A Thumbnail Sketch of the Battle for Truth in the Mind of Man

Truth is what is really so! Historically and academically, belief systems and knowledge continue to change, but Truth is timeless; it never changes! (Psm. 119:43,89,160; Isa.40:8; Jn. 14:6;17:17). Since at least Renaissance times, philosophers can only talk about “knowledge” (gnosis) and “facts”; they don’t talk about “truth” (alethes). However, they talk about “knowledge” as if it were truth, even though their “knowledge” keeps changing. Similarly, what are often called “facts” or “data” are always based on a set of presuppositions (generally not stated) and are subject to human perception. (In any philosophical discussion involving “facts” or “data”, therefore, it is appropriate to substitute some word such as “blip”, which carries no connotation of “truth”.) The one primary presupposition prior to the 19^th century was always thesis versus antithesis (rationality). The fundamental problem with philosophy, sociology, and anthropology in academia is that the academians can only begin with man (Humanism), and man was not created with any inherent capacity to discern truth from untruth.[1] (This is one thing man has in common with angels.). If indeed, mankind could discern truth from untruth, neither the angels nor Eve would have been deceived by the Serpent (Gen. 3), and there would be no successful liars, frauds, or fakes in the world today! Biblical Truth is revealed Truth, stated in propositional form, in words that can be understood by mankind. Truth is not a function of language or sociology (man’s perception) as proposed by late 20^th century postmodernists. Dr. John W. Oller, Jr., Professor Emeritus of Linguistics of the University of New Mexico has pioneered the use of True Narrative Theory[2] in determining the logic of such propositions as Postmodernism[3], which can be dismissed as illogical and self contradictory. Unfortunately, academia seems to be oblivious to such arguments, and theologians, by in large, seem to be unacquainted with logic theory.

The humanistic New Age world views (e.g. psychiatry, sociology, psychology, mysticism, etc.) have shifted the emphasis in Christian circles in the 20^th century from what we believe (truth) to experience (what we feel- Neo-Platonism). But the basis for our Faith is that certain things are true absolutely, and man with his intellect can act upon these truths either positively or negatively. Reality is not dependent on our perception of it, but reality is what God actually created (what is really so). Dr. Schaeffer says, "Christianity is not just a series of truths, but Truth--Truth about all of reality." The Bible is propositional truth and objective truth. Propositional truth can be stated in words we can understand. Objective truth is not limited to the mind, but exists as reality beyond the thoughts and feelings of a person, contrary to Gnosticism/Platonism or Postmodernism. Absolute Truth is stated propositionally. These biblical truths constitute what our Faith (Christianity) is (1 Cor. 15:13; Col. 2:7; 2 Tim. 4:7; Tit. 1:4; 1 Pet. 5:9), and they should have an effect on our lives. Christianity is not based on mysticism or the works of men (Jn. 1:12;3:3-5; 17:3; 2 Cor. 2:17; Gal. 1:17;2:2,7; Eph. 2:8-10; 2 Pet. 1:16; etc.), but on the Word of God (Jn. 17:3,14,17; Rom. 4:3; Tit. 3:4-7) and the work of Jesus Christ, The God-Man, on the cross (Rom. 3:21-26; 2 Cor. 5:18-21; Gal. 3:5-9; etc.). It is only by knowing and applying these propositional truths to our lives that we become mature Children of God (Jn. 1:12;17:17; Gal. 3:26; 1 Jn. 3:2) and disciples of Jesus Christ (Jn.8:31,32; 17:17). “Pep talks and inspirational stories cannot substitute for propositional truth (Jn. 8:32)!

As Dr. Schaeffer pointed out, if the Scriptures are not open to rational verification (as in Mysticism, Postmodernism, and Neo-Orthodoxy), then we are left with non-rational mysticism which cannot be discussed. We throw away man's only chance to provide a universal answer to the whole of life, viz. answers to the problem of evil, any adequate basis for law and morals, or any reason for evangelism. We are left only with irrational mysticism! If you don’t have the Reformation view of the Scriptures, then the word “Christ” and theological terms have no content. They are just connotation words with no specific meaning. If you don’t base your theology on the Bible as propositional truth rather than allegory (non-literal), then the Bible can mean whatever you want it to mean, and it ceases to be a guide to Truth (Deu. 32:4; Dan. 10:21; Jn. 17:17).

The Bible reveals that Satan rebelled against God in eternity past (Gen. 3; Isa. 14:12-19; Eze. 28:11-19; Jn. 8:44)[4] and drew 1/3^rd of angelic creation into his rebellion against God (Rev. 11:3,4), Who then condemned them to the Lake of Fire (Mat. 25:41) as punishment, but which clearly has been postponed for a time (Mat. 8:29). Man is caught up in this great spiritual war because of the Fall in Eden (Gen. 3), which brought the world under Satan’s authority (Lk. 4:6; Eph. 6:12;etc.). God is presently working (Psm. 92:5,6; Jn. 5:17; 1 Jn. 3:8) to resolve this great Angelic Conflict[5] . Satan and the other “fallen angels” (demons) in their ongoing war against God and His spiritual Kingdom are presently doing everything they can to deceive man (Rev.20:2; John 8:44; Eze. 13) and prevent him from knowing the Truth. Only an infinite Personal self-existent transcendent God knows what the Truth is, and the only way that mankind can know the Truth is for God to reveal that Truth to man. The only reliable source of Truth is God’s Word (Jn. 17:17), which has come down to us as the Bible. So mankind is caught up in an ancient spiritual and invisible war[6] against Truth.

The development of our European historical perspective began in Greece, viz. Ionia. What we know about written history shows that prior to the classical period the Greeks knew only of themselves and the myths (often similar to Egyptian) that explained why everything was as it was. Philosophers in Ionia first questioned their mythology and tried to penetrate into the origin and structure of the inhabited world by means of reason. Hesiad, for example, had "favored" the Greek gods by providing them with a respectable ancestry. A similar service enabled the Greek nobles to claim ancestry from the gods. This philosophical awaking was aided by contact with the East during the Persian war in the early 5th century B.C. which let them know that they were not the only people in the world. The greatest Greek historian was Herodotus of Halicarnassus (c.485-425 B.C.) His history was a narrative of Graeco-Asiatic relations and contacts from the reign of Croesus (the original Midas) of Lydia (560 B.C.) to the defeat of the Persians in 478 B.C. While he recognized the basic principles of historical criticism, he too often accepted the tales he heard on his travels. His successor Thucydides (c.471-400 B.C.), however, limited his history mostly to politics and wars, but was very critical and scholarly in his approach. The last of the major Greek historians was Polybius (c. 205-c.120 B.C.) He was fully equal to Thucydides in terms of accuracy, but his style was not as easily read.

The Romans added nothing to the Greeks in terms of contributions to historiography. Rome always followed everything Greek. Although the Romans defeated the Greeks militarily, the Greeks defeated the Romans philosophically. None equaled Thucydides or Polybius for careful adherence to the critical method. Only Livy and Tacitus matched the best of the stylists among the Greek historians. Down to the 2nd century B.C. all Roman historical works were written in Greek. The Roman historians looked upon history as a hybrid child of rhetoric and philosophy. They wrote to illustrate ethical precepts with eloquent narratives, to adorn a moral with a tale. Virgil wrote the Aeneid to trace the (mythical) founding of Rome back to the Greeks. It was inspired by the similar Greek genealogies of city-states and was to give religious justification to the Roman state. He wrote it (29-19 B.C.) to please Octavian but died before it was completed. Will Durant notes in his History[8] that it was the Roman adoption of Greek philosophy, with its Gnosticism, lack of absolutes, and its sexual perversion that eventually destroyed the Roman Empire. The fall of the Empire in the late 5^th century left Europe in Feudalism, under the domination of many local warlords and at the mercy of invading warrior tribes.

The Roman historian Tacitus (56 -.117 A.D.) was also an ardent admirer of the Roman aristocratic republic, but usually accurate in his writings so far as he wrote about things and people. He has no concept of the economic influences upon political events, little interest in the life and industry of the people, the stream of trade, the conditions of science, the status of women, poetry, philosophy, or art. He provides no consistent view of God, man or the state. His view of contemporary Roman society was that it was rotten to the core. He mourns the malignity of the human mind, and scorns, like Juvenal, the increased alien population in Rome (Multiculturalism). Tacitus links the name and origin of Christians with Christus (i.e. Jesus Christ) who, he says, in the reign of Tiberius suffered death by the sentence of the Procurator, Pontius Pilate.

Since most of the early church fathers were educated in the classics, they entered religious service with just such a classical Greek bias. Once introduced to the Jewish O.T. they were naturally aware of the deficiencies of the Greek historical view of the origin of the world. Christians were the first to recognize a real grandeur in history. They viewed it as a divine epic stretching back before the creation of man with the central Figure being the personal infinite God who has spoken to man through prophecy and the Scriptures, and Who will ultimately bring the conflict between good and evil to a cataclysmic and final end (Psm. 2; Isa. 24:19-23; 27:1; Dan. 7:7-14; Rev.20:10-15 ). However, they viewed much of Greek learning as good too. So it was not unusual for someone to try to write a history of the world from a biblical viewpoint, but integrate it with classical (i.e. Greek and Roman) history. The integration of Greek philosophy with Christianity is known as Neo-Platonism.

It was Sextus Julius Africanus (c. 180-250 A.D.) who first composed a "Christian" history of the world in 5 books bringing the story to 221 A.D. In this he tried to harmonize and synchronize Hebrew and Christian history with that of the four great successive pagan monarchies that had dominated both biblical and classical literature: Assyrian, Persian, Grecian, and Roman. During the first centuries of the Christian era the main form of historical writing was the Annals which had been common in Egypt and Babylonia. The origin and development of the Chronicle was directly related to the growth of the Annals. The Annals were primarily a yearly record set down by a contemporary. The Chronicle was more comprehensive. It normally consisted in the summarizing of the history of a considerable period or area on the basis of one or more sets of annals, preserving the chronological arrangement of the Annals.

Eusebius of Caesarea (c.260-340) followed the Alexandrian schools and carried this history further in his History of the Christian Church, 10 volumes which brought history to A. D. 324 with the establishment of Christianity as the official religion of Rome[9]. In Eusebius' synthesis of biblical and classic history, he made Pythagoras and Plato learn from Moses, and Seneca from Paul. An important part of his Chronicle was the establishment of an "official" Christian chronology which presented universal history in a set of parallel synoptic and synchronous tables. This history was continued by the historians Socrates, Sozomen, and Theodoret into the 5th century. The whole was combined and translated into Latin under the direction of Cassiodorus (477-570) and his disciples. This product was known as the Historia tripartia and became the standard manual of church historians. Jerome adopted the Chronicle of Eusebius in his own Chronicle, and it became the official church chronology until it was slightly revised by Scaliger in 1583 and again by Bishop Ussher in 1650. This chronology was based on counting what was thought to be successive generations from Adam and Noah to establish the time of creation and the beginning of humanity. Unfortunately, these early church historians working from Greek and Latin manuscripts had little knowledge of the original Hebrew or access to the Hebrew Scriptures so that they were unaware of their errors. The Christian church's viewpoint of history as a struggle between good and evil was carried to its final and decisive systematic expression in Augustine's City of God.

The concept of the "non-literal" or allegorical method of interpretation really began with the heathen commentators who were long used to the allegorizing of the poems of Homer and other ancients writers. The Brahmins had already given the Hindu Vedas (4th century B.C.) a mystical interpretation. It was the Jews of Alexandria in the 2nd century B.C. which first applied the methods of allegorical interpretation to their O.T. Scriptures. Alexandria at this time was the center of pagan learning and scholarship of the ancient world and contained the greatest library ever amassed prior to modern times. The Jews of Alexandria were moved by the charm of Greek literature and philosophy. To them it was inspiring, noble, and logical. The Jews noticed the ease with which the Greeks allegorized away the ugly portions of their religious heritage, particularly the immorality of the Greek gods, explaining them as ethical and moral struggles. The Alexandrian Jews saw how easy it would be to explain away the O.T. ethical problems such as Lot's incest, the drunkenness of Noah, Jacob's wives and concubines, Judah's sex with Tamar, prohibitions against eating certain foods, etc. So allegorism became the means of explaining away whatever they didn't like in the Scriptures or whatever didn't fit their beliefs and it was also the means of combining Greek philosophy and ideas with that of the Old Testament. Allegorism was the means of making Moses speak the philosophy of Plato and the other Greek sages. However, there is no propositional truth in allegory!

It was not until the latter part of the 2nd century A.D. that allegory made its way into the Christian church via Alexandria. Paneaenus (c.180 A.D.) teacher of the school at Alexandria was the first to adopt the allegorical method. He was followed by Clement of Alexandria and others. The allegorization of these early church fathers, who had no training in Hebrew or the Mosaic Law, interpreted the entire O.T. as a mysterious collection of isolated oracles pointing to Christ. For example, in Gen. 17:13 God tells Abraham that every male child in his household must be circumcised. The allegorists connect this verse with the number of Abraham's adult male servants (actually his armed mounted guards) revealed in Gen. 14:14 to be 318 souls which they assumed were the number circumcised in his household. They seize on the number 318 which in the Greek Septuagint translation would be expressed by the Greek letters T I H. They say that the tau T stands for the cross and the IH for the first two letters in the Greek form of Jesus. This is the only significance and meaning attached to Gen. 17 passage by these church fathers. Thus the normal meaning of the words (and the truth they are meant to convey) is totally discarded. They attached no significance to the Abrahamic Covenant or its meaning, which is explained by Paul in Rom. 4 and Gal. 3.

These early church allegorists were not students of the Scriptures, nor did it even occur to them that the Scripture is God's revelation to man. They had no concept of the divine inspiration of Scripture as propositional truth. Justin Martyr assumes that the O.T. writers always spoke in mysteries, types, and oracles and saw the cross in every piece of wood in the Old Testament. Pope Gregory the Great's interpretation of the book of Job makes Job's three friends in allegory the heretics of the church, Job's seven sons become the twelve apostles, his 7000 sheep become God's faithful people, and his 3000 camels are the depraved Gentiles. Notice that any meaning you want is possible in allegories, even those that make no sense or where nothing really fits. Thus allegories make the Scriptures say whatever one wants it to say, except truth! This was Satan's plan for nullifying the truth of God's Word by ignoring its literalness. In allegorizing the Scriptures the early church fathers were simply borrowing from the prevalent pagan world view that characterized the age in which they lived.

