The Poison Root

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The Poison Root by Wayne Searfoss •Box 638, Alamo, Texas 78516 • Apdo. 60.151 Caracas 1060-A, Venezuela The Introduction of Greek Philosophy into Christianity Chapter 1 How Christians have been misled into breaking the first commandment "Thou shalt have no other gods before me."

Jesus said, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind." This commandment is broken because Satan has subtlety slipped another god into our mind to make us offend the first and great commandment. For instance when someone dies, we say that the death was the will of God. According to the scriptures this is not true in many cases. In the first place we understand that the will of God was for men to serve him and never know death but that now it is the last enemy to be put under his feet. (Warning, the teaching that we can reach a level of perfection and need not die is another new wave of false doctrine.) In the second place we know that according to plain texts in the Bible the circumstances of death is relate to many factors. That, all have sinned and all must die, does not mean that the time, age or manner of the death of anyone is necessarily the will of God, God will never be found to be arbitrary or unjust in any of his kingdom from its inception and for all eternity for he is Holy, Holy, Holy. Some, who are wicked, must die younger as they are cut off in their sins. They could have lived longer if they had not committed them. He that hardeneth his neck shall suddenly be destroyed, he that surrenders to God will not be. Those who dwell in the secret place of the most High of Psalm 91 are promised "with long life will I satisfy him." Some "choose not to accept deliverance that they might obtain a better resurrection" such as Stephen. Some choose to commit suicide, some are victims of accidents by disease or actions of the sinful society. To blame God for many of these circumstances surely to makes it impossible to love him with all of our hearts yet it is common to do so, because we have in our minds, another god alongside the true God. The mysterious pagan god of destiny. Upon close study of the situation of the church today and the foundation upon which it is based it will be discovered that the God of Aristotle, defined as the unmoved-mover, is taken along side the only true God, Jehovah and in so doing we have disobeyed the first and the greatest of the commandments. This has brought us under the wrath of God. Investigating the root of Greek Philosophy brought to us by by Augustine and Thomas Aquino and many others, we find that we have two systems confusing the minds of many Christians. One system the acceptance of the god of destiny that says that all is predetermined and nothing can change as it was predestined from all eternity. What is the use of prayer? It is said that resignation to the will of God is required as true worship but it is a great wickedness to practice this worship. The other system says, that what a man sows that shall he also reap, and according as we walk in faith, seeking, finding and obeying as a faithful

co-laborer with God, and as we act upon his promises we shall be rewarded. The latter is the God of the Bible; the former is another god of Greek paganism, the god of destiny. Defaming God? Is not God defamed by the concept that he is responsible for everything that happens? This insensitivity to the plain declaration of the Bible and experience that he is Holy,Holy, Holy. All that happens is not to be construed, as it is in the doctrine of Absolute Predestination, as the responsibility of God. This doctrine immediatly raises questions about the purity of motive of God, just as it did with Eve. Is God playing games with us? Was Jesus really tempted? Can just anyone be saved? Was Jerusalem foreordained to reject Jesus? Did Jesus not know? Was his weeping over Jerusalem only an act as he knew the results before the foundation of the world? In 1 Cor. 15:24-25, 28. we read, "Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power. For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet. …and when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all." This plainly teaches that God is not responsible for all that happens now. There is a rebellion going on and He is working through it, with holiness, justice and mercy. Everything is not in subjection and not predestined. On the contrary our Saviour and we ourselves are working to bring about total subjection to Him without destroying the free will of his eternal subjects, that are redeemed, and will be the fruit of this stage of the construction of the Eternal Kingdom. An illustration of this limitation is in Mark 6 when Jesus could do no mighty miracles there because of their unbelief. The Fulness of Times "In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace; Wherein he hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence; Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself: That in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him: In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will:

That we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ." Eph. 1:7-12.

"But when the fullness of time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law." Gal. 4:4 Man, being in the likeness of God, has been permitted by him through the centuries to make machines with multiple variables. From the natural possibility given to him of going to the mountains or to the sea and choosing to live in the plains or in the mountains was added the use of donkeys and horses and camels and dog sleds. In which more could be taken with him and a greater selection of options could be made as to distance and destination. These options have been improved until with the new space shuttle plane there can be a flight from Washington to Tokio in an hour and half. The use of numbers, language and writing offers an unlimited variety of combinations for the expression and development of ideas. This variety is the pattern established by God and is the dynamic of life. Life with choice and with variety is a gift from God. God said in Genesis 1:28-30 as he established the great riches in the variety and use of the intelligence in selecting an infinite number of options leading to other options. "And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat. And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so." We could illustrate the moral situation by talking about the weather. God made the heavens in which was included the 20 mile thick layer of air surrounding us. This by receiving of more heat at the equator and cold at the poles brought about a variable weather pattern. The heat at the center rises upward and the cold moves toward the equator to replace it. The nature of the design of God makes it inevitable. The spinning of the earth in turn causes great circular patterns of weather. The differences in moisture and heat are in interaction and we have the variety of sunshine, rain, tornados, hurricanes, lightning, and snowstorms.

Now according to the theories of Aristotle every movement and every rainstorm, every flood and every creature whose life was disturbed is calculated, fixed, set, settled, foreknown and ordained from the beginning, outside of time and its frame by the the god known as the unmoved-mover. Everything that moves is moved all the way back to this unmoved-mover. He believed this as he looked with distrust on the suffocating levels of the gods of his time. There were three levels of gods over which the mysterious god of destiny "the unknown God" ruled. •The worship of the gods of heaven in the great Olimpic hill, •the worship of the gods of the earth, and •the worship of the semi-gods who were the children that were fruit of the union between goddess and man or god and woman. Besides these there were the domestic gods, for instance the spirit of grandmother and other famous dead were presumed to be near their ashes, kept on the alter in the home. It is noted with all of the Greek myths of their gods that there was a matter of fate that entered into all of their relationships. They came up with the unknown god who had his servants measuring out the threads of everyone’s life and when these cut off the thread of life, life was over. This god of destiny was what Aristotle thought he was defining as the unmoved-mover. The God of the Bible says that Jesus stood up and changed the action of the storm. He does so for us as Christians in answer to prayer as a normal part of his interaction with us, in our walk in the Spirit. Satan does not believe in the god of destiny, that he himself has invented, for he is working feverishly hoping to change his destiny and that of every man. This disbelief and his understanding that there is free will on the part of God, man, and himself is illustrated in his conversation in the book of Job. The mysterious god of destiny the unmoved-mover was the god of fatalistic demon consulting pagans. Just as the weather systems and the storms interreacted, so also do the free moral agents move in their currents. To have free will, as it is presented in the Bible, it is necessary to understand that God is not interrupting or ordering every minute detail. He does, according to Daniel’s prophecy, understand the currents that will lead to the downfall of Persia, the rule and downfall of Greece, the rise and downfall of the Roman Empire. The long time of trying to cement the iron to the clay in the feet and its final success wherein the satanic powers of the world finally manage to repeat the same challenge as they had at Babel, using mankind again by uniting the world in the effort. When the moral storm reaches this intensity Jesus tells us in Matthew 24 the stone not made with hands will bring about the final end of the rebellion of Babel. This

maturing or uniting of the actions and currents of free moral agents will bring about the conditions of the end time and is known as the fullness of time. The False Prophets Unfortunately many have had the tendency to be false prophets and hundreds of dates have come and gone, in which Christ was to have come, because they have based their assumption on the idea of the false pagan god of destiny that everything is fixed and so we can set a date. Their desire has been to be the first to know and spread abroad thier insight and so have done much much damage to the cause of God by stalling the work and discrediting the message. There are many proofs in the Bible that life is variable and not controlled by the false god of destiny. To illustrate our free will in the matter, look again more closely and see that the day and hour of our death is not predestined from all eternity but is based on care of the body, mental attitude, moral condition, yes, even the stepping in of God to shorten it in the case of the wicked and the stepping in of the wicked to take our life in the case of the martyrs. Who cannot understand that it is possible to be careless and kill another, or to take up a gun and place it to his head, or speed up our car and hit a bridge buttress. This is all by free will and the part of ourselves and others and is the overall thrust of the Bible message. We have said that we have a big God that knows all things from all eternity on one side of our intellect and on the other we with great urgency tell our children, "Be very careful! look both ways! before you cross the street." Why the urgency? If we believe that every thing is foreknown and cannot come out any other way than that fixed by the unmoved-mover? Why resist destiny? We have a contradiction subtly placed centuries ago in our Christian heritage that amounts to a secret sorcery with which Satan is hindering the work of God, a false god of destiny is being worshiped. Our very existence proves to us that the god of destiny is not the personal heavenly Father of the Bible that walks and communes with us. We know that any one of us can borrow a gun and put it to his head and end his life at any time. We know however, that the spirit of God is pleading with every man, and we are fearful to do that. But under great pressure many do just that. In a fit of rage they kill someone else, in the face of great disillusionment or depression, they silence the voice of God’s spirit and take their own life.1 What does the Bible teach? The Bible teaches that God is watching and influencing every man to come to repentance and be a part of his eternal plan. He foresaw the swirl of events, the moral storms that constitute prophecy and

has investigated before the foundation of the world the foreknown tendencies and yes, especially the love lives and marriages, their children, generation following generation and has tentatively written in the book of life from the foundation of the world the names of the redeemed. However the false god of destiny is eliminated for us who serve Jehovah, for the Bible declares that some will have their names blotted out if they refuse to live righteously or if they take away from the Bible. Rev. 3:5, 22:19. He foresaw not only the thousands converted on the day of Pentecost but also foresaw the many who would defile their garments and have a reputation of being alive and really being dead. Jesus is saying in this passage that with all of the grace that he purchased on the cross and freely applies to every believer that many will not hold fast nor repent and will have their names blotted out. There is no indication here that our Lord Jesus accepts the pagan god of destiny that was added to our understanding fifteen centuries ago by Augustine. The concept of the pagan god of destiny is a work of sorcery1 that has been spun like a spiders web over the dynamic of the gospel message.

Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself: That in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him: In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will: That we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ." Eph. 1:7-12. The phrase dispensation of the fullness of times in the text indicates that there is a working out of things. What are the things? Is it not the swirl of events centered on the free will of every man and his rejecting the faithfulness of the spirit of God dealing with his heart that will bring the events, clearly foreseen by God, to a point at which God in his Holiness and Justice will be compelled to terminate the present system or dispensation that he so wonderfully created? Why is this phrase so important? Because they make our God full of mercy, attentive to every one and totally just. If we overlook this phrases, as has been our custom, we are under the dual confusion of combining the pagan god of destiny with the precious Word of God and we defame our Saviour and make our God arbitrary. We have 380 references in the Bible to whosoever, whatsoever, etc. illustrating the liberty of man. Ignoring the great thrust of mans liberty and responsibility on almost every page of the Bible. We have

teachers under this confusion, this sorcery, who have used this passage in Ephesians, and a few others to declare as Martin Luther did: "God worketh all things in all men, even wickedness in the wicked for this is one branch of His own omnipotence." 2 This is a statement from which we who love our precious Holy God must recoil. It is the poison root, the god of destiny that has been mixed with the Holy Scriptures. I am sure that neither Luther nor Zanchius were aware that they were victims of the subtlety of Satan in their concepts. The whole concept of faith as in the roll call of Hebrews 11 represents the current of a man taking a hold of God’s hand by faith and stepping out into the moral storm system of this world and with the guidance of God making a difference in the outcome for eternity. The stultifying concept of the god of destiny is to say it all is set and we will do what we are to do. If the date of our death is not fixed, how can many other things be fixed in our existence?

Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself: That in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him: In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will: That we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ." Eph. 1:7-12. The phrase first trusted indicates the free will involved in our place among the elect. The phrase gather together in one indicates the interreacting of the free wills, in true decision and adoration on our part and in cooperation with the task of our Saviour, until all things are subjected to him. The parables about the kingdom that our Lord gave illustrates everything I have said here. The parable of the sower. Math. 13:3-9. The parable of the tares. Math. 13:24-30. The parable of the laborers who killed the kings son, Math. 20:1-16. In a word all of the teachings of Jesus are exactly opposed to the system of fatalism and shows the god of destiny to be an invention of Satan. In II Peter 3:8, "Beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance." These verses are saying that our God is working out according to the response of every man, the time of his coming back to earth

again and the closing of this time of harvest as almost all men reject him brings about a cut off point, just as in the days of Noah, which will be followed by the visible inauguration of His eternal kingdom on earth. It has been said by some that this is a great mystery, that we do not have the capacity to understand it, we must just believe it. This is the definition of a dogma, for example the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of Mary in which she was mysteriously supposed to have been born with out original sin. Another example is that Christ is literally sacrificed again in every mass as another dogma. Satan has used this system, insisting that we believe in something and close our minds from looking into it, as subjects just too profound for us, giving up the use of the intelligence that God gave us. On this rests the spiritual slavery of Satan in all of the false religions of the world. May God help us to always use our common sense that God has endowed us with. The root of the concept of dogma is a superior respect for the authority who is speaking, preferring it to the use of our rational intelligence or good sense that God has given us. It is the pagan custom of respect for the Oracles.3 Oracle is described in the dictionary as --the response of a deity to some inquiry. --one who speaks with inspiration or authority. --the answer or judgement given by an oracle. The definition of oracular as --like an oracle; dogmatically magisterial. The Schools of Philosophy are Still in Confusion It is interesting that this subject as not been resolved as we notice in An Encyclopaedia of Philosophy whose general editor is G.H.R. Parkinson4 the up to date conclusions about the will finishes with these words. "Examples such as this make it clear that nothing said here dissolves the problem of freedom and determinism. [fatalism] Indeed, determinists and their opponents alike could embrace the analysis offered above, yet continue to disagree. For although we have touched on some issues dividing them, profound metaphysical, psychological and scientific issues yet remain." We who are founded on the word of God have no such problems. In Acts 17:24 "God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; neither is worshipped with men’s hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things; and hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed and the bounds of their habitation; that they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far

from everyone of us. For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your on poets have said, For we are also his offspring. Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man’s device. And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every were to repent. Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead." Here we have the plain statement that God has kept for himself the times and seasons. He has reserved the length of life to be one hundred and twenty years. He has limited man to be conscious and in one place at a time. He has limited man to be able to concentrate only on about three chains of thought. God knows all men’s thoughts. He has given every man the same limitations and all men are of the same blood. The bounds of his habitation are determined by his necessities of food, water, oxygen, etc. He has been subjected to the necessary appetites and pains for food, shelter, sex etc. to protect and perpetuate himself. He has appointed every man to die and after this the judgement. He has given liberty to man to think, imagine and to act as he so desires within these limitations. He has chosen this liberty as an indispensable attribute needed in his eternal subjects. Without it the eternal kingdom could not be glorious. This statement was startling for the Greeks who were fatalists. It does not say that all things are predestinated. It is not time that is determined but times; "hath determined the times before appointed". The times are the condition when every imagination is continually evil and the flood is sent, the coming in of the Greek empire, the fall of Persia, the rise and fall of Rome, the Empire of the Antichrist when the condition of the days of Noah are repeated. He will take full control, at the moment of the last judgement when all the dead are raised. He now has the times appointed but has left each man responsible and free to choose within these perimeters. While Satan has the whole world under his control, his system will not be put under the feet of Jesus until He comes at Armageddon, Satan is working havoc with the great majority of the population, and with this doctrine, he has subtly advanced the idea that this present state of rebellion is all normal and this havoc is the responsibility of God. Saying he controls all things; therefore men do not identify the present state of things as the work of Satan but blame God for all the evil in the world. May God help us as ministers to realize that to preach this idea of fatalism is to make ourselves victims and agents of Satan, and that we are victims of sorcery.5

