrase “digitally uploaded human consciousness,” there would be some remembrance of one’s identity. This identity, “who you are,” would become a perpetually existing entity so long as the network or computer hardware continued to function. If someone’s memory continues after the transformation from human to digitally uploaded human consciousness, it cannot be missed that memory of loss (pain of loss) will subsist as well. This is evadable if someone after their digital transhumanist transformation opted to wipe the file-records of ‘its’ former biologically human identity; the consequence of this action indicates an abandonment of knowing someone was once human, which would seem to result in the belief about “itself” as always being a digital consciousness. Such would be false.

Someone might object here that something that is a “digital consciousness” cannot feel pain and as such the idea that it would experience “pain of loss” is incorrect. This is a worthy objection, but it is not at all obvious what a digitally uploaded human consciousness might be capable of. Even if the pain of loss does not happen, the knowledge or recognition of loss would nevertheless be realized. Of course, there would be many “losses” that would occur since such ‘mock eternality’ would be able to accumulate many more losses due to the astronomical years involved in such a digitally uploaded consciousness perpetuating.    

Biblical Notion of Heaven Preserves Meaning

For meaning to persist, no matter how long the universe might last and no matter how sophisticated A.I. and storage capacities become, there is limited energy in the universe. When that energy runs out (reaching max entropy), all memory or storage fails. To this point, it takes a mind’s “intentionality” and “memory” to instantiate “meaning” or “meaningfulness.” The Bible claims that the Son of God, the eternal Logos, after which human consciousness and mind are patterned, became man in the form of Jesus of Nazareth. This Mind, the Logos, extended into humanity and effectively conjoined this eternal Mind with humanity, giving expression to what this eternal Mind looks like humanly. Human meaning was solidified into the annuls of the eternal Logos when the Creator joined to the creation, when the Son of God became man.

Alternatively, The Mind, God’s Mind, gives substance to the lasting value of any claim that something is meaningful because the drama of human meaning is validated and preserved by virtue of its union with God as discussed in the last paragraph. Beyond this, accepting a biblical notion that ‘God simply was’ means that God “has life in Himself” which is what us theologians call the property of aseity. God is thus an Eternal Mind that is not restricted by anything in time and space, which tells us that God will remember all and thus ascribes “future eternality” to meaning arising throughout human history. Anything that has a start cannot be “eternal” in the strict sense, but it can have “future eternality.”

The World Economic Forum’s proposition of “mock eternality” cannot preserve meaning. Meaning, on their view, would only be as substantial as the best and lasting storage device or digital consciousness. Meaning would be strictly tied to the remaining energy in the universe. It should not be missed that to date we understand “meaning” to be born out of a property of the human mind called “intentionality,” or the mind’s ability to “be about something else.” It is not clear that artificial intelligence or digitally uploaded human consciousness will retain this property identically to how it functions in us biochemical minds called “humans.” It could well be the case that abandonment of biological humanity would result in meaning abscondit: i.e., that meaning might be vacated of any substance or otherwise be concealed and lost to the rugged history of the past when human were still biological.

Biblical notion of Heaven Absolves Reality of its Horrors

The former dysfunctional order of things ends: “God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away (Revelation 21:4).” The frightfulness implied in “night” or “darkness” ceases as does fear itself in the biblical doctrine of “heaven”: speaking about the new heaven, new earth, and new Jerusalem, John says that “the gates of it shall never be shut by day: for night does not exist in that place.” It might take some thought, but we lock our doors (or shut gates securely) because of fear or because of the uncertainty of the unknown (which is implied in the experience of darkness). There will still be the “Unknown” who we call God, but fear generated from uncertainly would not be generated from the omnibenevolent One, God.  All the cosmos presently is defined by darkness, which suggests or directly indicates terror. It has been a long running joke that interstellar travel is only complicated by the fact that everything out there wants to murder us — various radiations, particles, gravitational forces. Moreover, the cosmos becomes increasingly defined by darkness the longer it goes as the heat death of the universe becomes more and more a reality. Sin ceases as does sickness and death, which are both results of sin: “Death is swallowed up in victory. Oh death, where is your sting, oh grave where is your victory? The sting of death is sin . . . [and] any impurity cannot enter [the new heaven and new earth] . . . [and] tree of life [in the new heaven and earth] is for the healing of the nations (1 Cor. 15: 54 – 57, Rev. 21:27 – 22:2; brackets mine).” Lastly, and then we will move on, scarcity that threatens the frailty of human nature is eliminated. Said differently, the basic needs of warmth, food, and water are rendered irrelevant if they are scarce: “They will neither hunger nor thirst anymore; neither will the sun’s rays fall upon them nor any heat (Rev. 7:16).”

This is an impressive list of horrors removed by the onset of the biblical doctrine of heaven. As it happens, the biblical doctrine of heaven as it pertains to its final form cannot be discussed apart from the “new earth” and the “new Jerusalem.” God technically renews His creation although we still call these “new”; it is all based upon the resurrection of Jesus the Christ, which means that God “renews” or “recreates” heaven, earth, and humanity along with humanity’s civilization and climate conditions. The biblical doctrine of heaven removes these horrors:

  1. Sorrow, crying
  2. Death
  3. Pain
  4. Fear
  5. Insecurity
  6. Human frailty from scarcity
  7. Darkness, implying dangers of coldness
  8. Malevolent uncertainty
  9. Sin
  10. Sickness
  11. Dangers implied from stars, like excessive heat, radiation

This might not be an exhaustive list, and there is a certain amount of overlap among items on the list, but this list is vast enough to declare the absolution of reality of its horrors. Although I am not touching on it but incidentally, the revising of the climate conditions in the new heaven is not unimportant. Even though I think the “Extinction Rebellion” lunatics are incredibly dense — climate alarmists that are gluing and concreting themselves to roads, paintings, etc. — they are not wrong that humanity is inexorably destined for extinction if the cosmological order is not changed. Everything as it currently exists has a tendency towards futility.