Another philosophical element that entered into this patristic (early church fathers) period was Neo-Platonism, and its thesis of the superiority of the emotions and intuition as against reason and logic. Neo-Platonism was a philosophical effort to try to combine Christian ethics with Greek Gnosticism. The Roman Catholic theologian Augustine was a Neo-Platonist (i.e. Gnostic), but the great Bible linguist and translator Jerome was not, although he was influenced by the Gnosticism that permeated the Roman Church. Augustine taught Salvation by Grace, but he believed man had no free will or volition[10], which view he adopted to appose the Greek philosopher Pelagius’s reasoning that man with free will could choose to do “good” and therefore save himself. (However, Augustine also believed that salvation was dependent on the Roman Church.) Man’s Intellect (as well as the Bible) was abandoned for emotions as a means of perceiving truth. (Have we not seen a return of this same attitude towards the Scriptures among some emotional Christian groups in the 19^th and 20^th century?) The problem with convincing man to think non-rationally is that man was created a rational being in the image of God (Gen. 1:27) Who thinks rationally (Isa. 1:18)!

Prior to the Crusades in the 11^th century, nominally Christian Europe had not been exposed to Eastern philosophy (Gnosticism). Nalanda University, founded in Bihar, India around the fifth century B.C is usually considered the first “university”[11]. The rise of the universities in the West[12] in the 12^th century was patterned after the 10^th century Muslim Al-Azar University of Cairo[13] after the Crusaders returned from the Holy Land with their heads full of Eastern mysticism. The Italian University of Bologna, founded in 1088, is considered the oldest in Europe[14] with the university of Paris next and then Oxford in England. Oxford was founded by off casts from Paris.

In the 3^nd century B.C., Ashoka the Great, emperor of India, sent Buddhist priests to Alexandria, Egypt to teach Buddhism[15] (Eastern Gnosticism). Saccas, Philo, and later, Clement and Origen were influenced by their teachings. The Gnosticism that affected Western civilization was born in Alexandria in the second century B.C. by combining Eastern Pantheism and Platonism, the latter being the esoteric teachings of Socrates. It was a philosophy of religion rather than a single system of belief, but it later sought to infect the early church from its center in Alexandria. Gnosticism (e.g. Platonism) assumes that all spirit is good and matter is evil, and that a perfect God cannot interact with matter. (The Eastern and Western Gnostics had no concept of a transcendent Self existent Personal infinite God, Yahweh Elohim.)

From the time of the Muslim conquest of Africa and the Levant in the 7^th - 8^th centuries, the Islamic philosophers were influenced by the Gnostic writings and philosophies of Alexandria, including Egyptian, Greek, and Muslim. Greek theology was much influenced by the priests of Egypt, which is why Greek mythology is so similar to the Egyptian[16]. The Crusades of the 10^th and 11^th centuries introduced many literate European nobility and churchmen to the Islamic Gnostic philosophies in the Levant. European humanism effectively began in the 13^th century when the works of Islamic and Greek philosophers were introduced into Europe and presented a comprehensive (pagan) Greek world view including ethics, science, and politics. (However, the European academians are loathed to admit their Muslim heritage.)

Albert the Great (Albertus Magnus) of Cologne (ca. ~1200 - 1280) was one of the first among medieval scholars to apply Aristotle's philosophy to Christian thought. He was also a student of alchemy and produced a work on that subject in the mid 13^th century. At the University of Paris Brabant taught that the individual soul had no immortality and that only the universal "active intellect" was immortal (Latin Averroism). The academic philosophers (“masters of arts”) based their theories on Greek philosophy as interpreted by Muslim scholars. It was their job to teach Aristotelian philosophy (Averroism[17]) in a “Christian” society without censure. This resulted in a so called “double truth” theory in Western academic philosophy that separated supernatural truth from truth of the natural world[18]. This “double truth” theory was first proposed by the Muslim philosophers in order to escape the wrath of the Islamic clerics, and thus save their heads. As in Neo-orthodoxy of the 20^th century, both interpretations were viewed as true even though logically contradictory[19]. For example, Aristotle (and later Kant) taught that the universe was eternal, whereas the Bible said it was created (Gen. 1). Thus began the academic policy of ignoring the Bible as the primary source of truth and looking to the mind of man for truth, which set the stage for the Renaissance. The early Greek influence on academia is demonstrated by the etymology of the term “Academia”, which is derived from the Greek and transliterated variously[20] as Hekademos, Hecademus, Akademos or Academus, who was an Athenian hero in Greek mythology. The site of Plato's school of philosophy was in the grove outside the walls of Athens called The Hekademeia or the “Academy”, which was sacred to Athene and Akademos.

During the Middle Ages, the fourfold sense of Scripture was taught. This fourfold was based on Origen’s threefold sense: the literal, moral, and spiritual. However, the "spiritual" was further subdivided into the allegorical and the analogical (mystical or hidden). For example, the interpretation of Gen. 3:1, "Let there be light" means: 1) historically or literally, an act of creation; 2) morally, may we be mentally illuminated by Christ; 3) allegorically, let Christ be love; and 4) analogically, may we be led by Christ to glory. This method of interpretation became so popular in the medieval world that it even entered secular life and was widely used in astronomy and even for library classifications. This is one reason that there was so little progress in the sciences during this time.

The allegorism of the medieval church was mainly of the mystical type. Hugh of Saint-Victor (a.k.a Victor of St. Hugo) head of the school of St. Victor in Paris (considered by the Catholic historian Harnack to be the most influential theologian of the 12^th century) taught his theology students, "First learn what you are to believe, and then go to the Scriptures and find it there." So using the method of mystical interpretation, the Bible was used to justify what were already the beliefs of the Roman church (traditions) rather than being a source of propositional truth. Not only did Hugo teach the mystical meaning of Scripture he also said, “by the use of reason man can and must arrive at the knowledge of God.”[21] (However, man has no inherent ability to perceive God – Isa. 55:8,9)

The Bible was looked upon as a book for priests and monks, beyond the need, if not the comprehension, of mere laymen. This attitude of the Roman Church toward the Bible was so prevalent that in 1229 the Council of Toledo placed the Bible on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum, the list of books Catholics were forbidden to read. Pope Boniface VIII in the 13^th Century published the official document on the political aspirations of the hierarchy, and in his bull Unam Sanctum he says: 1) submission to the Pope is necessary for Salvation; 2) the material sword is to be drawn for the Church and the spiritual sword by the Church; 3) the Pope is also supreme in temporal affairs as well as religious; and 4) the temporal power is subordinate to the spiritual (i.e. the Pope), which idea goes back to Pope Gregory in the 11the century.

The effects of humanism on the beliefs of the Roman hierarchy are shown by the following quotations: Of the city and court of Leo X (c.1521) it was said, "One was not considered a cultured (i.e. humanized) man if one did not harbor erroneous opinions about Christianity." Petrarch said of the Popes at Avignon that it was a place where "the hope of heaven and the fear of hell were regarded as old fables...and sin was looked upon as a sign of manly independence." The Council of Trent was the first Roman Catholic effort towards ecumenicalism designed to bring the erring Protestants back into the fold. It convened a year before Luther's death in 1546 and decreed that church tradition was of equal authority with Scripture. Its canon also stated, "If anyone saith that justifying faith is nothing else but confidence in the divine mercy which remits sins for Christ's sake or that this confidence alone is that whereby we are justified, let him be anathema."[22] Thus was the spiritual condition of the Roman church at the time of the Reformation. They didn’t mention their position was that the Roman Church only had the authority to distribute the “merits of Christ”(,i.e “divine mercy”) for the individual’s Salvation.

The Renaissance (French for “rebirth”, meaning the rebirth of Greek philosophy) was influenced by Greek Platonic thought (Gnosticism) as well as Aristotelian empiricism. Aristotle taught that only the particulars or what we can perceive with the 5 senses are important, not the universals, whereas Plato taught the opposite. Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274), the 13^th century Dominican monk and acolyte of the alchemist Simon Magnus, combined the pagan Greek views of Platonism and Aristotelian Empiricism into his view of sin (due to ignorance) and salvation by works, which became the Roman Church’s view and set secular philosophy and theology free from the Scriptures with his assertion that the Fall of man in Eden (Gen. 3) did not corrupt man’s mind[23], and therefore man could discern truth from untruth[24].This incomplete view of the Fall liberated man from the Scriptures and made him autonomous. (This point seems to have escaped academics.) So man looked to Nature and himself in his search for truth. This is how humanism began 8 centuries ago. It also justified the Roman Church’s view of salvation by works, requiring man to “merit the Merit of Christ” rather than a personal dependence on the Grace of God alone for Salvation (Rather, see: Isa. 53:5,6; Jn. 14:19;Rom. 3:24-26;4:25;Eph.2:4-9; Col. 2:13,14; Tit. 3:5,6; 1 Jn. 4:10) . This justified the Priesthood and the Church’s practice of selling indulgences, which were based on the Pope’s authority as ruler of Christ’s Kingdom (Amillennialism) to distribute the “Merit of Christ” and that of the Canonized Saints as he saw fit. (Indeed, the Pope encouraged the Crusades by absolutions for each of the Crusaders.) It was this issue of indulgences that prompted Luther’s public challenge to the Church hierarchy and accelerated the Reformation. Luther had read Erasmus’ first edition of the New Testament (N.T.) in the original language (Greek) for the first time and realized that that the N.T., particularly in Romans and Galatians, clearly taught salvation by Grace alone based on the finished work of Christ for everyone. It was the Reformation view of man as completely fallen and the authority of Scripture as the only reliable source of absolute Truth (“Sola Scriptura”) that retarded the effects of the Renaissance in Northern Europe for about 400 years, at least among the middle classes. However, among the royals, the landed gentry and the intellectuals, humanism reigned supreme, and they continued to assert their autonomous freedom from God and His Word.

Thomas Aquinas “Christianized” Greek philosophy[25] by retaining the dualistic Greek framework, but changed the terminology. There were academic theologians in Paris who disagreed with his view of the Fall, but as Dr. Fremantle shows, they were essentially shouted down by Aquinas’ disciples. The result was the “double truth” theory of separating spiritual truth from secular truth. Spiritual truth is the realm of the Church, but secular truth may be discerned by man. The problem with humanism is that man can only start with himself. This is the epistemological problem of humanism. The historical and literary use of the word "humanist" derives from the 15th-century Italian term umanista, meaning a teacher or scholar of Classical Greek and Latin literature and the ethical philosophy behind it[26].

Aquinas’ view of the Fall resulted in the separation of Nature, the particulars, from Grace, the universal spiritual and eternal issues. This is a watershed event in a Christian culture, and something academia prefers to obscure[27]. However, man can only perceive the particulars, not the universals. The secular philosophers following Aquinas’ view of the Fall of man drew a closed circle around what they could perceive of the world with the 5 senses (presuppositional) and left God (the spiritual and eternal) out of their circle of consideration because they couldn’t perceive the spiritual or eternal issues with the 5 senses. Their basic presupposition was the principle of cause and effect (i.e. thesis versus antithesis) in a closed system rather than open. They no longer thought in terms of a unified field of knowledge that encompassed both the universals (spiritual and eternal matters) that gave meaning to existence with the mundane natural particulars of daily life. After Aquinas, the emphasis was on autonomous freedom[28]. Man no longer believed he needed to rely on God for truth, and so man began his quest for truth based on rationalility, which eventually resulted in a belief system begun by René Descartes in the 17^th century called, “Rationalism” So man became, under humanism, “the center of all things and the measure of all things”[29] rather than God. However, philosophers still thought rationally and hoped that eventually someone would find a solution to this dilemma. This is the crux of how Satan set up mankind for the rejection of absolute truth and the meaning of existence.

The basic epistemological problem arises from the fact that man was not created with the ability to discern truth from untruth. God is the only One who knows what the Truth is, and the only way for man to know the Truth is for God to reveal it to man[30]. As Dr. Schaeffer observes, a loving God has spoken Truth to mankind so that man can know, and the Bible is that revealed Truth, written in propositional terms that man can understand (Jn. 17:17). (However, there is no propositional truth in allegory!) Absolute Truth only has meaning in the context of a Personal Infinite Self-existent God Who is independent of the universe, and Who is perfectly True, Righteous, and Just (Deu. 32:3,4). As Dr. Schaeffer points out, “Only Christianity, of all the world’s religions, has produced a real interest in man…..the source of a real care for people as individuals comes from Christianity.” But, as Dr. Schaeffer also shows, Nature began to “eat up Grace”, and the pornography and other moral excesses of Greece and Egypt came to characterize the Renaissance also as well as modern society today.

There is no absolute truth in the Gnostic worldview where the universe is eternal and there are only little “gods” or avatars or aeons[31]. There, everything is relative. That is why Gnosticism and its many versions of paganism, atheism, deism, theosophy, postmodernism, etc., as well as academia have no concept of absolute truth or morality. They can only speak of “knowledge”, which always changes. Truth[32] is a unique characteristic of the Personal Infinite Self-existent, Transcendent (i.e. independent of the universe), and Immutable God (Deu. 32:4; Psm. 33:4;100:5;117:2; Prov. 12:17; Jn. 1:17;14:6;17:17; 1 Jn. 4:6;5:6) because only an infinite God knows what the Truth is! There can be no absolute Truth or Morality in humanism because it excludes such a God. Absolute Truth and Morality can only be associated with a Self-existent Personal Infinite Transcendent God (Yahweh Elohim) Who created everything that exists ex nihilo as in Gen. 1:1, Jn 1:3, Heb. 1:1,2. Dr. Merrill F. Unger, now deceased, but formally Professor Emeritus of O.T. and Semitic Languages at Dallas Theological Seminary, explains the meaning of the name Yahweh (i.e. the Tetragrammaton) in Ex. 3:14 as being derived from the Hebrew haya (“to be, to exist”) as “He who was, who is, and who shall be”[33]; i.e. “He who exists because He exists or “The self existing One”[34].

The so called "Enlightenment" was not a single movement, but included various philosophies that were often mutually contradictory. At its core was a critical questioning of traditional institutions, customs, and morals, and a strong belief in rationality and science as a means of seeking truth. Some historians also include the late 17th century, which is referred to as the Age of Reason (Rationalism) as part of the Enlightenment; however, most historians consider the Age of Reason to be a prelude to the ideas of the Enlightenment.

