When one cannot know, one must believe. Both information and belief may be accurate or not, true or false. How can one ever be certain what they are informed of or believing is true or false, permanent or temporary? I'm reasonably sure that many intelligent people think they actually know that Mars exists, when what they are really doing is believing it exists, by taking 2nd and 3rd hand information and trusting it is reliable. So someone replies, "I've seen Mars through a telescope". Well, what's the principle called when one takes something at face value, according to their immediate sense perceptions and information available to them? It's right on the tip of my tongue; oh right, "seeing is believing". Why is that? Because, they have to additionally trust that their senses and comprehension level have a reliable amount of facility and accuracy, along with being skeptical enough to analyze whether they have a personal bias, either for or against believing or disbelieving in a particular person, place, thing, concept, or state-of-being. Sounds like a whole lot of belief to me, even the empiricist needs to trustingly believe that the laws of physics that made his or her scientific study trustworthy yesterday and today will still be applicable if he or she has a tomorrow. A person may believe France exists, because they have read about it, seen the Tour de France on t.v., and maybe even met someone from there. But until they actually experience France first hand, they can only really believe by trusting what information they have received from 2nd and 3rd hand sources. There is no reason to doubt such things as Mars and France exist, but no way for a person to have actual knowledge of them unless experienced first-hand. A person can believe both true and false things, but false belief can never be verified. True belief will be converted to knowledge, if and when a personal experience verifies it; but false belief will be held indefinitely if left uncontested, fall away through experiencing what is true, or become a superstition held in vanity even after one experiences the truth.
Information consists of facts, if it is accurately and reliably describing something that has a true and real existence. But what are facts? Are they permanent or temporary? If permanent, they are true and enduring, if temporary they are only true for a while and then for the rest of eternity they no longer apply. If they aren't true at all, then they are not facts. Right now, the fact is, there is a thing we call the "Grand Canyon". But the fact was, at an earlier point in time, no such thing as the big gorge we call the "Grand Canyon" existed, and, sometime in the future, the fact will be there was a thing we called a "Grand Canyon" for a time, but it no longer exists. Facts about the physical universe depend on where your perspective stands in time. So any knowledge of facts pertaining to the "Grand Canyon" are/were of a temporary nature(and being in a natural universe, which is in a constant state of being born and passing away, what more could one expect?). However, when dealing with one's relation to an Unchanging and Infinite/Eternal being, in which all time and the physical universe exists, the human mind must rely on belief rather than knowledge; and that is because the amount of knowledge and facts that come into and out of being in an Eternal Spirit cannot be contained or comprehended by a finite consciousness that exists within Him. Science and "knowledge" will only ever deal in what is measurable, and how the universe exists and functions, but they cannot, and will never, tell why it does; because the Cause and Reason for that is immeasurable, and cannot be contained or defined by any finite being's ability or inability to comprehend Him. This is why when someone says they "know God" it must always be that they have a trusting belief that they are acquainted with Him, according to what He has shared with that person about Himself; and he or she is trusting that what they were told is true. It cannot ever mean they themselves are omniscient or good, because only Yahweh is that. And it is important to remember that no matter how much one may come to know, in any way shape or form about any person-place-thing or concept, there will always be an infinite amount which he or she can never and will never know. Many years of my life were spent in vainly seeking to know God in a way that wasn't possible for me. Eventually, after exhausting the resources my physical perceptions and human understanding, I had to trust and rely on believing His testimony of Himself. That is the first step, and the biggest hurdle for anyone to get past, in his or her relationship with Jesus the Christ and Yahweh. If one has been through much suffering, betrayal, or abuse, in the human world, then surrendering to such a trust can be all the more difficult.