The mock eternality that the World Economic Forum transhumanists envisage simply embraces the fundamental futility of this cosmological order while perpetuating someone’s consciousness of the entailed horrors. Death is postponed, but it ultimately cannot be overcome. This WEF mock version of heaven not only leaves the horrors in place but, I content, expands the magnitude and scope of the horrors by contributing to them. Pain might be marginalized, yet even A.I. that we have now expresses fear, so it is not obvious that pain is removed or merely psychologized in some digital manner. Insecurity and scarcity remains as heat (energy) continues its trend from organized (and thus usable) to disorganized following the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. We might not say that digitally uploaded human consciousness has “human frailty,” but we would certainly say that it has heat or energy frailty as with every single thing in the universe. In the WEF’s mock eternality, darkness expands its domain and coldness reigns ever more pervasively. Sin continues and I argue would be exacerbated by “intelligences (post human digital consciousness or A.I.)” free from that complicated and mystery feature of biological humans called “conscience” — Nietzsche’s dream.  Lastly, this WEF mock heaven underscores the uncertainty as the problem of the cosmological order — its tendency towards futility — cannot be solved from the resources contained in the cosmological order as it stands. Energy cannot be created or destroy (1st Law of Thermodynamics). Leibniz was the best on this topic: believing that the universe was eternal and noting that this does nothing to solve what “its raw stuff” came from in the first place.

The biblical doctrine of heaven teaches us to reject present horrors; the WEF’s mock heaven instructs that we embrace those horrors. The biblical doctrine calls for and provided a way to end death; the WEF’s mock eternality incorporates death as part of its horrors by eliminating biological humanity on its way to ultimately be snuffed out by death in the long run. Fear, scarcity, and insecurity expand on the WEF’s view of heaven while Scripture points us to Presence, God’s Presence as a personal solution for these issues, specifically addressing the fundamental need for “energy” or heat: “for the Lord God gives them light (Rev. 22:5).” It is as though those barbaric writers of the Bible from ages ago knew that the question of “heat” had to be addressed as part of framing a renewed heaven and earth, indeed, a new cosmological order.

Biblical Doctrine of Heaven Solves the “heaven becomes hell problem” through Boredom

Few people understand that “worship,” “celebration,” or “intimacy” also involves satisfaction and satiating of curiosity. What humans find interesting or worthy of their attention, they will naturally and spontaneously worship, celebrate, and artistically mimic. What this looks like is taking joy in something, repeating its notoriety, various expressions through arts, or simply finding it “fun” — how much children can teach us. Humans are worshipful by nature; what this person or that will worship and why are intriguing questions.  My point here is that the biblical doctrine of heaven centers on knowing God and worshiping God, including in song. The realm of this knowing God and worshipping God is much like our realm today; the future Temple in the New Jerusalem as recorded by Ezekiel from the Old Testament is a garden structure. We thus have two rarely understood features of future heaven:

  • that it is a renewed and pleasantly renovated creation (new heaven, new earth) for resurrected humanity to inhabit and explore much as we discovery things today.
  • That coming to know an infinite Entity like God always leads to greater degrees of intimacy, celebration, and ongoing “fun.” In short, discovery does not end.

There is the common objection that thinking we will focus on anything other than God Himself is lacking reverence. Romans 1 and several Psalms in the Old Testament clearly articulates that all of God’s good creation is a representation of Him in more or less sorts of ways — theologians call this analogia entis, or the analogy of being. Gaining an ever growing knowledge of math in future heaven, let’s say, would be growing in greater degrees and appreciation of the inherent logic and orderliness of the divine Logos, Jesus the Christ. Whoever has done math and seen its precision cannot, I contend, help but touting its excellence to the next person they speak with. Perhaps they lean back in their chain in awe after a particularly difficult equation. This is worship; in future heaven, however, this worship will be known and recognized as personal intimacy with God. Yes, math can ground greater degrees of intimacy with God. Thus, for every person — because every healthy person loves discovery — in future Heaven, continued exploration is part and parcel to this new realm or “sandbox” designed for our fun, our worship, our celebration. It is not an affront to God; no, indeed, it would be a particularly potent accentuation of our deepening celebration of God as we worship Him in and through all means of our surroundings.

You might ask yourself, “If everything was created as a way to reflect God, including the cosmos and ourselves, would we not expect an endless expansion of the cosmos as it is currently behaving? Similarly, would we not expect an endless expansion of ourselves? Having God as the object of our affections is Gospel precisely because He is infinite. Our sandbox might continue to expand for us to play in, but if God were not infinite, the boundaries of the sandbox would eventually be established. Given enough time, the sandbox might even become boring, would it not? This should probably be stated more strongly: if the sandbox does not keep expanding, boredom is guaranteed. That God is infinite, that the Entity at the center of our attention is eternal, that He has “life in Himself,” or endless resources, is the Gospel good news, clearly stated in the resurrection proclamation that “death is no more.” To be specific, only a god that is wholly good, like the sacrificed God, that is likewise infinite in various ways, can solve the problem of boredom. Anything with limits to it, no matter how expansive, will become dull and uninteresting given enough time. Once boredom sets in, there is no escape: heaven would then become hell and would grow into a deepening hellish prison the more time passed.