Enlightenment (Illuminism) of the 18th century significantly increased the influence of humanism in the West. Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) assumed that man can only know what the 5 senses tell him. His rationalism seemed to sweep away the philosophical proofs for the existence of the God of Augustine and Aquinas as did also the newer rational developments on cosmology by Kepler, Newton, et al. Up to this time cosmology was the domain of the theologians. Now it became the domain of the rationalists. Kant believed (without proof) that the universe was infinite, steady state, and had no beginning. (The same idea is basic to eastern mysticism.) He also asserted his belief that man can know nothing of God because man can’t perceive God, Who has no interest in His creation (deism). These theories were necessary to sustain the belief in Darwinism as an explanation of the development of nature and humanity. The Gnostic and arcane secret societies enjoyed a period of rapid growth during the Enlightenment.

The so called Enlightenment or “Age of Reason" of the 18th century was simply a resurgence of Renaissance thinking. It rejected the existence of God or divine revelation and introduced the teaching that the Bible was only a human production and fallible. It reasserted the humanistic presupposition (Aquinas) that man can determine truth in himself. Humanism started with reason and tried to draw a circle which would encompass all thought of life and life itself, while still holding to the idea of truth and non-truth (the law of non-contradiction). The three things that classical (i.e. pre-Renaissance) thinking and philosophy held were reason, rationality, and the hope of a unified field of knowledge[35]. (i.e., truth versus non-truth as absolutes.) However, all humanistic philosophers failed in their search for truth by means of reason in a closed system, where God is excluded. They could not find a unified rational optimistic system that explained the meaning of life. (Truth, in the sense of thesis and antithesis, is related to the idea of cause and effect.)

The Enlightenment philosophers and scientists believed that there were natural laws to the universe and that these laws could be discovered through rational thought. The Greeks were considered pioneers in the search for man's nature. The ancient Greeks were considered to have the first “enlightenment”, which also was considered to be the struggle between superstition and reason. (The Greeks were the first westerners who could be considered “humanists”.) By his death Socrates became a martyr for truth and a symbol for the ideal man of the Enlightenment. He chose to take the cup of poison hemlock rather than stop teaching against the establishment and religion of his day. Socrates, who “dared”, becomes the symbol and hero of the enlightenment[36], as illustrated in David’s painting of The Death of Socrates. (The painter, Jacques Louis David, was the preeminent neoclassic artist. He promoted the values of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution in his work. David illustrated these ideals as he chronicled the revolution.) The Enlightenment brought reason to political discussions, which were not limited to philosophy. There were similar developments in art. The frivolous and elaborately decorated Rococo gave way to the art movement called Neoclassicism. The movement began in 1765 as a reaction to Baroque and Rococo styles and a desire to return to the classical elements of ancient Rome and Greece. Visual art emphasized austere linear design and often the subjects were classical themes. The “ideals” of the Enlightenment philosophy were put into action by the French Revolution.

The “Dark” Ages spanned roughly from the fall of the Roman Empire in the 5th century to the 12^th century and the “Middle Ages” spanned the 13^th to the 16^th century. The fall of Constantinople in the mid 15^th century created an exodus of scholars from the East who brought with them many classical and religious manuscripts, including Bibles. The invention of the printing press at about the same time made it possible to print manuscripts and Bibles cheaply. (Academia considers the Enlightenment and the Scientific Revolution to mark the end of the Middle Ages.) The foundation for modern science was laid at Oxford when scholars, including Sir Roger Bacon, challenged Aquinas’ teaching, which was authority based, proved that his chief authority Aristotle made mistakes about natural phenomena. Scholars at the University of Padua continued to challenge the concepts of Aristotle in the 15^th and 16^th centuries. It is not inconsequential that the High Renaissance, the Scientific Revolution, and the Reformation happened simultaneously: Leonardo da Vinci died in 1519. Luther’s 95 Theses were nailed to the church door in 1517. Erasmus’s Greek N.T. that convinced Luther of Church error had been printed one year earlier. The rise of modern science begins with Copernicus (1475-1543), whose publication on the motion of the heavenly bodies was published posthumously in the 1540s. Also, at this time the collected works of Archimedes was published in 1544, which introduced some of the mathematical methods necessary for the development of modern science. Sir Francis Bacon[37] (1561-1626), Lord Chancellor of England, fought a battle against the old order of scholastic authorities. He stressed careful and systematic observation to unlock nature’s secrets rather than appealing to some “authority” such as Aristotle. In 1609 Galileo used the newly invented telescope to observe the planets and to publish his findings that Aristotle’s (and the Churches”) earth centric concept of the Universe was wrong[38]. Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) used the astronomical observations of Tycho Brahe to prove that the earth’s orbit was elliptical rather than circular. Isaac Newton (1642-1727), while a young professor at Cambridge became convinced of the existence of the force of gravity between celestial bodies and published his theory in 1687. He also invented the method of differential calculus in the process.

The rise of modern science did not conflict with Biblical teachings. In fact, both Alfred North Whitehead and J. Robert Openheimer have witnessed to the fact that modern science was born out of the Christian worldview even though neither of these two were Christian[39]. Whitehead said that Christianity is the mother of science because “the medieval insistence on the rationality of God.” He also said that because of the rationality of a Personal infinite God, the early scientists had an “inexpugnable” belief that every detailed occurrence can be correlated with its antecedents in a perfectly definite manner, exemplifying general principles. Thus, these early scientists believed that the universe was created by a reasonable God and that people, created in His Image, could find out something true about nature and science. There was an objective reality for something to exist. This belief was held in common by both the pre-Reformation church and the Reformers. They held to the concept of the uniformity of natural causes in an open system that included God. In contrast, the Greeks, Moslems, and the Chinese lost interest in science because of their Gnostic worldview; they had no certainty that the Code of Nature’s law could ever be read or understood by man. Both Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947) and J. Robert Oppenheimer (1904-1964), neither of whom were Christians, have stressed that modern science was born out of the Christian world view[40]. Whitehead said that Christianity is the mother of science because of “the medieval insistence on the rationality of God.”[41]

Pagan Greek philosophy has greatly influenced the attitudes of Christians in the West since the crusades. Zoroastrianism, which appeared in Babylon about two centuries before Socrates, appears to be the source of Gnostic Pantheism, which spread both to India and Greece (see also Rev. 17:5) It was Socrates (c. 469-399 B.C.) and his acolyte Plato who introduced to Greece what became known as Platonism. The Greeks executed Socrates because they understood the significance of this new religion that swept away the old gods. His primary pupil, Plato was more careful in his teaching at the Academy so as to avoid his fate[42]. This “changing of the gods” sowed the seeds for the decline and fall of the Greek and Roman Empires and paved the way for the coming of Western Gnosticism that today is influencing every aspect of modern society[43]. There is a great deal of diversity in Gnosticism. While Gnosticism is generally rationalistic, there is a lot of inconsistency and variation in Gnosticism so that its ubiquity is skillfully veiled.

Plato recorded Socrates’ main teachings in The Republic. Socrates says that the best way to establish a “just” city (or state) would be to create a city that has three classes of people: the Elite (rulers), guardians (auxiliaries), and producers (slaves). Socrates says that for this city to work, the best people, or “golden people”, would be on top as rulers (Elite). Then the auxiliary guardians/soldiers, or “silver people”, would be educated to believe that this is the best city so they will not revolt against the city. These “silver people” would also be censored (brainwashed) in the things they learned, so they would act in accordance to what they learned; the rulers would not allow the soldiers to read stories of revolution. Finally, the slaves or producers will be taught “noble falsehoods” (lies). They will believe that the land is mother and that they should be the producers (slaves), because that is the way this society is run; they are born into different classes and metals, and they cannot change that (Similar to the cast system in India). The second “noble falsehood” (lie) Socrates explains is that the people will think that they all have equal opportunity to mate and produce offspring, when in actuality they do not. The “first wave” to create this “just” city is the teaching of the equality of the sexes (divide and conquer). Women must be “emancipated” so as to eliminate the family unit and create loyalty to the state as preeminent. This necessarily involves the emasculation of males to eliminate the strong and the promotion of lesbianism[44] and gender confusion.

The “second wave” is the holding in common of all women and children for the state. This means that there cannot be marriage of the “traditional” family. Instead there will be mating of the best men and women so that the city can produce the best possible offspring. These chosen men and women will switch partners, and be “available” for the Elite. It is important for the people of to view this city (state) as the “best”, and to love it with all their passion. If there is marriage, family, and romantic love, then the love for the city will be divided among the family and the state. Instead of this romantic love, people of the city should have brotherly love, or love for the state and only the state. (Certainly, homosexuality, a common practice of the Greeks, contributes to the destruction of the family as the basic institution of the state.) Indeed, it appears that the west has adopted this view already[45]. Also the people of the city should have love for wisdom and “true” knowledge. Necessarily, the state must control public education and opinion (media).

The third and final “wave” is the “philosopher” king (tyrant), from the Elite ruling class, must take absolute control. (This can only happen after the first two waves are successful.) Socrates goes on to explain that a philosopher loves everything, and has “true knowledge”, which he never defines. They have entered the realm of forms and they understand everything through knowledge and not opinion or senses. A king as a philosopher can therefore tell differences of the roles in the city because he/she is wise. These philosophers are the only people who actually know what “justice” is, and can therefore watch to make sure the city is run in the “proper manner”. As Socrates says “Until philosophers rule as kings or those who are now called kings and leading men genuinely and adequately philosophize… cities will have no rest from “evils”… nor… will the human race. The philosophers are the only ones that can see the “light” and have an understanding of what it takes to have a “just” city and the things that need to be done for the city to be run “properly”. If the city has philosophers as kings, it is only then that the city will have ”true justice”, which he never defines, and it is only then that the city will be as close to Socrates model as possible. (This is essentially the teaching of Communism.)

In order to get this city started as close to theoretical as possible, lies would be told. Socrates’ tries to get around these lies by calling them other things such as “myths”, or “noble falsehoods” when, in actuality they are still lies and deception. The first lie explains to the people why they must live as they do, and it also explains why they are in the classes that they are in. The second lie tries to hide the truth from its population and will make the city more intelligent and moral. These lies are the basis of the city, and without them the city cannot be established in real life because people would not accept the city. (If this is an “ideal state”, then why does Socrates need to tell lies to its people to keep it running?) Of course, schemes to achieve these “waves” must be disguised as something good for the people (e.g. freedom, justice, rights, democracy, patriotism, social, education, environment, medical, retirement, etc.) He also points out that the quickest way to achieve this objective is through democracy to replace aristocracy, because the aristocracy will oppose the creation of such a state. Socrates’ schemes of “three waves” for achieving the rule of the Elite through lies and deception was adopted en toto by Weisshaupt and Marx whose teachings underlie Communism/Socialism[46]. The “Third Wave” is the final forceful overthrow of the existing state government, either immediately if possible, or slowly through education (read brainwashing) until the time is ripe for rebellion or forceful overthrow by military force.

A little reflection on Socrates’ view of how to bring about of the “best” city or state will reveal that such a revolution would necessarily involve a great deal of secrecy to bring it about without suppression by the existing establishment until there are enough conspirators to sustain a revolution. Further, it will take a long period of time to change the worldview of the classes imperceptibly a little at a time. This implies the necessity of creating secret societies with the “proper” worldview that will transcend the lifetime of humans and ensure its continuance in spite of periodic suppression by the state. It will also require a great deal of wealth to make it happen and could only be brought about by men of great wealth (i.e. the Elite). This implies the control of money and commerce as well as information, education, and politics. Money and politics can always be used to control or influence the outcome of government administrators, politicians, and jurists at critical times. The Republic becomes the secret plan for the Luciferians to gain control of the world. As the Gnostic Aldous Huxley observes:

"A really efficient totalitarian state would be one in which the all-powerful executive of political bosses and their army of managers control a population of slaves who do not have to be coerced because they love their servitude. To make them love it is the task assigned... to ministries of propaganda, newspaper editors and schoolteachers."[47] Aldous Huxley

The general, but varied, beliefs of Gnosticism/Platonism that stand in opposition to the biblical revelation are:[48]

1. God is impersonal (Pantheism or Panentheism), unknowable, unconcerned about the universe.

2. The universe is eternal and has always existed, or in Platonism, Creation was the work of an emendation from deity known as an Aeon or Logos, but not full deity.

3. Jesus Christ (The Platonic Logos or Aeon of Philo) is something less than full deity.

4. Man has a spark of divinity, a “divine nature”, the recognition of which is key to man’s “spiritual” evolution through reincarnation.

6. Reality and truth are to be sought only in the mind. (Man’s perception of the world is illusion or Maya.)

7. Man can save himself by his efforts through secret (arcane) esoteric knowledge.[50]

9. There is no concept of “sin” against a personal infinite self existent God.

10. “Salvation” is not by grace, but by man’s own self efforts to evolve spiritually.

11.Universalism: Satan (Lucifer), hell and all creation will eventually be united with God.[51] (i.e. all will be saved in the end.)

12. Dualism often reverses the definitions of “good” and “evil” with Lucifer as the “good” God rather than Yahweh (dualism).

13. Modern Gnostics engaged in "immanentizing” (controlling) the Eschaton (the final determination of things) contrary to the biblical Christian Eschaton of heaven and Hell, (Gehenna, the Lake of Fire).

The New Age Movement (Illuminism) is based on the same lies of Gnosticism: that man can evolve towards godhood by (arcane) esoteric knowledge, which is only resident in the secret societies. Humanism was the intellectual bridge that made it possible for Satan to bring those with a Christian viewpoint to accept a Gnostic mystical worldview and wean people away from biblical Truth so he can eventually be exalted as God on earth publicly and universally (2 Thes. 2:3,4; Rev. 13). The Christian Thomas Horn has studied the works of some of the leading figures of the Free Mason “founding fathers” of the American Revolution and their interpretation of Greek and Egyptian mythology as expecting Lucifer’s return to the earth as Apollo the Sun god[52] on winter solstice 2012[53]. (This implies that Satan has preserved his own prophecies in mythology.) These same Masons saw America as the “New Atlantis” created to usher in the new “Golden Age” of man. (See also Death of the Phoenix, http://watch-unto-prayer.org/death-phoenix.html#sleepy )

E.W. Benson’s (Archbishop of Canterbury’s) youngest son, Robert Hugh Benson, converted to Catholicism in 1903 because of the liberalism within the Anglican Church (that formed his view of Protestantism) and the influence of men like G. K. Chesterton (who also adopted Catholicism for the same reason). Robert’s father, E.W. Benson, wrote a book in 1907, Lord of the World (which is available on the Web: http://www.authorama.com/lord-of-the-world-1.html), predicting the end stage of the world and the coming of the Anti-Christ, war in the East, a universal world religion, euthanasia, and communism/socialism. He describes in novel form a humanistic world where there is no morality and self-worship is the common mantra (2 Tim. 4:1-3). Benson’s predictions are amazingly accurate.

