DR. A.E. WILDER-SMITH
HE WHO
THINKS
HE WHO
HAS TO
BELIEVE
HE WHO
THINKS
HAS TO
BELIEVE
( DR. A.E. WILDER-SMITH )
BETHANY HOUSE PUBLISHERS
MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA 55438
A Division of Bethany Fellowship, Inc.
He Who Thinks Has To Believe
Translated from the original German by Petra Wilder-Smith. .
© 1981 A. E. Wilder-Smith
Co-published by
Bethany House Publishers and
Creation Life Publishers
ISBN 0-87123-259-6
Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 81-65988
Cataloging in Publication Data
Wilder-Smith, A	E
He who thinks has to believe / by A. E. Wilder- Smith.
1. Reasoning. 2. Evolution. I. Title.
160
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Printed in the United States of America
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1		Thoughts and Beliefs of the
Neanderthalers	 7
New Neanderthal Find on the Island
of Papua	 7
What the Neanderthalers Learned	 10
How the Neanderthalers Bury Their Dead	 12
2		The Neanderthalers as Rational
Persons 	 15
A Further Big Surprise for
The Neanderthalers 	 15
The Neanderthalers' Beliefs	 17
Why the Neanderthalers Believe	 19
The Neanderthalers Become Acquainted With the Conserved Foods Industries ... 21
3		Neanderthalers Think Rationally 31
The Further Development of the
Neanderthaler's Argument	 31
Genetic Ideas	 33
The Inquisitive Neanderthaler	 37
Joy Among the Neanderthalers	 38
The Skeptical Young Neanderthaler	 41
The Paper Wrote the Book	 42
I. Prigogine and Archebiopoesis	 44
4		Creation or Chance? 	 47
A Creator—But of What Sort?	 47
The Four Pillars of Faith	 48
Personal or Impersonal?	 53
Philosophizing and Its Limitations	56
Contact Between Personalities	 57
Contact With the Creator?	 59
5		He Who Thinks Has to Believe	 67
Is Thought Worthwhile?	 67
Our Dog	 74
Reconciliation and Fellowship	 77
The Godman	 79
Man as God	 81
A Few Conclusions	 84
Chapter 1
New Neanderthal Find on the Island of Papua
A Neanderthaler, living in a small tribe isolated from present-day civilization in the forests of Papua, knew nothing of modern man and modern civilization. Our technological way of life with its radios, television, telephones, and automobiles was unknown to him. He did not even know what a machine was. He lived in a pure stone age culture. Yet his thoughts were by no means primitive, for his knowledge of botany and the healing powers of various plants was extensive. Thus although he knew nothing of airplanes, his knowledge of pharmacognosy—of the healing powers of plants—was far greater than ours. He was also quite well educated in certain aspects of art, for he had visited some of the caves higher up in the forests. There he had learned how Cromagnon man painted beautiful scenes on the walls of these dark caves. With simple colors he quite artistically portrayed animals and plants. He had also mastered the art of drawing on bones. He really loved all aspects of nature and knew how to treat its plants and animals. This small Neanderthal tribe lived together peacefully and happily in complete isolation.
One fine day our Neanderthaler leader saw something in the sky that terrified him. He had no idea what it could be and therefore was very frightened. We, in his place, would have recognized the sound of a low- flying jumbo jet, which was approaching him at great speed and low altitude. The machine left a long trail of black smoke in its wake which was preceded by a long dark red burst of flame. The jumbo jet was rapidly losing altitude despite its increasing speed and erratic flight course; it seemed to be aiming directly for him, so the Neanderthaler hastily fled into a nearby cave far below the earth's surface.
Shortly afterwards there was a terrible ear shattering noise close by: trees were flattened, metal and wood crashed to the ground. Then suddenly it was uncannily quiet. Only the faint hiss and crackle of a small forest fire could be heard. The Nean- derthaler waited for a few minutes, then very cautiously he crept forth from his hiding place and fearfully surveyed his surroundings. He perceived the burning remains of the huge machine that had crashed. As it crashed, the machine had exploded and razed many trees before coming to a halt. Its cargo lay scattered everywhere. Crates had been broken open by the impact of the crash. The wreck was surrounded by radios, television sets, telephones, and car engines. The half-burned remains of the crew were a hideous sight. The partly charred and terribly disfigured corpses were almost unrecognizable, although our Neanderthaler recognized them immediately as corpses of his own kind. They were, of course, the remains of modern men, homines sapientes sapi- entes.
With great caution he approached this terrible scene. Several small fires flickered feebly before dying out completely. Everything became very quiet—the corpses lay silent in all sorts of possible and impossible positions around the wreck. Obviously all the passengers were dead. Frightened and deeply shocked, our Neanderthaler surveyed the scene of this catastrophe. Naturally he felt helpless. What could a helpless, even though intelligent, Neanderthaler do in this situation? Being a sensible Neanderthaler, he first fetched his wife, who sent the children away and forbade them to follow her. Then Mr. and Mrs. Neanderthaler ran to the wreck with all its terrible secrets. Having respectfully examined it all, they fetched their children to the wreck. Having prepared them appropriately, they shared with them this mysterious, terrible incident.
The children, once they had recovered a little from the shock of seeing this catastrophe, began to examine the "Jumbo's" scattered cargo. Crates, some burst open, were scattered everywhere—typewriters (it was an export shipment), radios, TV's, and spare parts were to be found in vast amounts in the proximity of the wreck. The function of these machines puzzled the Neanderthal- ers. In a large, almost undamaged crate the children found a Japanese jeep, which was even in good working order. Inside the jeep lay all the necessary tools for the repair and maintenance of the vehicle. Just like our children, Neanderthal children were inquisitive, as well as quick. Once they had overcome their initial fears, the children's curiosity prevailed.
What the Neanderthalers Learned
Very quickly the Neanderthal children had discovered how to remove and replace the jeep's wheels. The functions of the various controls were also quickly established. To their great delight, they found that turning a certain key would start up the engine.
Pressing a certain pedal increased the engine speed—which could be decreased again by removing the foot from the pedal. On engaging a certain lever, simultaneously depressing another pedal, and then slowly releasing it, the jeep began to move so that it could be driven around. Their parents were initially a little frightened, but soon became braver once they had recognized the harmlessness of this machine. Soon the Neanderthal fathers and mothers with their children were riding around in the jeep. The parents also quickly learned how to drive. Once when the jeep would no longer start up, they discovered the meaning of gasoline as a fuel—gasoline cans lay scattered around the crashed jet. The exact function of gasoline as a fuel was also soon determined. After examining the cylinder head, the pistons, and the spark plugs, they discovered that gasoline is burned in the cylinder head, exerts pressure on the pistons, and forces them downward. This movement was then transmitted via the crank shaft and the gears to the wheels, so that the jeep finally moved due to the burned fuel.
Thus our Neanderthal children learned about car driving and mechanics very quickly, perhaps even quicker than the pigmy children in Central Africa who learned to drive a car within a few days, without even having seen a car or any other machine before. Thus we are not expecting too much of our Neanderthal children.
However, the Neanderthalers were not only good botanists and naturalists, they were also thinkers. They wondered about the origin of the airplane, the machines, and the people who had died in the plane. What was the meaning of all these machines? Where did they come from? It was obvious to them that the jeep was suited to transport on the ground and the airplane to transport in the air. The hieroglyphics on the typewriter keys and the numbers on the jeep's cylinder head posed a bit of a problem. They assumed that people similar to those who had flown in the machine and thus died were certainly involved in the design and the construction of the airplane and its freight.
How the Neanderthalers Bury Their Dead
While thinking these matters over, they were faced with a problem which needed a rapid solution: what should they do with the corpses of the air crew? Decomposition had already begun. If the crew had been Neanderthalers, they could easily have coped. They would have sent the corpses and various remains on their long journey into the other world with due and respectful preparations and a solemn religious funeral, for no Neanderthaler doubted that he was made by a Creator, and that after his death he would return to this Creator in his transcendent world. This philosophy of life and death seemed to them to be compellingly logical, for their train of thought ran like this: just as a stone knife requires a maker, so a human body, which is more improbable than a stone knife and therefore will not develop spontaneously, also requires a creator. It was also clear to them that this Creator of the body does not live within time and space. For this reason, he lives in a transcendent world to which we all return at death. This was their clear and transparent philosophy of life and death.
The Neanderthaler also knew that after death his body would return to the clay of the earth. For this reason, he logically assumed that his body was built from the clay of the earth, as stone from the earth is converted into stone knives. Stone knives were made out of stone by the skill of a Neanderthaler— hard stones do not spontaneously organize themselves into stone knives. For this reason it seemed logical that clay was incorporated into Neanderthalers and animal bodies by a skilled hand, for clay did not spontaneously organize itself to form people and animals, anymore than stones spontaneously formed knives. Therefore they reasoned that a skilled being must have worked the clay—like the stone.
It was the Neanderthaler's life-long desire to enter into direct communication with this skilled Being. He suspected that at death this confrontation with the clay-organizer would take place. His thoughts resulted from the simple, irrefutable observations that inorganic stones do not develop into stone knives without any external help—any more than inorganic clay could produce human, animal, and plant forms. His yearning for a meeting with his primeval clay-organizer was increased by the persistent rumor that in the dim past some Neanderthalers had seen Him and even spoken with Him. These meetings were spoken of with great respect and fascination, although our Neanderthalers had littler personal experience in this area.
Thus the big guestion for the Neanderthals was this: "Do these modern people, the victims of this airplane disaster, return to the same Creator as the Neanderthalers?" Could they be buried in the same way as Neanderthalers? After long consultations between the wise men of the tribe, the Neanderthalers buried the modern Homines sapientes sapi- entes just as they buried their own dead. Thus they were dispatched most honorably into the next world.
Chapter 2
A Further Big Surprise for the Neanderthalers
Just as the Neanderthalers were about to bring the funeral to an end, they heard a strange noise in the jungle below their settlement. It sounded like a group of people hacking their way through the dense jungle. Occasionally shots could be heard—a novel sound to the Neanderthalers. They hesitated a little, then continued to lay the disfigured corpses, flowers, and burnt offerings in the expressly prepared coffins. The hacking noise became louder and louder and just as the Neanderthalers were lowering the last coffin into the grave, a group of Homines sapientes sapientes reached the Neanderthal settlement.