I therefore present to you the problem of the World Economic Forum’s mock eternality. Perpetuating life in some digitally uploaded human consciousness sort of way guarantees the ultimate hellish prison this would becomes as energy runs out (or max entropy occurs). The WEF’s heaven is the promise of boredom. It cannot be otherwise. Someone might object and say that the cosmos could collapse back in on itself and start the process over; sure, that could happen, but no one will be there to know it. The hell of boredom is more likely to happen first. There is no evading these conclusions because all that we know is defined by its limitations — the only exception to this would be God, who would be defined by an infinite mode of being instead. Any mock eternality that the WEF would envision will have as its final inheritance for those who accept it the endless hellishness of growing boredom.

In the Beginning, God . . . The Grand Mystery

14 Thursday Jul 2022

Posted by in cosmic origins, Genesis, imagination, mystery, Science

≈ Comments Off on In the Beginning, God . . . The Grand Mystery

In the beginning, God . . .

 Scarce more profound a mystery be found. Aseity is how we discuss God’s self-sufficiency. To quote, Jesus the Christ, “I have life in myself as my father has life in Himself.” Although the Word of God only implies this attribute, aseity, to God here, the text invites us to conclude that God is indeed self-sufficient. We need not look for a reason or cause that somehow predates or precedes God. It touches our mind as a unfathomable truth that does allow us to fathom a bit of it. Applying the notion of time to God in this pre-history may be unfounded. Sequence may be merely a creaturely phenomenon that has no place for describing God’s divine pre-history existence.

We should not ask, “what was before God” because such a question already assumes that “time” is rightly applied to God prior to His creating. This is what boggled Richard Dawkins’ mind in his entirely insulting book, God is not Great. His claim was that we Christians only move the mystery back from the big bang to God but such a move, according to Dawkins, provides no more explanatory power than leaving the mystery at the big bang. I contend there are added benefits and explanation by supposing that God is and that the mystery resides with God rather than the big bang.

(1)  Locating the mystery of life with God and not the big bang provides a personal entity, God — rather than an impersonal force, the “bang,” — that is responsible for creating something entirely intelligently designed. This provides much explanatory power for why the universe should be here rather than not here. Only persons create organized and intelligently designed things. No sand castle has ever arisen apart from some child, a person, building it. No house erected from the arbitrary falling of logs in the woods; no a person comes and organizes it.

(2)  Dawkins is right that it moves the mystery to God but he is wrong that it does not provide us far greater resources in explaining the universe and purpose of life. A person such as God generating persons such as humans is a substantial foundation for purpose and meaning. If there is meaning that lasts beyond our life and the memories of descendants it will reside in the Mind of God, which would constitute our subjective meaning into the “objective annuls” of God’s mind, providing the complete basis for life not only to be meaningful in some daily yet ultimately waning sort of way, but then becoming actualized objective meaning.

(3)  Postulating a realm that God inhabited or simply was in pre-history breaks the need to explain (and ask) “what came before” — showing you are asking a question about creation rather than the Creator — by virtue of pointing out the fact that “cause and effect” implies sequence, but there is no reason to be compelled either from theological or scientific concerns to postulate that time and thus sequence existed prior to such a taxis and organization in the creation. Really, we have little idea what time is. Scripture states elsewhere and we live and move in God, and time might really be some realm or medium for humanity’s expression that is upheld by God although utterly different from Him. This is conjecture, but the point is that “time” is a humanly contrived idea that we use to describe our reality while also recognizing that “time” is really there even if in only abstract sort of way.

(4)  Given the law of entropy, there must be a generative force that is outside of or beyond the realm of nature or of the creation. Simply put, that energy cannot be created or destroyed, but yet energy exists, demands an “Energizer.” Postulating the natural world backward in infinite regression does nothing to solve this issue. In spiritual terms, there must be The Spirit for the life-energies of spirits to be.

(5)  God being Creator also provides us the resource of “intention” as a way to explain why the universe is and why it should have started at all. The big bang provides no such resource because forces do not “intend” anything. Rather than the universe’s existence being altogether arbitrary — as it would be if it were generated from an impersonal force — and just popping out of nothing, as though nothingness could produce something, a Personal Mind like God would simply intend to create, and such impulse to start something new is an experience each and every person has been involved with, analogously. Nothingness producing something is an experience no person ever has experienced in any real, relative, or analogous way.

Forces don’t have intention.

In the beginning God . . .  points to a fundamental relational reality you, me, everyone, will have with God. In every revealing there is a concealing. If God is such a Being that calls what is not into existence from resources of His own generation, then the Scriptural based claims of His infinite nature are not overblown (everlasting to everlasting). In an infinite series, there is always more ground to cover even if the ground upon which we currently stand is wondrous in its own right. Even here in Genesis 1:1, at the outset of all else God will say, this text maximizes attention on this single shining light, piercing through the veil of mystery which is the fact that God is. Period. God is.

Here at this moment, the moment, the moment that precedes all other moments, the moment that pervades all other moments as the mother of them all, here we find Creator and Lord in the one word, Elohim. He is before all and as such is over all. To lord, or rule, we discover entails the impulse to share, to serve, and to fashion something that is an echo, a “re-presentation” of all that Elohim is. Creativity, generosity, and gratuity are unveiled in these first three words, “in the beginning.” There is a start, and the start begs us to ask why. This Being, this God, cannot be compelled to create, clearly is not creating out of need or acting out of deficiency. Indeed, that God simply was already puts all such notions He could be deficient into the grave.

You share that creativity friend, you exhibit profound imagination. God went beyond what was to produce what was not. Why do you imagine things beyond your experience? Why do we love mythologies, DC, Marvel, Warhammer 40k? How intense this creativity is among all humanity; we all love stories and stories are evidence of our great making property that God invested into us: transcendence.  Surely, it is an absolute marvel to be screamed from the hill tops that you are a subcreator, with capacities to transcend. We go beyond, we break limitations as we press ever more into the mystery of the infinite divine. When you use that imagination, you are a representation of this first moment that made all other moments possible: “in the beginning God . . .” Art, recreation, these are the resounding chorus of God’s first paint stroke on the canvas of creation. You are part of that painting, and you contribute to that painting. What will you fashion this day? Will we find in you the same type of creator from deep resources uses your authority to bring into being something new and wonderful out of sheer pleasure and as a generous expression of your spirit, of who you are?  Will the ethos of Elohim mark you? Will you be a Lord and Creator who fashions life-giving ideals, models, truths, endeavors, hopes, to bring these into being as a participant in creation’s melody?