The shift in the concept of truth in the 19^th century led to the neglect of the Bible and hence the deception of Western Civilization including many Christian churches. With the rejection of the Bible as the only source of Truth, many humanists sought truth in mysticism and the hermetic occult “sciences”. Humanism is ultimately the bridge from Christianity to Satanism or Luciferianism. Man must first be weaned from the worship of God to self worship (Gen. 3:5) before he will worship Lucifer. So, every facet of Western society teaches children to “Believe in yourself.” Many well known political and religious leaders of the 18^th and 19^th century were involved in both clandestine and openly occult groups and promoted Eastern Mysticism (Gnosticism) in its various forms. As Collins observes[54], the founding members of the Royal (scientific) Society were all Freemasons, and the institution was derived from the invisible Rosicrucian brotherhood. Eastern mysticism and the occult have always sought truth through drugs and ritualistic sex of various kinds, and this is why the "hippies" of the 1960's and 70's did so too because rationalistic humanism failed to find truth. This was the beginning of the pagan Gnostic New Age Movement, which is so prevalent in western thinking in the latter half of the 20th century.

The dominant view of the ancient world into which the biblical revelation came was similar in many ways to secular humanism, which laid the foundation for occultism and the New Age Movement of today. Ancient Israel lived in a land filled with many local deities that were very human-like, but with supernatural (magical) powers. They also had no concept of absolute morality or absolute truth. Many Israelites tried to satisfy both the local deities and Jehovah too (Eze.5:6:8:) Many Israelites thought of Jehovah as simply an additional god, rather than the one true God. God said of Israel, "They are full of superstitions from the East" (Isa. 2:6). This could also be said of both the Jews and Western Civilization today. Syncretism (combining religions) is not possible in truly biblical Judaism or Christianity, because Yahweh's laws preclude worshipping any other god (Ex.20:2). Christians are faced with the same decision in our times too. The Bible makes it clear that we cannot satisfy the "gods" of paganism or humanism and serve Jesus Christ too (Lk. 16:13). Humanism and the Gnostic occult New Age Movement, like paganism, are diametrically opposed to the Personal Infinite Self Existent God (Yahweh) of the Bible, because such a God holds man accountable. That is why they are willing to embrace almost any religion except biblical Christianity.

The Judeo-Christian[55] worldview of the Bible is that the Personal Infinite Self-existent Transcendent God created everything that exists, ex nihilo (Gen. 1:1; Psm. 33:6; Jn. 1:1-3; etc.) within a many dimensional spiritual universe. Absolute Truth only has meaning in this context. God created man in His own (spiritual) image (Gen. 1:26) and prepared the earth for mankind’s existence (Gen. 1:2ff). The proof that the universe had a beginning, and was not eternal, had to wait until the latter half of the 20^th century for the discovery of the “Big Bang”[56]. After the discovery of the cosmic microwave background radiation[57] in 1964 by scientists at Bell Labs, and especially when its spectrum (i.e., the amount of radiation measured at each wavelength) sketched out a blackbody curve, most scientists were fairly convinced by the evidence.[58]. More recently, the deep field photos of the Hubble telescope provided further evidence showing numberless galaxies that existed a few hundred million years after the universe began (Gen. 1:1) about 14 billion years ago. Up until the latter quarter of the 20^th century, most secular philosophers (including Socrates, Aristotle, Kant, et al.) believed that the universe was eternal.

The framework for this “Big Bang” model relies on Albert Einstein's theory of General Relativity[59] and on simplifying assumptions (such as homogeneity and isotropy of space). However, many still refused to accept the idea that the universe is not eternal because such an idea implies that there is a Creator, Who can hold man responsible for his actions. It is ironic that Einstein refused to accept the idea of a non-eternal universe, even though his General Theory of Relativity has been verified experimentally to 14 significant figures after his death. (The most scientifically verified precision of any physical theory!) Even though some scientists continue to postulate other theories to avoid this conclusion, the General Theory of Relativity is really the “only game in town.” It is the primary basis for computer modeling of the “Big Bang” and cosmic phenomena and the search for the “Theory of Everything.”[60] However, in the second decade of the 21^st century we see evidence of other academics being embarrassed by the “Big Bang” model, particularly with respect to traveling through time, and who look to the Large Hadron Collider at CERN to try to prove Einstein wrong.

The secular philosophers found no way out of their failure to find truth based on Nature and rationality. Then in the early 19^th century Georg Hegel (1770-1831), a teacher at Tubingen University, came along and changed the concept of truth. This was the second “water shed event” in man’s search for truth. Hegel introduced a new method of thinking about truth. Instead of thinking about thesis (truth) and antithesis (non-truth) in terms of opposites, he said; think of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. There is no longer cause and effect, truth and non-truth. So everything becomes relative in his system. Everything (including morality) is relative, but scientists could not get to the moon using Hegel’s system because it is illogical! This “synthesis” process, which is the basis of Hegel’s ‘dialectics”, is not based on logic, but is rather a non-rational leap of faith” without proof. But academia accepted this non rational philosophy (on faith) as a new way of thinking[61]. Process must be separated from the rational and logical. So everything is relative, and there is no truth versus non-truth in this system. It is, nonetheless, the philosophical basis for nihilism, Neo-orthodoxy, Communism-Socialism, and various forms of Existentialism.

Modern "science" is built on 19^th century Positivism. Positivism is a theory of knowledge that assumes that we know or perceive facts and objects through the five senses with total objectivity. But this is an assumption. (Only the Christian has a reasonable answer to this problem because the God who created man in His image doesn’t lie or deceive![62]) Michael Polanyi (1891-1976) showed the illogic of all forms of positivism, and today positivism is a dead philosophy, although most scientists don't realize it. They still continue to operate as though they can perceive truth through rationalism and the five senses without any proof. So many scientists live in a bifurcated world, which outside of their scientific work is essentially Platonic.

Hegel was first and foremost a Hermetic[63] thinker[64] (Hermes was the herald, messenger, and spokesman of the gods of Olympus, but also the deceiver of the gods.). However, 20^th century academians prefer to obscure Hegel’s occult background. (Probably because his dialectics are fundamental to Marxism-Communism and the New World Order[65].) As Magee observes, Hegel was very much influenced by Hermetic exponents from boyhood on, and he allied himself with Hermetic movements and thinkers throughout his life, including such Kabbalists as Schelling, Boehme, Bruno, Oetinger, Baader, Paracelsus, as well as Rosicrucians and Free Masons. (Württemberg was a major center of (arcane) Hermetic interest, with much of the German Pietist movement influenced by Boehmeanism and Rosicrucianism.). In Germany, the philosophical Jacobin Johann Gottlieb Fichte, actually developed the “dialectical process” before Georg Hegel did[66]. Also, Hegel was mentored by Illuminati member Jacob Abel (code name Pythagoras)[67]. Magee observes in Hegel’s Gnostic work, the Philosophy of Nature, as describing the world as:

‘an “emanation"’ or “othering'’ of Universal Mind in the form of the spatio-temporal world. Its categories accomplish a transfiguration of the natural: we come to see the world as a reflection of Universal Mind. The Philosophy of Spirit accomplishes a “return of created nature to the Divine by means of man, who can rise above the merely natural and “actualize” God in the world through concrete forms of life (e.g., the state and religion) and through speculative philosophy.’

Hegel’s dialectics[68] of synthesis based on the rejection of truth-versus-untruth (cause and effect) by a (non-rational) “leap of faith” have also rejected rationality^{^[69]}. However, Hegel’s dialectics didn’t really provide a way out of the philosophical dilemma.. As Dr. Schaeffer points out, with Hegel and Kierkegaard, man gave up forever the pursuit of a unified field of knowledge and accepted rather a “leap of faith” to the irrational. (It was just a philosophical “slight of hand” to convince intellectuals that there wasn’t any absolute truth). A divided field of knowledge is the distinctive mark of the 20^th century man[70]. However, man was created a rational being in the image of a rational God (Gen. 1:27; Isa.1:18), and man naturally thinks logically. (This is why modern man is in tension.) The only rational way out of their dilemma is to go back to the Reformation view of the Scriptures as God’s revelation of Truth to man and to include God in their circle of consideration. This academia would never do!

Hermetic thinkers, like Hegel, like to consider Hermeticism a “middle position” between Gnosticism and Judeo-Christianity because it affirms both God’s transcendence of the world (in contrast to Postmodernism) and his involvement in it.[71] God (but not Yahweh Elohim) is considered metaphysically distinct from the world, yet God needs the world to complete Himself. Thus the act of creation is not arbitrary or gratuitous, but necessary and rational. (This dualism precludes infinite gods.) Hermeticists (and Postmodernists) not only hold that God requires creation, they make man play a crucial role in God’s self actualization, which also precludes God’s infinity. Hermetics hold that man can know God, and that man’s knowledge of God is necessary for God’s own completion. Salvation for the Hermeticists is through special (arcane) gnosis. This could be attained only through hard work, but not by just anybody. Hermes is quoted in Corpus Hermeticum as stating that his teaching are hidden from the discernment of the unworthy by keeping the meaning of the words concealed. “The Hermeticist does not need to escape from the world in order to save himself, he wants to gain knowledge of the world in order to expand his own self, and utilize this knowledge to penetrate into the self of God. Magee says, “If Hegel did not believe that man could literally become God, he certainly believed that the wise man is daimonic: a more-than-merely-human participant in the divine life”. There are, however, many variations in Gnosticism, and the Hermetic concept of God is similar to Postmodernism and does not make Him infinite or independent of creation as the Yahweh Elohim God of biblical Revelation. Furthermore, like Gnosticism, the Hermeticist seeks to become “like God”, which is the same lie by which Satan deceive Eve and the fallen angels (Gen. 3).

By the middle of the 19^th century, the Political Powers determined that academia should totally support Darwin’s theory of evolution (Darwinism). The Royal Society[72], most of whose members were already Free Masons or Rosicrucians, had supported Darwin’s voyage and the publication of the Origin of the Species[73], which first edition was sold out only a few hours after it hit the streets. (An indication of how prepared academia was for its favorable reception.) In 1850 Henri-Marie Ducrotay De Blainville was found dead in a railway carriage. He was 72 years old. His name is not known today, but in the early 19th Century he was recognized as one of the great and influential contributors to the science of biology. He was an anatomical artist, a professor of comparative anatomy, an M.D., and a tireless researcher. However, he refused to accept Darwin’s theory of evolution, and he did not relate his comparative anatomy to Comte’s concept of the sociological evolution of humanity. Among the funeral speakers that day was the French mathematician/philosopher Auguste Comte, the father of sociology (the ‘religion’ of humanism) and champion of the philosophy of Positivism[74]. Comte used the occasion of Blainville’s well attended funeral to acknowledge his achievements, but more importantly to warn young scientists of the future not to make the same mistakes he claimed Blainville had made. According to Comte, Blainville’s scientific contributions ought not to be fully honored by posterity because his religious and philosophical beliefs were politically incorrect[75]. Comte declared that this should serve to deprive the scientist of the historical recognition which he might otherwise deserve. This is the reason that Blainville’s name has been effectively erased from the historical record of great men of science. (However, Florence Nightingale mentions his funeral in her memoirs[76].) Since that time any scientific challenge to Darwinism is not to be allowed in academia[77], even though there are plenty of logical scientific challenges including such issues as: (1) problem of primal genesis, (2) violation of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, (3) pre existing information in the genetic code, (4) the fossil record showing the sudden appearance of many specie at once, (5) the extremely low probably of evolution as an explanation of the present complexity of life, and (6) the lack of present transitional forms. Anyone wishing to see his/her scientific research that may run counter to the theory of evolution published in the scientific journals must deny any logical conclusions against said theory[78]. (One wonders what invisible forces lay behind such power and control of academia, which masquerades as the bastion of truth.) This is the real reason that academia takes every opportunity to challenge the veracity of the Bible and to interpret scientific, archeological, and historical evidence contrary to the biblical record. (The issue of the reality and timing of Israel’s Exodus from Egypt is a good example!)

On September 12, 1905, approximately one hundred of America’s intelligencia met in a loft over Peck’s Restaurant, at 140 Fulton Street in lower Manhattan^{^[79]} to plan the overthrow of the Christian world view that still dominated the American culture and to replace it with the ideas of Karl Marx. They formed that day the Intercollegiate Socialist Society (ISS). Among those present that day were Upton Sinclair, attorney Clarence Darrow, and author Jack London, who was chosen as the first president of the organization. The strategy of the organization was to infiltrate Marxist ideas into the minds of the American youth by organizing chapters in as many colleges and universities as possible. Walter Lippmann, later director of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), was the first president of the Harvard chapter. Walter Reuther, future president of the United Auto Workers, headed the Wayne State chapter, and Eugene Debs, who went on to become the five-time Socialist candidate for president, was a leader at Columbia. The first annual convention was held in 1910, and by the time of the Bolshevik revolution of 1917 they were active on sixty-one campuses and a dozen graduate schools. Other early activists included W.E.B. DuBois, who would become an official of the NAACP and later a Communist Party member, and Victor L. Berger of Wisconsin, who became the first Socialist elected to Congress. In 1921 the ISS changed its name to the League for Industrial Democracy (LID). Its purpose was the education for a new social order based on production for use. Norman Thomas, a perennial Socialist candidate for president, was the behind the scenes promoter of the LID. The college chapters of the ISS became the Student League for Industrial Democracy. By 1941 John Dewey, the father of “progressive education” was its honorary president, and Reinhold Niebuhr, the theologian, its treasurer. (Dewey had previously organized the Progressive Education Association as well as the American Association of University Professors.) He assisted in writing the Humanist Manifesto, and went on to develop the ideas of evolutionary democracy, evolutional education, and evolutional law. As LID members graduated from college, some entered the pulpits of America, others the classroom; and some wrote textbooks while others entered the labor movement and the American political parties. When the FDR’s socialist “New Deal” policies began in 1933, they were everywhere in positions of leadership. The LID was so successful in attracting those who shared Marxist views that the LID membership read like a list of “Who’s Who in America”. These were the social “reformers” who set about changing what we believe and how we think, encompassing every aspect of life in America.