The Attribute of Omniscience According to the Bible There is no statement in scripture that suggests that God knows every small detail of every act and thought from all eternity, even before they are in existence. Such is not necessary in order to understand the omniscience of God. Many times in the Scripture we find Him seeing and knowing things when they happen, thus limiting Himself for some purpose in His dealings with His subjects. The following verses and comments are taken from Dake’s Bible, Concordance.6 Gen. 2:19-20 And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him. [God sees, discovers, finds out, gets to know certain things in human affairs.] Gen. 6:5-6 And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. [It is certainly implied that all things were not foreseen.] Gen. 11:5-7 And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded. And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech. Gen. 18:21-33 I will go down now, and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which is come unto me; and if not, I will know. And the men turned their faces from thence, and went toward Sodom: but Abraham stood yet before the LORD. And Abraham drew near, and said, Wilt thou also destroy the righteous with the wicked? Peradventure there be fifty righteous within the city: wilt thou also destroy and not spare the place for the fifty righteous that are therein? That be far from thee to do after this manner, to slay the righteous with the wicked: and that the righteous should be as the wicked, that be far from thee: Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right? And the LORD said, If I find in Sodom fifty righteous within the city, then I will spare

all the place for their sakes. And Abraham answered and said, Behold now, I have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord, which am but dust and ashes: Peradventure there shall lack five of the fifty righteous: wilt thou destroy all the city for lack of five? And he said, If I find there forty and five, I will not destroy it. And he spake unto him yet again, and said, Peradventure there shall be forty found there. And he said, I will not do it for forty’s sake. And he said unto him, Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak: Peradventure there shall thirty be found there. And he said, I will not do it, if I find thirty there. And he said, Behold now, I have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord: Peradventure there shall be twenty found there. And he said, I will not destroy it for twenty’s sake. And he said, Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak yet but this once: Peradventure ten shall be found there. And he said, I will not destroy it for ten’s sake. And the LORD went his way, as soon as he had left communing with Abraham: and Abraham returned unto his place. [God was giving Abraham a lesson and showing him that He was just and merciful; and that in His moral government of the world the principle of justice was ever paramount. Hence, some must be punished; and that punishment ever afterwards would be a lesson to Abraham and his seed. The place of this lesson was Mamre beside Hebron at about 4,200 ft. above Sodom 26 miles away. The next day Abraham saw the judgement take place.] Gen. 22:12 And he said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him: for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me. [The factor of free will was not predetermined.] Gen. 29:31 And when the LORD saw that Leah was hated, he opened her womb: but Rachel was barren. [Leah’s treatment determined by her husband not by God from all eternity.] Ex. 3:4 And when the LORD saw that he turned aside to see, God called unto him out of the midst of the bush, and said, Moses, Moses. And he said, Here am I. Deut. 32:19 And when the LORD saw it, he abhorred them, because of the provoking of his sons, and of his daughters. II Kings 14:26-27 For the LORD saw the affliction of Israel, that it was very bitter: for there was not any shut up, nor any left, nor any helper for Israel. And the LORD said not that he would blot out the name of Israel from under heaven: but he saved them by the hand of Jeroboam the son of Joash.

II Cron. 12:7 And when the LORD saw that they humbled themselves, the word of the LORD came to Shemaiah, saying, They have humbled themselves; therefore I will not destroy them, but I will grant them some deliverance; and my wrath shall not be poured out upon Jerusalem by the hand of Shishak. [Their conduct depended on them not on God’s predetermination.] Isa. 59:15-16 Yea, truth faileth; and he that departeth from evil maketh himself a prey: and the LORD saw it, and it displeased him that there was no judgment. And he saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor: therefore his arm brought salvation unto him; and his righteousness, it sustained him. Jonah 3:10 And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not. (Here we see divine inspection and dissatisfaction, God learns of true conditions the same as man.) Gen. 7:1 And the LORD said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the ark; for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation.

The following statements are used in the same way about men. Gen. 3:6 And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat. Gen. 8:8 Also he sent forth a dove from him, to see if the waters were abated from off the face of the ground; Gen. 37:13 And Israel said unto Joseph, Do not thy brethren feed the flock in Shechem? come, and I will send thee unto them. And he said to him, Here am I. Ex. 3:16 Go, and gather the elders of Israel together, and say unto them, The LORD God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, appeared unto me, saying, I have surely visited you, and seen that which is done to you in Egypt: [God evidently made a personal trip to Egypt to see for Himself the true conditions, as He did on other occasions before taking action in the affairs of men.]

Ex. 4:14 And the anger of the LORD was kindled against Moses, and he said, Is not Aaron the Levite thy brother? I know that he can speak well. And also, behold, he cometh forth to meet thee: and when he seeth thee, he will be glad in his heart. [This is part of omniscience, but to say that God knew such about Aaron from all eternity, before he was even in existence, is carrying the doctrine too far, God even knows our thoughts afar off, but He does not try to know them from all eternity past.] Psa. 139:1-4 O LORD, thou hast searched me, and known me. Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thought afar off. Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways. For there is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, O LORD, thou knowest it altogether. Deut. 32:16-20 They provoked him to jealousy with strange gods, with abominations provoked they him to anger. They sacrificed unto devils, not to God; to gods whom they knew not, to new gods that came newly up, whom your fathers feared not. Of the Rock that begat thee thou art unmindful, and hast forgotten God that formed thee. And when the LORD saw it, he abhorred them, because of the provoking of his sons, and of his daughters. And he said, I will hide my face from them, I will see what their end shall be: for they are a very froward generation, children in whom is no faith. [God will see what their end shall be.] Our Lives Have Eternal Significance To say that we have everything predetermined from all eternity makes the living of our lives of no significance whatsoever. Causing a great inertia in our conduct, nulifying our existence. There is another factor with which this freedom limits us as well as God. That is the freedom of others of our same condition who seem to get in our way as they exercise their freedom. I have the freedom to go where I wish today as well as for all of my life. If I have been able to have a car I still have to get there with the problem of all of those other 300,000 or so cars on the streets and highways of Caracas. We can go where we will but we must find the substance or the money with which to do so. We can eat what we want but we must acquire it. The world is wonderfully arranged that we might understand from the material the spiritual. Much of our Lord’s ministry illustrated this. One example of this was how Moses wanted to go into the promised land right away but the sins of others kept him from it for forty years and brought about his sin.. Caleb and Joshua were also held back 40 years. We hear about being

the Joshua generation. Nothing is said about our going forward must be done in the timing of our Lord which in turn is determined by circumstances that only God can apreciate by seeing the thoughts and intentions of everyone’s heart. You cannot say, "everything is predestinated so I will not plant corn this year, for what is to be, will be. The outcome can be used to illustrate to us the spiritual results of saying whoever will be saved, will be saved. God gave the keys of binding and loosing for the kingdom to be used by us and our lives and our free choice has eternal significance. The Holy Spirit is striving with every man, but, how can they understand without a preacher? I must go forward in the midst of the trials which in a large part consist of doing the will of God in a world in which most of those other 5 billion people are acting freely also in rebellion against God. Have we not the only true sense of the Holy Scriptures with this viewpoint? I have tried to take the whole thrust of the Bible into consideration. Where is the teaching in the Bible that that all things are known by God and set before hand? If you have no Bible for this and I have given you these scriptures; God will help you to cast this terrible concept of the god of destiny out of your understanding and help you to co-labour with the true and living God. Some will object that it takes away their assurance of salvation. It is because your assurance is a false assurance derived from the false god of destiny that will cause your soul to be lost. The true assurance and rest for the people of God is in their walk in the Spirit, in the fully surrendered life where there is not one rebellious point of contention between them and God and their assurance is in the sweet presence of the blessed Holy Spirit. Romans Chapter 8."The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God." You see the false god of destiny will allow you to live loosely and unpleasing to our Heavenly Father and give you theories that you are positional righteous even though your mind is that of the world and thus of the children of wrath, but when you come before the judgement bar you will find yourself under wrath. I write this as a terrible warning to the majority of the reformed church tradition of today with the express intention of warning you of your eternal destruction. I am driven by the admonition in Jude 22 "Of some have compassion, making a difference: And others save with fear pulling them our of the fire: hating even the garment spotted by the flesh."

Chapter 2 The Serpent beguiled through subtlety and corrupted the simplicity of Christ

This book is really about how that the fear of Paul expressed in 2 Cor. 11 has come to pass. "I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity of Christ." We have been removed from the simplicity of the gospel. Our whole civilization has for many centuries been beguiled by his subtlety in the same way as was Eve by Satan. [I was able to see it only after many years of looking at what were discrepancies in our doctrine and the Word of God. Many times I would lay this doubt aside, as I looked at history and the confidence that I saw in others in that message, and I would leave the matter alone. Only when I came to God and said that I was willing to preach His full council, notwithstanding what any other man might think, did these things begin to open to me.] We must extract the poison root of pagan Greek Philosophy from our concepts about God and his work. I know that there are many others with this same consecration to preach the truth, and this will give much light to them. Without doubt others will be very opposed, as the limitations of the reformation become apparent, and they find themselves in disagreement both in experience and doctrine, locked into to relationships that they are unwilling to break to follow the truth. We have been beguiled by Satan with the same "lifting up" that was used on Eve. No doubt his tactics have never changed, but we can become familiar with them. It will be useful to start from the beginning, so that we do not fall into the trap of mistaking one another for the real enemy, which is Satan. Understanding the workings of Satan Brother G. H. Pember gives the introduction to us in his book Mystery Babylon the Great, pages 6-9. --It would seem that there is some secret power in local associations, which we are at present unable to understand. For even God has His Holy City, which He will not give up for ever; His Mount Zion, whereon He has dwelt and will yet dwell; and His rocky Sinai, from the summit of which he proclaimed the Law and communed with Moses, while on its cavernous side He spoke with the greats of the prophets, and probably also gave His charge to the Apostle of the Gentiles. So, likewise, Satan would seem to have his resort and centres of government; from the pattern of which, to quote one instance, it may have been that Apollo was reported to, to spend six months of the year at Delphi and six at Patar. And, possible, the chief of all those centres may be Babylon. For, situated on the banks of the Euphrates, it was, probably, hard by Eden the Garden of the Lord. And near the place where stood the Tree of Life, Satan may from the very first have planted his Tree of Death; since it is not unlikely

that Babylon was his base of operations when he plotted the fall of man. It must also have been in the neighborhood, at least, that Cain was goaded to destroy his brother’s life, and so to become the first of the bloody race of murderers and defilers of God’s image, of which earth has since brought forth so countless a multitude. Here too the antediluvian apostasy must have commenced, arising, as it apparently did, from a worship of the glorious Cherubic forms, which until the Deluge were still seen through the closed gate of Eden. And yet again; it may have been on this very spot that the great sin was committed in which angels took part, and which became the immediate cause of the flood (Intermarriage Gen. 6:2). Of this we may have a hint in the fact that four rebel angels, and a vast number of their subordinates, are even now bound at the Euphrates, there to await the blast of the Sixth Trumpet, when the command shall be given to lose them and let them go on their errand of destruction. After the Deluge, we find sin again gravitating to the same spot, which was taken as a possession by the descendents of Noah’s accursed son. For Cush was the son of Ham. "And Cush begat Nimrod: he began to be a mighty one in the earth. He was a mighty hunter before the Lord; wherefore it is said, Even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before the Lord; and the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar." (Gen. x;810) And from the universal mythology and the sacred books of the East, it would seem that at this period relations were made to men by the fallen angels; and that those who received them were formed into a secret Society, in order that the world might through their means be both taught and ruled by Satan. These initiates became the depositories of the lie with which the Adversary had planned to counteract the truth of God. They promulgated the theory, that man originally proceeded out of the Godhead, and is working his way back to become an integral part and intelligent part of the same; that to effect this, he needs no Saviour nor helper, but, depending upon himself, must struggle on through various disciplines and many re-incarnations, until he is made perfect. And this is the doctrine that underlies every false religion of any importance, and forms its philosophic or esoteric basis. Even in early times of which we are speaking it caused a general rebellion against God; and, affected by its influence wicked and demon-inspired men attempted to defy His commands, and to unite the whole human race in opposition to Him. The confusion of tongues followed, accompanied, if we may trust the Caldean legends, by a terrific manifestation of Divine anger; and the affrighted rebels moved off in various directions to people the distant parts

of the earth, and carried the Babylonian poison and the false revelations with them. But the headquarters of the secret society still remained at Babylon, where Satan seems to have fixed his earthly throne, perhaps for two reasons. The position was central, having easy access either to the East or the West, and was therefore, adapted to the purpose of affecting and controlling the world: it was, moreover, a convenient stronghold from which to molest and counteract the influence of the place where Jehovah would set His name. And we must not forget that God seems to have chosen Jerusalem in a very early time. Even in the days of Abraham, we find Melchizadek established there as a priest of the Most High. Now the woman (Rev. 17) probably represents the great Society, formed to teach and rule the world, which takes its name from Babylon the place of its birth. We can, therefore, easily understand that, if its seat were transferred to another city, that city might naturally be called Mystery Babylon. But until God had given up Jerusalem, Babylon seems to have continued to be the centre of wickedness upon the earth. There, as we have seen, the great postdiluvian apostasy arose, that apostasy which, after having been in some measure checked by God’s action Old Testament times, and, again, counteracted by Christianity, is once more recovering its ground gathering to itself all else that is of Satan, and spreading West as well as East under such names as Spiritualism or Buddhism, There, too, was the seat of the first of the oppressive world-powers; and, although the second seemed to be somewhat inimical to the Chaldean Society, yet the third would have renewed its power. For Alexander, had he lived intended to make Babylon again the capital of the world, and doubtless at the same time to restore the influence of the Chaldean wise men, to whom he paid the greatest deference. This however was not Satans plan: the Adversary probably knew that opportunity must soon be afforded to another of the races of men to show, in its turn whether it was able to rule the world in equity; and, therefore, that centre of Gentile power must still be shifted, and the fourth and greatest empire have its seat in the West. Accordingly, during the times of the Greek supremacy he kept the headquarters of the Society still at Pergamum, whither it had been removed upon the capture of Babylon by Cyrus. But at the death of Attalus III (133 B. C.) the royal priesthood was bequeathed to Rome, and had to remain for some time in abeyance, since no citizen of the Republic could fulfil conditions which required a travesty of Him who "shall be Priest upon his Throne."