Both groups—Neanderthalers and Homines sapientes sapientes—stared in surprise—the Neanderthalers in their festive fur clothes (for the funeral) and the modern men, sweaty and tattered after their grueling journey through the jungle. After the first embarrassed salutations—for they could hardly communicate as their languages differed quite significantly—the modern men inspected the crashed airplane, for they had been sent from afar to search for the wreck.
After the modern men had discovered that all the air crew were dead and that the Neanderthalers were about to bury them respectfully, they realized that they need not fear the “natives"—that they were “civilized." Although their dress looked "different," their behavior toward the dead proved their trustworthiness.
The Neanderthalers were somewhat more solidly built, their eyebrows bushier and more prominent, their muscles a little stronger than those of the modern men. They looked capable of throwing their spears well. Their heads, too, were a little larger than those of the modern men and their bodies stockier. But both their intelligence and mighty bodily strength were visible. Comparison is often difficult, but the Neanderthalers looked a little like the famous picture of Joseph, fettered in prison, discussing dreams with Pharaoh's baker and butler. The modern men (homines sapientes sapientes) looked more like Pharaoh's two servants,
who were conversing with Joseph.
The Neanderthalers showed great friendliness toward the new arrivals; they considered all men their friends until proven otherwise. The modern men were surprised by this friendliness, for they always acted on the customary modern principle that every man is an enemy until proven to be a friend: quite a different, but widespread approach among modern, "civilized" men! Now, how were the two groups to communicate, for they shared no common language? Luckily most "primitive" men are adept at dealing with communication problems. After the Neanderthalers had left the spoil from the airplane to the modern men (they were not particularly attached to such treasures and thought that the cargo rightfully belonged to the modern men, anyway), the new arrivals inquired into the purpose of the funeral ceremonies which they had observed. Why the rites, the flowers, and the offerings? Why did they respect the decaying dead?
The Neanderthaler's Beliefs
By means of sign language, the leading Neanderthaler told the modern men that nearly all Neanderthalers believed in a transcendent, but omnipresent, omnipotent Creator of man. The human body, like all animals or plants, was, after all, built from good clay, for once the body died it did revert to clay. Someone must, therefore, have shaped the clay into living human bodies, also into animals and plants, for clay could never organize itself into bodies any more than stone would spontaneously shape itself into a stone knife. The metallic airplane components— just like stone and clay—would certainly not have produced themselves to form an airplane, thus there must have been an external creator involved. Now if it is a fact that inorganic stone does not spontaneously convert itself into stone knives, and if one accepts that inorganic nonliving clay never spontaneously produces living bodies, then someone must have modeled man as he is, even modern man, too, from clay. This someone must have modeled the clay just like a Neanderthaler works on stones to produce stone knives. Stones do not spontaneously turn into stone knives.
The modern men whispered and looked amused during the Neanderthaler's discourse, which displeased the polite Neanderthaler. Finally the Neanderthaler asked what the problem was, to which the modern man replied that the Neanderthaler's statement was incorrect. For salt, when it crys- talizes out of water, quite spontaneously forms salt crystals. Water, when it freezes, quite spontaneously forms ice crystals. Snow falling from the sky consists of very beautiful spontaneous crystal forms. All the Neander- thalers immediately pointed out that salt crystals and snow were not alive. The modern men insisted that life is nothing but a complex crystal. Then the conversation came to a halt. Communication problems were still too extensive to permit any further useful discussion.
Why the Neanderthalers Believe
After several weeks had passed, the two groups of men began to communicate better. Less sign language was used; the Neanderthalers began to understand and also to speak the language of the Homines sapientes sapientes. The metaphysical unbelief of the latter very much disturbed the Neanderthalers, for together with the loss of their belief in the metaphysical, they had obviously also lost their faith in one another. The modem people showed no respect toward the dead and very little even for the living. This attitude very rapidly affected their sexual habits. For the modern men everything was free—including the attractive, intelligent Neanderthal girls. The Neanderthalers reacted very violently and sourly to the seduction of their girls by the modern men. They probably, correctly, attributed the loose morals of the modern people to their lack of respect for the metaphysical world.
One day, after both groups had begun to communicate quite well, the Neanderthal chief asked the leader of the modern men whether his unbelief toward the Creator was emotionally or rationally justified. Firmly the modern man replied that all philosophical and scientific convictions of most modern men were based on pure reason. Rationality is the key characteristic of modern man, he said, visibly taken aback by the Neander- thaler's question. But the latter continued thoughtfully and persistently to imply that the unbelief of the modern men had a purely emotional and totally irrational basis, for during their meals he had observed it to be a fact that the modern men's beliefs were based on emotions and not on rationality. Immediately the modern men took up the argument. They leaned forward to enable them to observe better around the camp fire what "revelations" the Neanderthalers were about to make, for in philosophical discussions the Neanderthalers were always highly original —their thoughts were often not only original but also most ingenious.
"Yes," continued the Neanderthaler, "in the course of our mutual socializing over the past weeks, we often sat peacefully and happily at the same table with you. We prepared for you our best dishes and likewise you also shared your best food with us. So at table our great friendship grew. Naturally we had to obtain our food fresh from the jungle. You, however, are far superior to us in some respects, for we ate from your cans and bottles. Your food, although not really fresh, tastes excellent, although we prefer truly fresh foods. Your food—sardines, ham, lentils, corn, pineapple, sausages—keeps for an unlimited time in your cans and bottles.
It seems miraculous to us, for once the boh tie or can has been opened, the food decays just as quickly as ours does. Furthermore, when they decay they become clay again, just as our own bodies revert to clay after death. You have told us that most modem people eat such foodstuffs which are often several years old, yet still taste quite fresh. Yes, you said that you modern people have been eating preserved food for more than one hundred years and that you have produced billions of such cans and bottles. Let us keep these facts in mind while we continue our line of argument. Is everything clear so far?"
The Neanderthalers Become Acquainted With the Conserved Foods Industries
“In our scientific discussions you have tried to convince us that our Neanderthal postulate on the need for a Creator to convert the earth's clay into our bodies and those of animals and plants is superfluous and purely emotional. You tell us modern men have proved that clay (matter) plus energy (the warmth from the sun) suffice to ensure that clay will spontaneously organize itself into life without the aid of any Creator outside of matter. For this reason, you say, the construction of a body from clay in no way proves a Creator, but only that solar energy has acted upon matter (clay). You have said in your language that an open physical system will and must eventually produce life, even people . . . and all this without a Creator, without metaphysics or additional intelligence, with neither plan nor teleonomy. Is that correct?"
"Yes," replied the modern men—obviously the Neanderthalers had absorbed well their lessons on evolution and biochemistry! “We are surprised that the Neanderthalers comprehend these issues so quickly and thoroughly. But what is the connection between all this and rational or emotional thoughts, and how is this connected with belief in a Creator?"
A few moments later, after some careful thought, our Neanderthaler continued to say that he could not bring the principle of bottled and canned food into agreement with the modern theories on the origin of life. The two just could not be brought to the same common denominator—sardine cans which keep almost indefinitely and the postulate of the spontaneous development of life within open physical systems.
The modern men gazed at each other with amazement, for they could not see any problems there. What was the connection? What were the Neanderthalers driving at? However, they knew the Neanderthalers well enough to expect real connections as seen by the wise Neanderthaler.
He continued, "You explained to us in our science lessons that, with time, energy plus matter (clay) spontaneously produces life, and that this life then spontaneously develops upward by mutation and natural selection, probably via a small diversion—namely us, the Neanderthalers—to form modern man. Is that so?" Somewhat ashamed by this gentle backhander, the modern men agreed. "Now," the Neanderthaler continued, "you yourselves claim to have manufactured billions of sardine cans and preserved meats. Probably you have done so constantly in large amounts over more than 100 years." "Yes," replied the modern men, "this is indeed so, but please could we hurry up and get to the point." Like any good Neanderthaler, however, their chief tended to think slowly, thoroughly, and very precisely.
Thoughtfully the Neanderthaler stroked his long golden beard and said, “Did it ever occur to you in those one hundred years, that the canned foods industry provides you with final proof that our postulated need for a Creator is justified and rational, and that it is the downfall of all your materialistic and atheistic theories in this area?" "No!" cried the modern men, who had congregated around the camp fire to listen more closely, "We do not know what you Neanderthalers are getting at. Hurry up, we want to know." "Yes, I know that," said the wise Neanderthaler, "but first you must get back to the basics and then draw your conclusions." Naturally, the modern men were not interested in moralizing of this sort. "Well," said the Neanderthaler, “your theories state that matter (clay) plus energy produces chemical evolution up to a primitive cell or a coacer- vate or microsphere, don't they? An open system, when it receives energy from an external source, will produce life spontaneously, with neither intelligence nor Creator to help . . . this is the irrational part of your postulate." The modern men had long since lost patience with the Neanderthaler and wanted to finally cut him off. But he raised his hand and said guite determinedly, “Every sardine can and every glass of conserved meat must be considered as an open system so far as its energetics are concerned. The can allows heat to enter and to escape again. The can's contents can be heated or cooled at will, can it not? Therefore the system is thermodynamically completely open. Bottled meat represents an even more open system—if that is possible—for both heat and also light can easily penetrate its walls. In their energetics, both cans and glasses are widely open, thermodynamic systems. Such systems are sealed against living spores. Thermodynamically and energetically they are open. It should not matter that they are closed to living spores, for according to your theories such spores should develop easily in any place where only matter and energy are present. Matter and energy are plentifully available in all cans and glasses. The simple shutting out of spores in cans should not be relevant from your viewpoint. According to you, only energy and matter are important, and these are plentiful in each can and every glass. For this reason all sorts of simple spores should have developed long ago, for you have repeated the experiment billions of times, and this under the most favorable experimental conditions for archebiopoesis. In experimental reality," added the Neanderthaler, "the shutting out of spores has proved far more important than the provision of energy. According to your theories the provision of energy should be the most important factor involved in archebiopoesis in a can; but this is obviously not the case.