The following is the gist of my own belief and understanding of that belief:
Whether one thinks it unfortunate or not, a finite/temporary mind cannot contain or comprehend all that the infinite/eternal God is, and has planned, and must eventually, entirely rely on belief and trust, which would be the roots of faith. However, trusting that God is real and that Jesus is His son does not amount to being faithful (faithfulness requires loyalty and obedience, which have their roots in a trusting belief). When it says that Abraham was saved by faith it doesn't mean he was saved only by trusting sand believing what God told him, it means after trusting and believing it to be be true he loyally obeyed it. According to James 2:19, even the demons believe; yet they are not salvaged from the world of sin or saved from destruction in any way. One must trust in order to believe the truth, and believe in order to obey it (that is what constitutes a saving faith), anything less is far too often used as a license to sin.
Mankind, as finite beings within an infinite one, are not the authors of themselves, and so cannot possibly be the authors of their own destiny. They are born from the elements, they pass through their place and time, and then they pass away; and all without their permission being asked or considered whatsoever. As the lives of humanity are products of their place and time, they are bound by the laws of cause and effect that have produced their place and time. Consider anyone that has ever existed in this planet. They, like you and I, were products of their place and time, and could not be other than who and what they were. Because, like you and I, they did not pick "their" parents, name, 1st grade teacher, culture, ethnicity, historical era, geographic location, lifespan, temperament, siblings, background, height, gender, mental faculties, species, surrounding events, planet, or "their" lack thereof concerning any of those things. And so they had no control over their trajectory, not during its beginning, middle, or end. Those aspects were not "theirs" in any sense of possession, they were "theirs" because they had been assigned them. Yet I'm sure, like you and I, they liked to believe they were free to be the authors of their own destiny. You might like to believe you have a “free” will, and that you somehow choose how you will act or react in any given situation. But you didn't get to choose any of the details that went into making you, or the place and time you must exist in, or the entailing events and circumstances of that place and time, so how is any of what you will end up doing, or not, up to you? You didn't make you, therefore nothing that results from, of, through, or by way of you can actually be said to have originated from you in any way. Unless, of course, you are the one that got the ball rolling as far as the universe is concerned, which I highly doubt is the case. And if one is given the penchant for looking hard and long at just how the universe is governed, it may eventually be revealed to him or her just why God is also know as "almighty".
As many that have studied the natural/physical world have discovered: By and large, without being freed from the workings of this world, human nature is dictated by biology, biology is dictated by chemistry, chemistry is dictated by physics, and physics is dictated by immutable preexisting laws laid down by God himself; and it is all on a temporary basis, with a beginning, middle, and end (it is scheduled). As long as one is bound by this chain of cause and effect one is a slave to it, whether blind to his or her state or not, and cannot in any way choose to disobey it. Essentially then, as a part of this world, one must share in everything that is slated for this world, including it's destruction* (2 Peter 3:7) But, if and when someone is offered salvation from it, there is a way out of this state of "slavery to sin" and its accompanying sentence of destruction. The way is not easy, cannot be earned or deserved in any way, and cannot be done by any mere natural desire for self-preservation; because that would more or less be based on the instinct of fearing physical death (it includes, in fact, the erasure of that instinct. Hebrews 2:15).
Even if salvaged and freed from all the aforementioned, you are still told "you are not your own" 1 Corinthians 6:19-20.
When Christ says "I will not say much more to you, for the prince of this world is coming. He has no hold over me" he is essentially saying he is not bound by the world's workings. He is free of its instincts, intentions, desires, expectations, fears, and destiny, and the regional ruler of it has no authority over Christ whatsoever. Christ is not, has never been and will never be, a slave to it. He was willing to give up everything it has to offer, in order to glorify, obey and be present with His Father. And any person that Christ is given the authority to free from it, will also follow this path exemplified by his words and example of living on Earth. Such an example cannot be imitated, followed, or obeyed by human nature, something more must be given to an individual than what nature dispenses. And no, a human has no personal power or authority to elect him or herself for glory or entrance into the heavenly city. Though many persons have professed, are professing, and will continue to try, to claim such an ability.