At length however, Julius Caesar, who had previously accepted the office of Pontifex Maximus, solved the difficulty by constituting himself Emperor. He thus became the first Roman in whom the powers of the Pontifex and the Imperator were combined, and was, probably, the first to be recognized as head of the Oriental Priesthood-the Roman Pontificate having previously been distinct from and inferior to the Chaldean, with which it was thenceforth identified. He was, consequently, declared to be divine, and exercised a wonderful influence over his army and the people, even going to the length of openly prescribing to the latter for who, they would vote (Sueton: Jul. Cæs. xli.). And, lastly, he corrected the calendar, and changed times by inserting two additional months, in accordance with the Pontifical prerogative which gave him his title of King of the Ages. The power which he had acquired descended to his successors: so that, "in the statues of emperors, the ring is always engraved with the figure of lituus- or croisier- to indicate the highest quality of the imperaltorial rank, that of Pontifex Maximus." Thus the Babylonian caste settled itself in Rome, and manipulated first the Empire and then the Harlot Church. And so Rome became Mystery Babylon, because the headquarters of the Babylonian caste was transferred to her. The environment in which Greek Philosophy was born With this brief commentary on ancient history by G. H. Pember I would like for us to look at a documented area of the development of the Greek environment. It is necessary to understand something of the atmosphere that Socrates lived in to understand the origin of the Platonic philosophy. In the Ensayo de un Diccionario Mitológico Universal by Federico Carlos Sainz de Robles 7we read There are two kinds of religion: those of the Book revealed and those devised from Nature. The Jews and Moslems profess the first and the Eastern and the Greek the second. The first rites from the Book root whose growth proceeds from the prophets who make comments that proceed from the sacred scriptures, they have only one God who is jealous and will tolerate no other outside of their temple, the second proceeds from the poets and are the great universal world current, and their temples open to every idea that has a form of divinity. Twelve gods made up the list of the most popular ones, the name in parenthesis is the Roman name for the god. Zeus (Jupiter) the supreme god whose symbol was the eagle, Hera (Juno) the wife of Zeus, Poseidon (Neptune) god of the sea, Apollo (Febo) the god that illuminated the intelligence, Athena (Minerva) goddess of wisdom and chastity, Aphrodite (Venus) goddess of love and

sensuality, Aries (Mars) god of war, Hephaestus (Vulcan) god of useful arts, Hestia (Vesta) goddess of domestic virtues, Demeter (Ceres) goddess of fruitfulness, Artemis (Diana) goddess of the hunt and sister of Zeus, Hermes (Mercury) god of eloquence and commerce. There were others on the same category, Hades (Pluto) god of the regions of hell, Dionysus (Bacchus) god of wine and music, Aesculapius (Esculapus) god of medicine, Leto (Letona) Zeus’ lover and mother of Apollo and Artimis, Proserpina (Persephone) goddess of the subterranean world, Eos (Aurora) and Hercules, Clotho one of the three Fates representing past, present and future, she spins the thread of destiny, Lachesis, the Fate who tells Atropos when to cut the thread of life.. After centuries the chaos was coordinated. The universe was divided into three kingdoms, the heavens and earth presided over by Jupiter, the sea presided over by Neptune, the subterranean hells presided over by Pluto although Neptune and Pluto were subordinated to Jupiter. The gods were everywhere even though they could never be seen. They made sacrifices to the gods of holidays, games, temples, and altars, not because they loved them but out of fear because they felt they had to do it to keep them from doing them harm. Prometheus took the opportunity of robbing the heavenly fire to give to his creatures that he had created. Jupiter, the father of the gods, sent forth his vengeance in a curse. He had Vulcan form a super perfect body of a woman who became Minerva gave her a very elegant belt, her ear rings were grace and persuasion. Mercury gave her the art of lying and seduction. Venus gave her the infinite attraction of sex. She was called Pandora. She was given to the brother of Promethium, Epimeteo (the imprudent) and against his brothers advice he took her as a gift. She had a box and when it was opened all of the evils came out of it, and scattered over the world. This woman ruined humanity condemning with all of her attractiveness the man to have to work. Without theology or metaphysics the origin of evil was thus explained for the Greeks. From imitating the envy of the gods was copied the idea of banishment which was used against the rich or the celebrated. The ancient man could never get the terrible fear out of his heart for the goddess Nemesis, who, without compassion worked the most pathetic and horrible things. The crime of Titan was that he had loved humans. The immense pain that Niobe suffered was without showing weakness to see her sons cruelly pierced and killed from the arrows shot by Letona for the crime of being proud of their human nature. The Greeks did not have any sacred book or priests specialized in the explanation of their religion to conserve their tradition. They were totally

victims of the superstition of the popular imagination and forty two grades of poets. Around about Olympus was supposedly invisibly populated by the semigods and the heros. They were from the carnal union of a goddess and a man, or of a god and a woman. It was not permitted to make sacrifices or offerings to these but it was permitted to pray to them and to give them funeral honors. The names of some of them have come down to us as Atlas, Hercules, Jason and the some of the heros were Nestor, Ulysses, Ajax and Aquilles. These semi-gods were genius’s who taught and watched out after the ones who worshiped them helping them when in need and giving them dreams of the future. The heroes interceded for those who worshiped them and from them come the custom of the Roman Catholic’s whom have received the tradition of the worship of the saints. The miraculous appearances of these semi-gods and heroes to humans were as frequent as the appearance of the "saints" during the middle ages. The sign of friendship between two cities was to participate and honor the same semi god or Hero. The divine omnipotence was a confused idea with the Greeks that was separated from identification with any god. In fact the gods were sometimes subject to this power. Over all of these most powerful gods of Mount Olympus including Jupiter there ruled a mysterious god who was stronger than all. He was a god without life, myth, figure or altar, he was called Destiny, Providence, Fortune, Cronos or Chance. Apollo could do nothing for Hector because destiny had his days numbered. Jupiter was powerless as he contemplated the beating of his son Sarpedon by Patroclo. The gods were all powerless before the force of Destiny who knocked down their loved ones, it is the immutable force of nature that assists our funerals. The myth made the three goddess’ called Parcae the unrelenting executors of the intentions of the god of destiny. They played with the threads of life of everyone and cut the thread with their scissors upon receiving the order. Out of this order of things Plato and Aristotle developed the idea of a god that was over all of the gods. Hesiodes is very explicit about were evil came from among men. It came from the envy of the gods. The gods were envious one of another but also envious of men. Homer the poet thought that it was the demons, other world beings, they were another order from those mentioned who were without hierarchy among the gods but participated in the divine nature. Hesiodes believed that the demons were real persons, perhaps men, from the Golden age that managed to become immortal and were in number three times ten thousand, and roamed the earth covered by a cloud. Jupiter made them guardians of justice. In this sense Jupiter could be called the good demon without there being any paradox in doing so. The concept of demons being evil came from philosophers of a later time.

To all of these religions there was added the domestic which was perhaps the most jealously kept. In Plato’s book Laws he assures us that parenthood was made possible from the work of the domestic gods. The great fear of a definite death or annihilation caused the ancients to think that they began another existence after death without a body. The union with which one was tied to the body had loosened but not broken at death. They could return and walk where they had lived as well as be in the flowery fields (covered with their funeral flower asphodelf from which we get the word daffodil) which was their vision of paradise. This allowed Aquiles to rule the shadows while his ashes were in its tomb near Troy and Ulysses saw Hercules in the fires of hell knowing that he was converted into a god and dwelt on the Olimpus mountain. Thus the worship of demons replaced the worship of God. The people loved their dead and this love was what made the firm foundation of their domestic gods. Every family honored their ashes and felt that the other half in spirit form was invisibly present wondering around their home. The Greeks knew two kinds of death. One in which the funeral rites were were practiced and the other where there were none. The criminals and others who died violent deaths and their bodies were left to be eaten by the birds and animals were thought to be wondering evil shadows around the home. The loved ones who died and were accompanied in the burial ceremony were to be constantly in protection of those that had been left behind and responded to petitions for help and advice. Plato respected this concept of believing that there were protecting demons and assured that without doubt the souls of the dead had some part in human affairs. The annual anniversary day of the dead was the external sign of this worship but it was this intimate worship offered every hour that made it so important. In every home day and night the little flame taken from the divine flame at the temple was to be burning as the same that was stolen from the heavens by Prometheus. The Sacred Flame and the Asylum system This sacred flame in every home was connected to the virgin goddess Vesta the oldest sister of Jupiter. The image, the person and the flame were confused and were the same before which there could be no words which were not known to her nor actions committed that she did not see; to her was attributed omniscience. The person who did not practice this devotion could not have the rights to public office. In the same way all of the homes were considered a

family which practiced its devotion at the central home which was Delphi and served for all the nation. The home had also another major right, the altar of Vesta was an inviolate refuge. The loser, the wronged came to this altar where no sword of the winner could be used nor the brutality of the conqueror practiced. Your arms will not protect you but this altar will protect us all declared Hecuba to Priam. (This right of asylum is still insisted on by Roman Catholics.) The home and the tomb were the centers of the domestic religious practice. In the religion of Greece, without doubt there were morals. It was not just external, that consisted in keeping the rituals. Strange case! The Gods full of vices, vengeance, cruelty, What morality could they give in example to mortals? Once again the human did better than the gods. And if these never tried to be moral or give a moral example, a happy contradiction, men attributed to the gods that they would have the great virtue of administering justice justly. If the men considered that the gods watched over the fulfilling of sacred vows and protected the asylum of their altars. Fortunately the Greek morals were born in the heart of the men and not from the power of their gods. Hesíodo in The works and the days revealed a very pure morality, where the vices were chastised and the good rewarded but only in this world. Pindaro deforms the morales of the future life in that the Camps of Elysium are opened only to the powerful and the conquerors, with no regard for the ordinary and good man. When the poets speak of the morals of the gods it is that they are very immoral, for to punish the crime committed by one they punish not only the criminal but his sons, grandsons and the whole race. Abusing the morals in the strictest sense. (Remember this in the discussion of original sin.) Worship was made in hope of protection from evil spirits The origin of the public worship of the Greeks was the hope of protection from the spirits of the gods. They sought to appease their gods with prayers, offerings, vows and sacrifices. The odor of the burning flesh was a nice perfume to the gods, and the death of the sacrificed was pointing to the repentance of the sinner. The most solemn was the hecatomb, the slaughter of a great number of animals for instance 100 oxen. The poor man offered figures of clay which was considered the same by the gods. To come close to the altar, it was necessary to have been purified by washing with water as a symbol of moral purification. There was a priest at the door that poured the sacred water on their hands and their heads as they entered. This custom was added to by obligating the confession of the sins to the priest in Delphi where the priest’s of Apollo were the only ones who could hear it.

The security that the gods born on earth were constantly in touch with men was the custom of the revelations known as oracles. By the mouth of the priests and priestess’ the gods spoke and prophesied and set forth the terms of the atonement. At other times the will of the gods could be known or manifested by visible signs; such as the flight of the birds, the sound of the air, the intestines of the victims, the direction of the smoke or flame, by lightning, and in the dreams that Jupiter sent. The mediums interpreted the occult, the priests presumed that it was the gods who spoke. There was therefore a continuous dialog between heaven and earth, the Greeks believed in the oracles they had an on going permanent revelation of the will of God. They never saw man as rebellious, everything was always the fault of the gods. The festivals of Bacchus (debauchery) or Dionysus were three in number. The first Anesterias lasted three consecutive days known as, the Pitegio was the festival to open the wine skins, the Choes was the festival of drinking in community, the chytres was the offering. The second was called Leneas and are supposed to be commemoration of the first winepress. The third was the Grand Dionisius that lasted many days and consisted in various ceremonies. The procession, the concourse dithyrambic of poems and hymns, the comate (comatose, everyone dead drunk), and the dramatic representations. The priests and priestess’ of every layer of worship worked in the time of their festivals but did not consist of a separate class as in India, but these tasks were transmitted by inheritance, were purchased or given by casting lots. They dedicated themselves to the rites and the divination or soothsaying. This was practiced in the oracles which were revealed directly or by the movement of clouds, smoke from the animals that were sacrificed, their intestines or flames. The purification of the faithful was by water (salty water was considered better than the sweet.from which we have Holy water) The sound of bronze was considered purifying. With the boisterous sound of the bells the devils were scared off from Selene (the moon) in the middle of the night. (The vigorous bell ringing in our day comes from this.)

Federico Carlos Sainz de Robles continues to speak of how that the native religion of Italy was influenced and replaced by the Greek. By way of Cumas the worship of Apollo came to Rome and soon Apollo became the most popular of the gods for whom was built a temple and from here the oracle became famous in the city. The rich Romans preferred to come to the the oracle of

Apollo. According to the Romans, Juno had sexual relations with Jupiter, had a son who was called Mars by touching a mysterious flower. Mars seduced Rea Silvia who became the father of Romulo and Remo who were supposedly the founders of Rome. The gods Ceres, Liber and Libera formed a trinity of gods who were the names of the Greek gods Demeter, Dionysus and Cora and in this temple only Greek priestess’ could celebrate in the Greek language. The festival of fecundity Liberalia was made to the god Liber-Bacchus The Greek-Roman paganism revived the Babylonian Astrology which at last caused the oracles to disappear from public view. The god Liber-Bacchus and the cult of orgies became so degenerated in secret reunions where both sexes practiced the most repulsive excesses. One Counsel of the Senate prohibited them in all of the Roman territories in 86 B.C. To understand more about the conditions at the times of Socrates we need to look more closely at the awesome devotion that the patriotic Greek held toward the Sacred Oracles of Delphi in the temple of Apollo. The Pagan Priesthood and their rituals of the Mysteries In commenting on these mysteries Robert Graves in his book8 explains on that the concept of this pagan priestly system is in the word obscene from the Latin obscenus which means nefarious, of bad omen, and is formed by the two words ob which means against and scaene (from the Greek scene) that means a "theatrical presentation." It gained its second definition of being depraved or indecent when the theater plays, made in honor of the gods of the mysteries, began to include scenes of indecent mimicry that offended the gods. Nerón was famous for his scenic obscenities, which according to him was one of his divine privileges. There were two levels of mysteries in these traditions. Only the most aristocratic or outstanding citizens were admitted to them. The first to the minor mysteries these never had heavenly visions or the phenomenon of oracle. To come to the greater mysteries it was necessary to go through a time of testing and selection; The priesthood was from time of Babel related to the festivals of harvest. Could it be from the customs of Cain that came in the memory of the customs before the flood of the sons of Noah? These festivals in the Greek were called the Elysium Mysteries. They were practiced under the most solemn oaths of secrecy and the activities in their highest degree have never been discovered

nor documented to their fullest. It should not come as a surprise to us Christians that what they called the most secret and sacred of the mysteries are practices of the most abominable kind. After all this priesthood is to triumph over the whole world and produce the Antichrist who will perform the act that is known as the "abomination of desolation" according to the words of our Lord Jesus Christ. "The Elysium mysteries9, dedicated to the Greek gods were preceded by fastings and a ritual bathing in the sea where the devotees transferred their sins to a pig. Latter they entered into the temple and drank mint flavored water and ate baked figures from baskets. From these secret ingredients they had celestial visions that could never be forgotten." The swine was sacrificed on the altar after which the oracles or sacred visions were pronounced as a result of the hallucinating drugs in the pastries. The understanding that I have is that something of the same ritual will be performed by the Antichrist in the temple in the great tribulation period according to Matthew 24:15-16 "When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth let him understand:) Then let them which be in Judæa flee unto the mountains." The Elysium mysteries according to the Encyclopedia Universal Europeo Americano10 Hierophant-- an expounder and interpreter of sacred mysteries (pronounced like the word Peter in Chaldean) which was was the maximum leader the highest priest. The most ancient document about this was found in Moscow at the end of the 18th century as a poem of Homer to Demeter. In the first day of the nine day Elysium Festival on the 15th of boedromian all of the faithful came together, probably in the Pacilo porch. Here the king exhorted all who had criminal records to withdraw and exhorted to proceed with public order. After this the Hierophant (High Priest) excluded the foreigners and murderers and set forth the conditions that the initiates had to fulfill and recommended the work of the spirits to conserve their hands and souls pure and that they were to watch their language that they might demonstrate their qualities as civilized Greeks. They were made to understand the vow of absolute secrecy to never to reveal the mysteries. On the next day, the 16th they proceeded to the purification rites of bathing in the sea with the pig to be sacrificed the next day. On the 17th was celebrated a great public ceremony dedicated to the gods and prayers were made for the Senate and the people and for the blessing on their women and children. Representations were received from other nations and cities. After a public sacrifice they proceeded

to the secret and private sacrifices of the mystical pig. On the 18th they had a public sacrifice with fruit offerings. On the 19th they had a public sacrifice to Epiduria the god that was killed and resurrected as Bacchus. That evening there was organized a public procession, some say it was on the 20th with the image of Cora arriving after midnight because of the four leagues distance and the ceremonies at many temples. All of the initiated carried torches and were followed by a great multitude singing hymns arriving at the Sacred Way, called such because of the number of temples on it. There were many delays to make sacrifices, to dance, and make purifications, and the great crowds slowed everything down. These festivities were celebrated with great splendor and with a very severe attitude of devotion. On the 21st a solemn sacrifice was made in the name of the Republic on the great altar in the center of the sacred Temple in an exclusive and secret ceremony. They sacrificed a goat, a sheep, and a bull, each to various Gods. Their festival finished with public games on the 24th. The concourses and games were practiced every three years and every five years which is what is understood by the distinguishing term the Mega Elysium. The processions were reenacting the search for the daughter of Demeter who was held in hell. They were made with all of the agony and desperation of the loss and at the dawn they were offered food but refused it and continued in fasting because in the myth the daughter was freed only when there came a famine on the whole earth which at last brought about her release, this was all enacted and great euphoria and joy and feasting finished the session. (Has this been the custom that has brought forth the processions of good Friday?) It seems that at this time in the secret recesses they ate the cakes that were the privilege only of those allowed into the greater mysteries. (Laced with the secret hallucinating drugs to bring euphoria) The lack of respect for these gods and their ceremonies was punished with death. Diagoras de Melos had committed this crime and was killed and his head was paraded through the streets. Robert Graves11 comments that in ancient times paradise was reserved only for the refined aristocrats, only when the church came were the doors opened for everyone who was baptized without regard to his social standing. He asks, Why were the ideas of paradise of a traditional model, in Polynesia, precolombian Mexico and Eurasia? The evidence is that a common hallucinating drug was used that caused visions of paradise and mental illumination that was known as "the highest wisdom". He cites the book "Les Champignones hallucinogènes de Mexique" (The Hallucinating Mushrooms of Mexico) and calls it a monumental work by the professors Roger Heim and R. G. Wasson. They have made