"How often," inquired the wise Neanderthaler,"during one hundred years of producing billions of units of canned and preserved foods, have you observed that energy in an energetically open system—such as a sardine can—plus sardine corpses (ideal material for building bodies and cells—far more so than a hypothetical primeval soup) produces new forms of—even very primitive —life? Never, by your own words. Billions of sardine experiments have shown without a doubt that energy plus matter (sardines) have never produced life, not even under the most favorable conditions. This fact is so certain and so well proved that an entire industry—the canning industry—depends on it. If this fact were not so definite and life did after all develop in these cans from time to time, then your canned foods industry would be totally useless. Why, then, do you claim the opposite to be results of this experiment, just to support your materialistic theories and postulates? We say that matter plus energy plus know-how (from a Creator or from a programmed genetic code [spore) devised by a Creator) results in life. You, however, claim that matter plus energy alone gives life, and that we, therefore, require neither a Creator nor his program (spore) to conceive life. We have experimental evidence behind our faith and are therefore rational. You cannot produce a single experiment to confirm your materialistic claims! For this reason you are, as we have already repeatedly said, purely emotional, yes, even schizophrenic—i.e., separated from experimental reality—in your beliefs. How can you aspire to being experimental scientists, if you do not take the slightest notice of billions of experiments from your own industries? Experimental evidence, and therefore rationality, stand fully behind our Neanderthaler belief in a Creator. We are rational beings. You are stubborn and purely emotional and also schizophrenic in your materialism and atheism. This experiment also leaves you inexcusable, i.e. without any excuse—for your atheism and materialism.
"But let us not forget the other side of the picture. How often have you confirmed that life's spores plus matter and energy produce life (depending on the sort of spore)? Every time any of life's spores, i.e. programs, penetrate a sardine can, new life results, does it not? From this fact we Neanderthalers conclude that dead matter (clay or sardine corpses) plus energy plus life's programs produce life and that just these programs are not present in inorganic matter. Your theories require that at least occasionally in the course of billions of experiments life develop from clay (inorganic matter) and energy. Unfortunately for you and your theories this has never happened experimentally, despite billions of experiments."
The old Neanderthaler concluded his discourse with the following words: "Your unbelief in a Creator (atheism and materialism) is in no way linked to being educated in scientific experimental matters. All scientific proofs are available and all demonstrate that life only stems from life or life programs. All programs, however, finally originate from intelligent beings, without exception. Even if a computer can program itself, it initially required preprogramming by a human being to develop these programs. Now, as one or more persons are at the root of any program and as life consists of various genetic and other programs, we Neanderthalers believe in a Programmer or Creator who originally programmed us—and you, too.
"We also believe that a living Creator made us or our seed and our programs. To claim that a program programmed itself from
nothing is emotional, schizophrenic, and nonrational. We Neanderthalers have learned much from you modern men—e.g. how to program certain computers. But we have also learned that only living persons devise and create programs. If we can read and decipher and program, we know that we can think in the same manner as the programmer himself. As you modern men can read the program within our own genetics, we assume that we humans can to a minor extent think as our Creator thought originally in order to program us. Thus the programmed beings learn to understand the Programmer. We assume, therefore, that we are able to think a little as our Creator thinks. We are made in His image, therefore." The Neanderthaler closed with the impressive words:	''Did not one of your
thinkers say: 'We are the offspring of God!" Therefore we are the same species of God himself, although we are fallen Gods (Acts 17:28, 29)." The Neanderthalers had somehow discovered one of the modern men's Bibles and had read it with much zeal!
In the following partly heated conversation, the Neanderthalers showed quite clearly their conviction that the modern men suffered more from lack of will than from lack of ability to believe. A young Neanderthaler added that the modern men did not believe because they preferred to live without belief. "Your unbelief and your atheism have no ex- perimental/rational basis, they are purely emotion," said the Neanderthalers. "In reality they are nothing but a rebellion against your own rationale and common sense. For this reason your world is, as you have told us, filled with violent rebellion, war, murder, and destruction. You rebel against yourselves and your own rationale and, therefore, also against God, who created you, and against his entire creation. You must think again. Your Greeks had a word for this; they called it 'metanoia.' You urgently need to rethink, otherwise you will destroy yourselves—and us."
Thus ended their evening together. Silently each group went its own way.
Chapter 3
At first the modern men were very quiet and also a little stunned by the "uncivilized" Neanderthalers' arguments. But after a few days the two groups were on just as good terms again. One week later the modern men invited the Neanderthalers again to a joint meal to continue the previous conversation. All sorts of exotic dishes were presented—mostly in their conserved form, of course—for the modern men had brought all sorts of things with them.
Once the meal was over (even wine, Coca Cola, and fruit juices had been served), the modern men's spokesman said that the Nean- derthaler's line of argument was completely wrong. It must be wrong, otherwise all modern humanity would be mistaken, for modern men today can, with no trouble, develop new life from sardine proteins in a tin can, and this without adding life spores or God's assistance! A certain scientist by the name of Sol Spiegelman had taken apart an organism (virus) and had even crystallized the dead components (the program for primitive life can be crystallized); he then put them back together again under sterile (germ-free) conditions and finally incorporated them into a new host organism. No living spore was added, but Spiegelman's virus —constructed from dead components— lived, for it underwent replication. Thus, life occurs spontaneously after all, without adding living genetic information from dead preserved matter. "If this can be done once in the laboratory, it might also have happened at the beginning of all life! So you Nean- derthalers are upholding your argument with incorrect facts. The modern men's argument proves irrefutably the fact that no metaphysical God is needed to make life. Inorganic, dead chemistry is, after all, responsible for life."
At this moment the Neanderthalers appeared to be overcome by a violent fit. Even the chief Neanderthal spokesman did not seem momentarily capable of speech. Some immature modern men, having observed that this violent fit was affecting all the Neanderthalers simultaneously, decided that it must be a fit of laughter. Others attributed it to the effects of Coca Cola on the Neanderthalers who weren't used to it. In any case, the fit soon subsided and the conversation
could be continued.
The polite Neanderthaler apologized for their fit and began immediately. Their spokesman pointed out that according to the modern men's teachings it is the genetic information that produces life from the dead sardine proteins and introduces the genetic ideas into the code of the DNA molecule of its particular type (viruses, bacteria, frogs, birds, or mammals). These ideas, projects, and concepts are written on the DNA molecule in its genetic language. They are the chemical instructions required to produce life from dead proteins. "Is this not true?" The modern men agreed unanimously. "Genetics," continued the Neanderthaler, "contain the chemical instructions necessary to produce living molecules from dead ones. It could be said that genetics are a recipe book for the project of life, set in a language that we can even partly read today." The modern men confirmed the veracity of the Neander- thaler's statement.
Genetic Ideas
"Good," said the Neanderthaler, "then we need only take one more step to show that your modern arguments are unacceptable. Normally new life develops from the ideas which are written on zygotes in their genetic chemical language. Now your Sol Spiegel- man read and understood these genetically stored ideas and transformed them into chemical reactions. Normally the genetic ideas come directly from the genetic information into the dead proteins where they organize the proteins into life. Now Sol Spie- gelman injected the same genetic ideas directly into the dead chemical molecules, so that these same ideas brought the proteins to life. This proves what the Neanderthalers have always believed, that there is only one formula for life:
matter plus energy plus ideas = life
"It is all the same whether these ideas are stored in the chemistry of genetics or in Sol Spiegelman's head. The application of the ideas provides the same result—life. But without them, there is no life.
"Different ideas produce different types of life. But matter and energy without ideas give no life at all. Surely the sealed sardine cans prove this—the ideas of life (genetic projects, spores) do not penetrate into the sealed cans.
"But if ideas or concepts (logos) in the form of genetic information or the technical know-how of a Sol Spiegelman (again Logos /Telos) penetrate into our otherwise sealed sardine cans, they will 'explode' with life. The ideas can even be stored in genetic language on a crystallized virus as long as a host organism is somehow present providing metabolic energy. The matter of the sardine corpses is only 'waiting' for such concepts or ideas (logos, spirit, telos), and then it will burst into life. But without the ideas of logos or telos, not one single can of the billions produced in the entire history of the more than hundred-year-old conserved foods industry has awakened to any form of life. Provide logos, spirit, idea, or code—concept ('breath' or whatever) and life will spring from dead matter, just as described in Genesis. But without Ideas, Spirit, Breath, or Logos, life has never awakened in the entire history of mankind. Energy and matter never produce even a trace of life if 'Spirit' (Idea) is not added in some form.
"For this reason we Neanderthalers believe in a Logos—a Creator of life—who took matter and 'breathed' spirit, logos, ideas, instructions 'into' it. Depending on the logos —ideas imposed on matter—the various sorts were created. But ... no species without species-ideas! We," he said, "believe in a great, invisible Creator full of ideas or logos. Hence, He must be a person, for only persons have ideas which they then realize. We worship this personal Creator, who is full of ideas, as the source of all good ideas and projects. The fact that we have some ideas proves, does it not, that we were created in his image ( = the same idea-filled species as God himself). For this reason we believe that our faith in such a creator is fully rational, and that your belief is purely emotional. Because you only live emotionally, you live in rebellion against your own ratio and against your own rational Creator. You rebel against the experimental rational facts. For this reason, you can only 'believe' emotionally.
“Even your Greeks knew all that, for they called this Creator 'logos'—the source of all ideas and projects. Life is an idea, a project, a teleonomy executed in matter. You have turned life into a non-idea, a non-project, a non-teleonomy . . . into chance. For this reason you are in a conflict with the facts of nature and are therefore without peace, rebellious, schizophrenic, and frustrated in all that you do and are.
“To claim that non-idea ( = chance, stochastic molecular movements) is identical with idea, project, plan ( = non-chance) is simply schizophrenic—unrelated to reality. Thus you will destroy yourselves, as well as both our world and yours."
At the end of this discussion, the young Neanderthalers discussed various possible means of solving the modern men's frustration—how it could be that Homo sapiens think so irrationally in the most important matters of life, i.e. in his evaluation of the meaning of life, of its origin and its destiny, despite his technical superiority to the Neanderthalers. “They are technically advanced," said the Neanderthalers, “but philosophically and logically degenerate." This was the unanimous decision reached by the young Neanderthalers. But why were the modern men so irrational in their worldview? “Experimentally they are strong, but in the rational application of their experiments they are weak. Why?" Some considered the modern men to be the same species as the Neanderthalers, but representing somewhat degenerated Neanderthalers. Their heads, for example, were smaller. Hence it should follow that, together with the degeneration of brain volume, the skeleton and muscle strength of the modern men showed a simultaneous parallel degeneration. The capacity for logical thought was certainly degenerate, without, however, affecting his purely technical capabilities.
The Inquisitive Neanderthaler
Small groups of Neanderthalers sat around with small groups of homines sapien- tes sapientes and discussed further secrets of the human, animal, and plant body. The teenagers among the Neanderthalers very quickly and gladly learned the scientific secrets of the modern men. Additionally, they had time and leisure, which would not have been so easily possible under industrialized conditions. On the average, they only needed two or three hours a day to provide food and maintain their homes, then they were free.