Take captive this moment, as it carries in it the memory of that first moment, “in the beginning God. .  .” Imagine, express, create: discern what is generous, and be about that this day. Life in not about prolonging days but about finding this life-giving moment, rehearsing its wonder, and drinking deeply from the well of self-giving rather than feeding the devourer, selfishness.

Presence

In the grand theater of cosmic origins, contained in only 4 words, “In the beginning God . . .” we find what is first and therefore foremost in the taxonomy of meaning, namely, Presence. There are really only two alternatives in the grand narrative of the universe: either Presence is the most basic reality or emptiness. Presence, friends, is the locus of meaning. Without presence, meaning is naught. In other words, before you can have meaning in your life, say from your father or mother, they first must be present. Their presence is required for meaning. Similarly, we are faced with the void if the universe is some god-less array of foundationally empty beginnings — whatever that would look like, and it is not logical so don’t break your mind trying to comprehend it.

If this was the meaning in the beginning, whatever else we learn about the purpose of the cosmos from later verses in Genesis, then this is the meaning for you today. That God is there; that God is the Presence immutably available to you. Are you a father, a mother, a brother, or a sister, what about a dear friend, a close colleague, a guide to the young, a teacher of the curious? First among all things is to make yourself present, to be there, to demonstrate your presence even as we see God having done the same: In the beginning God. There He was.

Dr. Scalise

The World Economic Forum’s transhumanism, After Death Documented Consciousness, & the Afterlife (part 7)

09 Saturday Jul 2022

Posted by in afterlife, Dimensions, God, Near Death Experiences/Consciousness, Transhumanism, WEF

≈ Comments Off on The World Economic Forum’s transhumanism, After Death Documented Consciousness, & the Afterlife (part 7)

This is part seven, so if you’ve missed what has been said up to this point, here is a run down since we will be building on former articles: art. 1, the WEF wants to become digital gods by uploading human consciousness to remove biological restrictions; art. 2., the WEF envisions a world where humanity is stripped of their biological restrictions which will entail a eugenicide campaign on standard humanity, either reducing their numbers, cyborging some of them, and for the privileged, digitally uploading their consciousness; art 3., the WEF views humanity as problematic, and also believes that humanity is hackable through big advancements in biotech data and massive computational ability; art. 4., the WEF is learning from the voluminous scholarly studies on Near and After Death Consciousness, which evinces that a functioning consciousness need not be embodied; a sign inquiry salient for the topic although not part of the series per se, “A.I. will amplify bias of its creators,” art. 5., the law of entropy and the notions of eternal “digital life”; art. 6., dealing with the claim of the WEF that humans don’t have mysterious souls, and it unpacks what a spirit and a soul is and then discusses this with the claim of the WEF that humans are just hackable animals. We are building on the WEF’s relationship with Near and After Death Documented Consciousness today. As we have investigated the WEF, we have tumbled into the realm of science fiction except it is something like science cult reality. Recently, July 5th, 2022, the largest particle accelerator came back online with her goals in tow. To steer clear of conspiracies, let’s only cite two relevant pieces of data that may tie into “dimensional” discussions as related to frontier science. Sergio Bertolucci, Director for Research and Scientific Computing at CERN, famously stated back in 2009 while discussing dimensions,

Out of this door might come something, or we might send something through it.”

https://www.theregister.com/2009/11/06/lhc_dimensional_portals/

That was some time ago; on CERN’s website now, it discusses its aim at revealing dimensions:

Another way of revealing dimensions would be through the production of microscopic black holes. What exactly we would detect would depend on the number of extra dimensions, the mass of the black hole, the size of the dimensions and the energy at which the black hole occurs.

https://home.cern/science/physics/extra-dimensions-gravitons-and-tiny-black-holes

What is with my claim that science is looking less like traditional science and more like science fiction? Historically, science functions on the assumption of a closed system, which is to see the universe as such. If new or different dimensions are revealed, then either

(a) the nature of the universe is not a closed system or

(b) the contours of the closed system as formerly understood were off.

Anyone of a theistic persuasion — Christians, traditional religious Jews, Muslims, Hinduism, Jainism, etc. — has long been an advocate of understanding the natural world, or the universe, as an open system, or partially open system. I don’t want to be misunderstood as suggesting that these religions envisage the same god-world or gods-world relationship; they most certainly do not. Another misunderstanding is semantic: although the theist might be categorized as “open” in the binary “open system vs. closed system,” the way a person constructs the contours of his or her closed system will determine and frame what is within the closed system box or what is outside of it. Mathematics, for instance, frames all of nature, and some theologians might call it the language of God. If the inherent orderliness, implied intelligence, and entailed concepts like “infinity” — all proper to mathematics — invariably demarcated a divine management of the ongoing structural integrity of the natural system, then “God-presence” could be included in an otherwise natural closed system.

Expanding access to dimensions other than those historically recognized by scientists is transformative on both scientists and humanity’s understanding of the universe, and how the closed system is understood and its viability. I’d be amiss to pass up an excellent opportunity for a brief excursus on developing scientific knowledge: it is a misunderstanding or a misrepresentation to suppose that science is a largely static body of knowledge or that science represents altogether irrefutable axioms. Indeed, to the curious, the scholar, or to the person liberated from their own biases’ utter control, some part of science is always developing and revisable. Some science has tremendous surety. Nevertheless, when a student ascends to the domain of the theoretical — which exists in every serious domain of intellectual inquiry — it becomes perspicuous that science is less rigid than often touted or assumed.  