Nancy Pearcey (former student of Dr. Francis Schaeffer) notes in her book[80] how the postmodern public school system has surreptitiously determined the worldview of its students. She describes the logical dichotomy of the public school classroom: “The ideal of objective truth still reigns supreme. Theories like Darwinian evolution are not open to question and students are not invited to judge for themselves whether or not it is true. It is regarded as public knowledge that everyone is expected to accept.” She notes the observation of philosopher Peter Kreeft of college students in his classroom: “They are perfectly willing to believe in objective truth in science or in history sometimes, but certainly not in ethics or morality.” Kreeft also comments, “The vast majority of students arrive in the classroom already convinced that science constitutes facts, while morality is about values.” She restates the problem as noted by MIT professor Steven Pinker in his book, How the Mind Works[81]: “The postmodern dilemma can be summed up by saying ethics depends on the reality of something that materialistic science has declared to be unreal.” This shows how man’s mind in the West has been trained to accept the illogical. As Dr. Schaeffer points out, it is this new way of thinking about truth that has created the “Generation Gap”.

The writings of the German philosopher Georg Hegel form the philosophical basis for the existential philosophy of the Danish writer Soren Kierkegaard, the ‘Father’ of secular Extentialism. Kierkegaard and Karl Barth (the ‘Father’ of religious Extentialism) had previously accepted the “critical view” of Scripture based on Welhausen’s (University of Tubingen) theory of documentary sources, the presuppositions of which were later proved wrong. (Field archeology was barely in its infancy and everything was subject to presuppositions[82], interpretation and speculation and still is!) For example, one of the main criticisms of the Tubingen school of the Bible was the assertion that Moses couldn’t have written the book of Genesis in the 15^th century B.C. because he was illiterate (contrary to Acts 7:22) and that written language didn’t exist that early, and this erroneous view, which was originated at the Tubingen Seminary in Germany, popularized by Julius Wellhausen, and generally known as the Theory of Documentary Sources[83], still persists today in many liberal schools and seminaries.

The question is, who invented the Alphabet? Robin Allott points out that the alphabet was invented only once.[84]) Until 1999 the theory in academia was that the alphabet was developed originally from the Phoenicians (Canaanites) around the 17^th century B.C., who supposedly later transmitted it to the Hebrews by contact and to the Greeks by trade. Then the Etruscans got it from the Greeks and gave it to the Romans. (The Semitic alphabet only involves consonants. The Greeks added vowels.) So it was thought that the early Canaanites developed the original alphabet. However, the discovery in 1999 of cliff inscriptions in the Valley of Terror (Wadi el Hol) in S. Egypt about halfway between Abydos and Thebes by Dr. John Darnell, a Yale Assistant Professor of Archeology, proves Semites (e.g. Hebrews?) in Egypt developed an early alphabetic system of writing, consisting only of consonants, in the 19^th Century B.C.[85] So the facts are that an alphabetic form of early Hebrew existed in the 15^th century B.C. at the time of the Exodus in accord with the biblical chronology! In spite of their many unsubstantiated assumptions, Tubingen’s Seminary became the primary center in the development of what became known as Modernism (contra supernaturalism and fundamentalism) in the late 19^th century and which had earlier formed Hegel’s view of the Bible and later influenced Kierkegaard and Barth. Their assumptions are always contra biblical literalism because the supernatural cannot exist! (However, they privately accept the reality of magic!)

Existentialism and Neo-orthodoxy divide truth into what Schaeffer refers to as the “two story” system based on Hegel’s rejection of rationality. The lower story involves only the mundane “particulars” perceived by the five senses in space and time. The upper story contains the mystical Universals that give meaning to life[86], but about which nothing can be discussed because there are no categories, meaning, or logic in the upper story devoid of man’s perception. That is where ‘existential faith’ resides, which has nothing to do with the particulars of space or time. In this bifurcated belief system, Christ’s virgin birth, miracles, resurrection, and second coming are relegated to the upper story of mystical faith because they are supernatural events and man cannot verify that they happened in the lower story of space, time, and history nor can anything be known or discussed about them.

Thus Hegel’s dietetics rejected, without proof, any concept of thesis and antithesis, cause and effect, or absolute truth. The result was Relativism in the area of truth. As Dr. Schaeffer observes, this is the reason for the “generation gap”. The “Boomer generation” saw the inconsistency and materialism in the life of their parents and said to them, “That (Christianity) is truth for you, but this is truth for me”. Christian beliefs are ‘orthodox’ only in the sense that they exist in what Dr. Francis Schaeffer[87] calls “the Upper story”. However, they no longer have any meaning or religious significance because they cannot be discussed or defined. (Such words are often used illogically as “connotation words”, which invoke certain emotions because of their historical orthodox usage.) They have been removed from space, time and logic. Any study of ‘theology’ in a neo-orthodox context is meaningless because all interpretations are allowed even though they may be logically contradictory. Man is now prepared to believe anything, including Darwinism, postmodernism, or communism. This is the philosophical result of Hegelian thinking, where all definitions of beliefs are tolerated.[88]. Don’t expect anyone who graduates from a Neo-orthodox seminary (e.g. Fuller, et al.) to have acquired any theology of “orthodox” Christian meaning or significance, such as “Reformational beliefs”. They may use the same words, but they don’t have the same “orthodox” meaning. This is how many Christians have been deceived.

The existentialists (Kierkegaard, Barth, Jaspers, Heidegger, et al.) were always seeking some kind of real life experience to give meaning to their existence. However, they can never know if it is sufficient, nor can they discuss it because there are no categories in the “upper story” where any meaning resides. There is no way the humanist can explain love, beauty, or music or attach any meaning to life or experience. Man is only a biological machine (Dialectical Materialism), an accident in the Cosmos. The problem now is that modern man can not find any significance in life because any meaning is lost in the mystical upper story separated from logic and meaning. This is why academia cannot provide any answers to man’s dilemma of significance. This dilemma leads to the despair of modern man and prepares Western man for acceptance of the ubiquitous relativism of Postmodernism, Gnosticism, or Marxism. As Dr. Schaeffer points out, Neo-orthodoxy, which laid the foundation for Postmodernism, really amounts to “faith in faith itself” rather than faith that has any connection with the God of the Bible. However, the academic summaries of philosophy will never reveal how Western man arrived at such an untenable position or why the academians have secretly turned to mysticism and the occult as a means of seeking truth. The reason is that drugs, mysticism, and the occult are the only avenues left after the rejection of a Personal infinite God, the Bible, and rationality. Dr. Schaeffer observes that most drug users, at least the intellectuals, use drugs to provide some meaning or significance to their lives.

Dr. Schaeffer describes this shift in philosophical thinking as “The Line of Despair”, which describes the process that changed people’s view of truth. He says concerning the presupposition of thesis vs. antithesis[89]:

“The flood-waters of secular thought and the new theology overwhelmed the Church because the leaders did not understand the importance of combating a false set of presuppositions ...We must not forget that historic Christianity stands on the basis of antithesis.”

Dr. Schaeffer traces this ‘line’ from Philosophy to Art to Music to the General Culture and finally to Theology. Above this ‘line’ upper middle class people believed in absolutes and below this line people did not. He assigns dates for this ‘Line of Despair’ as Europe about 1890 and America about 1935. Above this line people lived as though there were absolutes even though they had no adequate logical understanding of the philosophical arguments involved. Unfortunately, the professors in the Bible colleges and seminaries, who often were a product of the secular schools, failed to recognize what Dr. Schaeffer was saying in the 1960s through the mid 1980s about the dangers of humanism’s presuppositions and its effects on their students’ view of truth (e.g. Escape from Reason, The Church Before the Watching World, etc.) or understand the historical process by which this came to be, and therefore failed to see the rise of Postmodernism, with its rejection of absolute truth, after his death in 1984. As Schaffer noted in The God Who is There, all philosophy today is either:

This is still essentially true today, but the” word games” have changed, and there is no truth in either the universals or the particulars in a postmodern world.

The term ‘Postmodernism’ was first used in 1934 by Spanish writer Federico de Onis and then in (New Worlder) Arnold Toynbee’s A Study of History in 1938[90]. Toynbee used the term “Postmodernism” as a form of Relativism that rejected both Foundationalism’s and Modernism’s beliefs of man’s ability to determine truth in the real world. Postmodernism[91] was to become the new philosophy to guide the world into the New Age. (Postmodernism is often used as a euphemism for “Post Foundationalism” to emphasize rejection of any concept of absolute truth.) According to Postmodernism, there are no recognized certain, single truths that can be known about the world. Instead, every question has an infinite number of answers, each being equally as valid as another. Postmodernists see a fragmentation and division of society and all academic subjects into a variety of perspectives - with no 'answers' and no agreement. In Western European society, postmodernists believe this is due to the apparent failure of science (and Modernism) to explain and control everything. However, the real reason for the failure of Modernism to find Truth was its rejection of a Self-existent Personal Infinite God in its circle of consideration. Such a God could indeed get Truth into the mind of man, whom He created (Ex. 4:11)! Unfortunately, Dr. Schaeffer didn’t address the subject of Postmodernism because it wasn’t popularized until after his death (perhaps deliberately). David Hopkins refers to Schaeffer as, “The Last Great Modern Theologian.”[92]

19^th century (liberal) Modernism was based on Positivism[93] and “scientific naturalism” that argued facts do exist in the material world and man can perceive them. However, Postmodernism reigns supreme in the universities today Postmodernists argue that everything we perceive is filtered through our language and sociological constructs, and therefore there can be no absolute truth for mankind. Everything is relative including reason, science, and religious beliefs[94]. Postmodernism is founded on the presuppositions of sociology and “scientific determinism” (Darwinism), which theories are never proved or challenged in academia. Postmodernism is also the basis for the sexist and other wars on campus according to Pearcey.

The late 19^th century’s “New Theology”, based on Neo-Orthodoxy (religious existentialism) infiltrated the conservative seminaries in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries[95]. Today the Newest Theology in liberal seminaries is based on “Postmodernism”, which is an attack on 19^th century Foundationalism’s beliefs in absolute truth. Although Postmodernism is dressed up in different terminology (word games), it is still the same old “relative truth” and promotes belief in evolution, sociology, and global socialism, both religious and political. It is the same old 19^th century (Postmillennial) Modernism (i.e. the “social gospel”) dressed up in new words that considers man to have a “spark of divinity” and no one is “lost”. This belief is at the heart of Rick Warren’s “Purpose Driven” movement (involving 40 days of brainwashing), and also others.Pearcey quotes Marvin Minsky (Pinker’s colleague at MIT) as saying in his book, The Society of Mind:

“The physical world provides no room for freedom of will….[but] that concept is essential to our model of the mental realm. Too much of our psychology is based on it for us to ever give it up. …We’re virtually forced to maintain that belief, even though we know it’s false.”

So modern man, in his pursuit of personal freedom, is trapped in academia where there is no academic freedom and no absolute truth. However, the postmodernist can’t live by his/her beliefs any more than can the Eastern Gnostics, who deliberately wait to cross the street until the maya of the bus passes by. Mankind is still trapped in a bifurcated worldview that tries to make a separation between mysticism in the “upper story” (universals) and sociology and scientific determinism in the “lower story” (particulars), but provides no answers to the real issues of life.

The tragedy is that humanistically based academic philosophy and methodology found its way into conservative Christian seminaries because Christian seminaries wanted the approval of academia and appointed many of academia’s graduates to their faculties on the basis of academic credentials rather than their theology. They mistook academics for scholarship! This slanted the study of theology towards the academic humanistic viewpoint. During the Enlightenment many Reformation Christian denominations invited Unitarians to teach at their seminaries in the 18^th and 19^th centuries, and this sowed the seeds of doubt and humanism in many otherwise conservative Christian institutions.[97] Before the 20^th century, Rationalism (a belief system) was firmly ensconced in many prominent seminaries including the Roman Catholic, Church of England, Methodists, Baptists, and Presbyterians. Professor J. Graham Machen tried to warn the conservative wing of Presbyterians in the 1920’s about the infiltration of liberal “modernists” into their denomination and seminaries, but they failed to heed his warnings[98]. The modernists, who rejected the inerrancy of Scripture, were then able to expel him from Princeton Seminary. Similar battles for truth were being fought in other fundamentalist or conservative denominations.[99] Modernism seriously compromised the theological views of many conservative seminaries in the early 20^th century and shifted their view of truth from absolute to relative. (This departure from the fundamentals of the Christian Faith had previously been facilitated by Westcott and Hort under the banner of the Church of England in the mid 19^th century with their thesis of the superiority of the Alexandrian biblical MSS.) However, the philosophy of today’s “Emergent Church” is Postmodernism, which is really just a return to the “Social (Universal Salvation) Gospel” of 19^th century Modernism. The Mega-churches created by the “Church Growth Movement” (promoted by Fuller Seminary, a bastion of Neo-Orthodoxy and Postmodernism) is the perfect vehicle for teaching Postmodernism. These “seeker oriented” churches are not concerned about teaching biblical truth. (Berit Kjos has done an excellent job of exposing the Emergent Church and the exponents of Postmodernism on her website, www.crossroad.to.) The Christian philosopher and theologian, Dr. Ravi Zecharias (http://www.rzim.org/ ), seems to be the most popular apologist for the conservative biblical position today, and perhaps the spokesman/successor to Dr. Francis Schaeffer. When asked on a radio interview what was the most important issue facing Christianity today, he replied, “The Emergent Church.”

Pastor Paul Smith of Calvary Chapel identifies the major players in the Emergent church movement as: Peter F. Drucker (who invented Systems Theory that he applies to everything) who tried to co-opt the Calvary Chapel movement, Bob Buford (founding chairman of the Peter F. Drucker Foundation and cofounder of the Leadership Network), and Rick Warren[100] (founding pastor of Saddleback Church) who was successfully co-opted by Drucker after failing to influence the Calvary Chapel leadership.[101]. Drucker spoke of the necessity of controlling a unified world religion as the third “leg”(sector) of his 3 legged stool analogy in order to have a stable one world government, the other two “legs” being the private corporations (commerce) and government (already under Elite political control). That was his plan in co-opting Warren. It was Chuck’s nephew, a friend of Warren, who suggested the title to Warren’s book, The Purpose Driven Life[102]. Both he and Chuck Smith Jr. were already Neo-Orthodox (read “No Orthodox”) and Postmodernists, as was Daniel Fuller, who was instrumental in Fuller Seminary’s move to modernism and Neo-orthodoxy. Pastor Chuck Smith is the only major church leader known to this writer to publicly appose the Emergent Church movement (~1600+ churches) warned that any church involved in the Emergent Church movement cannot use the “Calvary Chapel” name. (The modern theological beliefs of Chuck Smith’s son and son-in-law make the future leadership of the Calvary Chapel movement uncertain.)