Now, when Satan and his angels were cast out of heaven, to where where were they cast down to? Where does Satan roam about looking for whom he may devour? Where does he have only a limited time to ruin and separate as many souls from knowing, loving, and serving their creator as possible? Where, and when, and over whom, does he have any jurisdiction at all? God is the sovereign ruler, He controls every finite and created being that exists within Him, so Satan can only have control over what the sovereign God allows him to. But any that are freed from being slaves to sin are not free to do as they please. Such people are no longer concerned with, or bound by, the laws or inclinations of this world, but are then called "slaves of righteousness" or "slaves of God" and then are living according to His laws (the moral code expounded and lived by the Christ) and are content here if they merely have food and clothing 1 Timothy 6:8. Either way, once freed from being a slave to this world and the sin it is enslaved by, absolute "freedom" or "lawlessness" is not allowable or available to a created being, but rather is held out as a deception that the devil promises one in exchange for a soul's eternal destiny- Not a good trade, by the way. Anyone that says they don't have to conform their lives to the commandments given, and are "freed from the law" because Jesus lived righteously for them, are quite probably deceived, along with all those that don't or will not ever even be shown that obedience to Christ's example is what is necessary to please God (and that can only be done if one is given the opportunity, which is why it states "to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. Ephesians 2:10).
Are many deceived into believing they are free when they are not really? Yes, but they are not unwillingly deceived. To a certain extent, sinners choose what they want but not what is contrary to their nature and will; and what they want and love more than God is something in this world, and that is what keeps them bound to it and obeying it and separated from their Creator. Paraphrasing Schopenhauer, 'you may choose what you will, but you cannot choose that you have a will in the first place, or what it compels in you'. Many believe they are free when they are really still enslaved. When a world is destroyed, such are destroyed along with it.
According to the Hebraic creation account, Adam and Eve entered us all into this current incarnation of slavery, and the blindness of it, through their disobedience. We are enmeshed in it and blinded to it and by it, we lust for it and cannot see beyond it unless we be salvaged from it; and will remain slaves to it unless freed from the chains of it. However, were they ever really free? The choice then was still a matter of who they would be a slave to, a just and Loving God or an unjust and vicious natural world and its animal instincts.Were they able to make an informed choice, if they didn't really know what He meant when He said they would surely die from their disobedience? God only knows; the rest of us must deal in the level of possibilities and probabilities He grants us the understanding of, and then believe accordingly. But when you read that "through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous." it is convenient to automatically think 'oh good' I'm glad he was obedient, so now I'm saved without having to do anything'. But that would be a fatal error. Rather look at it as the narrow, steep, and way of great difficulty. Because, from a natural/carnal mindset it's easy enough to keep following Adam's example, and quite nearly impossible to give up one's life to living Christ's example. Only the elect will be allowed and given that ability. The rest of us stand as much chance as Adam and Eve. So trust that God is in control, and if given the will and ability to, imitate Jesus the Christ's example both in living and, if need be, in dying.
n*along with the promised destruction of this universe, there is the promise of a new heavens and earth. Those that are taken along are the ones headed for the perfected version of the fallen one we are currently in. Incidentally, this possibility has been explained by something called panentheism, a theory which posits that all space/time, and any intelligible universe that may come into and out of existence inside of space/time, exist within an eternal Being; a Being from/of which said space/time and inhabiting energy/matter is a tangible projection (the image which we are all creations in). It can work in conjunction with the scientific theory called the "big bounce" which allows for a cyclic universe, where the first cosmological event(big bang) was the result of the collapse(big crunch) of a previous universe (ad infinitum). This would mean that the universe is always being crunched and big-banged into existence, along with all that exist within it. "The Big Crunch is one of the theoretical scenarios for the ultimate fate of the universe, in which the metric expansion of space eventually reverses and the universe re-collapses, ultimately causing the cosmic scale factor to reach zero or causing a reformation of the universe starting with another Big Bang." This is just my uneducated guess, but the worlds to come may be many, if not infinite in number.