The Neanderthalers were very impressed to discover that all the instructions and ideas required to construct a man (from clay) are present in a chemical language in every zygote from every human sperm and every human egg. They were very surprised to discover that the language of these instructions had already been partly deciphered. For example, the chemical instructions for building insulin are already known and can, when transferred into certain bacteria, be used so that the bacterium builds human insulin, although it does not require insulin for itself. As one half of all chemical instructions are from the mother and the other half from the father, the couple's children resemble their parents or their ancestors.
Joy Among the Neanderthalers
The Neanderthalers were most surprised to learn that on every fertilized egg (zygote) chemical instructions exist for building man and all his progeny from matter (clay). These instructions, a necessity for the construction of a man, would require an entire library containing 1,000 volumes of five hundred pages each, in the smallest print, if written in English on paper. Thus each male's sperm and each female's ovum functions like a miniaturized library filled with written chemical ideas . . . instructions to build men (or animals or plants) from clay. When the modern men showed them, on paper, how the genetic instructions looked, how they read and execute themselves (with the aid of ribosomes), how they multiply, and also correct themselves, the Neanderthalers were quite overcome with joy at the
Creator's grand ideas and his incredibly miniaturized technique. They whistled and sang improvised songs about their great Creator when they discovered his wisdom in gene replication. They were literally speechless, and then again filled with wonder at the chemical miracle of cell division. The Creator's all-surpassing intelligence and his overflowing chemical and teleonomic ideas in the various instructions for building various species from clay were the topic of their evening conversation for days, of their admiration and also of their songs.
The modern men remained totally cool and untouched at the Neanderthalers' manifestations of joy and admiration. They hardly said a word about these wonders or about their Neanderthal pupils' joy. For the modern men, the writing on the genes was no proof at all that these had either been written or developed by a Creator. For them, the laws of nature and properties of matter had written and designed everything. A Creator had nothing to do with it at all. They simply considered the Neanderthalers naive and emotional. As they attributed matter and its characteristics to purely stochastic factors, chance and the laws of nature alone were the final cause of the entire genetic code and its chemical projects. For them the entire genetic mechanism, as well as its contents, developed by chance (stochastically), for them the genetic language, with all its grammar, punctuation, correction mechanisms (necessary, should faults develop), its content of chemical ideas and projects (to build eyes, muscles, ears, livers, kidneys, hair, bones, connective tissue, hearts, lymphatics, etc.) also developed purely stochastically.
Chance was, of course, sorted out by natural selection, but natural selection itself created nothing; it only sorted out that which was supposedly provided by chance. For this reason belief in a constructive Creator of all these organs and the information and code involved therein was considered to be totally superfluous by the modern men. The nucleotides, deoxyribose, and the guanine, thymine, uracil, cytosine, and adenine molecules supposedly formed the DNA molecule (in helical form) under the influence of the laws of nature present in all matter. At the same time—or with time—the grammar and punctuation of the genetic language developed, guided by the same laws of nature. Chance and the laws of nature then provided plans for hearts, kidneys, brains (electronically-based computers with millions of switching mechanisms to provide intelligence and consciousness), for bones, neurons (nerves), and eyes. Also for nerve endings to equip the organism with taste and sensation, for a cerebellum to establish equilibrium, for tongues to speak, plus a computer to control the tongue and coordinate speech, for cells producing blood and lymph, hearts capable of pumping blood constantly over seventy years, while simultaneously undergoing repair processes, digestive systems, which at a slightly elevated temperature break down fats, carbohydrates, and proteins into their constituents, repair mechanisms to heal any wound—briefly, all the know-how that sets indescribably high requirements; all this developed by itself according to modern man, by chance and from the laws of nature.
The Skeptical Young Neanderthaler
The Neanderthalers sat very still while these accomplishments of chance (stochastic phenomena) and the laws of nature were being listed. Then a young Neanderthaler, who had remained silent so far because of his youth, arose. Timidly he inquired before the older Neanderthalers and modern men whether all these accomplishments of chance and the laws of nature would fit into the categories of projects or teleonomy. "Yes, this was certainly the case," said the modern men. "In that case," replied the young Neanderthaler, "your three laws of thermodynamics which determine all physics and chemistry must be in error, for surely the laws state that matter has neither project- content nor teleonomy? So are stochastic phenomena processes that organize or disorganize? If matter is agitated, will it build a machine? Can chance plan and project a machine or devise a meaningful language, for men, animals, and plants are all biological machines built by means of a programmed language? Can chance, collaborating with the non-teleonomic laws of nature, have built any teleonomic machine or program? If not, then your atheistic theories are nonsensical."
The Paper Wrote the Book
The modern men remained superciliously silent. After some time the Neanderthalers' old spokesman rose again to summarize. "Really," he said, "you postulate that matter plus stochastic phenomena wrote the genetic code with its linguistic and instructional content." The modern men replied stubbornly that this was so. "Good," said the Neanderthaler, "may I then speak more clearly?" They nodded. "In reality," he said, "you are asking us to believe that the paper on which the text of a book is written has developed not only the language in which the book is written, but also all its concepts, ideas, and thoughts. According to you, the paper wrote the entire book. Even its binding and chapter headings are due to the paper alone. However, we, the Neanderthalers, are not prepared to believe that the paper wrote the book, including its language, ideas, vocabulary, and chapter headings, of its own accord. We regard such a postulate as schizophrenic—if I may speak so plainly," he said, "far removed from reality, i.e. schizophrenic. If the modern men believe that paper, i.e. the matter, the clay from which we are built, wrote our genetic 'recipe book' (the genetic code), then your thought processes are emotional and not rational. We, the Neanderthalers, believe in an Author who wrote the book of life—just as any other book, without exception, was written by an author, and not the paper, tor life consists of various genetic books—a different genetic book for each kind of life. But as the genetic language, the genetic code, is identical in all forms of life (only the content varies, according to the sort of life), we believe in a single personal Author, who always employed the same language to store and realize all his ideas, projects, and life concepts. We regard our belief in a Creator as rational, as experimentally justifiable, far more rational than your rebellion against your own ratio (common sense), and against recognizing the author of the genetic book of life. You must revise your thoughts immediately or you will die of emotionally-conditioned schizophrenia, totally removed from reality.1 You are excellent technicians, but no thinkers." ‘c/P. Glansdorff, I. Prigogine, "Thermodynamic Theory of Structure, Stability, and Fluctuations," Wiley Interscience, John Wiley & Sons Ltd., London, New York, Sydney, & Toronto, reprinted 1978.
The young Neanderthalers unanimously confirmed this conviction. Some of the modern men thought these arguments through; a few even revised their opinions before they broke up to return to their world. Before they left, amid many demonstrations of affection and friendship, the Neanderthalers obtained their promise not to divulge their presence in the high altitude jungles of Papua to the rest of the world. Although the Neanderthalers had come to appreciate the modern cans and machines, they preferred living primitively in a rational world of belief to spending their days in the midst of material plenty, but schizophrenically in an emotional, rebellious world of unbelief.
Ilya Prigogine and Archebiopoesis
At this stage it must be added that in 1979 Prigogine won the Nobel prize tor his work on the spontaneous structuring ot systems in a state of noneguilibrium. This was used throughout the world by materialists (and also by Prigogine) to prove the possibility of spontaneous biogenesis from unstructured matter. In this manner the impossibility, according to the second law of thermodynamics, of spontaneous structuring upward to finally result in life, was thought to have been avoided.
This somewhat premature conclusion regarding the possibility of a spontaneous structuring of matter into life (biogenesis) reached by the materialists must be considered, keeping in mind that Prigogine only investigated systems well out of equilibrium. Such systems are, therefore, irreversible and have nothing in common with the organic-chemical systems of reactions which might possibly be involved in biogenesis. Such organic-chemical systems, which supposedly spontaneously provided the original building materials of life, are, of course, as every organic chemist knows, strictly reversible (apart from certain known "entropy holes"), so that Prigogine's otherwise so important work is totally irrelevant here.
Chapter 4
A Creator — But of What Sort?
Thought processes should lead to every conviction, i.e. to every belief—or also to every unbelief—unless emotions overshadow or eliminate those "thought processes." The convinced atheist—believing that there is no God—as well as the theist, who by means of deliberations and thought processes has come to the conclusion that a Creator does exist—each should reach his conviction by thought processes rather than by mere emotional sway.
It is impossible to force oneself to a belief in anything. If we try to force ourselves into any belief without thought processes, the result is a hysteria, which differs vastly from a true conviction or a genuine belief. If any sect were to reguire of its followers the "belief" that Jonah swallowed the whale, then they could certainly force themselves to do so purely emotionally, in order to "believe" such a dogma. However, the "belief" in this dogma would be purely emotionally based hysteria and would have little connection with any really rational conviction. Thus many people try to "believe" emotionally in the dogmas of a religion which are, however, often as nonsensical and irrational as the dogma that "Jonah swallowed the whale." It is just for this reason that many churches and congregations suffer from dangerous emotionalism and hysteria. Ratio —i.e., a good reason for rationally accepting a dogma—would lead to genuine conviction and thus also to a powerful faith, for man is rightly called Homo sapiens—he is not satisfied until convinced rationally. Only after a man is convinced and acts accordingly, is he justifiably flooded by emotions such as love, joy, and peace—alter satisfying his ratio. If however, he does not obey and use his ratio, he is overcome by negative emotions—hysteria, frustration, disappointment, and unhappiness.
Thus belief is a sort of rational conviction —a certain faith in rational, even though often invisible, hopes. However, it cannot be forced without thought processes. A rational basis for the conviction must exist— even if the basis of this conviction is the existence of an omnipotent, omniscient God.
The Four Pillars of Faith
Now which kind of conviction (belief, faith) regarding the existence of an almighty God can we hold rationally? Four different beliefs exist.
1.		There is no Creator God. Matter was and is eternal and therefore requires no Creator to make it and the life springing from it. This belief is called atheism.
2.		There is an almighty Creator, who may be personal or not, who created and maintains the world. This belief is called theism.
3.		There is an almighty Creator who in the beginning created the world and biology. He may be personal or not. But since the time he created and "wound up" everything, he no longer involves himself with his creation any more, he simply allows it all to "run down." This belief is called deism and is often linked with the "God is dead" theology.
4.		An almighty Creator exists, who is, however, identical with the cosmos and the matter of the universe. All men and all molecules of the universe are a part of this omnipresent Creator. The Hindus believe this. For this reason they think that they and all animals are parts and various aspects of God. This conviction is called pantheism. The God of the pantheists is usually taken impersonally.