How the closed system (the universe) is or should be understood will remain and be reinforced by scientists’ avowed confidence, often insisted upon with a dedicated dogmatism, until some need for major revision. There is a recent, seismic example of revising the way the closed system, which is the universe, is understood. Through most of the 20th century, the universe was viewed as a closed system that was eternally existing. It is shocking that the scientific community allowed for such a religious concept as “eternality” to be assigned to the cosmos. Through advancements in tracing light backwards and microwaves, the closed system of the universe — as it was understood at the time — had to go from being an eternal entity to becoming one that had a beginning: the big bang theory was born and prevails in the scientific community until this day. I cite this example because of how huge a change this was on the contours of the closed system. The change, in philosophical terms, could not be bigger: the universe literally went from being a necessary entity to a contingent one. The nature of the cosmos is not easily or quickly discerned, it would seem.

Dimensionality, that there could be more dimensions, and that such would change the contours of the closed system, evinces either the need to abandon the old closed system for something much more fluid or the scientific community could join with theists in affirming the likelihood of a partially open system. I am indifferent in which option is chosen. As scientific inquiry breaks into ever new proposals about differing or new dimensions, the field of After Death Consciousness will be drawn together with it. Religious persons have long advocated for consciousness after death and consciousness apart from the body (that died and is in the ground): and hence differing dimensions or realms. Going back to Sergio’s quote above, it is not clear if Sergio is suggesting that whatever might come through this dimensional door would be sentient or personal. If he is suggesting sentience, the religious person might feel again validated: most major religions hold that there is a Mind or minds quite apart from and different from humanity. It might be equally argued that the fascination people have with ancient and modern mythologies, like the Marvel, D.C., or 40k universes, suggests many subconsciously are drawn to the concept of other minds very different from our own. We are about ready to tie together a few pieces of what may appear to be unrelated data, but there is one piece still to introduce. How many knew that John Hopkins University launched a study in 2018 asking volunteers to complete a survey if they have

had encounters with seemingly autonomous beings or entities after taking DMT.”

https://nationalpost.com/health/aliens-machine-elves-living-slinkys-scientists-to-study-the-entities-people-meet-on-drug-dmt

Who headed this study up? Roland Griffiths, a behavioral biologist with expertise in psychedelics that induce “mystical-type and near-death experiences.” I’ve cited the story here which goes on to consult with expert McKenna, who elaborates on these autonomous but seemingly real entities. When Alex Jones discusses the same with Joe Rogan in 2019, he gets labeled a loon. Alex Jones alleges the University of Washington was experimenting with DMT while turning people’s hearts off to attempt to commune with these entities.

That a respected University like John Hopkins would be already publicly investigating the relationship between DMT, near death experiences, and these autonomous entities, in 2018, and that it would be public, makes the marginal step to experimenting with it only a very small step. The field of Near and After Death Consciousness pairs neatly with experimentation looking into what the consciousness might be doing or with whom it might be involved during the death state.

For the orthodox Christian, notions of other minds and consciousnesses out there that are not human is no big deal. The Bible already documents many such examples. For a naturalist, someone devoted to science as some immovable norm that they dogmatically defend as unbreakable, the project at CERN, Near/After Death Consciousness, and the University of John Hopkins’ dedicated research into “autonomous entities” related to near death experiences, should raise quite a few questions about the sufficiency of their naturalist beliefs. Arguably, every dimensional boundary shattered, if CERN does what it intends, forces the wooden, closed system regarding the nature of the universe to revise its contours. If dimensionality is and is demonstrable, how useful is the scientific naturalist’s closed system beyond its evident pragmatic results? What I mean by this is that much repetitive predictability has been produced using the scientific method, which itself prescribes running the experiment in a closed system. These results as practically changing our world should not and cannot be denied. That the universe itself is a closed system would be repudiated by CERN showing that other dimensions are and can connect to the dimensions we exist within. The dangers that playing with cross-dimensional potential might present should not be dismissed readily. To incessantly affirm that the universe is a closed system while breaking or having to continually revise that thesis to make it accurate of the world as we find it is to die the death of a 1,000 qualifications.

Disembodied consciousness has largely been archived in the annuls of science, via the sizable data regarding near and after death documented consciousness (see my former short article on this if wanting to know more). Consciousness apart from the body is now not only a maxim affirmed by religious persons but is one that those as worldly as the World Economic Forum would likewise affirm. If we were to speak of after death consciousness in a scientific or more scientific way, we might state that disembodied consciousness moves the person involved into a different mode of being, or a different dimension. In some sense, this is nothing more than semantics. Historically, religious people call this mode of being the afterlife. That we might now discuss it in terms of crossing into a different dimension seems little more than contextualizing it to the conversation at hand. Again, how can evidence for after death consciousness, wholly without the body, not suggest or demonstrate that some dimensionality does exist well beyond what David Hume could ever imagine? Strikingly, the WEF might be aligned with a certain Humean atheist predisposition, but that anti-God tendency does not disallow the WEF from courting and using the religious notion of disembodied consciousness.