** another point to be made about T.U.L.I.P. is that while many misunderstandings crop up about OSAS one must still have the Spirit of Truth to discern what the reality of scripture is. There are a couple of verses that state one cannot have salvation forcibly taken from them, and that those in which salvation is completed cannot forcibly be taken from God's grace. There are a dozen or more stating that the offer of salvation can be neglected, abandoned, shipwrecked, turned away from, rejected, one can fall away from grace, or that one can be deceived out of it (Hebrews 2:3). Can salvation be lost? "He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit" so "do not become proud, but fear." "Otherwise you too will be cut off." and "If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned." John 15:6 Evidently so, but only by those not given the will, ability, and opportunity to see it to completion. Consider this, if one must be willing to leave, husbands, wives, children, properties, and even his or her "own" life for the sake of the kingdom, what does it take to get to heaven? Would many even choose to leave behind this world without a supernatural trust in something better waiting for them? Can anyone get there without being willing to give up everything else this world has to offer? The good news is that there is a way out of the scheduled destruction of the fallen world and into heaven, the bad news is that, for those that have filled up on and prefer the old wine, a person can't just hope and wish his or her way there.
Information consists of facts, if it is accurately and reliably describing something that has a true and real existence. But what are facts? Are they permanent or temporary? If permanent, they are true and enduring, if temporary they are only true for a while and then for the rest of eternity they no longer apply. If they aren't true at all, then they are not facts. Right now, the fact is, there is a thing we call the "Grand Canyon". But the fact was, at an earlier point in time, no such thing as the big gorge we call the "Grand Canyon" existed, and, sometime in the future, the fact will be there was a thing we called a "Grand Canyon" for a time, but it no longer exists. Facts about the physical universe depend on where your perspective stands in time. So any knowledge of facts pertaining to the "Grand Canyon" are/were of a temporary nature(and being in a natural universe, which is in a constant state of being born and passing away, what more could one expect?). However, when dealing with one's relation to an Unchanging and Infinite/Eternal being, in which all time and the physical universe exists, the human mind must rely on belief rather than knowledge; and that is because the amount of knowledge and facts that come into and out of being in an Eternal Spirit cannot be contained or comprehended by a finite consciousness that exists within Him. Science and "knowledge" will only ever deal in what is measurable, and how the universe exists and functions, but they cannot, and will never, tell why it does; because the Cause and Reason for that is immeasurable, and cannot be contained or defined by any finite being's ability or inability to comprehend Him. This is why when someone says they "know God" it must always be that they have a trusting belief that they are acquainted with Him, according to what He has shared with that person about Himself; and he or she is trusting that what they were told is true. It cannot ever mean they themselves are omniscient or good, because only Yahweh is that. And it is important to remember that no matter how much one may come to know, in any way shape or form about any person-place-thing or concept, there will always be an infinite amount which he or she can never and will never know. Many years of my life were spent in vainly seeking to know God in a way that wasn't possible for me. Eventually, after exhausting the resources my physical perceptions and human understanding, I had to trust and rely on believing His testimony of Himself. That is the first step, and the biggest hurdle for anyone to get past, in his or her relationship with Jesus the Christ and Yahweh. If one has been through much suffering, betrayal, or abuse, in the human world, then surrendering to such a trust can be all the more difficult.
The following is the gist of my own belief and understanding of that belief:
Whether one thinks it unfortunate or not, a finite/temporary mind cannot contain or comprehend all that the infinite/eternal God is, and has planned, and must eventually, entirely rely on belief and trust, which would be the roots of faith. However, trusting that God is real and that Jesus is His son does not amount to being faithful (faithfulness requires loyalty and obedience, which have their roots in a trusting belief). When it says that Abraham was saved by faith it doesn't mean he was saved only by trusting sand believing what God told him, it means after trusting and believing it to be be true he loyally obeyed it. According to James 2:19, even the demons believe; yet they are not salvaged from the world of sin or saved from destruction in any way. One must trust in order to believe the truth, and believe in order to obey it (that is what constitutes a saving faith), anything less is far too often used as a license to sin.