experiments and personally participated in rituals with the use of mushrooms which appear alongside toads, snakes and devils in the pagan rituals. One type of mushroom called the amanita muscaria, called fly-cap in England that is red colored with white at the end is used today by the Kojacs which gives a very tumultuous ecstasy which is used to consult the spirits of their dead and make prophecies. The Wasson’s discovered that the mushrooms were used in the same way by the Europeans but were reserved for the priests. The name toad stool is aptly applied as the same poison called bufonenin that it has, is the same as is exuded by toads from their wrinkles when they are frightened. In México there is a mushroom that still is known in the back country as "the body of god". They participated in Oaxaca in an oracular reunion in which the mushrooms were taken, and during the ceremony the witch doctor responded to a question with a response that was unexpected, astonishing and true. They were then also invited and partook of the mushrooms and from the effects they understood why the local tradition about the festival was explained as, "One comprehends everything; even to get to where the Gods live." The rules are common wherever the communication with the world of the spirits is practiced by the use of mushrooms. Before they can participate in this ritual they must be in fasting, abstain from sexual relations, be in peace with everyone. Those who do not obey these rules will see demonic visions of such magnitude that would wish that they never had been born. In what pre Christian religion were the oracles pronounced while the supposed body of the god was eaten? As we have seen it is part of the ritual of ancient Greece. After ritualistic washing the day before, and offering the swine for their sins they were to be in fasting to eat the baskets of breads backed in the form of gods. Those who were initiated into the minor Elysium mysteries never had heavenly visions. Only those who in fasting partook of the bodies of the gods from the baskets. Socrates’ world was dominated by oracles With this information we can begin to see the situation in which Socrates lived. The whole civilization was dominated by the word of this priesthood of the greater mysteries as they gave their pronouncements in an ecstasy that was known as the highest wisdom. This system is what was known as the Oracles of Delphi, that dominated everything. It is based on sight and the manipulations of the psyche by hallucinating drugs. It is the manipulation of Satan imitating the true Spirit of God that gives the sure word according to 2 Peter 1:19-21 and is based on the true prophecy in the true worship of God. "We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your

hearts: Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." Without doubt the suffocating combination of control of the governors and the priests through the Oracles of Delphi was chaffing to many. We have not taken time to quote and show from authorities that the unity of the nation and people, was argued as the reason that a lack of respect was to be punished even to the point of death, having your head mounted on a pole and paraded through the streets. The inquisition started with Cain and will be finished by the Antichrist. It is a continuous fact of this false religion. Hebrew Thought Compared to Greek Thought There are such different points of view on all things between the tradition of the Bible and the tradition of the tower of Babel that it seems they should be taken into account as we extract the poison root of Greek Philosophy out of Christianity. In the book Hebrew Thought Compared with Greek by Thorlief Boman, Westminsiter Press, in chapters five and six we find a studious contrast. There are two ways to approach reality and its appearances intellectually and to grasp them; we call these two ways logical thinking and psychological understanding. When we think logically we place ourselves objectively and impersonally outside the matter and ask what is the strict truth about it; when we would understand a matter psychologically, we familiarize ourselves with it and through sympathetic pursuit of its development we try to grasp it as a necessity. In our psychic life, thinking and understanding are inseparable. For example, we cannot admit the truth of a mathematical proposition without understanding the argumentation employed in its proof; however when we have understood the argument, the proposition strikes us as true in itself, its truth is in no way at all dependent upon us and our act of thinking. We must assert that even if there were no one who could understand the proof, the truth of the proposition would undoubtedly still stand. On the other hand, even if we would understand a matter psychologically, we think more or less unconsciously in accordance with logical laws of thinking. Without some sort of logic, even though it be primitive, no understanding is possible. Logical truth, in this case, is not the goal of intellectual activity but the aid to genuine psychological understanding, as inversely the psychological acts of thinking were an aid to the discernment of logical truth.

When we speak hereinafter of psychological understanding and logical thinking, we mean the two different way of thinking by means of which man is able mentally to appropriate reality; formally speaking they are mutually exclusive, but speaking materially they are complementary. It is not difficult to see that Israel’s mental life belongs to the former type and Greek mental life to the latter. We are able to appreciate the unitary visual approach of Greek thinking without further explanation because, on the whole, we think in a similar way; however, the unitary born of ceaseless always in movement dynamic approach of Hebrew thinking is not difficult to establish against the background of Greek thinking. The matter is outlined in bold relief by to characteristic figures; the thinking Socrates and the praying orthodox Jew. When Socrates was seized by a problem, he remained immobile for an interminable period of time in deep thought; when Holy Scripture is read aloud in the synagogue, the Orthodox Jew moves his whole body ceaselessly in deep devotion and adoration. The Greek most acutely experiences the world and existence while he stand and reflects, but the Israelite reaches his zenith in ceaseless movement. Rest, harmony, composure,and self-control -- this is the Greek way; movement, life, deep emotion, and power--this is the Hebrew way. According to the Israelite conception, everything is in eternal movement: God and man, nature and the world. The totality of existence, ‘ôlam, is time, history, life. (Note that God as immovable-mover is a contradiction to Hebrew thinking.) The history of heaven and earth (Gen.2:4) is of the same form as the history of Adam (5.1), Noah (6.9), and Shem(11.10); it is referred to in each case by the same word, tôledhoth. The fact that God created the word and man once and for all implies that God makes history and brings forth life and the he continues them until they achieve their goal. All sources of being are in God, who alone is. However, because, formally speaking, for the Hebrew being is the same as energy, then he who is, the only true one (Jehovah), is identical with the almighty creator, the saviour, and the world perfecter, a point that Isaiah untiringly reiterates. As space was the given thought-form for the Greeks, so for the Hebrews it was time. Now, as Kant says, time is nothing but the form of inner sense, that is of the intuition of ourselves and of our inner state. It cannot be a determination of outer appearances; it has to do neither with shape, nor position, but with the relation of representations in our inner state. From this it follows that Hebrew thinking necessarily became psychological, since psychology is concerned with us ourselves and our inner states and images. Moreover, it was of equal

necessity that Greek thinking should bear the stamp of logic, since logical validity is constructed externally (objectively), independently of our psychical conditions, and for the most part it also permits of demonstration by way of diagrams, at any rate so far as the Greeks evolved it. For the Hebrew, the decisive reality of the world of experience was the word; for the Greek it was the thing. Yet the word had great significance for the Greek on account of its meaning; on the whole, however, the meaning of the word is independent of the word as a spoken or dynamic reality. Likewise the thing had great significance for the Hebrew, not because of form, shape, or appearance, but partly as instrument, i.e. as a means of action, and partly because of its inherent meaning. (cf. The song of Solomon). In the Hebrew environment the thing was conceived as a dynamic reality, to the extent that it was an instrument, and as a qualitative unit defined by its content, as the Song of Solomon demonstrates. From these last arguments, as well as from those before, we can conclude that for the Hebrew the most important of his senses for the experience of truth was his hearing (as well as various kinds of feeling), but for the Greek it had to be his sight; or perhaps inversely, because the Greeks were organized in a predominantly visual way and the Hebrews in a predominantly auditory way, each people’s conception of truth was formed in increasingly different ways. The impressions gained by way of hearing or perceived sensually --are thinking of word, light, warmth, odor, flavor, and so on-- have the three aforementioned specifically Hebraic characteristics: they are constantly changing, they are of a dynamic-qualitative sort because they can be expressed in all degrees of intensity and in varying qualities, and they are psychologically meaningful because they can awake every possible mood or feeling. The impressions we gain through sight, the visible things, are static in principle because the eye acts as a camera, and as everyone knows, it can record only momentary or instantaneous pictures, that is to say pictures in which movement is at the time so imperceptible as not to be observed. If we observe a body in motion, our eyes follow it so that we retain a relatively static and at the same time, clear picture of it. When these two conditions are absent, it is impossible clearly to recognize movement as, for example, when we sit in a moving train and another one passes by in the opposite direction. In such a case we can neither see the background of the other train nor establish by perception whether or not we are moving. Perception of a moving object takes place at the expense of the clarity of its background which seems vague if we notice it the same time. Sight impressions must, therefore, chiefly be based upon those images which have form, objectivity, and immutability.--

From Boman I make the observation that these points of view bring the Greeks to the unmoved-mover, the unfeeling god of destiny of Aristotle that is not compatible with the dynamic interreacting Jehovah of the Christ and his anointed followers. The followers of Jesus and the scriptures truely inspired by the Holy Spirit with concrete prophecies and the prohibition of believing anyone who was wrong, on even one point of his prophecy, has brought about the confrontation between what are called fundamentalists who insist on the veracity of the word of God and the so called ecumenical stream of the priesthood authority with nothing but traditions, which could be founded on customs that have been born out of the oracles which as we have seen are inspired by Satan.

Chapter 3 Was the death of Socrates Martyrdom or Suicide? The development of Greek Philosophy received great strength from the death of Socrates. He became the martyr that captured the imagination of all who heard of it, and gave his disciple Plato a wide hearing as he unfolded his verbal beliefs in writing in the form of 34 dialogs. This use of dialog was somewhat the equivalent of the advent of television in our day, as the dialogue could be memorized and could be acted out in schools, and public places. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica 12-- Socrates was born about 470 years before Christ in Athens. Socrates served in 440 as a hopalite or foot soldier in war and was known for his endurance. He served on the legislative counsel of 500 but rejected getting into politics as a hindrance to what he felt was his mission to mankind. He resisted at first with the support of his colleagues, afterwards alone, the unconstitutional condemnation of the generals by a collective verdict. At another time he refused when he was instructed with four other men to arrest Leon in the time of the Thirty Tyrants, and it could have cost him his life if there had not been a counter revolution. Living during the chaos of the Peloponnesian War, with its erosion of moral values, Socrates felt called to shore up the ethical dimensions of life by the admonition to "know thyself" and by the effort to explore the connotations of moral and humanistic terms. Socrates was a true patriot who felt that he could best prove his devotion to Athens by setting his face resolutely against the attractions of specious, and popular but deadly theories of public and private

morality. He regarded mythology, with its foolish or immoral tales about gods, as a mere invention of the poets. Aristophanes makes Socrates combine the parts of "infidel" physicist and hierophant (Chaldean Interpreter or high priest) of a mysterious private faith and in The Birds, presents him as presiding at a fraudulent séance. He was regular, says Xenophon, in prayer and sacrifice, though he held that, because only the gods know what is good for a man, his prayer should simply be "give me what is good." It is clear from Plato that Socrates was quite familiar with Pythagorean and Orphic religious ideas --with the doctrine of the divine origin and destiny of the soul, for example --though he regarded the ordinary Orphic mystery monger with healthy contempt. The evidence that Socrates had a markedly "mystical" temperament is abundant. Plato tells of his curious "rapts" in one of which he stood spellbound for 24 hours in the trenches. The accounts of the philosopher’s "divine sign" tell the same story. This according to Plato, was a "voice" often heard by Socrates from childhood. It forbade him to do things but never gave positive encouragement. According to Plato, it merely gave prognostications of good or bad luck, and the occasions of its occurrence were often "very trivial." The object of all this dialogue was to test the famous oracle of Apollo at Delphi, which had pronounced him the wisest of men at a younger age before he became conscious of his mission to his fellow men. Socrates set himself to convict "the god" of falsehood. He took the Delphic oracle seriously enough to probe into its real import. He believed himself charged with a mission from God to make his fellowmen aware of their ignorance and of the supreme importance of knowledge of what is for the soul’s good. This is proved by his declaration that he was more than ready to face instant death rather than to neglect his commission. The poverty in which this mission had involved him and austerity of the rule of life that it entailed were notorious. Summer and winter, Socrates’ coat was the same he had neither shoes nor shirt. "A slave who was made to live so would run away," commented Antiphon. This self-imposed life of hardships was the price of his spiritual independence. He had an inner circle who were attracted for many reasons but all had a common reverence for a great man’s intellect and character who were the ones who collected around him on the day of his death. The accusation and its causes The explanation of the attack made on Socrates is simple. He had been on close terms with two men who were obnoxious to the government, Critias and Alcibiades. The real grounds for the attack could not be disclosed in the

indictment because of the amnesty that had terminated the struggle, of whom Anytus himself had been a main promoter. Thus the vague accusation was put forth of "corruption of the young". But there was more behind the charge. It seems likely that the prosecution was reviving the old charge of the "profanation of the mysteries". Socrates himself treats the whole matter with contempt. His defense consists in narrating the facts of his past life which had proved that he was equally ready to defy the populace and the Thirty in the course of right and law, and in insisting on the reality of his mission from God and his determination to discharge it, even at the cost of life. The prosecutors had no desire for blood. They counted on voluntary withdrawal of the accursed from the jurisdiction before trial; the death penalty was proposed to make such a withdrawal or exile certain. Socrates himself forced the issue by refusing at any stage to do anything involving the least shade of compromise. The prosecution had raised the question whether he was a traitor or, as he held himself to be, an envoy from god; Socrates was determined that the judges should give a direct verdict on the issue without evasion. This is what makes him a martyr. --Enc. Britannica It was natural that the Greeks in trying to find knowledge would turn to introspection by the use of sessions with mediums and the seeking of spirits to be their guides. The great arbitrary rule of the Oracles of Delphi, filled with the egoism and the foolishness that is inevitable in someone pretending to be infallible, as was the case of the priestly order of Apollo. According to Augustine in his Book "The City of God" written about 400 AD. there existed in his day a book entitled "Concerning the God of Socrates" in which it is declared that he consulted a medium and was guided by a spirit. The truth is that Socrates committed suicide He was under sentence of death, but could have insisted that the sentence was unjust and that if he were to die someone else had to hold the fatal cup to his lips. He could have fled, Jesus tells us that when we are persecuted we are to flee to another city. The truth could have been that as it has been stated, in his opposition to the Babylonian Priesthood here under the guise of the Oracles of Delphi, feeling the threat of his ideas to themselves, had in their usual underhanded manner, reduced him for many years to great humiliation and poverty. In this situation, pushed to the limit of his endurance, becoming censured by his peers, he must have fallen into great depression and decided that this pressure was unbearable, and the best way out was to double under it, and he gave up and took the hemlock as a way out of his desperate situation.

We are not permitted this option who receive by grace the consolation as Christians. But he was under the guiding light of a familiar spirit which took the opportunity to destroy his soul at the proper moment. It must be considered a crowning work of these demons. Their character and their task is to stay with the person until this goal is reached. It is our act of love to dislodge them, by the power of our Saviour, from lives before they can do their fatalwork for eternity.

Chapter 4 Men making themselves feel superior Let us examine some of the fatal contradictions between Greek Philosophy and the Holy Bible. I do not suppose in any way to be an expert or an authority on the Bible. In the 50 years since my conversion, I do reserve the right to reflect on what ever I come in contact with and ask wisdom of the Holy Spirit to determine in what ways it is in accord with the Bible or in contradiction to it. I realize my limitations and ask that fellow Christians who read these lines might do the same with this work and love my soul enough to make contact with me and help me in any place that I have not been faithful to some part of the Word of God. I can see that several lifetimes are too short to know all of the Word of God. As we have already noticed the first precept of Socrates was that we know nothing and the first step to wisdom is to accept this. He was trying to establish something, some platform from which to begin his mental speculation. His whole atmosphere was prepared for centuries with what we have briefly described of the Greek religious conscience formed at the highest level by the Babylonian priesthood and their oracles. (You will notice the work of Satan was to picture the gods as most immoral and unholy. The supernatural was oracular, only towards the possession and communication of men by demons.) His gropings led in the direction of looking to the supernatural by consulting mediums. From this he felt that he had a guiding spirit that, while not giving him direction, did warned him of circumstances that would be to his disadvantage. From this source he began with the precept that to be ignorant is one thing that is very bad if one doesn’t realize his ignorance. The man who realizes he is ignorant is superior in his understanding to one who does not.