Following their acceptance of Postmodernism, the liberal seminaries today are proponents of such concepts as Process Theology and Open Theism, which are based on evolution of the entire Cosmos including “God”. Process Theology teaches that God is the divine spirit evolving in and with the universe (Panentheism), where the physical world is an emendation of God’s own essence. It teaches that as we make choices that shape our lives and experiences, we also shape God and his experiences as co-creators of God[103]. In “new evangelical circles” Process Theology ignores any logically consistent explanation for the existence of such a universe where its “God” is evolving. (e.g. Did it’s “God” create itself in the process of creating the universe?). Process theology can’t rely on the Gnostic concept of an eternally existing universe since science has already demonstrated that the universe had a beginning. Open Theism promoted by Charles Pinnock reflects the same Darwinian and Gnostic views of an evolving (open) universe of “unpredictable possibilities” that cannot be known in advance even by “God”. These views that place God within the evolutionary cosmos allow mankind to “create God” in its own image as did the pagans.[104] This is diametrically apposed to the Sovereign self existent Personal infinite God of biblical revelation, but these ideas fit very well with the Gnostic view of the universe. However, this writer’s many discussions with various pastors over the last 50+ years shows that doctrines rarely taught in seminary (or church) are those that teach how to walk in fellowship with God as did the “heroes” of the Faith (Adam, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, et al.) or the biblical basis for the filling (control) of the Holy Spirit in the life of the Christian[105], which is what the Christian life is all about.

Having rejected divine Revelation as the only rational source of Truth, academians are left only with mysticism and drugs as possibilities, which were always pagan practices. These avenues were also pursued by the western academians in the 19^th century, although in secret lest the public know of it. In the mid 19^th century Edward W. Benson, future Bishop of Canterbury, founded the clandestine Cambridge Ghostly Guild[106], which eventually became the Society for Psychical Research. Members of this group included B. F. Westcott, later an archbishop of the Church of England, and Fenton J. A. Hort, later a Cambridge Professor of Divinity. The members of the Ghostly Guild were very much into the things “paranormal” (read “demonic”), and were also influenced by Madam Blavatsky and the early Alexandrian Gnostics including Origen. This is why Westcott and Hort kept secret their version of the Greek N.T., the so called “eclectic (read “pick and choose”) text”, which was used for their English Revised Version (RSV) of 1885, and which Text Dr. Nestle took under his wing. All subsequent Bible translations have been influenced by the RSV except the NKJV. In particular, the deliberate mistranslation of Isa. 14:12 (“Daystar”[107] rather than “Lucifer”) allowed the Gnostics to apply it to Jesus Christ, and also the changes to the many N.T. pronouns[108] downplay the divinity of Jesus. This RSV translation of Isa. 14:12 was challenged by Dr. Merrill Unger, Professor Emeritus of Old Testament and Semitic Languages at Dallas Theological Seminary in the early 1970’s, who pointed out that, “the church fathers were correct in seeing Satan in this prophecy, in spite of the denials of many modern commentators such as E. J. Young.”[109]

Whoever thinks that university professors are altruistic in their pursuit of truth is simply naïve! Their job is to insure that students matriculate through the “academic pipe” with the same viewpoint as their own. Graduate students are more particularly subject to the personal aggrandizement of their mentors, whom they must please to obtain their academic accolades. Sociology, which emphasizes the importance of world humanitarianism, is logically contrary to Hegel’s relativism, which powers the Marxist dictum of Darwinism: man is just a biological machine with no eternal soul. Thus, what happens to people isn’t important. Only the State is important (as in Plato’s Republic), and this is the “theology” of Marxism-Communism so dominant in academic circles today and the forerunner of the Communitarianism of the New Word Order.

Because it excludes a Self-existent Transcendent Personal Infinite God from their circle of consideration, Academia has no answers for the real questions of life, viz. Who am I?, Where did I come from?, and Where am I going?, or the problem of evil. Academia’s humanistic sociological or anthropological theories have also failed to solve any of man’s social problems. According to the theory of Natural Selection (with only two variables: time and chance), mankind is just an accident in time and has no purpose in life! Mankind’s existence is irrelevant and immaterial as far as the Cosmos is concerned. The universals (eternals) have no meaning because there is now no rationality (logic) in the area of universals or any significant Being to care. Theological words like: God, Trinity, Christ, Incarnation, Salvation, Resurrection, Truth, Love, Mediator, sin, hell, heaven, holy, sanctified, spirituality, soul, Satan, Church, Judgment, etc. no longer have any content or meaning, and they can’t be discussed because (after Hegel and Kierkegaard) there is no rationality in the “Upper story”. The “universals” are now just “connotation words”. Any meaning to life can no longer be stated in words or discussed rationally because there are no categories or logic in the area of universals. This is how man is taught to think non-rationally.

In Postmodernism, even the particulars of life have no meaning since all presuppositions are unreliable. Truth, if it exists cannot be stated in propositional terms. Evil or Satan and demons (supernaturalism) don’t exist anymore because mankind’s mind can’t perceive them with any objectivity. With Postmodernism there is rationality but no absolute truth with which to reach meaningful conclusions because God (if He exists) can’t get revelatory Truth through the linguistic and sociological filters that encapsulate the mind of man. (How increasingly clever Satan is in keeping mankind from accessing the propositional Truth of God’s Word!) However, for those with spiritual perception it is clear that the evil (satanic) world system (Zech. 3:1; Lk. 4:5,6; Jn. 8:44;14:30;15:18,19; 16:8-11 & 18-24;17:6,9,12-18,25; Acts 5:3: 2 Thes. 2:7-10;3:3; 1 Tim. 4:1;1 Pet. 5:8; 1 Jn. 2:16;4:3;5:19;Rev. 20:3) continues its moral decline and Satan’s minions continue to prepare the world for his return as the god of this world.

We know scripturally that Satan deceives the nations (Rev. 13:14; Rev. 20:3, 10), and his plan is simply to keep man from knowing the Truth. The Bible teaches that the World System (Cosmos Diabolicus) on earth is Satan’s Kingdom and not God’s Kingdom (Zech. 3:1; Lk. 4:5,6; Jn. 8:44;14:30;15:18,19; 16:8-11;17:6,9,12-18,25; Acts 5:3: 2 Thes. 2:7-10;3:3; 1 Tim. 4:1;1 Pet. 5:8; 1 Jn. 2:16;4:3;5:19; Rev. 20:3), but some Reformation leaders were deceived otherwise by Augustine’s theology of Amillennialism[111] (Papal rule), and many adopted Augustine’s theology en toto. (Augustine’s view that man has no free will also influenced Calvin’s view of Predestination.) Jesus said in Jn. 18:36 that His Kingdom was “not of this world (cosmos)”, and in Mat. 16:18 Jesus said, “I will build My Church and the Gates of Hades (equivalent to Sheol, referring to physical death) will not prevail against it”. Thus, His Church, which consists of all true believers of the Church age, is primarily a spiritual entity rather than physical. Church buildings didn’t exist until Constantine constructed the first basilicas. (The original Greek word (Basilikè) meant the tribunal chamber of a king and the Latin word was used to describe Roman public buildings.) If it were God’s world, it wouldn’t have been an enemy of Christ Jesus! (Note use of present tense: Lk. 4:5,6; Jn. 8:44;14:30;15:18,19;16:8-11;17:6,9,12-18,25,36; 2 Thes. 2:3-10; 1 Pet. 5:8; 1 Jn. 2:16;4:3; 5:19; Rev. 20:3). It is important to recognize that Satan’s offer of all the kingdoms of the world to Jesus Christ (Lk. 4:6), if Jesus would bow down and worship him, was a legitimate offer. Otherwise, it would not have been a temptation to Jesus who knows the truth. This implies logically and necessarily that Satan owns all the governments and rulers of the world too, and therefore we can be sure that all the real rulers of this world are also Satanists or Luciferians. Satan has done a good job of keeping his existence and rule invisible. (It is very difficult to defend against an enemy and a war you don’t know exists.) Therefore, what appears in the world contrary to that truth is just a charade to cover the truth of Satan’s rule. “Things are not what they seem to those who are not behind the scenes!” (P.M. Benjamin Disraeli) However, most Christians even don’t want to “connect the dots” from Scripture to the reality of life because they want to believe that this is God’s world rather than Satan’s because politics seem to promise some control over their world and a share of the “American Dream.”. This is the real “conspiracy” that exists in the world. The rest are just part of it. Satan’s objective is to bring in the One World Government (NWO), that will enslave the world in a one world religion devoted to worshiping him as God (Isa. 14:12-21; 2 Thes. 2:1-12; Rev. 13). However, the destiny of Satan and his minions is eternity in Gehenna/Tophet, the Lake of Fire, The Second (spiritual) Death, which are all synonymous terms (Isa. 14:9-15;30:33;Mat.10:28;18:19;25:41;Lk.16:23;Rev. 19:20;20:2,10,14,15)

In opposition to Satan’s World System (Cosmos Diabolicus or the Kingdom of Darkness.) there are two divine Kingdoms mentioned in Scripture. The first is the (spiritual) Kingdom of Light or Kingdom of God. The Bible presents God’s Kingdom as characterized by light (Psm. 15:1;27:1; 119:105; Prov. 15:9;29:13; Isa. 2:5;9:2;60:1; Jer. 9:24; Mat. 4:16; Lk. 16:8; Jn. 1:4,9;3:19-21;8:12;12:46; 2 Cor. 4:6; Eph. 5:8; 1 Thes 5:5; 1 Pet. 2:9; 1 Jn. 1:5,7; Rev. 21:23) and Satan’s kingdom as one of darkness (Psm. 107:10,11; Lk 22:53; Jn. 3:19; Eph. 5:8;6:12; Col. 1:13; 1 Pet. 2:9). “Light” in the biblical context indicates Righteousness, Truth, and Justice that characterize God (Deu. 32:4; Psm. 33:4;146:5-9; Isa. 65:16; Eph. 4:25; 5:1,8,11,15; etc. ). “Darkness” symbolizes evil, which characterizes Satan and his kingdom. Jesus is the spiritual “Light of the world” (Jn.1:4;8:12;9:5) in opposition to Lucifer’s (a.k.a. Satan’s) claim to be the “Illuminator”, by which he is known in the arcane secret societies. .

The "Kingdom of God" is the practical sphere of God's rule (Psm. 22:28;145:13; Dan. 4:25; Lk. 1:52). That is, the place where God's will is always done. This is a spiritual Kingdom rather than a physical kingdom, and true Christians are subjects of this spiritual Kingdom (2 Cor. 5:20; Phil. 3:20). However, this earth and immediate heavens are the scene of universal rebellion against God (Gen. 3; Lk. 4:5,6;1 Jn. 5:19; Jude 6;Rev. 11:15-18;12;13.) Therefore, the actual sphere of God's rule is wherever His rule is acknowledged, i.e. in the highest heaven and potentially the hearts of His children. It includes the angels that did not rebel and those (regenerate) people who belong to God. God's rule is acknowledged in the hearts of His children throughout the ages. This Kingdom now is really a spiritual kingdom in that it exists primarily in the spirit world and includes all those who have acknowledged the rule of God the Father and His son Jesus Christ.

The 2nd divinely inaugurated "Kingdom” mentioned in Scripture is the "Kingdom of the Heavens." It is a literal (physical) earthly kingdom prophesied to Israel in the O.T. with a real physical king of the Davidic line and pertains only to this earth (contrary to Augustinian allegory). It is a literal fulfillment of the Old Testament kingdom prophecies to Abraham and his descendents (see Heb. 11). The Old Testament uses the term "kingdom" in connection with Messiah's Kingdom (Psm. 2:6,7;45; Dan.2:44;7:13,14,22,27; Mic. 5:2). This Kingdom in the Gospel of Matthew is usually called "the Kingdom of Heaven," or more literally, "the Kingdom of the Heavens", indicating God’s rule on earth. This term is used because this is the time when God's will "will be done on earth as it is in heaven" (Mat. 6:10). (The other gospels use the more general term, "Kingdom of God.") Paul uses the term "Kingdom of Christ" (Eph. 5:2) and the "Kingdom of his beloved Son" (Col. 1:13), as well as most of the references in Mark, to refer to this kingdom. It is a physical and temporal extension of the Kingdom of God. The writer of Hebrews speaks of the O.T. saints "receiving a kingdom" (Heb. 12:28). Jesus spoke of His Kingdom to his disciples (Mat. 16:28;26:29; Lk. 22:29;Rev. 11:15). James speaks of believers being "heirs of the kingdom" (Jas. 2:5) as a future event, and so does Peter (2 Pet. 1:11). The "Kingdom of Heaven" is only a small part of the "Kingdom of God." The "Kingdom of God" is a much broader term, which also includes the "Kingdom of Heaven." Regeneration is a requirement for entering either Kingdom (Jn. 3.3).

As the Apostle Paul said, the Christian’s present (spiritual) citizenship is in heaven (Phil. 3:30). Man is born into the world a sinner on his way to hell (Mat. 25:41; Jn. 3:16-18; Rom. 3:9;5:12; etc.) as a subject of Satan’s kingdom (Jn. 3:3-6,36;8:44; Eph. 2:2). Reaching the age of accountability a person must make a deliberate choice to become a child of God to be transferred into the Kingdom of God (John 1:12; Eph. 2:1; Col. 1:13). People want to blame God for everything that happens in the world (i.e. “its all God’s fault” for suffering, wars, starvation, etc.), but rather it is only the good gifts that come from God (Jas. 1:16,17). God is not responsible for the evil in the world. The wars are not God’s wars, but Satan’s, because Satan is the invisible “ruler of this world” (Jn. 12:31; 16:11). God doesn’t necessarily intervene in Satan’s kingdom unless the prayers of the saints influence Him to do so. But Satan must keep man from knowing that he is the real ruler behind the scenes, which view is contrary to Augustine and Roman Catholic dogma[112]. Satan is the Great Deceiver (Gen. 3:13;Jn. 8:44; 2 Cor. 2:11;11:3-15; 2 Tim.2:26; Rev. 12:9;18:23;20:8,10). The real issue in life is the decision you make concerning Jesus Christ? Will you believe what God says in His Word or what Satan says in his world? That is the paramount issue in this life! God has made it possible for anyone to become a child of God and exit Satan’s kingdom. It all depends on volition because God’s Word is clear:

“Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.’” (Jn. 14:6)

“Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die’…”(Jn. 11:25,26)

“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.” (Jn. 3:16)

“But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” (Jn. 1:12,13)

“that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation” (Rom. 10:9,10)

“For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.” (Eph. 2:8,9)

Satan's rulership over the world is very carefully hidden behind many myths, which are an accepted fact in many cultures and continue to deceive man today. Dante (13^th century) in his Comedy popularized the idea that Satan is bound in Hell at the center of the earth, which idea was endemic to the Amillennial (Augustinian) view of eschatology. Milton (17^th century) in his Paradise Lost popularized the idea that Satan rules over Hell in the underworld and torments those who are there. These humanistic views are totally contrary to the biblical revelation. Adam delivered the earth, which was committed to him for safekeeping (Gen. 1:28) into Satan's hands by sinning against God (Rom. 5:12;8:20,21). Satan gives authority over his kingdom to whomever he chooses within the Sovereignty of God (Job 1:12; Lk. 4:6).