Mankind, as finite beings within an infinite one, are not the authors of themselves, and so cannot possibly be the authors of their own destiny. They are born from the elements, they pass through their place and time, and then they pass away; and all without their permission being asked or considered whatsoever. As the lives of humanity are products of their place and time, they are bound by the laws of cause and effect that have produced their place and time. Consider anyone that has ever existed in this planet. They, like you and I, were products of their place and time, and could not be other than who and what they were. Because, like you and I, they did not pick "their" parents, name, 1st grade teacher, culture, ethnicity, historical era, geographic location, lifespan, temperament, siblings, background, height, gender, mental faculties, species, surrounding events, planet, or "their" lack thereof concerning any of those things. And so they had no control over their trajectory, not during its beginning, middle, or end. Those aspects were not "theirs" in any sense of possession, they were "theirs" because they had been assigned them. Yet I'm sure, like you and I, they liked to believe they were free to be the authors of their own destiny. You might like to believe you have a “free” will, and that you somehow choose how you will act or react in any given situation. But you didn't get to choose any of the details that went into making you, or the place and time you must exist in, or the entailing events and circumstances of that place and time, so how is any of what you will end up doing, or not, up to you? You didn't make you, therefore nothing that results from, of, through, or by way of you can actually be said to have originated from you in any way. Unless, of course, you are the one that got the ball rolling as far as the universe is concerned, which I highly doubt is the case. And if one is given the penchant for looking hard and long at just how the universe is governed, it may eventually be revealed to him or her just why God is also know as "almighty".
As many that have studied the natural/physical world have discovered: By and large, without being freed from the workings of this world, human nature is dictated by biology, biology is dictated by chemistry, chemistry is dictated by physics, and physics is dictated by immutable preexisting laws laid down by God himself; and it is all on a temporary basis, with a beginning, middle, and end (it is scheduled). As long as one is bound by this chain of cause and effect one is a slave to it, whether blind to his or her state or not, and cannot in any way choose to disobey it. Essentially then, as a part of this world, one must share in everything that is slated for this world, including it's destruction* (2 Peter 3:7) But, if and when someone is offered salvation from it, there is a way out of this state of "slavery to sin" and its accompanying sentence of destruction. The way is not easy, cannot be earned or deserved in any way, and cannot be done by any mere natural desire for self-preservation; because that would more or less be based on the instinct of fearing physical death (it includes, in fact, the erasure of that instinct. Hebrews 2:15).
Even if salvaged and freed from all the aforementioned, you are still told "you are not your own" 1 Corinthians 6:19-20.
When Christ says "I will not say much more to you, for the prince of this world is coming. He has no hold over me" he is essentially saying he is not bound by the world's workings. He is free of its instincts, intentions, desires, expectations, fears, and destiny, and the regional ruler of it has no authority over Christ whatsoever. Christ is not, has never been and will never be, a slave to it. He was willing to give up everything it has to offer, in order to glorify, obey and be present with His Father. And any person that Christ is given the authority to free from it, will also follow this path exemplified by his words and example of living on Earth. Such an example cannot be imitated, followed, or obeyed by human nature, something more must be given to an individual than what nature dispenses. And no, a human has no personal power or authority to elect him or herself for glory or entrance into the heavenly city. Though many persons have professed, are professing, and will continue to try, to claim such an ability.
Now, when Satan and his angels were cast out of heaven, to where where were they cast down to? Where does Satan roam about looking for whom he may devour? Where does he have only a limited time to ruin and separate as many souls from knowing, loving, and serving their creator as possible? Where, and when, and over whom, does he have any jurisdiction at all? God is the sovereign ruler, He controls every finite and created being that exists within Him, so Satan can only have control over what the sovereign God allows him to. But any that are freed from being slaves to sin are not free to do as they please. Such people are no longer concerned with, or bound by, the laws or inclinations of this world, but are then called "slaves of righteousness" or "slaves of God" and then are living according to His laws (the moral code expounded and lived by the Christ) and are content here if they merely have food and clothing 1 Timothy 6:8. Either way, once freed from being a slave to this world and the sin it is enslaved by, absolute "freedom" or "lawlessness" is not allowable or available to a created being, but rather is held out as a deception that the devil promises one in exchange for a soul's eternal destiny- Not a good trade, by the way. Anyone that says they don't have to conform their lives to the commandments given, and are "freed from the law" because Jesus lived righteously for them, are quite probably deceived, along with all those that don't or will not ever even be shown that obedience to Christ's example is what is necessary to please God (and that can only be done if one is given the opportunity, which is why it states "to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. Ephesians 2:10).