When we compare this with the Bible in Romans 1:15--2:11 we can see the grand defect of his first step.

"So, as much as in me is, I am ready to preach the gospel to you that are at Rome also. For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things. Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonor their own bodies between themselves: Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen. For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was meet. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful: Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them. Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest: for wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself; for thou that judgest doest the same things. But we are sure that the judgment of God is according to truth against them which commit such things. And thinkest thou this, O man, that judgest them which do

such things, and doest the same, that thou shalt escape the judgment of God? Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance? But after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God; Who will render to every man according to his deeds: To them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, eternal life: But unto them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath, Tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first, and also of the Gentile; But glory, honour, and peace, to every man that worketh good, to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile: For there is no respect of persons with God." Now it is not my purpose to judge the Greek philosophers harshly with this tremendous gospel light that came 400 years after their time on the earth. It is necessary however to notice that what they presented as wisdom was foolishness: "Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools." This tolerance cannot be had for those who lived centuries after the gospel as did Augustine, Aquinas and Calvin. The foolishness of the first step of Socrates was to conclude that man was left in darkness and ignorance by his Creator. Living on earth with resources of beauty, and variety that have never yet been explored completely in any form even twenty four centuries later. With a keen intellect and all the faculties to appreciate this wonderful creation, his first faltering observation was that we are all ignorant and the greatest thing we can do about it is admit that we know nothing. This is the very thing that the Satanic forces have always used as foundation to get men into a false cult. They subtly teach that we know nothing, and when they get us convinced, then they begin to build their damning beliefs. It is the same here with the cult of the Greek philosophy. Since we know nothing we must, Socrates tells us, begin by imagining some hypothesis which is to say an assumption, conjecture, presumption, speculation, supposition or a guess. Paul says God would have us begin by admitting that we are conscious and present in a wonderful world and that it and we ourselves were prepared by loving hands and we take this as a known fact. "Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:…"

This foundation (that we can know nothing for sure) is perhaps the principal root of the skepticism in the western world which ruins the intellectuals and keeps them from becoming part of the Kingdom of God. Dominating the world from the days of the apostles until now, the verse of Paul is still true because of this false cult: "For you see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called." I Cor. 1:26. They have been founded on the corner stone of Socrates, or should we say foundation of sand, that you can know nothing for sure. Everything is just a speculation, a conjecture, a supposition and anyone who knows anything for sure is essentially ignorant. This unbelief places the hearer in the camp of the peoples whose hearts are like the seed that fell by the wayside. They are unbelievers with their understanding blinded and prejudiced by being part of this self exalting cult of supposed superiority. What is superior about living a whole life time and never being sure of anything? In this position one is manipulated by the satanic currents of this world to a sure condemnation of their souls forever, as unbelievers. They have spent the treasure of their days of life in the vanity of having as their greatest cause to live, to feel and make themselves superior, that is to say aristocrats. The silky handed Greeks that Paul preached to in Athens were the aristocrats who insisted that they had the right to exist on the labors and at the expense of the rest of the population. (For all the Athenians and strangers which were there spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell, or to hear some new thing. Acts 17:21).

Chapter 5 Plato’s works and his final disillusion It is necessary that Plato be introduced before continuing the development of these Greek philosophic concepts. Plato was born in Athens 428 years B. C. and at the age of 20 began to hear Socrates and was counted as his disciple. He was 29 years old when Socrates drank the poison at the age of 71. He was born as son of old established nobility being a descendent of King Codro. (We must think then of him having a childhood surrounded by so called important people and amidst many slaves doing their bidding.) His personality is reconstructed from the 7th letter. Under the government of the thirty tyrants of whom some were relatives, he was invited to participate in the government. However the

tyrants by violence destroyed the old order. They sent Socrates to participate in the assassination of a man to complicate him in the murder and their government. Letter 7, 325. After democracy was restored he was anxious to participate in the government, however the conviction and death of Socrates turned him away from government in this time awaiting an opportune moment to actively participate. He came to believe that things could never improve unless the government was guided by true philosophers and by some means they could come to power. From his observations of his early life he came to the conclusion that the only way to have a community founded on justice was that it be ruled by philosophy. At the death of Socrates he moved to Megara and also went to Egypt, Cirene and Italy. The tyrant (dictator) of Syracuse, fearful of his ideas of reform sold him into slavery in the Egina slave market. Since Egina was at war with Athens at the time. He was later purchased back out of slavery by Anniceris de Cirene. When he finally returned to Athens he registered and established his Academy when he was in his forties. He was invited by Dion the new king of Syracuse, after the death of his father,to come and help in the government. He decided to go, so that he could have experience and not be just a man of pure theory. He found that his friend Dion was presumptuous and too occupied to be taught. He returned disillusioned to Athens. About six years later he was called back to Syracuse but it was worse than the first time and he was held prisoner and was finally freed only when a special emissary was sent with a galleon of war. The 7th letter was the answer that Plato sent back to his friend in Syracuse when he was told of the fall of the king. In it he set forth the fundamental interests by which he had lived his life. He had one triumph in his two disciples Erastr and Corisco who were called on to write a more liberal constitution for the ruler of Atarneo. This was done and brought about the willing incorporation into his kingdom of some of the neighboring areas. They were given the city of Asso where they started another Academy. This explains why that at the death of Plato at the age of 81 that Aristotles moved from Athens to there. A manuscript has been found written by Herculano that tells of the last day of the life of Plato a woman was playing the drum and when she was off beat he made a sign with his finger. His fever worsened and he died in the night. Summarizing from the "Historia de la Filosofía by Nicolás Abbagnio" we find that by tradition there has been the Apology of Socrates, thirty-four dialogs and thirteen letters of the works of Plato. Since Socrates left no writings and almost all we know of him were from the dialogs of which he was part, we speak of the Philosophy of Plato. Plato is suspected however of modifying even slanting

the conversations to his own understandings of the matters treated. There is even some problem about which documents are authentic and perhaps others that are spurious that allowed someone to forward his ideas under the prestige of Plato. We will not enter into this however as we are interested only in the ideas that have influenced Christianity whatever their origin. Plato took as his starting precept that it is impossible to know anything for sure. This hypothesis was elaborated by Alcibíades who in ignorance only wants to get power to govern, while in reality he is ignorant of the fact that he has no insights or premises that would qualify him to do so. The theme is further elaborated by the hypothesis in Ion where rhapsody (writing that is full of exaggerated expression of feeling), poetry and the attempt to appeal to the most ancient wisdom of the Greeks such as the poet Homer, never gave nor showed any wisdom whatsoever but only transmitted certain feelings that he called a divine inspiration that he named a virtue. (That is to say that his definition of virtue was supernatural inspiration. Keep in mind that the supernatural that he knew was the realm of the familiar spirits and demons, not the realm of the supernatural Jehovah.) And this was transmitted like magnetism from a magnet passes from one link to another down a long chain. He argues that if the poet was transmitting true wisdom when he spoke of war, he could move armies and in like manner affect the other things that he spoke of. In a paradox of this ignorance theme which he presents in Hippias Menor, he tries to demonstrate that only a good man can knowingly sin, knowing what good is and knowing what bad is and deliberately choosing the bad. But who knows what good consists in? This kind of absurd conclusion suggests that it is impossible to sin voluntarily and that the only one who sins is one who doesn’t know what good is. That is to say only the ignorant sin but involuntarily. (Since sin is a voluntary act it is only a distinction to befuddle, bewilder, muddle or unhinge the mind.) This dialog carries the opposite to its extreme and by doing so is an indirect confirmation of the hypothesis of Socrates that Virtue is Knowledge. According to the dictionary Virtue is moral excellence, inherent power or merit. Knowledge is the clear perception of a truth, fact or subject; that which is known; information gained and preserved. This supposedly profound wisdom of Socrates is saying: Moral excellence is the equivalent of that which is known or learned. or good character is the same as information What kind of a declaration is this? On this foundation Plato is going to raise up his Academy and all of his 34 dialogs and his philosophy. Is not this

senselessness, is it not foolishness? they will after becoming engrossed in this cult look at the Christian gospel and proclaim it foolishness. I Cor. 1:23 "…unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness." Is not virtue a moral quality and is not knowledge the knowing, the understanding quality? Is not making them equal an equation to bewilder, daze, stun, unhinge or confuse the mind? Young students miss this and just say; this declaration is too deep to understand. Upon this phrase is raised the wisdom of Plato the Greek Philosopher. Everyone who sticks out his chest and proclaims to be educated and aristocratic because they are of the highest class, saturated with the great wisdom of the ancient Greek culture, is deceived. (For one to think because they are based on this mind befuddling phrase, that they are superior to everybody else, is to be deluded. They have been exalted in themselves to believe that they cannot participate in any of what they call humble occupations as it is beneath their dignity. They are superior and cannot be socially associated with those beneath their level. All of this God sees as spiritual pride and none are ever saved, every one of them loses their soul eternally. One must be poor in spirit to enter the Kingdom of God. Their hearts are proud and they cannot hear the voice of God, for their attention is on being somebody before men.) In I Cor. 1 we read "…the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men. For you see your calling brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called… that no flesh should glory in his presence." The aristocrat has been led to a false view of life in which his dignity (attitude of superiority) is more important than anything, even his own soul. What men may think of him is of more importance than what his Creator thinks. "For they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God." Jn. 21:43. Plato says in Euthyphro that the fundamental virtue of the Greek citizen is religious piety which he defines as --the art that regulates the interchange of benefits between the gods and man, man offers sacrifices and worship and the gods give advantages and helps. The dilemma then comes up about something being holy because it pleases the gods or does it please the gods because it is holy. He then leaves this to say that that which involves worship of the gods is a part of justice. (Here we have all of the involvement of government with the priesthood as part of being a good officer of the armed forces or the government.) Plato with the investigation of virtue develops the idea that we must know what the object of virtue is. Virtue he says is to pursue the beautiful. This is the subject of Hippias mayor and he concludes that virtue can not be separated

from the beautiful and the convenient is the appearance of the beautiful not beauty itself but the usefulness that produces the good and therefore the cause of good. (This brings about the evil of expediency being considered good.) All the virtues tend to be united in the good. The good is also the final foundation of every human relation according to Lysis. The final conclusion is that men want only the true good, which is the true friendship and and all relationships are only shadows of this reality. His concludes therefore that there are no individual virtues, but that all this is understood as virtue itself, and there can be no other actions, values or relations that are out side of human relations and this is the one thing, the good. (Notice how God the Creator is left out.) In the Protagoras he explains that the arguments of the Sophists were not science, but a series of talents that were learned in discussion. Science was defined by Socrates as a calculation of pleasures. The confrontation of the two views make up Protagoras. Plato continues dealing with other attitudes of the sophists in the eristikos that is to say the art of controversy with which one learns to contradict anything someone else says which he deals with in Euthydemos, the excessive verbal expression or speech without basis, that was supposed by them and the Cynics to make anything true in Cratylos, he writes the Gorgias against their training in rhetoric that is to say the teaching of how to quibble and use subtleties. Plato always developed his ideas in sort of a backhanded difficult manner to understand. He was always setting forth the guess or hypothesis and then running it to the extreme, to make his point. Besides this he changed the use of the words. Here we always have the so called intellectual, trained in the so called Classics, ever breaking in the conversation to give us long explanations about the meaning of words and them not meaning what they seem to. This is the usual practice of the devious, evasive Plato. He deals in Cratylos with three theories about language, • that it has evolved from the meanings that men have only given, • that it has grown out of the usage, or as Plato says • it is the intelligent selection of language as an instrument. He refers especially to ideas which he usually chooses to call "substances". He says that man himself is in contact with the essence of the ideas that are behind all language and things and in this sense he has developed the words. Therefore words can convey the true idea or can give a completely false concept accordingly as they are true to the ideas that they represent and supposedly they have been evolved from or not. (Note that this concept is basic for the works of witchcraft. By the use of words and magic, ideas are changed into real substance. Satan’s imitation of God who spoke the world into existence.)

He then in the Gorgias attacks the use of rhetoric as an instrument, that it can be used for the true or the false and is of no use, to determine the truth about anything but is only the use of flattery to influence belief in any point of view. (These teachings again should be noted in the resistance to the preaching of the Christian gospel, for this proud person who is rooted in this system of error, known as the superior classic education, is completely unwilling or unable to accept the authority of the promises of the Word of God, in a way, that would allow them to respond in faith. They are suspicious of all conversation, and even practice the use of words to give a false idea, and therefore have a great immunity to the preaching of the gospel, feeling that it is coming from some one of low class if he believes something with sincere conviction, and therefore beneath their serious consideration. In Menón he tries to answer the question of what is "learning". Learning creates a bond between men and since virtue is something that can be taught and learned it is a science. (In this dialog he gets into witchcraft.) He declares the soul to be immortal, that it has been born and lived many life times, and has seen everything in this world, and in Hades, that the manner to learn is to bring things to remembrance from the other world. He confirms this by giving the example of a slave, who when pressed, was able to come to understand the theories of Protagoras. He uses this to bring in a doctrine of the mother nature in which all nature is one and the same thing of which the soul is part, but he presents all of this only as an hypothesis. This process of getting at the meaning of anything is called the dialectic process. He says that this remembrance from the other world is the true meaning of learning, that one can be helped to come to it by sound reason, by which one becomes convinced and from this, then one is led to the illumination from the other world which is the highest and the true learning. Isn’t it difficult to see any great wisdom is in this doctrine? When or how can he ever prove the preexistence of the soul? This is the unresolved subject of Phaedón. Was there an unknown doctrine forbidding these Greeks to systematical deal with these subjects? In the seventh letter, there was a mentioned of "unwritten doctrines" that were perhaps part of the Academy. They were governed by and lived in the days of the "secret mysteries". (How different from Jesus who said in John 18:20"…in secret have I said nothing." How much to be pitied are these high and lifted up disciples of the cavalier and secretive Plato.)

By the guess method he comes to three conclusions, • ideas are specific objects of rational understanding, • ideas are opinions or principles of justice of natural things, • ideas are the causes of all natural things. Ideas are taken as objects of rational knowledge and receive the name of entities, specters or substances and are clearly distinguished from the concrete things. He criticizes others for not going deeper than appearances, because as such, he says they are slaves of only the appearance, and are not true philosophers. He claims that true philosophy must go father than the human senses, it must get into the life before birth or beyond the grave, and be able to distinguish, between what is possible to be known in our normal physical consciousness, and what can be known by our "soul in itself". The working format of witchcraft The goal is that as much as possible, the soul should be separated from body, so that it lives waiting and in preparation for death, when the separation will be fully accomplished. Two things can be seen to be equal but they may not be if the entities, specters or substances in the other world are not equal. I understand that he is talking about ghosts, the spirits of the departed dead, as well as demons, and is speaking of ideas as being living things in the spiritual world, and that we must have out of body experiences, in order to be true philosophers. In other words Plato contends that true philosophy as he defines it, is in the realm of witchcraft and the consulting of familiar spirits. He goes a step farther and declares that all things are caused by ideas. This is the working format of all witchcraft which presumes that events and substance can be controlled from the mind. Plato’s proof of the immortality of the soul He claims that by these arguments he proves the immortality of the soul. He is really seems to be saying that if you can become a medium and can make contact with a familiar spirit to give you understanding that is supernatural or farther out than your senses, you are a philosopher, if not you have not reached the level to be called a true philosopher. The supernatural recollection of life before one is born is the another proof of the immortality of the soul. It is asserted that when death comes the soul will be able to depart from the body without damage and keep its intelligence intact. In this manner the theory of learning is unfolded in Menon and Phaedon and supposedly is shown to prove the immortality of the soul before and after this life.