Satan has developed a ruling network consisting of ruling demons (Eph. 3:10;6:12,13; 1 Cor. 2:6; Col. 2:15; 1 Jn. 5:19; Dan. 10:13,20), which controls a demonized human infrastructure (occult secret societies) on earth to carry out his plans (2 Thes. 2:7; Rev. 18). Satan has succeeded (through various systems of belief) in convincing most people today that he is really just a myth. Even many Christians today don't take Satan and demons very seriously. Christians also don’t want to believe that man doesn’t control his own destiny. The result is that many Christians are also deceived (2 Tim. 2:25, 26) and many are demonized because they do not really know (or believe) God's Word. Christians are locked in an age old invisible War for Truth. The only way that man can know the Truth is for God to reveal to him what that Truth is, because man has no capacity in himself to discern truth[113] .

All religious systems fall basically into two world-views: Gnostic or Judeo-Christian[114]. The Gnostic religious systems believe that the universe is eternal, and that there is no personal infinite self-existent transcendent God. Hence, there are no absolutes, only relative “truth”. To the Gnostics, God is an integral part of the Universe. (Thus, God cannot be infinite or transcendent.) Good, Evil, and matter are all part of Godhead (Dualism). Everything in the universe has a spiritual dimension, and everything is evolving towards a higher form of existence (“and you shall be as gods”, Gen. 3:1:4). It is spirit that is important, not matter. The material world is just “Maya”. Only mathematics is truth. There are many Aeons and Avatars (gods), considered “ascended masters”, to help man on his quest to learn the “arcane truth” (Kabbalah) that will lead to evolving into godhood. But we must remember, in the beginning man created God in his own image!

Words and concepts have been borrowed from the Bible and Christianity with changed meanings to produce belief systems with obscure Gnostic essence so that the uninformed are deceived (Rev. 20:1-3). There is a great deal of diversity in Gnosticism. Gnostic systems include: the Babylonian Pantheon, from which the Egyptian and Greek derived, Animism, Wicca, Dualism, Atheism, Agnosticism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Shinto, Zoroastrianism, Kabbalism, Talmudic Judaism, secret Jesuit dogma, Universalism, Platonism, Neo-Platonism, Rosicrucianism, Free Masonry, Darwinism, Deism, Theosophy, Mormonism, Neo-Orthodoxy, Modernism, Post-Modernism, Scientology, Communism/Socialism/Nazism, Star Wars, “Hollywood Inc.”, etc. Such religious systems were viewed in the West as “pagan” for over a thousand years. They seek merely to appease the gods, but there is no concept of evil, guilt, sin, immorality, punishment, or absolutes. They look for “truth” through various forms of mysticism and magic. Man’s only true choice in this life is between biblical Christianity and the various forms of Gnosticism.

Gnosticism is often not recognized in its various forms and it can exist in other secular and religious systems of thought almost unperceivable. Gnosticism ultimately leads to Luciferianism, the worship of Lucifer as God. The Satanic lie (Gen. 3:4.5) of evolution to godhood is the primary focus of arcane occult “wisdom” (gnosis) sought by the ancient and modern secret societies. Satan’s rulership of the world (Lk.4:6; Eph. 6:12) is well hidden behind political facades and secret societies. Mankind has a choice to believe God’s Word about the Gospel of Salvation (Jn. 14:6) only in this life. Physical death fixes that choice! Sadly, Jesus said that few would choose God’s Plan of Salvation by faith and be saved (Mat. 7:13,14; Lk. 13:24). Most desire the wealth and glitter of Satan’s world (2 Tim. 4:10).

The God-Man (Jn. 1:1-14; Heb. 1) Christ spiritual Office filled by avatars

Angel who led 1/3^rd of angels to rebel Lucifer equal with Yahweh & rightful God

Deceived Eve, causing moral Fall Satan in Garden gave man secret knowledge of godhood

Physical Body Raised from Grave Resurrection death frees man’s spirit to evolve

The Bible teaches that what we think determines what we are spiritually (Prov. 23:7; 27:19). Our worldview determines how we live our life. Satan’s demonic minions are constantly manipulating our minds (1 Chr. 21:1; Acts 5:3; 2 Cor. 11:3; 2 Tim. 2:26) to control our actions. How a man views truth determines how he lives and how he interprets the Bible. If you can control a person’s concept of truth, then you can control that person. If you control the definition of words in a language, then you can control how a person thinks.[115] If you can control man’s dialectics or his perception of world events, you can control a person’s thinking. This is what has been going on in the media, public schools, the political arena, academia, and even the Church for centuries. Satan has been hard at work trying to destroy God’s Word or the knowledge of it (Truth) in every generation.

Satan doesn't just deceive humanity in the realm of religion (spiritual) or the universals (eternals), but in every area of life (the particulars). This is because man cannot live in a bifurcated (Platonic) world consistently, where the universals don't jive with the particulars of everyday life. The particulars are a clue to the universals (Rom. 1:18-22), and it is generally through the “particulars” of life that man forms his worldview. The Bible reveals God’s Plan for mankind, historical and prophetical truth, and His Plan for saving mankind from evil (Jn. 3:1-3;16,36) and resolving the spiritual (angelic) conflict in the Universe. Because God created man a moral reasoning entity in His own Sovereign image (Gen. 1:26,27), man is free to believe whatever he chooses (contrary to Augustine), but God still holds him accountable (Gen. 3:8 ff; Isa. 14:9-15; 30:33;66:24; Mat.10:28;18:19;25:41; Lk.16:23; Rev. 19:20;20:2,10,14,15). Cosmos Diabolicus and those deceived by it will not escape eternal perdition (Isa. 26:21; 27:1;30:27,28; Lk. 12:8; Jn. 5:24-29; Heb. 9:27; Rev. 3:5;20:4-15).

The problem is that modern Christians have been very slow to understand the difference in these two opposing world views about Truth, and the fact that their thinking is influenced daily by the demonic humanistic and New Age world views. The reality is that most Christians’ world view is non biblical. Very few pastors or Christian college professors seem capable of recognizing Gnosticism or occultism today in its various forms because it is so insidious and pervasive in our society and educational systems. Dr. Frances Schaeffer (et al.) tried to warn Christians about humanism in the late 1960’s through his various books, lectures, and videos, and what he predicted has come to pass. Dr. Schaeffer, in his video series How Should We Then Live? (Gospel Films) on the history of humanism and the Reformation warned us about the ruling Elite and the lack of any absolute ethic to curb them. The Christian colleges and seminaries failed to incorporate his (and other’s) warnings about humanism in their philosophical or theological curriculum. So Satan has captured the minds of most Christians without their even being aware of it.[116]

Today the humanistic and Gnostic mantra is, “Believe in yourself”. The Satanic (humanistic) worldview is self centered, not God centered. This leads to self-worship, preparing the world for the worship of Lucifer (2 Thes. 2:4; Rev. 13:3,4,8). The modern humanists and New Agers see truth as something which can't be stated in words, but which may be only experienced in the mind and the emotions. This follows Neo-Platonism with its thesis of the superiority of the emotions and intuition as opposed to reason and logic. This emphasis on emotions and mysticism as a guide to truth is also demonstrated in many Christian circles today in their neglect of Scripture. Without a Reformation view of Salvation through a personal relationship with the Self-existent Personal Infinite Transcendent God of the Bible, all that man has left is religious mysticism. Satan’s basic technique is deceit (Jn. 8:44) that can only succeed if we do not know the truth. Since Man cannot determine Truth himself, the only way man can know Truth is for God to tell him what the Truth is! (This is the only reasonable epistemology). God has not left us without His witness to the Truth. He has communicated that Truth to man propositionally in His Word, the Bible. (That is what Schaffer meant by the title of his book, He is There, and He is Not Silent.) Christians need to understand the spiritual principles (propositional truth) of the Bible that enables us to grow spiritually to maturity and understand the spiritual principles needed to deal with the “world, the flesh, and the devil” (Jn. 8:31,32; 17:17; 2 Cor. 10:3-6; Gal. 5:16ff; Eph. 4: 12-14;6:10-18; Col. 3:2-10; 1 Pet. 5:8; 2 Pet. 1:3-9;3:18; etc.). Otherwise Christians will be “tossed to and fro and carried around in circles by every wind of doctrine” (Eph. 4:14).

The Apostle Paul reminds us not to be caught up in the “wisdom (worldview) of this world” (1 Cor. 3:18-21; note Paul’s use of the Gk. aion “age” and cosmos “world” interchangeably; see also Rom. 12:2.). Christians are to be “salt” and “light” in an evil world (Mat. 5:13-16). Christians can make the greatest difference in society by earnest prayer (Mat. 21:22; Rom. 12:12; Phil. 4:6; 1 Tim. 2:1; 1 Pet. 4:7), teaching biblical truth (Jn. 4:24;8:31,32;17:17,19; Col. 1:5; 2 Tim. 2:24,25;3:15,16,17; 1 Jn. 3:18; Eph. 4:12-15; 1 Tim. 6:2; Heb. 5:5-14), witnessing to the reality of a personal relationship and fellowship with God through Jesus Christ (Jn. 1:12-14;3:16,18,36; Acts 1:8;16:31; Rom. 4:16;10:9,10; Gal. 2:15-21;3:26; 1 Jn. 1; etc.), and standing up for Truth when the “chips are down”(Josh. 24:15; Prov. 12:17; Dan. 8:12;12:21; Zech. 8:1; Mat.10:32,33; 2 Tim.2:24-26; 1 Jn. 3:18).

The Cannon of Scripture was closed at the end of the apostolic age (1 Cor. 13:9,10; Rev. 22:18,19), and any attempt to add to or compete with God’s biblical Revelation by any means invites Satanic deception (Gen. 3:1; 1 Cor. 2;4:18-23; Col. 2:8-10). The Christian view of reality is that God created man with five senses that perceive the real world as it truly is because God does not deceive (Num.23:19; 1 Sam. 15:29; Tit. 1;2; Heb. 6:18;1 Jn. 2:21.

In order to get His Word (Truth) into the mind of man God must first prepare such things as inspired writers and written languages that can convey the meaning required, writing materials, scribes, prophets, and a means of preserving His written Word (custodians) down through the centuries. Papyri scrolls, pen, and ink were invented before 2500 B.C. Written languages existed more than a thousand years before Moses. The language of revelation must be capable of expressing the concepts that God wants to convey to man. When God chose Abraham as the progenitor of a nation to show forth His Word of Truth, He also chose the language for expressing His Word in the O.T. Hebrew is a cognate of Aramaic[117] and related to Ugaritic. It is perfect for prophecy and poetry. Greek, on the other hand, is very precise making it possible to express the theological concepts of the N.T. that Hebrew could not. However, Hebrew and Greek are related by the same alphabetic system. The nation of Israel was the custodian of God’s Word during the O.T. period[118], and the Church became the custodian of God’s Word after the 1^st century. God’s written revelation of truth to man begins with His revelation to Moses in the middle of the 15 century B.C. on Mt Sinai with the writing of most of Genesis and concludes with the Revelation of Jesus Christ to John the Beloved on a Greek Island, always with the objective of the Salvation of mankind from the (first) Spiritual Death incurred in Gen. 3. The following shows the processes (diagrammatically) of getting God’s (propositional) Truth into the mind of man:

Revelation (To man: Ex. 20:1; Num. 1:1; 1 Chr. 17:3; Isa. 6:8,9; Jer.2:1; Eze. 2:3,7; Joel 1:1; Mic.1:1; Jn. 17:6,14; 1 Cor. 2:10; Gal. 1:12; Eph. 3:3,5; Col. 1:26; etc.)

Divine Inspiration (Writing MSS: Ex. 24:4;31:18;34:1; Hab. 2:2; 1 Cor. 2:12, 13; 2 Tim. 3:16)

Illumination (Into our hearts & minds: Deu.29:29; Mat. 11:25,26; 16:17; Lk. 24:44,45; Jn. 14:26; 16:13; 1 Cor. 2:10)

First God reveals Himself and His Truth to man through chosen instruments such as prophets, leaders, priests, etc. This Revelation is progressive over time and extends over many generations as God acts in history. This means that God must provide a means of recording His Revelation to man in order to preserve it for succeeding generations. Then God must inspire His chosen instruments of revelation by means of the Holy Spirit to write down exactly what God says for each parcel of revelation or historic act so that man may know the Truth[119]. This involves divinely inspiring the very words that are written[120], (verbal plenary inspiration of original autographs). The written mss must be preserved for later generations by institutions that transcend human lifespan (via Israel and the Church). The preservation and interpretation of these mss must also be protected by God as they are translated into other languages in order to preserve the essential meaning (viz: propositional Truth). Finally, the interpretation of Scripture must also rely on the ministry of the Holy Spirit illuminating our understanding of what God really meant by a particular passage. (This is where a great many expositors fail!) Academic degrees and expertise in languages and theology are not always adequate for the correct interpretation of Scripture. (Don’t confuse academics with scholarship!) The illumination of the Holy Spirit in the interpretation of Scripture requires that the interpreter be controlled (“filled”) by the Spirit[121]. There is no substitute for “walking in fellowship with God” (Gal. 5:16 ff; Eph. 5:18; 1 Jn. 1, etc.) when it comes to understanding what God is saying (Gen. 3:8; Gen. 5:24; Gen. 6:9; Gen. 18:1, 16, 22; Gen. 32:30; Ex. 33:11). However, the concept of absolute (propositional) Truth having its unique source in the Personal Infinite God of the Bible is totally contrary to the humanistic philosophy that has prevailed in academia since the Renaissance (rebirth of Gnostic Greek paganism).