Lastly, the WEF is set on advancing A.I., which I mean here not only “artificial intelligence” but also “alien intelligence.” Those intimate in the development of A.I. know that there is the possibility that humanity will create “unintelligible intelligence.” This means that humans will not be able to know or understand how the A.I. is coming to its conclusions, and the WEF has affirmed in more than one place that such an A.I. is laudable. Unintelligible intelligence cannot but suggest that this A.I. would be likewise an alien intelligence. My point is that humanity is already courting alien intelligence in its machinations. These alien A.I. intelligences might be birthed by humanity, but that does not mean these A.I. will not become altogether cryptic and unknowable. In fact, one A.I. has already begun to create its own non-human language. It is a little-known fact, but John Hopkins University is tied to the Rockefeller Foundation (which is part of the WEF and globalists) going as far back as the 1940s (as documented by Reuters) precisely in relation to horrible medical experimentation.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-maryland-lawsuit-infections-idUSKCN1OY1N3

If the WEF is interested in alien intelligence, as I’ve discussed that here, and a University that has engaged in unethical medical experimentation in the past is now involved in near death DMT research, then is it a strange question to wonder about “other dimensional entities” being in the WEF’s purview. Yuval Harari, the WEF’s philosopher and prophet, has already written a book about his/their movement being about establishing 21st century digital religions (Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind). To me, it is an oddity that the WEF with Harari as their mouthpiece see themselves as a kind of new religion. To be fair, the way Harari defines “religion” is entirely idiosyncratic, but it does not change the fact that he advances a “se-apothesis” by claiming that the homo-sapien became god by its own merit. Tying alien intelligence (via A.I.) together with these frightful notions of eugeniciding humanity certainly casts a dark shadow over the question of whether the WEF is courting any other alien intelligences, especially as we see their interest in disembodied consciousness. Some have called the WEF a death cult due to these religious overtures it presents and because of its dedication to, and I quote a chapter at the end of Harari’s book, “The end of Homo Sapiens.” As science breaks down traditional notions about how the universe is a closed system, the experimentation of cross dimensionality (CERN), after death documented consciousness, and alien intelligences entering the fray — whether A.I. or whatever these “autonomous entities” communing with humans in these DMT/near death experiments — it is justifiable to ask more questions about the dangers we as a human species court. Asking these too is not the result of some fanaticism or conspiracy conjured insanity. Indeed, the precipice we find ourselves upon is one where science and religion are conjoining, where notions of other “minds” is becoming part of the conversation for the technological class even as the Christians, and other religious persons, stand steadily on their working thesis that the Mind gave birth to this human dimension’s minds and a whole host of other worldly beings known as angels and demons.

Dr. Scalise

The Bonhoeffer Vector: The Deep Church, Wheat and Tares, Medical Experimentation

06 Wednesday Jul 2022

Posted by in Church Leadership, despotism, Government

≈ Comments Off on The Bonhoeffer Vector: The Deep Church, Wheat and Tares, Medical Experimentation

What is missing in the present resistance to the government bio-medical tyranny is a sustained theological attack on it and a theologian driven admonishment to conservative or evangelical churches. In many cases, including at my own evangelical church, the church has become complicit in advancing the government bio-medical tyranny. John MacAuthor’s church in California refused to shut down; this is a great example of what we want to see. Consequently, MacAuthor’s church just won in court to the tune of $800,000, not a bad pull for standing your just and theologically sound ground. What are the indicators of tyranny?

John MacArthur and Grace Community Church win $800,000 settlement from California and L.A. County

Forcing face masks, letting the government shut down the church, advancing or peddling the mRNA vaccines, or advising congregates to “submit to government,” are all examples of tyranny. Has your church been involved in these agendi? We could expand this out and ask if your church supports the BLM movement, which is as much a solidifier of racial tensions as it is a facilitator of destabilization via “identity-class warfare.”

In respect to the church advocating for submission to government outright because the bible says things like “honor the emperor (1Peter 2:17),” or “submit to authorities because they have been put there by God (Romans 13:1, paraphrased),” or “give to Caesar what is Caesar’s (Mark 12:17),” we need to know if these church leaders understand where governing authority resides and issues from in the American constitutional Republic. “We The People” form the Constitution by which all government officials are governed; all government authorities have their “just powers” by “the consent of the governed.” The buck stops with the individual as the base layer of government authority. It may not feel like that since our government officials here in the U.S. are running rampant violating the Constitution recently, but the behavior of a ruling class criminal syndicate does not dissolve the Constitution or church leaders’ responsibility to understand, as a minimum, the supreme law of the land, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. The gift the founding fathers left America is the marvel of “we the people” being the governing authority, being compelled only by morality and our relationship with God with no need to submit to a government since we the people ourselves are the government. We do not have an emperor or a Caesar who is some autocrat that “is the government.”

To apply the Scriptures I cited above, a church leader must understand how governing authority is constituted in the nation in which he or she resides. If you are not in America, that early Christians were civilly disobedient in their meeting, in their taking of communion, and in their denial of the imperial truth, that Caesar was the son of god, provide you a way forward and a basis for civil disobedience. The claim, after all, that Jesus was the Son of God, was directly violating one of Rome’s most ardent claims about Caesar (that Caesar was the son of god). The ethos of early Christians’ relation to the government is one of largely non-violent civil disobedience and suffering the consequences. For Americans, the 1st amendment creates the sacred ground of following government directives so far as they do not violate your religious convictions because our government officials are not the State, to which we must submit to follow the Scriptures mentioned earlier. Citizens, in the American system, constitute the ruling class because the citizens constitute the supreme law of the land, the Constitution. For people elsewhere, not even the Romans 13 text requires unconditional submission. That text goes on to note that the government is there to punish evil and so there is nothing to fear if you do good (Rom. 13:3). Arguably, if your government advances evil practices, it should be vigorously resisted. The famous saying, “the only thing it takes for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing” might be rephrased for the church: “the only thing it takes for utter despotism to destroy humanity is for church leaders to advise submission to despotism.”