In Banquete and Phaedros Plato unfolds the idea of a fellowship or special relationship that goes farther than the intellect to encompass all of the people involved in it and calls it love. He teaches that this love is the pursuance of beauty, and works out what he calls different echelons of this into a hierarchy of levels that has as the first level, the physical, and progressively ascends with the involvement of the soul, until the highest is that which is purely spiritual. The vulgar eros refers to the body and the heavenly eros to the soul. Aristrófanes by use of a myth tells how that primitive man and woman were cut in half as a punishment of the gods to show the real need that is found in man and sets forth the idea of insufficiency. Socrates sets forth the idea that love comes from desire for something that we do not possess. (Seems like we would call this covetousness.) He interprets the myth by calling man the son of poverty and of conquest. He is not a god, on the contrary he is a demon. He does not possess beauty, but for his lack he desires it. The search for it makes him a philosopher. He says that it is the gods who have wisdom. Love is the desire for beauty because it makes us happy, and the mortal man usually begets in beauty, and by this mankind is perpetuated generation in generation. There are however different degrees of beauty which man can slowly arrive at in life. First a man comes to the beauty of the body, then to the beauty of the soul, then to the beauty of the laws and institutions and then to the beauty of science until finally, he comes to beauty as the supreme object which is above the future and death always the same in itself, precedes every other beauty. Purgatory rooted in Plato Plato in Phaedrus13, speaking of the judgement of the dead, holds out the hope of final deliverance for all, but maintains that of "those who are judged," some must first "proceed to a subterranean place of judgement, where they shall sustain the punishment they have deserved." In ancient Greece:"There the Argives sacrificed on the thirtieth day (after death) to Mercury as the conductor of the dead"14 This custom is still perpetuated in Roman Catholicism. The team made of the excellent and worthless horses How can a man climb this hierarchy to reach the final beauty? The problem is resolved in Phedo by using the example of a team of horses. One of the horses is excellent and the other is worthless and the effort to drive this team is very difficult. The driver attempts to drive the team to heaven to find the gods where the headquarters of being is. In this region is found the true substance (idea) which has no color or form and can be seen only by the guide of the soul which is reason. This substance is the fullness of the ideas (justice in its essence,

temperance in its essence, etc.). (From this concept of no color or form comes the term Achromatic used by Aristotle.) Man cannot stay there in heaven in contemplation very long, for the bad white hoofed horse causes him to descend and then he loses his wings, and he must come back and be born as a man, with the quality of soul that he has in this moment. The fallen soul now imprisoned (it is called a kind of sickness) in the physical body, is awakened by beauty to pursue it through its stages. As this pursuit is intensified it slowly subjects all the passions of the flesh as secondary and subjects them to the rational, reasonable and logical dialectic. The dialectic is the investigation of ones own soul and the soul of others by learning and teaching in community using reason to reach and find the real truth by remembrance of what one knew when he was out of the body before he was born. This will be the center of speculation in the final dialogs. The Republic is considered to be Plato’s greatest work In the Republic utopia is promised by using and combining the principles we have seen advocated thus far. According to Plato, all of the bad things going on in the city could be eliminated, and the society could be brought into perfect harmony, and everyone could be perfectly happy and well adjusted, if injustice could be enlightened. This is to be done by allowing the principles of philosophy and the philosophers first place. Plato advocates a situation where the governors and kings are dedicated publicly and privately with them to truth and justice, only then can the corruption of the human race be dominated. (Is he not saying first of all, if you just let me run everything I can fix the problems, I promise you utopia?) What is the objective and foundation of this utopian community? Really, who are the philosophers? Plato gives justice as the answer to the first question. Here he is determining the nature of justice. He says that even a group of bandits must have justice in their group to exist. The state is born on the principle of justice. It should consist in three social classes, they who govern, they who guard that is to say the soldiers, and everybody else (the riffraff, that’s us).

Prudence is the quality of the first class, strength for the second, and temperance (is he is saying passivity?) for all classes is necessary in that they accept this type of government. Plato says that all of these virtues working together represent the justice, as each one attends his his own work in the

system. There is such a wide variety of tasks, each one must find his own and dedicate himself to it. This way, each one will make the state unified and complete. (Isn’t he saying you do the work and I will govern and manage your resources?) The justice guarantees the unity and thus the strength of the state, and the usefulness of the individual. Plato divides the person also into the rational part in which the soul dominates the impulses, the passion part of the impulses, and the irascible or balky, questioning of conscience which is the helper of the reason and influences one to obey it. The rational principle will be the prudence and the irascible will be the strength which is related the temperance. The individual will also enjoy justice when he gives each of his parts the proper place. The realization of justice for the state and the individual has to develop step by step together with both parts in partnership. (visualize a conversation between Plato and the street sweeper where he is exhorted to do his part). As they work toward this goal together they also work out the unity of the state. Eliminate the poverty and the riches Plato says two conditions are necessary to bring about this justice, the first is to eliminate poverty and riches because both eliminate the possibility of the fulfilling one’s mission. Plato says that the two highest classes, that of Philosopher-king and the guardians, should not be able to hold property or receive salaries, except that which is necessary to live on. The other part of society can own and distribute what they have under the governments direction. (You can see where socialism comes from.) Elimination of Family Life and Selective Breeding Plato says that the second thing is the absolution of the family life for these two classes that form the aristocrats. He says in the Republic 15 that in this small elite class of those who govern whom he calls "perfect guardians" the community should be composed of women as well as the men. These will be temperate in their appetites, that is to say will be masters of themselves and their appetites. (430e) That they will be in use of their three parts. That in the third part when they serve the appetites, referring to the pleasures of eating or of procreation in brotherhood, that with all their heart they engage in them when they take them up.(436b) Since he envisions the incorporation of the women into the governing society as equals according to their capacity, it is necessary that the children
be rais by thÿ state gnd the state should decree the union for procreation according to the systems desire for healthy offspring.

(selective breeding!) Since the children are raised and educated by the state, the guardians that govern the state becomes one big family. Men and women exercise together naked In Book 5 he expands the idea that the women are to be equal in everything. He says (452d) that it has been found that the exercise of the gymnasium is better when practiced naked. That the equality of the women be extended to the practice of the women and men together doing the gymnasium exercises together naked. That the women be chosen to be well formed to be among the guardians are be given the same training in music and gymnasium. (456b) That the women be held in common by all of the men among the guardians. They may not have any woman in particular. That the children be in common so that no child could say that any particular man was his father, nor the father be able to claim a particular child as his own. The older children and the women all must go to war with the men and fight together naked. As it was the custom for the warriors to fight naked. (457) That the young men who are the most able in war, physical prowess or intellectual pursuits, be given honor and license to lay with the greatest number of women possible thus producing the greatest number of children possible. (460b) That it be law among them that no one can refuse the kiss of another, in case that a man or woman are in love that they may better think of earning the premiums and abandon the attachment.(468a) It is necessary to remind a young man who has fallen in love to not forget that all of the young women in their flower smite and impersonate, that he might not lose out making love with all who are in the flower of life. (474d) These conditions are made possible because of the just administration by the philosopher king and his fellow philosophers. (Can you see why Plato has been a poison root in society among the aristocrats of all ages and the impossibility of reconciling Plato with Christianity?) Plato teaches that it is possible to indirectly understand what is just by determining what is unjust. The state advocated by Plato is the aristocratic state in which the task of government belongs only to the best, the elite. He claims this is very different from all of the other existing governments which are representative of the failures of the individuals. The first is the timocracy, a government founded on honor that is based on ambitious men who become large property owners who love to give orders and receive honor but dislike the philosophers. The second form is the oligarchic government founded on those families who have the wealth generation in generation and men who are covetous of getting more, and work at it constantly. The third is the democratic government in which everyone is free to do what he wants to and tends to loose its way in immoderate desires. As a result of the excessive liberty of the

democracy it is replaced by the worst of governments which is the tyrannical, and is governed by the tyrant or dictator, who seeks to save himself from the hatred of the citizens surrounds himself by the worst sorts. Plato’s definition of Philosophy The central part of the Republic is dedicated to describing the perimeters of philosophy. Plato says that the philosopher is one who loves to look in depth or all the way into things, that is to say find total knowledge and is not content to look only at something superficially. He here declares this strange statement. "That which is absolute is absolutely knowable, that which is not, is not absolutely knowable." Therefore, he says "being" corresponds to science, which is defined as absolute and true knowing, the "no being", the ignorance, and the future, whatever is found between these two corresponds to opinion. Opinion is in the realm of the senses and the rational. He then speaks about the different degrees of knowing. •The conjecture or supposition presumed from the shadows and images of the things around us. • The opinions that we believe but have never investigated why we believe them about our situation. • The scientific opinion that we have established by working from an hypothesis starting with our known world. • The philosophical reason that proceeds from his dialectic method and belongs to our being. Plato then says that the shadows and images are copies derived from the natural causes, the natural causes are the result of the mathematical specters, and these are copies of the eternal ideas substances which constitutes the true world of being. Therefore the true world of being is made up of absolute unity and order. The specters of the mathematics, numbers and geometrical figures reproduce the order and proportion of the world and so, because of this, when we want to confirm them we resort to measurements. Knowing therefore has as its ultimate goal the knowing of our being, every grade of knowledge receives its worth from the level above it and everything is from the substances. The Example of the Cavern Plato says a soul begins with his opinions and work his way up, educating himself step by step. He makes an example using a cavern. In this world men are slaves chained in a cavern facing the interior as the light from behind them makes shadows and illuminates images by the bonfire that is at the entrance. Men take these shadows as reality because they have never seen the objects themselves. If one of the slaves is able to get free from his chains and goes to the outside he can see nothing as he has come out of the darkness and is blinded

by the sun. He finally is able to accustom his eyes to see all things, their shadows and their reflections in the water. He finally lifts his sight to see the stars and the sun. Only then can he begin to understand that the sun gives the seasons of the year and lights up everything, and from it were derived all the things they were seeing in the cavern. The cavern represents the visible world, the projected shadows represent the living on earth, and the sun represents the bonfire. Our understanding and knowledge of things is represented by the capacity and perspective of the slaves in chains. If the slave who managed to free himself returns to the cavern he will be unable to see in the dim light and will be made fun of by his former companions. He is unable to see the shadows even though they confer the maximum honors on those who can see them most clearly. The philosopher knows that the reality is outside the cavern and feels sorry for these who are content with having the shadows as their reality. Education consists therefore in gradually conducting men from the awareness of the visible world to an awareness of the highest point of the invisible world of being. In this preparation he must use arithmetic, to learn to calculate, astronomy to learn the ordered relation between things, music to learn about harmony. The good in the world of being, corresponds to the sun in the visible world. As the sun not only illuminates the world but makes us be able to multiply, grow and eat; so also the good not only makes knowable the world around us but is the substance of the the things we see and is not just an idea but is the idea that is the cause, behind all the ideas not being only an (idea) substance but everything is at the fundamentaly this substance. The good is perfection in itself while the ideas are perfections or that is to say the goods, it is not being because it is the cause of being. (Rep. 509 b) Plato makes his god subject to the eternal universe This text is foundational to Plato’s philosophy and must be ignored in all of the attempts to adapt the philosophy of Plato to religion. All this adaption is called Neoplatonism because they willfully ignore this statement, plainly made by Plato, saying that everything is founded on substance and substance is founded on good and he states that all beings are subject to this. In this sense he plainly denies God as a first cause, to use Plato in the Christian Religion is a distortion of his plainly stated beliefs and therefore we have the term Neoplatonism. Plato made all of his observation with a political end in view. He was trying to use all of his observations to bring about, found or modify a society into a

utopian community that would be happy and just. For him an important part of his teaching was to return to the cavern, which although it is inferior, is the real world of us humans, to join and interreact with them. Returning, one should accustom ones self to the darkness again and help those in darkness see what there is behind every shadow, that is to say the beautiful, the just and the good. By thus governing they can do a better job than the present governors who are seeing the act of governing as the good and are disputing over the shadows. Only as he returns to the shadows and becomes a part of the human reality can a man become just and be a true philosopher. In the tenth book of the Republic Plato denounces art such as novels, poems sculpture and paintings that are imitations of the shadows, as belonging to the lower passions of man. Teaching that these activities tend to close a man into the delusion and while the philosopher should be involved in freeing men from them. Plato explicitly explains that this city does not have to be literally in existence but the importance is for the philosopher to live his life according to this idea. Socrates was the ideal citizen and lived and died in this city. He is called by Plato "the most just and best". Whoever wants to be a philosopher must make this city his vision. One’s own destiny is chosen in reincarnation In the final part of the Republic, Plato takes up debating man and his destiny. He uses a myth to speak of the election that every man must make in choosing between a great variety of life models before he is supposedly reincarnated which afterward becomes his destiny, from which he cannot escape in this life. He takes the example of a man he calls Er who is killed in battle and is resurrected twelve days later and gives an account of what awaits them after death. (Why exchange a mythical resurrection for the literal one of our Lord Jesus?) The central part of this account refers to the election that one must make at the moment he is reincarnated. Parca (Fate) Lachesis who is in charge of the election assures him of his freedom of choice. "It is not the devil who chooses your destiny but you who chooses your devil. The first who takes his turn will choose the kind of life to which he will be inseparably obligated. Virtue is available to everyone, who takes it to himself as he chooses to want or despise it. Everyone is responsible for his own destiny, the divinity is not responsible." (Make your choice after death, is the vailed Satanic suggestion.) The souls to be born are given a chance to choose according to the casting of lots among a great variety of life models. Since the first lots have the most

variety to choose from they have lives that in some sense are by chance, but even though one’s lot is one of the last in the opportunity to choose, if he chooses well, he can have a happy life. The real meaning of the myth is to encourage everyone to use the criteria of Plato’s philosophy to choose wisely in this life and especially when it comes one’s time to be reincarnated. Even those who come from heaven choose badly because they have never experienced suffering. He closes with an example of what is a worthy choice, by illustrating how Ulysses remembering his former trials chooses a modest life without great riches or power. This future choice after death is the most dangerous, so according to Plato, a man should dedicated all of his life, to preparing himself for it, by studying philosophy and occupying himself with politics, so as to understand how to choose his next reincarnation. After making a synthesis of his teaching in The Republic an attempt is made to identify and classify ideas (substances) in Parmenides. Plato declares that ideas not only exist in the human mind but are concrete things that are the property of divinity. (Is not this the basic supposition of all witchcraft?) In Theaetetos the study is carried forward by thinking up an hypothesis and carrying them to the most extreme limit, to try to establish a truth. They are working at trying to demonstrate that it is impossible to arrive at any definition as long as one stays within the bounds of subjective knowledge. (This certainly is most unscientific and anti-scientific making this whole philosophic system incompatible with science as we know it.) He does say something interesting in Theaetetos declaring: when the soul thinks, it is only having a conversation with himself, asking and answering to himself. This all ends on a negative note. The hypothesis is not workable because everything is based according to them on subjective knowledge (knowing within ones self) and gives no place for being able to prove something true or false out side of ones self so that these ideas are finally disregarded. (Isn’t this saying that no one should think for himself?) In the Sophist it is affirmed that "pure or perfect being is deprived of movement, of life, of intelligence, and does not live nor think." (The model for the unmoved-mover of Aristotle? This is a contradiction against the purity and holiness of Jehovah and his person.) The contradiction then becomes apparent; that the pure being would be unknown if there were not intelligence, and to include it with being, modifies radically the nature of being. Being then is not unmovable, for intelligence is movement which makes it a fundamental form. This discussion concludes by establishing that being is defined as having possibilities. That amplification of the definition is to make possible the use of the dialectic method of arriving at conclusions.