God has not left man alone on the earth to find truth by himself. God has revealed propositional Truth to mankind through His Word: God’s special Revelation of His Word to man in the protected and inspired Scriptures known today as the Bible. It is the only reliable source of absolute Truth (2 Sam.22:30; Psm.33:4,5;116:11;119:89;137,138, 142,151,160; 146:6; Dan.10:21; Jn. 14:17;17:17; Gal;.1:9; 2 Tim.4:2-4; 1 Jn.5:20; Rev.22:6), which is why It is so attacked and vilified in the Satanic world. The problem is not that God failed to reveal Truth to mankind, but rather that most people have chosen to reject it (Mat. 7:13,14; Rom. 1:18-32). They would rather believe what makes them feel good and ignore God’s Truth. Truth seeking is always volitional. This is why Jesus often said,

[1] Contrary to Thomas Aquinas’ postulate that man can discern truth because, although man is fallen, his mind is not fallen. See Gen. 3:2:17;3:17-19; Jn. 3:3-6; Rom. 3:9

[2] The Logic of True Narrative Representations: http://www.biblicalresearchbulletin.com/uploads/BRB-2001-2-Oller-Collins-Logic_TNR.pdf

See also: Is The Bible A True Narrative Representation?: http://www.ukapologetics.net/TNR.html

[3] Transcending the Postmodern Condition : https://people.sunyit.edu/~harrell/billyjack/Oller-lang-acqui.html.

See also: Is The Bible A True Narrative Representation?: http://www.ukapologetics.net/TNR.html

[4] Which prophecies clearly go beyond the human agencies involved!

[5] See G. K. Smith, The Angelic Conflict Vol. II Lesson 3: available upon request.

[6] Title first associated with Dr. Donald Barnhouse’s book, The Invisible War, Zondervan, 1965.

[7] Encyclopedia Americana, 30 vols. 1953.

[8] Wil Durant, Caesar and Christ, The Story of Civilization III, Simon & Schuster, 1944.

[9] It was said that Rome became Christian overnight. However, the only thing that changed was the names of the gods.

[10] In rejecting the Roman Church’s view of Salvation by works, most of the Reformers went back to Augustine’s theology because they hadn’t time to develop their own. This is the source of Amillennialism and John Calvin’s theology of Predestination as well as Amillennialism and allegory.

[11] See http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/University

[12] See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University

[13] See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Azhar_University

[14] See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oldest_universities_in_continuous_operation

[15] See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashoka

[16] See Will Durant, The Life of Greece: The Story of Civilization II, Simon and Schuster, 1939.

[17] See http://www.muslimphilosophy.com/ip/rep/B012.htm

[18] See http://www.muslimphilosophy.com/ip/rep/B012.htm

[19] See http://www.crossroad.to/articles2/006/smith/new_theology.htm

[20] Depending on whether the transliterator observed the “rough breathing” in Greek.

[21] See http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07521c.htm

[22] Note the absence of any concept of a personal relationship with God (Jn. 1:12;3:16,18,36; Rom.10:9,10)

[23] Dr. Francis A Schaeffer, Escape from Reason, Intervarsity Press, 1968

[24] See Dr. Anne Fremantle, Age of Faith, GREAT AGES OF MAN, 1965, Time-Life Books.

[25]. See Arabic Thought and Its Place in History at http://www.sacred-texts.com/. See also, a good ‘on-line’ summary of the Crusades, the Gnostic connection, and the Gnostic chiliastic World Peace Movement of the 11^th century at http://www.sangraal.com/ under The Gnostic Science of Alchemy, beginning with Chapter 10 ff (http://www.sangraal.com/library/gsa10.html ). The writer is clearly a Gnostic, who believes in magic and alchemy, and interprets history and the Bible in a Gnostic Context Is there a similar kind of chiliastic connection today? (Many try to exonerate the Templars, but they were clearly Gnostic; see http://cuttingedge.org/news/n1164.cfm, and http://www.gnostictemplars.org/#history.)

[26] See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanism

[27] By, among other things, mislabeling Petrarch, a century later, “The Father of Humanism”.

[28] e.g. See Dr. Francis Schaeffer’s The God Who is There and He is There and He is Not Silent, Intervarsity Press.

[29] Dr. Francis A. Schaeffer, Escape From Reason, Intervarsity Press, 1968

[30] See Jn 1:1,18;14:6;17:6,8,14,26; Heb. 1:2

[31] The Hermetic arcane “Palladian” doctrine of “dualism”, where there are two non-infinite Gods, Adonai (Yahweh) and Lucifer (Satan), with the definitions of “good” and “evil” reversed is also Gnostic.

[32] This writer tries to reserve the capitalized “Truth” for absolute Truth known to God.

[33] Merrill F. Unger, Th.D., Ph.D., Unger’s Commentary on the Old Testament, Moody Press, 1981

[34] Note: “One” in Deu. 6:4 is the same word as in Gen. 2:24

[35] Francis Schaeffer, ibid.

[36] See http://www.historywiz.com/exhibits/neoclassicism.htm

[37] Although Bacon laid the foundation for modern science, he also was a leading Rosicrucian and very much involved in occult secret societies, which had infiltrated every institution in Europe and England by the 16^th century, as was his modern biographer Peter Dawkins. It was Bacon’s idea with Dr. John Dee, and Elizabeth I, of Merovingian decent, who planned that America would become the New Atlantis from which the Phoenix arises to bring in the New World Order: See The Secret Founding of America by historian Nicholas Hagger, 2007, available from Amazon. Thus began the English funding of charters for the settlement of the New World, beginning with Jamestown.

[38] Galileo’s conflict with the Church was trying to show that Copernicus’ view was consistent with the book of Genesis, treading in the area of Bible interpretation that belonged exclusively to the Church.

[39] See Francis A. Schaeffer, How Should We Then Live?, Crossway Books, 1983.

[40] Oppenheimer, “On Science and Culture”, Encounter, 1962.

[41] Whitehead, “Science and the Modern World”, Harvard University Lowell Lectures, 1925.

[42] You have to “read between the lines” to really understand Plato, see Plato, Great Dialogues of Plato, Mentor Books, 1956 . See : http://hubpages.com/hub/Platos_Republic., http://plato-dialogues.org/tetra_4/republic/plan.htm

[44] See Leslie Terry on PLAN, http://www.henrymakow.com/illuminati_charities_advance_s.html

[45] Kate Bolick, All the Single Ladies, The Atlantic magazine, Nov. 2011.

[46] See, for example, Steve Farrell & Diane Alden, Technology, sovereignty, and the Third Wave, http://www.enterstageright.com/archive/articles/1099wave.htm

[47] Aldous Huxley, Brave New World, HarperCollins New York:, 1932

[48] See, for example, http://www.enterstageright.com/archive/articles/1099wave.htm

[49] See http://www.newswithviews.com/guest_opinion/guest59.htm

[50] See Phillip Collins, Immanentizing the Eschaton: The Gnostic Myth of Darwinism and Socio-political Utopianism, http://www.conspiracyarchive.com/Commentary/Darwinism_Gnostic_Myth.htm

[51] This is also the Roman Catholic position: See the Philadelphia Confession.

[52] The significance of 666 (Rev. 13:19) derives from the Magic Square of the Sun god, worshipped in all ancient pagan religions as the chief god: see http://www.markbeast.org/index.html (ignore the SDA views here).

[53] Thomas R. Horn, Apollyon Rising 2012, 2009; see http://www.newswithviews.com/Horn/thomas128.htm

[54] Philip Collins, The Ascendancy of the Scientific Dictatorship, See http://www.conspiracyarchive.com/NWO/Ascendancy.htm

[55] More accurately, “Abrahamic-Christian” (Gen. 15;17; Ro m. 4), since “Judeo” derives from “Judea”, a locale.

[56] See Gen. 1:1; Psm. 19:1-6;33:6,28; Rom 1:20

[57] See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_microwave_background_radiation

[58] See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang

[59] See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_relativity

[60] Even “String Theory”, although now self consistent mathematically, is at least several orders of magnitude beyond man’s ability to ever verify experimentally.)

[61] However, this philosophy of the “unity of opposites” originated from Heracleitus the Obscure of Ephesus in the 6^th century B.C.

[62] See Deu. 32:4; Isa. 65:16; Jas. 1:17; Eph. 4:21.

[63] Hermetica (or Corpus Hermeticum), a collection of Greek and Latin treatises and dialogues written in the first or second centuries A.D, of which the primary exponent today is the Jewish Kabbalah.

[64] Glenn Magee, Hegel and the Hermetic Tradition, Cornell University Press, 2001. See online Introduction at:

http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/en/magee.htm

[65] The U.S. founding Free Masons expected Lucifer to return in 2012 as Apollo the Sun God according to Thomas Horn’s analysis; see http://www.newswithviews.com/Horn/thomas128.htm

[66] Dennis L. Cuddy, The Illuminati, http://www.newswithviews.com/Cuddy/dennis192.htm .

[67] Terry Pinkard, Hegel: A Biography, Cambridge University Press, 2000.

[68] Also the philosophical basis for nihilism and Marxism-Communism-Socialism.

[69] Rational or rationality is to be distinguished from Rationalism, which is a belief system.

[70] Francis A. Schaeffer, Escape from Reason, Intervarsity Press, 1968

[72] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Society

[73] Phillip & Paul Collins, Ascendancy of The Scientific Dictatorship, An Examination of Epistemic Autocracy from the 19^th to the 21^st Century, IUNIVERSE, 2006 or brief Web version at: http://www.conspiracyarchive.com/NWO/Ascendancy.htm.

[74] Positivism is a theory of knowledge that assumes that we know or perceive facts and physical objects through the five senses with total objectivity. Michael Polanyi, a scientist and philosopher, showed the illogic of all forms of Positivism in the mid 1930’s, and today it is a dead philosophical theory.

[75] Erica Carle, BLAINVILLE'S FUNERAL--A WORLD-CHANGING EVENT: see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Marie_Ducrotay_de_Blainville

[76] Florence Nightingale's Suggestions for thought, pg. 208, Lynn McDonald Ed., Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2008.

[77] Nancy Pearcey, Total Truth: Liberating Christianity from its Cultural Captivity, Crossway, 2004.

[78] This writer has personally observed these apologies in the course of reading scientific journals.

[79] Dr. E. Michael and Sharon Rusten, Christian History, Tyndale House Publishers, Inc

[80] Nancy Pearcey, ibid.

[81] How the Mind Works, W. W. Norton & Company, 1999.

[82] Academians seldom list their pre-suppositions that form the basis for their conclusions.

[83] See for example: http://vintage.aomin.org/JEDP.html

[84] See his summary of the search for the solution to this question:. http://cogprints.org/3311/1/alphabet.pdf

[85] See for example: http://www.archaeology.org/0001/newsbriefs/egypt.html,

http://www.usc.edu/dept/LAS/wsrp/information/wadi_el_hol/,

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1999/11/991122153642.htm, etc.)

[86] Such as: God, grace, truth, love, miracles, incarnation, salvation, resurrection, revelation, eternity, Hell, Heaven, judgment, spirituality, holy, sacred, perdition, etc.

[87] e.g. Dr. Francis Schaeffer, The God Who is There and He is There and He is Not Silent, Intervarsity Press.

[88] See http://www.crossroad.to/articles2/006/smith/new_theology.htm .

[89] The God Who is There, pg. 15.

[90] See http://www.answers.com/topic/post-modernism-4

[91] The term “Postmodernism” can also be used to refer to an architectural style.

[92] See http://www.monkhouse.org/david

[93] Positivism as a philosophy was destroyed by Michael Polyani in 1935 and ceased to be taught in academia.

[94] See Grenz’s Primer on Postmodernism

[95] see http://www.crossroad.to/articles2/006/smith/new_theology.htm

[96] See Dr. Harold Lindsell, The Battle for the Bible, Zondervan, 1976 and Tim LaHaye, The Battle for the Mind, Fleming H. Revell & Co., 1980

[98] see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Gresham_Machen

[99] Pastor Paul Smith, former Director of Calvary Chapel Ministries and brother of Chuck Smith (Pastor of Calvary Chapel Church Costa Mesa), has just published a book on how Postmodernism has changed the focus of historic Christian outreach: see New Evangelism the New World Order, Calvary Chapel Publications, 2010, which can be obtained through Calvary Chapel’s radio program, The Word For Today.

[101] This writer’s personal communication with Paul Smith. See also Ref. 90.

[102] See Berit Kjos, Spirit Led or Purpose Driven?, http://www.crossroad.to/articles2/2003/1-purpose.htm

[103] See Pearcey, supra.

[104] Christian Philosophers (beside Pearcey) actively apposing Postmodernism include, at least, the following:

Dr. R. Scott Smith (http://www.biola.edu/faculty/profiles/profile.cfm?n=scott_smith)

Dr. J. P. Moreland (http://www.talbot.edu/faculty/faculty_profiles/profile.cfm?n=jp_moreland )

Dr. Paul Helm, formerly of King's College, London. (http://paulhelmsdeep.blogspot.com )

Dr. N. Thomas Wright, Bishop of Durham, ( http://www.ntwrightpage.com/ )

[105] See G.K. Smith, Vol. I Lesson 15 Spiriuality, available upon request.

[106] See: http://www.watch.pair.com/occult.html , http://www.crossspot.net/ldprophet/New-Wine-Babylon.htm , and http://www.watch.pair.com/revision.html .

[107] The Hebrew word for “star” (kokab) does not appear in the Hebrew text. Jerome’s translation, “Lucifer”, is correct!

[108] See Prof. G. A. Riplinger, New Age Bible Versions, AV Publications, 1993, 1998.

[109] Merrill F. Unger, Th.D, Ph.D., Unger’s Commentary on the Old Testament, 2 Vol., Moody Press, 1981.

[110] Excerpted from G. K. Smith, The Two Kingdoms, 2010; available upon request. (Written at the request of Paul Smith.)

[111] Making the Church either the continuation of or the successor to the nation of Israel, which theological positions requires interpreting about 1/3^rd of the Bible allegorically.

[112] Who have no real answer to the problem of the Angelic Conflict or why God has chosen faith as the means to appropriate Salvation and relationship with God and the resolution of said conflict.

[113] .Dr. Francis Schaeffer, The God Who is There and He is There and He is Not Silent, Intervarsity Press, 1968.

[114] More properly, “Abrahamic-Christian” because Judeo is derived from Judah, a locale.

[115] Plato, The Republic

[116] See http://www.crossroad.to/Quotes/brainwashing/rockefeller-mind-control.htm

[117] see Deu. 26:5 NIV

[118] Rom. 3:1,2

[119] 2 Tim. 3:16

[120] 1 Cor. 2:12,13

[121] Eph. 5:18; etc

[122] Mat. 13:9,43; Mk. 4:9; 23;7:16;Lk.8:8;14:35.