In the previous chapters we have seen that it is difficult to defend the atheistic solution
of the God-dilemma truly rationally. The evidence for a Creator really proceeds from the evidence of the properties of matter, which is not creative. So how can creation be explained without a Creator if matter itself is not creative?
In considering this question it must be remembered that the properties of matter and energy must have been constant from the beginning; otherwise primitive carbon would not have been carbon in the modern sense of the word. Now if matter and energy today are not creative, then accordingly they were not creative in the beginning either, for their properties have by definition remained constant. Under these conditions we must ask ourselves why in the beginning life supposedly developed from matter and energy spontaneously, but today it does not. The only squarely rational reply to this question is, of course, that at biogenesis an environment different from that known to us today acted on primitive nature. But in principle, from the point of our time-space continuum, our material and environment has remained the same. Why did "spontaneous" biogenesis take place then, and not today?
We are compelled to suggest a different type of environment, an environment of ideas which in those days acted upon the matter (which in itself was "idea-less") and which no longer acts in nature today, for matter, then as now, is itself without ideas. For this reason it needs, now as it did then, to be acted upon by ideas in order to bring about biogenesis. Now we are on the right track, for the ideas of a biochemist do bring matter to life today—as they did in the beginning. Experimental evidence from the laboratory proves this fact over and over again. Providing matter with a "rational" environment, i.e. one of logos or telos, produces life today as it did in the beginning. Only thus can the fact be explained that matter with constant noncreative properties does and did carry, again and again, the concepts of life.
Logos—mind—acts on matter and energy now as it did then, to produce the ideas and concepts of life. At this stage of insight it is simply no longer possible to remain either an atheist or a materialist. The facts simply preclude both of these philosophies. So, at this stage, we will not enter into belief No. 1 (atheism) any further. But how are we to cope with the three other possibilities, theism, deism, and pantheism? How are we to form an opinion here?
Both deism and theism can presuppose a personal or an impersonal God. Pantheism normally reguires an impersonal God, for there God is nature and nature is God. If the term nature is taken only to include matter and energy, then obviously this God cannot be personal, for the universe of inorganic matter is obviously not "personal" in the usual sense of the word. Raw matter is neither intelligent nor does it possess consciousness, as far as we know; therefore it is impersonal.1
Once we have established that a Creator must exist, we must pose our second question:	Is the Creator personal or not? Of
course, we cannot imagine or conceive an omnipresent, eternal, or omnipotent Being —whether personal or not, for our thought apparatus is not capable of imagining anything unlimited or infinite. We can, e.g., only think aided by temporal limitations, one thought after the next, which we express by the term "time." If we speak of the term "eternity," our thought apparatus can no longer cope, for "eternity" thoroughly eliminates time—and thus a component of our thoughts.
Thus with even our best will we are incapable of sensibly contemplating the term eternity or an eternal God, for our sense (thought) is limited by time. For this reason, we do not wish to be so unreasonable as to attempt thoughts about an eternal, omnipotent God. We must abstain from attempts to enter into unlimited, eternal thoughts, for in this area we will produce no sense. It is just for this reason that so many religions attempting to deal with God, the eternal, contradict each other and make little sense. They must be ;cl A. E. Wilder-Smith: Der Mensch—ein Spre- chender Computer, Schulte-Gerth-Verlag, Asslar, Germany, BRD, 1979.
contradictory, for "God, the Eternal, the Almighty, the Unlimited" cannot be successfully dealt with by our thought apparatus. So we shall avoid thoughts and questions of this sort which only prove "indigestible" to our minds.
Personal or Impersonal?
The question of whether or not God is personal is more easily approached by our thought apparatus. Also the question of his intelligence can be investigated by us. Intelligence is often defined as the capacity to profit from past experience. Thus, intelligence requires a memory—so that the past can be taken into account. However, an eternal God cannot possess a memory, because for him there are no events in the past to consider. Everything is in the "eternal" present! But within our time-space continuum he can have profit from a memory, otherwise he would be less than his creation, less than we are, if he possessed no memory in our dimension. As the greater creates the lesser, God must be greater than man and therefore possess—seen from within time—a longer memory and greater intelligence than man.
But is something intelligent always and automatically a person? No, for a properly programmed computer can learn to play chess better than I can and thus it will eventually beat me. So according to our definition this machine is certainly intelligent. But is it therefore automatically a person? No, for the intelligent computer has no consciousness, i.e. no self recognition (Cogito, ergo sum).1 Higher animals can reflect on themselves to a small degree. Certain types of apes recognize themselves in the mirror and probably reflect on themselves. Even less intelligent animals such as cows practice a pecking order—one cow is the leader and allows no other cow to go first—and hence "reflects" on its position in the herd.
We practice self-reflection and are therefore persons. However, our personality has very little to do with our intelligence. Certain people, who are without doubt personalities, do not need to be very intelligent. Here again, we shall apply the same principles of thought to decide whether God is a person in this sense of the word: the greater made the lesser. If we are persons with selfreflection then accordingly God must be a greater person with greater self-reflection. By this principle he can hardly be less than a person—even a subperson—he can hardly be less than the people he created. For this reason we assume that God must be super- person. This leads to the thought that he not only reflects on himself; he will also reflect on us—our deeds, our behavior. People reflect on other people. He will also adapt his mode of action according to our deeds: intelligence reguires that he should "profit" from our mode of action, as he possesses a memory for us within time.
If God is a superintelligent, superpersonality (for his creatures, people, are after all intelligent personalities and for this reason the creator must surpass them in intelligence and personality), he will also be capable of expression—he will "speak," express his ideas and even put them into practice. Briefly, he must be a great logos (word)—just as man is a lesser logos. Thus our rational thought processes would lead us to the statement that God must be a personal logos, for if he is "only" an intelligent spirit, who neither speaks nor expresses himself, then he would be less than a person, then he would be impersonal or less than personal.
These thoughts result from the principle that the superior created the inferior. Man could perhaps synthesize a virus or a bacteria, for viruses and bacteria are incomparably less complex than man. But our Creator, who must be infinitely intelligent and a superpersonality to us, could never be created by us, for as a superpersonality he is far greater than men, who are mere personalities. The Bible, of course, teaches that the Creator is superintelligent. Additionally he possesses a superconsciousness, for he reflects on his superself (the three persons of the Trinity love each other—the Father loves the Son and has given everything into his hands [John 3:35] ). Also he is the logos and has developed ideas and projects which he expresses. As logos he wrote the ten commandments "with his own hand," as reported by Moses.
Philosophizing and Its Limitations
In this area, however, little progress is made by philosophizing. For this reason we shall leave this aspect of faith as it is. Let us now approach another very urgent guestion. Can man as man "sensibly" experience such a superbeing, if such a superpersonality really does exist? Surely an important pleasure in life is meeting with other personalities, "experiencing" them, and gaining from this experience. Surely we are all enriched most by meeting and experiencing again and again true personalities during our careers. I, personally, owe very many treasures of all sorts to contacts with other personalities. Now if a superintelligent, superperson who is my Creator does exist, and if I was created in his image (although much smaller, yet in his image in thought- structure), then I will profit and be enriched by any contact with him. Also if he created us in his image and I resemble him and he is like me as a person to a certain extent, then he will desire fellowship with others like us, for people are interested in one another—if they are normal people, otherwise they are sick.
Our next question must be: Can I establish contact with the superpersonality that is
my Creator? Surely it is clear that I as a limited human being cannot comprehend him, as he is unlimited, eternal, almighty, omniscient, and omnipotent, which must be strictly incomprehensible to me. So any contact on a "sensible" basis is simply impossible. Thus, there remains only one possibility for establishing sensible contact— the supercreator would have to come down to our "wavelength." He would have to become a man such as we are. The only way for an animal to really understand a man is for it to become a man. If I had been born as a calf, I would have no difficulty in understanding cow "language." If a man wishes to understand God's language there are only two means of overcoming the "speech barrier" between God and man:	(1) Man
becomes God, or (2) God becomes man. Only if (1) or (2) occur will God and man be on a common wavelength, and only then will they really be able to communicate.
Contact Between Personalities
We must still ask ourselves another basic question: How is contact with another person established in the first place? How does one "experience" another person? It is very important to find the correct reply to this question, otherwise misunderstandings will arise later on.
Who and what the personality of a human (or an animal) is, no one really knows. It is not simply the thought capacity of a man, for a computer thinks (thus it possesses thought capacity)—and even thinks much more rapidly than man—yet it (the computer) is no personality. A personality reads the perceptions of its computer-brain, but is not only a computer (brain) or thought capacity. A TV faithfully reproduces pictures of the distant reality without ever being aware of the image on its screen. It is the person outside the TV, sitting in front of the screen, who is aware of the picture. Neither the brain nor the TV perceive, this is done by the ego, the personality. It is the personality which lives outside the dimension of the electronic machine (the brain, the wiring) that is aware; just like the person sitting in front of the TV is experiencing perception while living in a different mechanical dimension from that of the TV itself. Man possesses an additional dimension to the TV—that of his personality, which perceives. The TV itself does not perceive, although it projects the image onto the screen.
Thus man's personality lives in a dimension of its own, in a world of perception. It does not live in the world of machines, which have no personality and therefore cannot perceive.
This fact has an important consequence: It is only possible to contact a personality indirectly via its "TV apparatus," i.e. via its five senses, through the wiring of the brain. The person himself is separated from the purely material world by an "event horizon." The material world is presented to the person under the guise of electronic pictures of reality. The person himself is "hidden," and materialistic science has not yet discovered the secret of personality . . . and will not discover it, either, for materialistic science does not believe in other dimensions, realities which are in principle inaccessible from time and matter. And it is in such a dimension, concealed from our present-day research, that human personality in God's image exists within its own dimensions.
Contact With the Creator?
Here we are brought back to our central guestion: How will the Creator meet us and we him? How is a dialogue established with him? How does he approach us? First we must realize that a dialogue reguires two personalities—the speaker and the listener. Both must speak and both must also listen. The major guestion concerning the Creator and us is and remains guite practical: How?
It is impossible to argue over or discuss certain things. As C. S. Lewis once said, it is impossible to philosophize (at least with any prospect of success) whether or not the oat is in the linen cupboard. The cat can neither be seen nor heard. It is just absent. There is only one means of discovering whether the cat is in the cupboard, i.e. go to the cupboard, open the door, and look in— and there she is, purring happily.