This word dialectic means --the art of conversation or dialog, however for Plato all learning even by thinking or having a conversation with one’s self is included in the definition. Plato put his concept of dialectic reasoning in practice in the Phaedros, the Sophist, and in the Politikos (Statesman). He starts out by defining the idea of dialectic reasoning, then dividing it into parts calling them the right and the left parts which also are divided. This process can be stopped or be started up with another idea at any time and all can be recapitulated and summed up at the conclusion. In the Republic he places the good in the highest part of being and considered this the supreme value, in the Sophist he chooses to make being something structural and talk about those possibilities. (Notice that all morals and ethics as we know them are thus eliminated from the discussion.) When Plato comes to Philebos the good no longer is the super substance, but is considered the form of life of one who is trying to find the good. The life that is lost in serving pleasure is not more than an animal existence, while one that is only based on intelligence is divine and not human. The philosopher must reduce life to temperance, that is to say, balancing everything. He says that the supreme good is the ordered temperance, that after it comes the beautiful, the proportioned and the perfect, after which follows the intelligence, then the science and opinion, and fifth the pure pleasures. So Philebos offers values according to the structure laid down in Sophist. He modifies Socrates who said that the true science of the just should be the science of the temperance. He had men who came to him to study with him expecting that they would be given instruction over such things as riches, health, happiness, who were disillusioned as he talked about mathematics, limits and the supreme unity, the constituted the good. He followed Socrates in the idea that virtue could be reduced to a science, but changed this into rigorous discipline. (Plato is still looking for a compass to guide him, something solid to build on, which he never finds, leaving the philosophers as floating ships with out navigation, since they do not know where they are, cannot possibly set course for anywhere.) At this point he had to loose the negation of Socrates to deal with the natural world, for he had accepted that being was part of the natural world. Study of the natural world is possible but does not constitute true science, which only applies to that which is stable and firm, for the natural world is not stable and therefore is not the true being. Placing these limitations makes this a study of probables. All of Plato’s teachings are a kind of adapting or forming a creed of life based on myths. Plato teaches the cause of the world is the demiurge --creator of the world out of chaos from a goodness that is free of jealousy. (Note the belief that the

universe not God is eternal.) This demiurge has created this temporal world patterned after the true world of being. Nature is something like a living, gigantic intelligent animal. (Mother nature) To make nature more like the real world which is only in the supernatural, time was instituted. Time is -aanordered constant and systematic unfolding "moving image of eternity" which is observed in the movements of the heavenly bodies. The demiurge is the cause of everything that is order, reason, and beauty; but the world has another cause which is not intelligence but is necessity. Nature would be considered the father and necessity the mother which is without form and encompasses everything and participates in intelligence and is difficult to conceive. Evidently this formless recipient, this original wet nurse of everything, this underlying law, is what limits the actions of the demiurge so that the natural world does not have the perfection of its spiritual model. Besides this, there is space that is the recipient of everything that exists, and is indestructible. So then Plato says the principles before the birth of the world were, being, space, and the mother of all generation.

Now it is plain to see the lack in this platonic cosmetology of a motivation to identify the divine with the good on which the neoplatonic religious interpretation rests. According his concept in Timaeos of the genesis of things, the various gods were products of the movements of these principles. Aristotle also held that structures of the world were before the gods. It is also necessary to notice their insistence on a plurality of gods. He makes a comparison of his ideal state to beautifully sculptured figures that upon seeing them one desires to see them move, and in the same way he would like to see his Republic in action. In the succeeding dialog Critias he should have given the hypothetical history of his ideal state but he breaks it off and we are left to see that his idea of history is one of three different ages each more deteriorated than the other. • The age of the gods. • The age of the heroes. • The age of men, who because of their struggle to supply their necessities of life have mostly forgotten the tradition of the heroes. This concept was taken up by Vico in the eighteenth century but the concept of deterioration through the ages was changed to the idea that we are progressing from age to age. The last activity of Plato was dedicated to the political problems in Politico. He concludes that the political art should be to find the proper medium between the valiant and the cautious elements in society. It is really better to decide every

circumstance than to have laws, but since this is impossible, laws are necessary to give a generic idea of what is aimed at, as what is the best for all. Once laws are established, they must be upheld, as their destruction is the destruction of the state. Although he talked about the perfect or ideal state in the Republic, he now speaks of using the laws to bring the society slowly into the being ideal citizens. This results in the most extensive (twelve books) of his writings The Laws. These dialogs were published after his death. He says that the laws should not just sanction, but should have an educational effect and every law should have a preamble, explaining its reason of being, and that the sanctions should not be a vengeance on the lawbreaker, but move the person, to, in liberty become a good citizen. Every citizen should from childhood be educated and guided to be able to obey, and to rule with justice. The state must have religion as its foundation. He admits that if one thing is moved by another, there must be somewhere something that moves by itself. Our soul moves by itself, therefore there must be a soul in the universe. To think that this soul is not interested and active, is to make it lazy and inferior to men, who like to perfect their work. This last speculation of Plato tends towards a philosophic religion, which is directed to fit in with traditional beliefs. Not even at the last is there even a vestige of monotheism in his concepts, but to him the divinity is always an infinite plurality of gods that are seen in their highest forms in the heavenly bodies. (Laws 899 a-b) Plato never has drawn a definite conclusion Plato never was willing, even to the end of his life, to summarize or give a concrete statement of his positions or beliefs. From his first dialogs until the last, there is a great abyss of difference, he has recorded his disillusionments as a man in his efforts to find a political ideal. His work never has accepted specific stages or definite conclusions. This can be seen if his concept of establishing by mathematical calculation a definition of virtue is compared to his legislative code. He faithfully spent all of his life looking for how to be virtuous and happy, following in the steps of Socrates, but never felt that he had arrived at anything concrete that he could write down and leave with us. His quest was a failure. He wrote in his seventh letter, "from me, at least there has not been, nor ever will be written a recapitulation of the problems." He says that they cannot be reduced to formulas, only after working with them a long time, and having lived and discussed them in common with others, does the true significance begin as a spark in the soul, and then a flame which grows by itself. (Letter VII, 341 b-d)

Plato’s Monastic Concept From his concept no doubt has grown the monastic idea. He declares that philosophying cannot be correctly done by one isolated person, but that a community must be developed, that with all benevolence, discuss’ with the maximum intensity humanly possible, every name and definition, eliminating the envy from every comment, using prudence and intelligence which will bring the special spark in the soul. This he says, supposes the solidarity of the individual with others, the abandoning of a pretense to believe one is in possession of the truth, giving up resistance to learn from others, and having sincerity with oneself and the others to unite together. This is to be a philosopher. This solidarity is the fruit, not of the closeness of souls and bodies, but must by the community of free education, which is based on the disappearance of bad motives, envy and by joining in a common search. This does not consist in forming a doctrine. (In the chapter on the Academy we will note some of the tendencies and errors of this concept that have ruined humanity.)

Chapter 6 Aristotle, Obscure Occult Metaphysics Aristotle was born about 384 years before Christ or about 15 years after the death of Socrates. He entered the Academy of Plato that had been established 20 years before at the age of 17 when Plato was 61. He remained there 20 years until Plato died in 347 BC at the age of 81 and Plato’s nephew Espeusipo was placed in charge. (Was it not that Plato really was not sure if he had a son or not and turned to his nephew, no doubt having followed his precepts of free love?) Aristotle then went over to Assos where Erasto and Corisco, disciples of Plato had formed an Academy. Five years later he was called on by the king to teach Alexander the Great, for seven years, who was about 14 years old at the time until he came to the throne at the age of 21. No doubt he taught him of the superiority of his race and its strength in the elite comradeship among the Greek aristocrats to be able to conquer the world. It must be noticed that the moral degradation of Alexander had to be partly the fruits of the teaching of Aristotle. Aristotle returned to Athens in 335, at this time he was 49 years old and he established his commune which was called a Lyceum (named from the path through the garden). Here the order of study was firmly established as he gave

the more difficult lessons over philosophy in the mornings and the study of rhetoric and logic in the afternoons to a wider group of students. The more experienced students were also made teachers. Twelve years later at the death of Alexander the Great he fled Athens for fear that his fate might be the same as Socrates. He went to his mother’s property in Caleis and because of a stomach ailment he died after a few months at the age of 63. His last will and testament still survives, in which he mentions his younger daughter, and a woman he had lived with after the death of his wife, his son, and his desire to have his body buried by the side of his wife Pitia. Could part of the conflict that he had with Plato be because Aristotle lived in family? The doctrine of Aristotle is known mostly from the notes that he used to give his classes with. The fragments of his dialogs that exist seem to show that he began with the ideas of Plato which he eventually modified, changing what were primarily spiritual concepts being applied to politics, to their use for specific investigation of nature. Even though Plato was reported to have said while he was yet in the Academy that "Aristotle has kicked me like a colt kicks his mother." In Eudemeia he accepts the concept of Plato that this life brings about an amnesia of the things that happened in the preexistence before birth. Eudemo was sick and had a prophetic dream that announced his healing, the death of a dictator and the return to his country. He received the first two but while awaiting the return to his home he was killed in battle by which it was indicated that the true home was is the other world not this one. From this account Aristotle demonstrates the mental depression of paganism and discusses the immortality of men and their memory of all things after death in the other world. He declares that life without the body is the natural state of the soul and the soul in the body is unnatural and a kind of sickness. He believes, "That since man cannot participate in that which is the true reality while in the body, it is better to not have been born, and since we have been born it is better to die as soon as possible." Here we have the degradation of paganism in depreciation of the body, and the dual concept of man instead of the unity of soul spirit and body. (The body is degraded mortified or even debauched but the spirit is thought to be elevated and holy. The Christian concept is the consecration of the body, spirit and soul to the will of the Creator as a person. That life, the earth and all the fullness thereof is a blessing: everything was made very good.) In Protréptico(the exhortation discourse) he speaks of the dilemma: to be or not to be a philosopher, but to decide not to be a philosopher one must become one. Here he lifts up the wise life of a Philosopher to be a mortal god who is superior to the tragedies of men. 700 years later Augustine parrots the idea

declaring that you become a philosopher to come to God. He first wrote A Dialog about Philosophy composed of three volumes. In the first he lifted Plato up as the great example of philosophic development, in the second he criticizes his doctrine of idea declaring that to say they are equivalent to numbers makes everything illogical. To say that a number is a different species apart from mathematics leaves most of us without understanding. Plutarch is quoted as saying that he refuted all of the doctrine of ideas. In the third book Aristotle presents his cosmic construction. He conceived the divinity as a motor that moves everything, inspiring in it the desire for perfection. While Plato used the Cavern myth to say that the world was an illusion, Aristotle used it to say that it was inspired by a mover. This is an illustration of the difference between the two men. The Achromatic works of Aristotle Achromatic now means light without color to the natural eye, esoteric (designed or understood by the initiated alone), abstruse, profound, obscure, occult. Sila, in the century before the birth of Christ took three categories of Aristotle’s works to Rome and published them. • The first category was called Organon and were related to logic; Categories, About the interpretation, Prior Analytics First( two books) about reason, Poterior Analytics Second (two books) about proofs, the definition, the division and knowledge of principles, Topics (eight books) about dialectic reasoning and the art of refuting, founded in probable premises, Sophistical Refutations the refutation of the reasoning of the Sophists. • The second category of works are the Metaphysics (fourteen books) the twelveth book gives a summary of his system of formulating a theology as a separate science about the divine being as the primary motor. • The third category are the those written over Physics, Natural History, Mathematics, and Psychology. Physics lessons (eight books) About Heaven (four books), About Generation and Corruption (two books), About Meteors (four books), History of the Animals in which are included, About the parts of the Animals, About the generation of the Animals, About the transmigration of the Animals, About the movement of the Animals, The doctrine About the Soul is set forth in three books and the title of the collection in Parva Naturalia • The fourth category were written over Ethics, Politics, Economy and Rhetoric. The three books over ethics, one published by Nichomachean, one published by Eudemia in which he is pulling farther away from Plato, and a summary done by a disciple called the Great Ethic, although smaller treats more subjects. Politics (8 books) He had collect 57 constitutions but they have been lost. Economics does not belong to him.

Rhetoric (Three books). Differences in the Approach to Philosophy The fundamental teaching of Plato as Aristotle understood it was the close relation between virtue and happiness; the worth of this was put forth not with just arguments but the incorporation of these things into his life. Plato contended that you could come to happiness only by a rigorous scientific search of being which established a connection between happiness, virtue and science. In this we find that Aristotle differed, understanding that wisdom was not the life of the man, but an objective science which could be divided into many other sciences that could be considered independently in themselves. Philosophy is the queen of sciences, but unable to absorb or resolve the others, leading to an encyclopedia of sciences that does not leave out any aspect of reality. He uses metaphysics as another word for the science of philosophy which he understands is to study the first cause or causes. He understands that everything does what it does because something else prompts it to do so. He means by this that somewhere there is something that starts the chain reaction with out being caused. He calls this the motor or motors of heaven. In this sense he says that there is an unusual fundamental reality in itself. We could say then that this highest science is theology. This prime philosophy is called afterwards metaphysics. (This in summary is the continuance of the idea that everything in this world is connected to the spiritual in the other world and that nothing is real here because it is not eternal. This is then becomes the foundation upon which witchcraft is built. Making incantations etc. makes the spiritual change and therefore the physical. It is obvious that this makes the metaphysics of Aristotle a false religion that is diametrically opposed to Christianity and Jehovah God.) In the metaphysics he states several arguments which we will only sample to give an example of his ideas. •It is impossible that two of the same things occupy the same space. It is impossible that something is and is not at the same time. Met. IV,3 This is something that is purely academic and has never been demonstrated. •What is the necessary being? (What is the essential being reduced to its minimum?) He says that it is the substance. 16 (That means in this double talk, that being in its essence is an idea in the other spiritual realm, the other world)

•What is being? he sums up by saying that being is the substance or spiritual idea.17 1 (Being is something that can be influenced in the spiritual realm, here he is subtly detracts from the idea of free will by insinuating that the mover only allows one to suppose that he is free but really in the depth of his psychic he does what the mover moves his spirit to do.) •He defines substance as the to be was. He tries to say by this that the being in its essence always existed and is the being in the being. Plato declared that the value of being was related to the good, however Aristotle changed Plato’s concept to say the being has worth in itself. The value is not something in the being but that the being in the apparent physical being is in itself is the value. •The intelect exists in the the substance or the spiritual idea of the being. He spreads out arguments from every angle about the significance of this word substance without choosing or determining an exact meaning. He excludes the separating of being from its Remember spiritual counterpart as being illegitimate. He seems determined to confuse the mind of the student of his metaphysics. He departs from Plato’s Phaedón which claims that ideas are the cause of things and the basic values are moral, to say that things in themselves are the ideas, and the moral values are just the the interrelation of beings. This conclusion makes him a humanist and an atheist. The Immovable Substance In the Metaphysics XII as well as Physics VIII he deals with the idea that everything is moved by something else. Things here are moved by things in the highest heaven where somewhere there is the prime mover. A mover that is not moved by anything else but moves the other things must be eternal. He says that there is a hierarchy of movements leading up to this immovably mover. He says that God is the creator of the order of the world, but not the being of the world which is eternal and above or out of reach of divine creation. He says that the superiority of God consists only in the perfection of his life not in his essence since every being is not more or less a being.18 (These ideas developed out of the ancient Greek concept of the spiritual consultation of demons or familiar spirits, are the irrational proposal that all things that happen are the responsibility of God. Aristotle and Plato were polytheists believing in 47 or 55 gods Aristotle as well as Plato were polytheists saying that God is not the only immovable substance. These little gods who are the principal that explains the movement of the highest heaven, and that the same argument is to be used to

explain other movements. Aristotle admitted to 47 or 55 spheres who were motor intelligences, or gods. Aristotle spoke continually of gods and the idea that the first substances were considered by tradition as gods was "divinely spoken" and one of the precious teachings saved from tradition. Met. XII, 8 These foundations are a deception Using arguments that are aprioristic --that is considered sound because they are self evidently so, they have followed from that which is prior, although they possibly are not born out by experience, and as empiric meaning, based on, acting on observation and experiment not on theory, adding metempirical --the science which treats of things outside the sphere of knowledge achieved by experience, Aristotle invokes the theory of the perfection of the number three using as an explanation: it is manifested in the width, height, and depth and lacks nothing. He considered that a vacuum was impossible and to prove it insisted that nothing could move in a vacuum and by so doing ignored completely the law of inertia. He insisted that the world was eternal apart from the gods who only acted upon this foundation. Fis, IV,11 He insists that the world was not born and cannot be destroyed. (In this he denies the creation and proves himself to be a second rate thinker.) That these men should be taken as a foundation of western society exposes this philosphy’s perpetuation as being of a sinister spiritual character, a deception used by Satan. He declares that the divine and nature make nothing without a use and nothing happens by chance. He says that fortune or luck is something that exists in human relations and illustrates it by the man who goes to the market to buy something and encounters a person who pays a debt owed to him. The man went to the market with one end in mind but not that end, and this he calls luck.19 The Soul Aristotle states that the soul is to be studied by physics since it is a form (idea) that is incorporated into a body. The soul is that which informs and animates or gives life to the body. He insists on distinguishing between the potential intellect and the actuating intellect. The latter having all of the truths and the intelligible objects in action. He never gets around to going much farther with this subject speaking only of the separation from the senses. The only part of the person that is eternal is the active intellect. (The part of this definition that is used by the concepts of reincarnation and witchcraft, is that nothing is ever