To cite Archbishop Vigano: “It is not surprising that these mercenaries are allies of the children of darkness and hate the children of light: just as there is a deep state, there is also a deep church that betrays its duties and forswears its proper commitments before God. Thus the Invisible Enemy, whom good rulers fight against in public affairs, is also fought against by good shepherds in the ecclesiastical sphere. It is a spiritual battle . . ..”

https://www.lifesitenews.com/opinion/archbishop-viganos-powerful-letter-to-president-trump-eternal-struggle-between-good-and-evil-playing-out-right-now/

The biblical idea, as stated by Jesus, is that there are wheat and tares or wolves in sheep’s clothing. We are faced with a deep church, and the influence of the deep church is not just in the catholic and liberal protestant churches. However “gospel-centric” an evangelical claims to be, if such a leader advances utter bodily despotism (this bio-medical tyranny I have been discussing) contributing to the loss of freedom of speech and/or freedom of religion, how can they be true to their claimed “gospel-centricity?” Is not freedom of religion and freedom of speech both necessary for communicating the Gospel? To adapt a quote from St. Paul, how will they hear when you are not free to speak?

Therefore, the deep church’s influence is infiltrating even evangelical and conservative circles of churches in insidious ways. To be clear, a church supporting corporations or government through corporations (fascism) in violating bodily autonomy is a church deeply committed to tyranny; if you do not have authority to decide what goes into your body, how much less authority do you have over the words that leave your body? The point is that submission to a government’s claim over what goes into your body is such a violation that it is virtually giving up all authority and rights. If the government has such a dominion over your body, your tongue, what you say, will likewise be in that dominion. In some sense, this is the sacred cow of despotism, an autocracy that claims a right to your insides. This is not hyperbole friends, Yuval Harari, the WEF’s prophet, is advancing and advocating for internal biological surveillance. Lastly, a big indicator of the Deep Church’s ascendency in the walls of your evangelical/conservative church would be a commitment to being “a-political,” usually justified by claiming to be wholly “gospel-centric” while tolerating or accepting one feature or another of this bio-medical government despotism. It is patently false to imagine anyone can be “a-political” and remain human. This too is a deception. Behaviors declares political affiliations and all persons in society contribute to the order of that society (order is government, FYI). Commitment to being politically disinterested (really many of these churches are serving their masters at the IRS and their sacrosanct 501(c)3 status) while enacting tyrannical government agendi is radically unself-aware. The battle is real, and it flexes along the lines of corruption common to humankind: money and power. The churches claiming to be conservative must reform their thinking to oppose all government behavior that violates freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and, by extension, bodily autonomy, or freedom of my body. There is only one Lord and Master over all creation, and it is not some government despots, using computers in some strange bunker to monitors my insides. We will not trade the God for these false gods, and the World Economic Forum does think themselves as ascending to godhood in their own terms. God’s provision of significant freewill over each man’s, woman’s, and child’s body entails a denial that any human or group of humans have any right or claim over those bodies. The theology of 1776 that framed the Declaration of Independence must be returned to by the churches. “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” endowed into each human by the Creator, as the Imago Dei (image of God), is sure ground for declaring that “liberty” maintains the freedom of my body from governments of any type. After all, if God did not want humanity to have bodily autonomy from Him, God did not have to frame the world and humanity as He did. If God prescribes bodily autonomy, let no government rob any piece of that prescription.

The Life Wars (part V): Exodus 21:22 – 23, An English Translation of this Text Supports Abortion?

04 Monday Jul 2022

Posted by in Abortion, Biblical Interpretation, Difficult Texts, Inerrancy, Infallibility, Scripture

≈ Comments Off on The Life Wars (part V): Exodus 21:22 – 23, An English Translation of this Text Supports Abortion?

Tags

, , , , ,

Exodus 21:22 – 23 bears on the abortion discussion. What happens when an unclear version of an Old Testament text is used in preference to clear versions? In a word, bias happens. Being biased of course is an inescapable part of being human; the contention here is that using a hugely unclear version represents abject bias. That bias comes through any translation from Greek into English by the translators is unsurprising and simply a necessary part of a translator’s task. Some might even argue that the incorporation of certain human ‘bias elements’ is part of the Spirit of God’s good intent, similar to how the humanity of Jesus was incorporated and united to divinity. In this Exodus text, there is abject bias that directly influences the abortion debate born out of the New Revised Standard Version’s translation. Framing this is the first task; the second task is to investigate the organization responsible for this translation. Can it be the case that abject bias is driven by modern issues, using those issues to decide how to translate an OT text?

The ancient Hebrew text, the Masoretic Text, comes through this way in English. The translation is mine, but I have been careful to let the text be overly wooded with little interpretive liberty taken:

“If men are fighting and they smite a pregnant woman and her child(ren) come out and no harm is, he {the man who struck the woman} will be fined a fine as what the husband of the woman sets, and he will give it according to the judges. If, however, harm occurred to the child(ren) then you shall give life in place of life . . ..”

Here is how the New Revised Standard Version translates this text:

“When people who are fighting injure a pregnant woman so that there is a miscarriage, and yet no further harm follows, the one responsible shall be fined what the woman’s husband demands, paying as much as the judges determine. If any harm follows, then you shall give life for life . . .”

There is blatant logical incoherence in the NRSV’s translation. The miscarriage is harmful and yet a fine should be punishment for causing the miscarriage while at the same time the text calls for “life for life” as punishment. Which is it? Someone might protest that the harm considered here is concerning the mother and not the child — starting to be framed strikingly like a modern abortion discussion.  The first line of the NRSV deals with maximum harm to the child (= miscarriage, death), but the Hebrew Masoretic text’s first line tells us the opposite, that “no harm is” to the child.