Similarly, there is only one method of experiencing a personality, for it (the personality) is, so to speak, sitting behind its event horizon in the "cupboard" in its other dimension. We miss it and seek it. No amount of philosophy will help here; one must "go" and search for it where it is—in the dimension of personality.
In a great crowd thousands of people are to be seen. It is possible to select one person or also a small group from the crowd and to attempt a dialogue with him or it. If a reply is forthcoming, the mutual experience has begun. If there is no reply, I can do nothing to bring about a dialogue. We are here, of course, referring to experiencing a personality by means of a dialogue. Now, is such an experience objective or subjective? This is an important point! For the experience of another person is, essentially, purely subjective and not objective. Thus, another personality is experienced via one's own personality, i.e. purely subjectively. It is, therefore, in the nature of a personal encounter, of a personal experience or of a dialogue with another personality, that it is subjective and not objective. Thus, also, is our experience of the superpersonality which we call the Creator. This experience and this encounter with him must, by its nature, be purely personal, subjective, and confined to the individual heart, soul, or personality. It is impossible to philosophize or argue about it objectively. Perhaps it may be possible to see objectively that a person has met and experienced a great personality, for such an encounter would not leave him unchanged. How much more would it be impossible for a subjective encounter with the superpersonality called our Creator to leave us unaffected!
Innumerable witnesses are alive today who obviously have come out of such an encounter as totally changed people. The Bible speaks of many such changed people and refers to such a powerful experience as being born again.
These facts cannot be denied simply because they are subjective or because such a rebirth has not been experienced personally. Of course, all such encounters are subjective, and not everyone does experience such an encounter. The very nature of such an encounter with another personality re- guires it to be subjective. Therefore, it must always remain the subjective secret of those who have made the encounter—although they can witness to such an encounter.
Why is it, then, that very many people seek such an encounter with their Creator— and do not find it? The reason is very simple if we ask ourselves a further simple question: What hinders most the mutual subjective experience of two personalities? How is it that husband and wife can totally miss experiencing or really encountering one another in the same house? Although they live together, their souls are lonely. Why do they not experience each other's personalities? Because the one personality has often made itself "impossible" with the other. If I am insulted, lied to, abused, or even ignored and left to myself by another person, I will, of course, consider this behavior "impossible." The opposite, of course, applies too! People behaving thus will never find each other and their respective personalities. People who unjustifiably write or speak evil of me (and if I become aware of this), will not experience me, unless they fulfill one condition—that the culprit, if he really values my acquaintance, comes to me to apologize. I must, of course, act likewise if I am at fault, otherwise I shall never personally experience and enjoy my partner either. The theologians of the past understood this fact much better than many of their colleagues do today, for in the past they taught that fellowship between two persons was harmed by infringing the laws governing personal relationships. Speaking plainly, sin between two persons (to use the old theological term) separates them. Until the infringement is removed between the people and they are thus reconciled, fellowship between the two will not be
reestablished.
These facts demonstrate that in the past the nature of our personality and the laws governing personal relationships were perhaps better understood than today, for today some think that by a forced "dialogue" between two estranged people, fellowship and mutual experience are possible, even without complete reconciliation. Only a thorough reconciliation brings two estranged persons together again. But without this, no true interpersonal fellowship or experience can be reestablished. As none of us are perfect, this thorough reconciliation has to happen again and again if interpersonal fellowship and real encounters are to be permanent and also to grow.
Could this not provide at least one explanation for the fact that many people never in their lifetime experience the superpersonality of their Creator? They are not reconciled with their Creator. Have you perhaps ignored your Creator up to now, have you never thought about him? Never taken the time to speak to him in your heart? Have we never seriously sought him in reconciliation? One can hardly experience a person by simply ignoring him, not even if this person is our Creator. Or could it be, that we have even denied or hated him, although he has obviously done so much for us? Or have we despised or denied his good commandments? Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not commit adultery. Thou shalt not bear false witness. Or let us consider the summary of all God's commandments: "Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets" (Matthew 7:12). Today, hardly anyone would deny that this summary of the law would solve all political, economical, and also most social problems of our poor world. Yet because we want to be "free" today from God's "infamous" ten commandments, the socialists of the world burden and molest us with innumerable other little parliamentary laws—simply because they want to rid themselves in practice of God's simple ten commandments.
If now God's ten commandments have been disobeyed by us personally, although God entrusted them to us with the best intentions, we will never be able to experience God's personality, for we have thus made ourselves "unacceptable" to him. We have ignored or despised his good commandments and are therefore not reconciled to him, for love of God or of anyone else always includes an initial resolution of enmity, of alienation through reconciliation.
Here we have the basis of all genuine fellowship with the Creator's personality—and with all other personalities. We know God's commandments, which serve to govern our relationship to him and to our fellow men. And no doubt we have ignored or disobeyed them. For this reason we have become "unacceptable" and therefore estranged to each
other.
How can we find the necessary reconciliation? By asking for forgiveness, if we are serious about this encounter, and this is certainly guite right. If, however, we have done something that needs to be forgiven, who will pay the price of this debt? The price (the fine) for our sin is high. The Bible teaches that the wages of sin (the price for breaking his good laws governing fellowship) is death, i.e. elimination of all mutual fellowship, which equals death.

Chapter 5
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Is Thought Worthwhile?
Over the centuries, many leading thinkers were also religious. They were, of course, not all Christians, but to a large extent they believed in God, i.e. they were theists. People like Voltaire, Marx, and Lenin, who provide the exception to this rule, have always existed. But the exception proves the rule. Thinkers such as Isaac Newton, Blaise Pascal, and Michael Faraday certainly represent the majority of the thinkers. The great thinker Paul is an eminent example of this conviction. Such men found confirmation of their belief in God, and in some cases of their Christianity, through their rational thought and experience.
Many thinkers of today hold the opinion that Albert Einstein was the greatest scientist of all time. His mathematical, logical thoughts on the origin and nature of the universe led him, too, to a firm, logical belief in the Creator. Above all, his scientific knowledge motivated him to seek to comprehend the method of creation used by the mysterious (to him), but rational, Creator—Einstein came to the conclusion that God did not create by chance, but rather that he worked according to planned, mathematical, teleo- nomic, and therefore—to him—rational guide lines. For Einstein and others, chance was an antipode, an antithesis to thought, which he therefore completely excluded as a means of creation by a thinking Creator. He attributed creative, logical thoughts, plans ( = teleonomy) to God and thus decisively rejected the modern fashion of attributing all that exists to chance and therefore to nonthought, nonteleonomy, and nonlogic. The presumption that a thinking, intelligent creator employed nonthought, i.e. chance, to create was therefore quite unacceptable to Einstein, for to accuse any intelligent person of nonthought in his work, would upset and insult him enormously.
It is, of course, clear that Einstein did not claim to be a Christian. His convictions in metaphysical matters reached only to a firm belief in a Creator, which motivated Einstein's research in mathematics and physics. Einstein desired to grasp the creative methods employed by God to make the world, for to him the greatest miracle in the universe was that we can at least in part comprehend it. We can have our own sensible, logical thoughts about creation. So these conform to the laws of human sense and thought. From this Einstein concluded that the universe (and therefore biology) must have its origin in understanding, thought, concept, mathematics, intelligence, and teleonomy, and not in randomness—chance plus the inanimate laws of nature. We can say with Einstein that our sense and our thought processes must have something in common with that creative sense and with that creative logic that made the world, for we are capable of at least partly comprehending and following his creative thoughts, even if this capacity is restricted. We are, in principle, capable of thinking "on the creative wavelength"—even if our thoughts will never guite comprehend his thoughts. We slowly begin to have presentiments from afar of the same formative and the same mathematical thought processes as those used by the Creator.
Einstein is, of course, not the only person who has to be mentioned here. Sr. James Jeans, the great physicist, Max Planck, the author of the Quantum theory, and Simpson, who discovered the soporific effect of chloroform in surgery . . . these were all great thinkers and scientists whose thoughts were influenced by an active belief in the Creator. Simpson was even a diligent evangelical Christian and evangelist. Now, why is it that these men, like many other scientists, were completely convinced believers in God, whereas other thinkers such as Voltaire, Marx, or Lenin came to the opposite conviction regarding a Creator? For some thinkers then, thoughts and science confirmed their theistic beliefs, while for the others the opposite was the case. Is then thought itself worth so little?
Today we still find exactly the same paradox among thinking people. For some people their thoughts seem to confirm their theistic belief, whereas others are led in the opposite direction by their thought processes. Does thought, then, lead astray? Is it in itself unreliable? If thought is an unreliable means of reaching a logical goal, then thought and philosophy should be given up completely! But then we should cease to be Homo sapiens, for we would thereby give up our very species—the species that thinks! In this case it would be better to live as an apathetic nonthinker, interested only in sensual pleasures such as eating and drinking, than to be an incorrect thinker, enthusing in thought processes which will only lead to the wrong goal anyway. Why can thinkers such as Horkheimer, Habermas, or Marcuse of the School of Frankfurt become decided atheists through their thoughts, while a physicist like Walter Heitler becomes a committed Christian through his thoughts? How is it that eminent scientists such as F.H.C.
Crick1 claim that biology is better understood by physics and chemistry than through the supernatural and metaphysics? Crick is convinced that the scientific thinker would sooner believe in chemistry and physics as the science of life than in "metaphysics." Why the "either chemistry or metaphysics" explanation of the origin and meaning of biology? Are these explanations contradictory, or do they supplement each other? Do they really exclude each other, as Crick and countless others seemingly assume?
Very many scientists today think just like Crick. They assume that the existence of an understood chemical or physical basis of life—of a known chemical cell metabolism— automatically excludes a metaphysical basis of life:	"As soon as we understand cell
chemistry, we know that a metaphysical explanation of life becomes superfluous." As this school of thought is taught avidly and dogmatically, indeed almost universally, in most schools and high schools, we must consider it more closely, for many honest thinking scientists are absolutely and unshake- ably convinced that the mere existence of proof for a chemical basis of life and of cell metabolism automatically and simultaneous- ■F.H.C. Crick, "Thinking About The Brain," p. 21, c/David H. Hubei, "The Brain," Scientific American, September, 1979, No. 3, pp.45-52.
ly totally excludes any metaphysical basis of life. Thus a thinker who knows the Krebs cycle or the Embden-Meyerhof pathway and realizes their significance in providing biology with energy, will, according to the above principle of thought, automatically put in question any metaphysical basis of life. According to the modern school of thought, this is the enlightened approach which is far superior to and more intelligent than the ideas of those thinking in metaphysical terms, who still believe in God as a real biological factor. At least many scientists, including myself, were brought up in this manner in our biochemistry laboratory.