Are many deceived into believing they are free when they are not really? Yes, but they are not unwillingly deceived. To a certain extent, sinners choose what they want but not what is contrary to their nature and will; and what they want and love more than God is something in this world, and that is what keeps them bound to it and obeying it and separated from their Creator. Paraphrasing Schopenhauer, 'you may choose what you will, but you cannot choose that you have a will in the first place, or what it compels in you'. Many believe they are free when they are really still enslaved. When a world is destroyed, such are destroyed along with it.
According to the Hebraic creation account, Adam and Eve entered us all into this current incarnation of slavery, and the blindness of it, through their disobedience. We are enmeshed in it and blinded to it and by it, we lust for it and cannot see beyond it unless we be salvaged from it; and will remain slaves to it unless freed from the chains of it. However, were they ever really free? The choice then was still a matter of who they would be a slave to, a just and Loving God or an unjust and vicious natural world and its animal instincts.Were they able to make an informed choice, if they didn't really know what He meant when He said they would surely die from their disobedience? God only knows; the rest of us must deal in the level of possibilities and probabilities He grants us the understanding of, and then believe accordingly. But when you read that "through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous." it is convenient to automatically think 'oh good' I'm glad he was obedient, so now I'm saved without having to do anything'. But that would be a fatal error. Rather look at it as the narrow, steep, and way of great difficulty. Because, from a natural/carnal mindset it's easy enough to keep following Adam's example, and quite nearly impossible to give up one's life to living Christ's example. Only the elect will be allowed and given that ability. The rest of us stand as much chance as Adam and Eve. So trust that God is in control, and if given the will and ability to, imitate Jesus the Christ's example both in living and, if need be, in dying.
n*along with the promised destruction of this universe, there is the promise of a new heavens and earth. Those that are taken along are the ones headed for the perfected version of the fallen one we are currently in. Incidentally, this possibility has been explained by something called panentheism, a theory which posits that all space/time, and any intelligible universe that may come into and out of existence inside of space/time, exist within an eternal Being; a Being from/of which said space/time and inhabiting energy/matter is a tangible projection (the image which we are all creations in). It can work in conjunction with the scientific theory called the "big bounce" which allows for a cyclic universe, where the first cosmological event(big bang) was the result of the collapse(big crunch) of a previous universe (ad infinitum). This would mean that the universe is always being crunched and big-banged into existence, along with all that exist within it. "The Big Crunch is one of the theoretical scenarios for the ultimate fate of the universe, in which the metric expansion of space eventually reverses and the universe re-collapses, ultimately causing the cosmic scale factor to reach zero or causing a reformation of the universe starting with another Big Bang." This is just my uneducated guess, but the worlds to come may be many, if not infinite in number.
** another point to be made about T.U.L.I.P. is that while many misunderstandings crop up about OSAS one must still have the Spirit of Truth to discern what the reality of scripture is. There are a couple of verses that state one cannot have salvation forcibly taken from them, and that those in which salvation is completed cannot forcibly be taken from God's grace. There are a dozen or more stating that the offer of salvation can be neglected, abandoned, shipwrecked, turned away from, rejected, one can fall away from grace, or that one can be deceived out of it (Hebrews 2:3). Can salvation be lost? "He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit" so "do not become proud, but fear." "Otherwise you too will be cut off." and "If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned." John 15:6 Evidently so, but only by those not given the will, ability, and opportunity to see it to completion. Consider this, if one must be willing to leave, husbands, wives, children, properties, and even his or her "own" life for the sake of the kingdom, what does it take to get to heaven? Would many even choose to leave behind this world without a supernatural trust in something better waiting for them? Can anyone get there without being willing to give up everything else this world has to offer? The good news is that there is a way out of the scheduled destruction of the fallen world and into heaven, the bad news is that, for those that have filled up on and prefer the old wine, a person can't just hope and wish his or her way there.