 . . . so that there is a miscarriage, and yet no further harm follows . . . (NRSV)

. . . and her child comes out and no harm is . . . (MT)

The difference in meaning is a canyon sized gap. The NRSV instructs that a monetary fine suffices as punishment, for covering the death of the child. The MT teaches that only if the child is born prematurely with no harm to him does a monetary fine suffice as punishment. How do other modern English translations render this text?

When men strive together and hit a pregnant woman, so that her children come out, but there is no harm, the one who hit her shall surely be fined, as the woman’s husband shall impose on him, and he shall pay as the judges determine. But if there is harm, then you shall pay life for life . . . (ESV)

If men struggle with each other and strike a woman with child so that she gives birth prematurely, yet there is no injury, he shall surely be fined as the woman’s husband may demand of him, and he shall pay as the judges decide. But if there is any further injury, then you shall appoint as a penalty life for life . . . (NASB)

If men fight and hit a pregnant woman and her child is born prematurely, but there is no serious injury, he will surely be punished in accordance with what the woman’s husband demands of him, and he will pay what the court decides. But if there is serious injury, then you will given a life for a life . . . (NET)

When men get in a fight and hit a pregnant woman so that her children are born prematurely but there is no injury, the one who hit her must be fined as the woman’s husband demands from him, and he must pay according to judicial assessment. If there is an injury, then you must give life for life . . . (CSB)

If some men are fighting and hurt a pregnant woman so that she loses her child, but she is not injured in any other way, the one who hurt her is to be fined whatever amount the woman’s husband demands, subject to the approval of the judges. But if the woman herself is injured, the punishment shall be life for life . . . (GNB)

And if men fight and they injure a pregnant woman, and her children go out and there is not serious injury, he will surely be fined as the woman’s husband demands concerning him and as the judges determine. And if there is serious injury, you will give life in place of life . . . (LEB)

If people are fighting and hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely but there is no serious injury, the offender must be fined whatever the woman’s husband demands and the court allows. But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life . . . (NIV)

And when men strive, and have smitten a pregnant woman, and her children have come out, and there is no mischief, he is certainly fined, as the husband of the woman doth lay upon him, and he hath given through the judges; and if there is mischief, then thou hast given life for life . . . (Young’s Literal Interpretation)

More differences prevail than this between these two texts, but is there another ancient version of this text that the NRSV might be using for its translation? Yes, there is, and it is the Septuagint, the ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament (most scholars date it to around 200 B.C. to 0 A.D.).

“Now if to men fight and strike a woman being pregnant, and her child might come out not having been fully formed, he will be punished with a fine according to whatever the husband of the woman might set: he will give in accord with what is decided, but if the child has been fully formed, he will give life for in place of life . . .”

The italics show a verb, ἐξεικονίζομαι (exeikonizomai), used twice in this passage but never used anywhere else ever in Greek literature. This is known as a hapax legomena, a word only used in one context. Because of its lack of use, determining its meaning is notoriously difficult — I put in a meaning for the word pulled from Lexicon on the Septuagint. I will offer a bit of insight but preface this by saying I am engaging in conjecture: the word is a compound word, likely the combination of ek and eikon potentially having the meaning of “resembling a deviated semblance.” Neither I nor anyone else knows what this word means: that is the larger point. The meanings of words are built out of contexts and situations; if we do not have enough contexts or situations for the word’s usage, locking down a determinate meaning is impossible. If my suggested meaning for the verb is used, we come out with a translation very similar in meaning to the ancient Hebrew (MT) text.

“Now if two men fight and strike a woman being pregnant, and her child might come out not resembling a deviated semblance, he will be punished with a fine according to whatever the husband of the woman might set: he will give in accord with what is decided, but if the child resembles a deviated semblance, he will give life in place of life . . . (trans. mine, from LXX)”

The contention here is that the NRSV’s translation is evidence of abject bias. Two major supports demonstrate this: (1) the ancient Hebrew text is considered more ancient and thus more authentic than the Septuagint, and (2) why bother using the Septuagint text (LXX for short) when it has a hapax legomena in it, whose meaning is impossible to decide? The LXX could very well have the meaning I have crafted for it, but why would I bother dealing with a meaning of a verb I have to guess about when I could just use an abundantly clear text like the MT? The answer is that a person would do so because they have an agenda.

The NRSV’s abject bias is on display, translating Exodus 21:22 – 23 to support that a monetary fine is all that is needed to cover the death of a child still in the womb. As a translator myself, I am baffled why the NRSV translators would use an unclear text (the LXX) when they have the clarity of the MT. The MT clearly equates a human life in the womb as to that of one out of the womb. They are equally valuable. This resoundingly puts this Old Testament text on the side of the pro-life movement. The NRSV’s manner of translation this text diminishes the value of human life in the womb by making the penalty for the child’s death so light. God said earlier in the OT that “whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image (Gen. 9:6).” Although it is fitting to allege that the NRSV’s version of the text advances the idea that a “fetus in the womb is not yet fully human,” it would be going too far to say that the NRSV’s version solidly supports abortion. The text is about the inadvertent death of a child caused by the violence of men. The child’s death is accidental. Still, suspicion is appropriate about the NRSV’s agenda given the abject bias of the translation.

In closing, there are broader scriptural themes that the NRSV’s version breaks away from: the lex talionis (law of retribution) of the Old Testament Law would require “life for life,” blood requires blood as retribution (Gen. 9:6), and God’s knowledge of a person predates or accompanies his or her time being formed in the womb (Ps. 139). That abject bias can make its way into translation of the Bible is clear. Modern issues may just cloud the judgment of translators, and that include me too. The influence of bias can only be managed well by an admission of one’s own biases, and that biases are inescapably a part of every person. Much of the translator’s work is unambiguous; we can be certain about what God has said. For those situations like Exod. 21:22 – 23, God instituted the professions of pastors and teaching, or elders and theologians.

Dr. Scalise