A physical-chemical explanation of the basis of life thus supposedly destroys all metaphysical "superstition" within the realm of biology—this is the modern parole. Supposedly "science destroys religion." Is this so?
Crick and many others like him thought that the mere discovery of the fact that man and all biological beings are, materially seen, chemically based machines and mechanisms, simultaneously, authoritatively, and automatically discredited metaphysics as the basis of the origin and nature of man and biology. The assumption is quietly made, of course, that the time-space continuum represents the entire universal reality. It is for this reason, that, from a scientific viewpoint, no metaphysical reality can exist. If it does not exist, then, of course it simply cannot have provided the biological mechanisms for man or for biology. Therefore, once man's chemical and physical basis and the mechanisms involved have been discovered, there is nothing more left to discover about man.
So how did Crick reach the conviction that every newly understood metabolic pathway progressively excludes a metaphysical origin of life? This opinion rules almost the entire thinking scientific world today, although it is obviously irrational. In order to prevent any misunderstanding, we shall repeat Crick's belief once more: Each newly understood chemical metabolic pathway renders any metaphysical origin of life even more unlikely than it was before this discovery.
What exactly does this conviction express? In reality, just that every new piece of understanding concerning the mode of action of any machine will render more unlikely the creation and conception of this machine by an engineer outside the machine. Thus, the greater our understanding of any machine mechanisms, the less likely it becomes that the machine was designed and built by an engineer outside the machine! The more we understand how the machine functions, the more certain it becomes that no engineer, but the machine itself (made of matter), built the machine! In other words, the better we understand the mechanism and functions of a cylinderhead, the more certain it becomes that the iron of the cylinderhead (or light metal) designed and constructed the head! The better we understand a radio, the more certain does it become that the wires built the apparatus itself!
Crick's statement is obviously slightly irrational! Those scientists who believe similarly must also be irrational! Perhaps the Neanderthalers were right after all in their evaluation of modern man—that he is emotional and not rational. In reality, of course, says Crick, the greater the complexity of the machine and its functions, the more certain it is that nonteleonomic matter built them without design from outside! This constitutes modern logical ability?!
Our Dog
When we were still children on the farm in England, we had a faithful guard, a sheepdog, who loved us children very much. Nothing could ever have happened to us in the dog's presence, for she always looked after us and our parents faithfully. One day when my father was suddenly attacked in the open field by a furious Wessex saddleback sow whose young had temporarily been taken away for veterinary reasons, the dog, at great risk to her own safety, of course, reacted immediately and bit firmly into the raging animal's hock and held on with all her strength until my father and we children could run to safety. I have never forgotten that—the great loyalty, intelligence, and immediate understanding of our sheepdog, Folly. The same sort of thing sometimes happened to us with the geese, who often became angry, especially when with their young ones, and then attacked us. The dog always defended us adroitly.
Folly was a bitch, and once when she had her own pups, we unwittingly went into her kennel and took the newly born puppies into our hands. Normally a bitch would have bitten us immediately, for no one is ever allowed to touch the puppies. But she only begged us with her eyes and with whimpers to give her the puppies back. I can still see her glowing eyes today. My parents were very angry with us when they discovered what we had done in our ignorance.
Now, our dog Folly had one great weakness. She loved to lie on Mother's couch in the living room. But at certain times of the year she always shed her coat, which was not exactly good for the lovely couch. So she was banned from the couch, which she understood very well. She then avoided the couch, at least she did so in Mother's presence. One evening the entire family was out. Folly was locked into the kitchen so that she could not be tempted to misuse Mother's couch. Yet there was one way by which she could still procure a pleasant evening on the couch:	Folly knew how to open certain
doors. A small back staircase connected the kitchen with the hall and the living room via a large main oak staircase. Obviously, the following happened: hardly had we left, when Folly opened a kitchen door, trotted up the back staircase, then down the large front main staircase and then walked through the living room over to the couch, where she made herself wonderfully comfortable.
Now when we came home in the Bentley late that evening, our dog heard us from afar —the exhaust on those cars could hardly be missed! Obviously, she must quickly have trotted up the front staircase and down the back stairs into the kitchen, where she was waiting to greet us, as usual. Normally she was overjoyed at our arrival. But this time she was clearly miserable; she tried to “grin" (she could do that very well indeed), but without success. Her tail was between her legs and she slunk around us all—she wanted to rejoice, for she loved us, but she simply could not.
My father noticed this immediately and asked her what she had done now—one could “talk" to the dog very well. With every word Folly's misery visibly increased and now she even began to whimper. Mother understood quicker than Father. She had stolen nothing. So she took Folly straight to the couch, which, of course, was covered with hair. My mother scolded her properly and gave her a few hard slaps. Folly then lay down on her back, thus of course exposing all the soft parts of her abdomen. In this manner dogs demonstrate their capitulation. From then on the opponent can do whatever he likes with the one who capitulates thus. The victor, if he is a dog, could, of course, immediately tear out a dog's bowels in this position. Thus this position demonstrates total capitulation.
My father, who understood dogs well, then gave the dog some signs of affection and forgiveness (stroking her and talking to her kindly). She stood up, licked his hands and those of my mother (hands that had punished her) and went humbly, but confidently to her food in the kitchen. Fellowship with the family had been reestablished by capitulation, followed by reconciliation.
Reconciliation and Fellowship
If a Creator does exist (a fact which any nonprejudiced, thinking person must surely admit), who is superintelligent, omniscient, omnipresent, and superpersonal, it is only to be expected that he would be interested in his creation in the form of people. As both— Creator and created—are persons, both sides will be capable of cultivating personal fellowship. However, they will only find such fellowship within the laws governing interpersonal behavior. If sin (infringement of these laws) of any sort exists between the two parties, it will have to be removed by capitulation and reconciliation before fellowship can be really enjoyed.
The above principles provide us with a reply to the problem of a subjective experience of God's personality, which some experience and others do not. Everyone can experience his personality on the basis of capitulation and reconciliation, for Christ became man and died to make this reconciliation available to all people. Naturally, only those people who recognize their need to be reconciled will experience this reconciliation, for it was not necessary to die for the self- righteous, to reconcile them!
Christ's forgiveness reestablishes the interpersonal contact between God and man through reconciliation. But it is only with personal reconciliation and forgiveness that one begins to establish fellowship with God and to enjoy him. Only then does one begin to enjoy his beauty, character, and perfection. It is, perhaps, justified to say that all tensions and estrangements in Christian and other circles develop because people do not know this joy or because they no longer actively cultivate it. Even in God's material creation we can feel something of this overflowing creative joy. The sheer beauty of the tulip, of Daphnia in March, of lilac in May, and of asters in autumn all testify to this joy. The leaping calves and laughing young people that we see everywhere testify of the same great joy of the Creator. Even the shadows of death yield to the glory of the resurrection.
But how can mortal men experience fellowship with such an eternal, joyous, resurrecting Creator? The difference between him and us is too great; we cannot establish direct fellowship with him. Our "wavelength" is too different from his "wavelength." God lives in a dimension which is sealed off from our dimension of time and matter by an event horizon. The "species difference" between God and humans is so great that it cannot be bridged directly. In addition, we are, as sinners, "unacceptable" to God, which would exclude real fellowship even if we could approach him.
The Godman
When Christ became man he revealed God's nature and character in human form. This is a tremendous fact. God, the eternal Creator, is from now on "on the same wavelength" as humans. God became a real biological man, of the same biological species, just like we are. To this is added another and even greater fact: since Christ never gave up his adopted humanity, a true man has remained God. "Whosoever has seen me [the man] has seen the Father [God]," said Jesus Christ (John 14:9). "I and the Father are one" (John 10:30). These words show that Christ is the second person of the Trinity and that he was God before he became man and remained God even as a man.
Now we are in a position to understand a little better God's person, his ways with us, his thoughts and his plans, for since the resurrection of Christ, a man, Christ, the Godman is ruling God's throne. The rule of the heavenly kingdom lies in the hands of a man, who loves men so much that he died for them and rose again from the dead. The man to whom was given all power in heaven and on earth speaks as we do, thinks as we do, rejoices as we do, knows the troubles of life and death as we do, for he died as we do, and rose from the dead as we all shall. At last, complete communication, complete fellowship between man and God and God and man is possible. Two types of personalities—man and Godman—are indeed reconciled.
Thus God's plan for us become plain. He wants to make renewed beings out of us, so that we can not only regain our original purpose at creation, but so that we even surpass it. It will be far more glorious with us than with Adam in paradise. Christ's character led to his crucifixion—but with the crucifixion it led also to the greatest conceivable glorification of God. Thus was an entire world saved to a new kind of life, for men will make Christ's attitude their goal, resulting in an almost equally great glory. God's image, but even better than in the beginning in Adam's paradise, is God's purpose for us. For this reason we also have to go through the shadow of death here on earth just like
Christ did. But we must never lose the goal from our sight, for in both cases the goal is paradise with God himself, who created us for this eternal purpose.
Man as God
Any scientifically-thinking person will immediately ask whether God really did historically become man in Christ . . . whether the entire story was not an invention of the disciples, later on. We can best resolve these doubts by asking ourselves what we ourselves would expect of a man who in his inner self was and is God, the Creator? If we formulate such a guestion, we find that the entire biblical report on Christ appears to be genuine on all counts, and also that it is uniform. Seldom does a forged "report" agree in all details like the report on Christ. Just try to present some thought-up story to any experienced judge! The judge will nearly always discover contradictions if the story really is a fake. But Christ's entire historical testimony fits together perfectly. The internal uniformity of the report does ring true. Let us examine the following reports for their veracity:
Before Christ died, he clearly told his disciples and the world that he was going to Jerusalem to die there for the propitiation of all men's sins. However, he added clearly that after three days he would rise again from the dead. What normal mortal man would dare to make two such predictions?
The Pharisees reported this prediction that he would rise after three days to Pilate, for the words of Christ were well known everywhere. What would happen to the Pharisees if these prophecies really were fulfilled? For this reason, the Pharisees requested guards for the grave, to prevent any theft of the corpse (Matt. 27:6). The officer on crucifixion duty and who saw Christ die, spontaneously testified that the man who was crucified was truly the Son of God (Matt. 27:54). Over five hundred people saw Christ after his crucifixion and his death (I Cor. 15:6). Some of them talked with him about biblical and other subjects, and even ate with him. These people could easily have contradicted the Apostle Paul's report, for at that time many of them were still living. No normal person who had thus been crucified and martyred could have recovered as well after three days as Christ did.
Lazarus' resurrection, four days after his public burial, took place quite openly. Even Christ's enemies, the Pharisees, could not deny the truth of this resurrection testimony, it was much too well known. This even provided an excellent testimony that Christ was the Son of God, which the Pharisees simply could not deny. For this reason, they tried to undo Christ's deed by plotting to kill Lazarus, for many people believed on the Son of God as a logical consequence of Lazarus' resurrection.
The feeding of the five thousand and of the four thousand continued in another way the same testimony to Christ's deity. Either these testimonies are true, or they are not true. The evidence for their truth is, however, so strong that even the Pharisees were prepared to take to murder to erase it. It was so strong, that there was a great gathering of the people, so that Christ did not even have time to eat (Mark 6:31).
Could any different behavior from that of Christ be expected if God really became man? If God truly became man, then surely we would expect him to become a man like Christ became. Would we expect him to become an abnormal man like many of our present kings, ministers, presidents, or dictators? If God as man had appeared in pomp, then many people would quite rightly doubt whether God really did become a real man. The life story of Christ in the Gospels and also in Isaiah corresponds with what we would expect of a human being who really is God, the Highest. One only has to read carefully through the Gospel of John to become convinced by the evidence of the Lord Jesus Christ's superiority in character. The internal evidence for the truth of John's testimony shines clearly through every sentence of this unique account.
A Few Conclusions
Two types of evidence or report exist which give us information about the Creator's nature: (1) the evidence provided by creation itself, which is well known to all thinking, observant people, irrespective of whether or not they possess the Holy Scriptures, Our Neanderthalers have shown us what conclusions honest, thinking people can reach, even though they do not own a Bible. (2) The evidence provided by the Holy Scriptures. In the Bible, Paul writes much about the revelation of God. God reveals himself through his Word. Paul also mentions that the Bible recognizes evidence of type (1), i.e. the witness of nature (Romans 1).
Man may use both types of evidence, that of nature and of revelation, to reach firm conclusions about the nature of God and the purpose of human existence. But can he rely on his thought processes in these considerations? Is his brain a reliable instrument in this search for God and for the meaning behind human existence? The answer is, alas —as so often—both yes and no! Paul the Apostle often challenges us to reflect, i.e. to think. He demanded concentrated attention from his audience, i.e. careful thought when he spoke of the Messiah (Acts 28:26, 27). Thus he reckons that the thought processes
must be intrinsically reliable. On the other hand the same Apostle warned specifically against the unreliability of certain types of human thought:	“But the natural man re-
ceiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned" (I Cor. 2:14).
So here we have an apparently paradoxical situation. On the one hand, Paul admonishes men and challenges them to think sensibly with him. Thus, he behaves as if men really can safely think. On the other hand he firmly states that certain people cannot recognize certain things, i.e., they cannot think them out. In the areas in which they cannot think, they no longer possess any capacity to comprehend, they cannot understand. What is the solution to this contradiction?
As so often is the case with problems such as these, deeper knowledge lies under the surface of the difficulties. In several places in the Bible, Paul teaches that human knowledge, human capacity for thought and human receptive ability are not static, but dynamic factors. In principle, most people are capable of thinking problems through, aided by their ratio, until they reach a conclusion. This capacity is like computer capacity and depends on the brain's wiring.
If, however, a person with his thinking apparatus comes to a conclusion which requires action, then he has two alternatives.
Either he can obey the intelligent decision which he reached by valid thought processes, or he can refuse to obey it, for an intellectual decision does not, of course, of itself alter or determine a person's way of life. What a person does with the intellectual decision, how he handles it and acts upon it, that is quite a different matter. The two processes together, the thinking and the obeying of thought decisions, these intellectual decisions and actions condition a person's conscience and therefore character. The conscience needs intellectual enlightenment by the thought processes. But if a person obeys the demands of his conscience which has been enlightened by intelligent thought, he becomes filled with joy and his thought processes can further enlighten his conscience regarding other problems. If, however, he does not obey the demands of his conscience, then (1) his conscience is injured, scarred, and hardened. Thus the basis of his inner "voice" will be lost. But a second process occurs simultaneously with the hardening of his conscience; (2) the reasoning processes, the ratio, the thought processes which led to the enlightenment of his conscience, become darkened. The person suffering from a hardened conscience will no more be able to discern. He will be able to develop less ratio in that area. His thought processes become dulled, together with his conscience. Thus conscience and the thought processes which condition knowledge (and conscience) are dynamic and not static factors.
It is important to realize that not only the Bible teaches this dynamic view of the thought processes and of the conscience. Our daily experience in life has taught us just the same, for if a criminal commits his first murder, his conscience and also his ratio (reasoning power) suffer extensively. But after he has killed another twenty victims, his conscience is hardened. Many such people even then begin to "justify" their murders with their thought processes! The murders serve "the cause of freedom," "of revolution," or even of "human good!" In their inner selves they know very well that violence and murder solve no problems. But in order to silence the accusations of their conscience, they begin to "rationalize" and to justify their misdeeds. Thus their conscience becomes dulled and their capacity for cool and rational thought slowly or quickly is lost.
The human capacity for conviction and thought persuasion thus depends on a delicate sensitive mechanism, which can easily be damaged by misuse. Examples of such abuse are not difficult to find. Under Hitler certain SS men killed their prisoners "like flies." They had ditches dug, then lined up the prisoners, who had dug the ditches, in front of the holes. Thereupon they mowed the prisoners down with machine guns so that they buried themselves. Some commanders enjoyed this spectacle so much that they even had it accompanied by orchestras of prisoners playing Wagner's music! The pleasure obtained by the commanders from these proceedings grew with practice. At first they found these murders revolting. With time they eventually dulled their conscience by misuse and the terror of their deeds caused them less trouble. Finally they enjoyed their "rationalized" misdeeds. These horrors were even rationalized under the heading of "loyalty to the Fatherland." The functions of the ratio (mind) and the conscience are not static, but dynamic!
When a young biology student hears for the first time from his professor that life and the entire cell originate from stochastic chemical reactions and not from any extra- material planning or concept, he is usually intellectually shocked and even horrified. He thinks of the structure of the eye, the liver, the bee orchid, or of a virus. His ratio (mind) rebels against being taught that structure, concepts, machines, language, code, information, and projects originate from stochastic (random) phenomena. He knows that this contradicts experimental experience. Never did any machine develop spontaneously from any inorganic matter. He comes to this conclusion simply because so much speaks for the planning of all biological and other machines by a creator. This thought process now registers with his conscience. He must therefore act and own up to the fact that he cannot and indeed will not believe this biological chance, Darwinian nonsense. Yet, at the same time he knows that he must pass his exams. His professor is likely to fail him if there is any suspicion that the student does not conform to evolutionary theory. So the student under pressure denies the insight of his thought processes and rational mind, thus injuring his conscience. He joins in the chorus with everyone else, intoning that stochastic phenomena created the supermachine we call the biological cell. Thus he claims that the greatest reduction of entropy and indeed the most sublime order or machine ever seen by the world, namely man and the human brain, developed with no plan and with no concept of any sort. By this means he denies not only his own rationality and common sense, but at the same time his Creator too, by willingly believing nonsense. In this manner the mass “hysteria" we mentioned previously develops. Finally he is no longer able to recognize the fact that this position represents an unconscionable misuse of the function of the thought processes lent him by his Creator for use and not for abuse. Conscience and the ability to reason have thus both been injured by doing despite to reason in the interest of conformity and personal advancement.
Soon it becomes impossible to converse with him seriously on the subject without causing anger. He can no longer talk in an unprejudiced manner in this whole area of thought . . . without emotions being unpleasantly aroused. Those who disagree with him and do insist on reasoning will be eliminated by denigration. Soon he may ask with Pilate: "What is truth?" (John 18:38), even though the truth is looking right into his brain. By lack of courage or weakness of the will there was insufficient determination to follow the demands of plain rational thought processes, insight, and common sense which results in damaging both the conscience and the thought processes. Even the Apostle Paul said that men were "without [rational] excuse'' if they denied the testimony of their Creator in the testimony of all nature (Rom. 1). Functional damage of this type both in the conscience and in the thought processes is surely manifest in many of the symptoms shown by modern society. How much of this may be due to evolutionary teaching in modern schools and universities?
Let us risk summarizing some of these thoughts with a simple allegory. The human brain can be compared with a coffee mill. Given good coffee beans, it produces good, refreshing, stimulating coffee. But if small round pebbles, instead of coffee beans, are fed into the mill, the mill will be damaged and at the same time produce no coffee at all. The human brain is the coffee mill, which gladly grinds facts, theses, dissertations, and ideas like coffee beans. The "coffee" (conclusions, understanding, theses) thus produced refreshes us. If, however, a man feeds his "coffee mill" (brain) with impossible "facts," theses, dissertations, and ideas, with "artifacts" (i.e., with "stones") and pseudoscience, the brain (his "coffee mill") will be functionally damaged —and that man does not receive the "coffee" (understanding) that he requires ... he is deprived of coherent, sensible theses on the meaning of life and the purpose of our human existence, becoming thereby frustrated.
In order to regain our lost purpose in life and to dispel the modern frustrations of "meaningless" life, we urgently need the courage of our convictions to obey the religious, scientific, and philosophical conclusions reached by our reasonable thought. A Creator does exist! We must openly stand by this fact. And this Creator purchased our redemption and reconciliation with himself through Christ's death and resurrection. If we openly stand by this fact, our conscience and also our understanding will both flourish. As a result we will experience him in our hearts in the Christian rebirth. Thus the long-yearned-for fellowship between man and his God will be reestablished, and thus do we begin to regain by stages Paradise lost.

HE WHO
THINKS
HAS TO
BELIEVE
Dr. Wilder-Smith, one of the outstanding scientists of Europe, imagines a small, isolated tribe of Neanderthalers existing in a remote region of Papua, totally ignorant of modern technology. A meeting of modern man and the primitives occurs when a giant jet crashes in Neanderthal territory. Though the crew of the plane is killed, the expedition of rescuers sent to the crash site gets acquainted with this pre-civilization group, and a lengthy, fascinating dialogue develops. Many evidences for the existence of a Creator are drawn from this remarkable allegory.
BETHANY HOUSE PUBLISHERS
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