destroyed, that eternal means that the active intellect has always existed, this is Plato’s foundation for the preexistence of the soul.) Aristotle’s Ethics Everything is done for a reason that man understands to be good and desirable. He defines the supreme good as being, without doubt, happiness. He understood this to be the foundation of political science. (Political studies based on this are demagoguery in which the politicians paint a happy picture to get elected.) What is happiness? To answer this one must understand what is the mission of man. It is to be governed by his reason, when he does this he is living a virtuous life. Pleasure is to be added to life by the use of virtue. It is the true mission of life to have it’s activities accompanied and crowned by pleasure. Riches, power and beauty can make the virtuous life easier or their absence make it more difficult but cannot determine it. Et. Nic. X, 4 Man has in himself appetites which have no reason in themselves but are controlled by his reason. The exercise of the reason is called intellect and the domination of his reason is called moral virtue. The moral virtue consists in finding the just middle course that is adequate for our nature. Bravery is the middle course between cowardice and fear. Temperance is the middle course in the use of pleasure. Liberality is the middle course between being stingy and wasteful. The magnanimous man is one who finds the middle course between humility and vanity and takes the right opinion of oneself. Aristotle says the principal fruit of ethics is justice. The man who obeys all of the laws is the completely virtuous man. He speaks of the justice of distribution, the dividing according to merit. Law is founded in justice. He says that wisdom is the highest grade of science. A wise man is he who possess’ intelligence and science working together and not only deduces the principles but judges their truth. Wisdom has as its object the necessary which has nothing to do with man as he cannot modify it but only contemplate it. (Is Aristotle not saying that wisdom is the contemplation of the necessary and is not necessary really fatalism? In this sense all of paganism is totally depressing and is so different from the blessed hope of Christianity.) In books VIII and IX Aristotle speaks of friendship as closely related to virtue, and he says that it is the most necessary thing in life, "No one would choose to live without friends, even if he were given all other things." The virtuous man will share with his friend as with himself, because his friend is another self, from this it is derived that as one desires his own existence he also desires the existence of his friend. He closes his books on ethics by declaring that the greatest happiness is in the highest virtue which is the theoretical that brings

wisdom. (Resignation?) The wise man is sufficient in himself and does not have the need to cultivate or extend his wisdom and therefore is made up of serenity and peace and he does not worry about exterior things as he finds everything in the inner working of his intelligence. A man cannot live as a man but must live by possessing something of the divine in himself. (There is great contradiction here between the need of friends and friendship being unnecessary. Notice the refusal to receive new understanding because he is lifted up in pride, for the destruction of his soul, as he is isolated from hearing the gospel. From this we have the exaltation of the life and the hermit as being a saint.) Plato tried to lead men to live in a commune founded on justice. This was modified by Aristotle who tried to lead men to a theoretical life founded on what was necessary. Aristotle and Politics Aristotle says that you cannot see the virtue in a man except when he is interrelated with the state. He says that man cannot get all of the necessities of life by himself nor can he receive understanding and come to have virtue without the laws and education of the state. A state is a community that takes into consideration both the physical and intellectual needs of its people and for this reason the state cannot be made up of animals or slaves.20 (No talk about human rights but rights of the citizens) He took the middle road between just holding up the supposed utopia of Plato and the pragmatist who wanted to make things work, declaring that the best constitution should be found by the study of existing documents, he was said to have one hundred fifty eight that he analyzed at length and hoped to bring by modification to form the perfect constitution. He says that the best government is when the majority are middle class being neither rich nor poor. He says that the citizens should be brave and intelligent like the Greeks who were therefore qualified to govern the world. He accepted the three class of citizens as set forth by the project of Plato but excluded the idea of property in common and the participation of women. He also insisted that the government be directed by the elderly as they commanded respect. In conclusion the state should be occupied in the education of its citizens. It should be uniform and make of them brave warriors and prepare them to live in peace as well, Aristotle taught that the most important thing was to bring them to virtuous acts. (The concept that the problems of the human race can be cured by state education is the glaring false and antichristian conclusion of the Greek Philosophers perpetuated everywhere in our century.)

Logic and Aristotle Aristotle was the first to systematize and organize the investigation of all subjects by trying to set up a structure of rules. He considered the technique of logic indispensable for investigation. He understood that the idea of an abstraction was founded in his theory of substance. Aristotle noted with much care that the basis of the syllogism --An argument presented in logical form, with two statements called the premises leading to a conclusion, which may be either correct or false according to the correctness of the premises, as :an animal lives, a tree lives therefore a tree is an animal (false: two senses of live.) was founded in the idea of the supposedly indispensable theory of substance, that were from the other world. In Categories Aristotle talks about separating out the terms that will not enter into any combination such as "man" "run" and "win" of which it cannot be said that they are true or false. Only if they are combined can it be ascertained. For instance if we say "the man runs" it can then become true or false. This logic makes the distinction about primary and secondary substances. Remember when he speaks of substance he is insisting on an idea that is only in the other world, to which this name is given. He says that only these are the basis of all of the other ideas. [All of this theory only confuses the mind as he never has been able to prove that what he says is true about ideas in the other world. He makes the leap of faith to use this theory, and thus has caused his followers by this illogical foundation to reject the true leap of faith spoken of by Paul in Romans 1 as the belief in a personal loving Creator. The the subtlety of Satan is displayed by the believers in this doctrine of Aristotle, for they are isolated from conversation with men of the gospel. because they have a special vocabulary that only they understand, and in trying to speak to them, they lose you in their attempt to define their words used for all of this nonsense, then they go away feeling they are superior in understanding. Satan literally boggles the mind, some call it brain washing. In this false foundation men are prepared to look down on opinions from anyone who has not been prepared in this system, thus isolating them effectively in their minds into a closed group, they are a sect, convinced that they are the upper crust of mankind.] He makes a great point out of separating the ideas by affirming that "there is no middle ground between opposing contradictions." He gets the mind into a numb condition by insisting that it is very important to distinguish between universal or singular concepts or terms. He uses a drawing of the contradictions.|

This drawing is called the opposites squared. Much emphasis is placed on the importance of distinguishing between the universals and the particulars21 affirming that between contradictory opposites there is no middle ground. I ask what is the genius in all of this? Is it not a waste of time and a mere quibbling which is rooted in the concept of witchcraft that is to say whose main object is connecting his whole theory to the other world of the occult spirits? The main result is that one supposes that he knows something which others who have not studied do not know. However the ability to pick up contradictions and understand their perimeters is a natural part of human intelligence. The Naval Battle All of this is found to be inapplicable by Aristotle himself when it is applied to the future. Here he finds himself in conflict with his belief in fatalism and the proposition that "there will be a naval battle tomorrow" and the proposition that "there will not be a naval battle tomorrow" necessarily must be judged by fate as well as the will of men. All of this befuddlement of mind about contradictions is really to make a point; "what is to be will be." The exalted student of Aristotle’s logic is worthy of pity, as he has been duped, to think that he is superior, and other men are below his level of understanding and unworthy of his consideration, while at the same time he has been fed a subtle religious poison that has him believing in a false god of destiny and that wisdom for the movement of affairs in this world is found by consulting the spirits in the occult. Aristotle spends time talking about the modes of speaking of the "impossible" and then comes to the conclusion it is better to use the term "no impossible" because of his belief in fatalism. In so doing he ruins or differs with the

definition of Plato on the dialectic process in which he admits that learning can be only partly the illumination from another world. Obviously this tortuous method of syllogism is for those who have no obligations to put in an honest days work or other limitation of time in life. They have led to the impractical argumentation about morals that have allowed all kinds of shameful things to be justified by argument. He states in the Posterior Analytics that "all doctrine or discipline is derived from preexistent knowledge." The truth that he comes to is that the premise requires knowledge. (Why not just go ahead with sound reason in the first place?) Why must one study these details of Greek Philosophy to be able to think? This idea has has been propagated, that the study of Aristotle and Plato will make one a thinker. The very opposite seems to be true. The system of thought founded in the concept of finding the ultimate truth in the spirit world seems to have been conducive to using intimidation combining it with the hierarchy concept, allowing others to do your thinking for you.

Chapter 7 The foundation of Greek Philosophy is a Most Cruel Slavery To understand the attitudes and atmosphere in which Socrates and Plato and Aristotle lived we must look into the extreme pride of race and station that the heads of the Greek States had. We have heard that the ideas of democracy began in Greece but not really. They understood that the fathers of the city states were to rule, but they only represented a small fraction of the population. They therefore because of their pride and prejudice never understood democracy. They understood that they were a very superior race of people that must not intermarry or traffic with other men in the world for they were of an inferior class. This was taught by Aristotle to Alexander the Great but as he conquered and associated with the whole world, much to the consternation of Aristotle he broadened the concept of who were the elite. He encouraged the marriage of his generals to the people of the nobility in other lands. He also was carried backward over the ground covered by Socrates, Plato and Aristotle to the appreciation of the oracles and therefore to Babylon. He died there at the age of 33 in the year 323 BC. Was he overdosed taking the hallucinating drugs in a secret religious ritual? We do not know. His first military action after inheriting his throne from his father Phelipo II was to put down the rebellion of Tebas. He

destroyed the city and sold all of the inhabitants as slaves. His last two years were marked by the execution of a great number of his collaborators, discontent in his army because of integrating the nuclei of the Persian armies into the Greek, and his attempt to establish a kingdom of the oriental style. He promoted himself to be worshiped as being divine. Even though there was the worship of the heroes in Greece, this was more than they could accept. What Greek Democracy? To understand this concept it is interesting to notice their practice of slavery. A great portion of the population "metecos" were not slaves but were forbidden to own houses and properties. They were the backbone of the artisans of ceramics and metallurgy usually working alongside their families. The numbers are considered exaggerated which are given in Timaeos of 640 thousand slaves in Corinth. It is considered that the true number of slaves in Athens at its height was from 75 to 150 thousand. The free men worked in the industries but the slaves were used far more predominantly. They were brought in from other nations and were considered barbarians. Aristotle considered that they were born for slavery. They thought nothing of making slaves of native Greeks as well. Plato himself was made a slave for a time. This fact seemed to have no effect on his attitude of superiority, nor did it give him any notable empathy for their condition. The free men were placed in slavery again if they did not pay their obligations to the state. The penalty for pretending to be a Greek citizen or marrying one was to be placed in slavery. There was a monthly slave auction in Athens where the slaves were placed on the block and their physical qualities were repeated by a special crier. In 418 BC the average price for a male slave was 167 dragmas, the women were sold for 135 to 220 dragmas. The children of slaves were considered to be the property of the owner. They were not allowed by law to have any rights as to family or marriage. They belonged to the house in which they were born and could be mutilated, sold or even killed. In short the slaves were considered property the same as cattle. Remember we have commented earlier on the observation of Aristotle’s that the the only difference between a cart and a slave was that the slave could talk. In the paintings that have survived we see the Greek aristocrats accompanied by their naked slaves. They could not wear clothes if their owners did not permit it.

All of work of the Greeks was done under the system of direct physical coercion. They were believers in the advice of Jenophonte that you could make the slaves come to reason by using hunger. They were only given food enough to keep them from dying of hunger. A great number of slaves were used in domestic service. The Greeks went out into the streets with their retinue of slaves who carried the purse, purchases and other possessions. They were not as numerous as under the Romans coming perhaps only to at the most 50 in number in a household. There were women who were occupied in weaving and sewing. From the slaves there were separated out flautists, citharist, dancers and prostitutes. The practice of renting out slaves was prevalent. It can be imagined the mistreatment suffered by the slaves who were rented out. Since the blue blood Greek concept of the superiority of themselves as a race made it impossible for them to think about doing many things, they considered it lowering themselves, those who ran and organized the business’ were slaves as well as the workers. The State owned great numbers of slaves. The courts were run by slaves under the charge of the magistrates. The heralds, scribes, secretaries, and accountants were slaves. Construction was done by the organizations of slaves. The building of ships. The commerce of the ships. The prisons were run by slaves under the order of the Eleven. There were slaves to do the tortures, other slaves were in charge of the executions. There was no organization as we know it in the manufacturing process. Each slave produced the whole product and usually were only four to twelve in the work area. By the fourth century BC the father of Demostenes had an armour production with 32 or 33 slaves. The owners invested their earning, loaning it out at interest or buying land, but not in improving the working conditions. The notable characteristic of the Greek work place was the absence of simple pulleys or other investments. The idea was that profit was the principal objective of the ownership of slaves to point of keeping them hungry. The mining and other heavy work always required more strong bodied slaves. They have located over 2000 mineshafts or wells as much as 300 ft. deep in which thousands lived and died. The concessions that were granted by the state were always small, and therefore very overcrowded. The heavy air made more so by the burning candles, starvation diet, and digging with their hands left millions through the centuries in the most complete degradation. The exceedingly long hours of work, where according to Jenophonte, there were

only 5 days of rest per year, made the slaves die young. Here in the mines there were up to 20,000 slaves working on each mine. It then as now was supposed to be a great way to become wealthy. The work with the metals once the ore was extracted was perhaps a little less strenuous than the mining but the absolute arbitrariness made the sufferings very cruel and the hours of work were very long year in and year out. The concept of the Sabbath was unknown. The children of slaves were at a very tender age forced to work on the sewing and weaving in the household as what was left over above the family needs was sold in the market. One of the terrible work of the slaves was to be chained to the oars in the ships for life. They are called galley slaves. The wealth of the Greeks was made possible by the elite who had the right to own property and had as property the slaves who were exploited by the use of all physical force including death. As the use of slaves multiplied the free class of men diminished and was ruined. This brought about the dangerous instability of the the society in which the free men became soldiers. These problems were passed on to the Roman Empire and are present today in the control of great wealth accumulated from the times of slavery and whose possessors hold themselves to be of the aristocracy with these concepts of superiority and dignity. If Plato was a great wise man he would have spoken to the inherent injustice in all of this system. He had his chance to understand the situation as he was a slave for a time when he was made captive. On the contrary he insisted on making men proud of being superior to other men. It is exactly the opposite pole from the gospel. Here we find revealed an important part of the Satanic mystery of iniquity. In a preliminary conclusion we can say that the acceptance of being elevated to a superior position makes us unjust and cruel to the ones who are considered to be lower on the scale. The same pride that lifts us up hardens attitudes, that leave many with whom we live to suffer indignity at our hand. This has been true down through the ages from the husband that supposes he is superior to his wife to the mother superior making the nuns who are under her to live in the greatest indignity.

Chapter 8 Plato and Aristotle were Wicked Men It would be proper to make some more extensive comments on this whole system for the purpose of giving everyone a simple basis to begin further thought and investigation. "If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him." True wisdom is received by petition from God the creator. The wisdom of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle was petitioned of the spirits of the occult world to allow them to remember what they knew before they were born. The true wisdom of the apostle in chapter one of James was from the true and living Jehovah God and was guided by his revelation and by promises to men by the holy scriptures. The false wisdom of the Greek Philosophers was derived from the practice of the occult and was guided by the concept of the priesthood giving forth their oracles which is the worship of demons. "The wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy." Pride (partiality) is the lever that is used by Satan in his working with men. Greek Philosophy has been the basic philosophical concept with which this sense of pride has been installed into the leaders of society. The wisdom of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle was based on partiality and hypocrisy. It was and is used through the centuries to lift up the idle speculative life, adorned with every luxury, as the ideal and made to make a distinction between men. Its application and belief has caused constant envy which has resulted in endless wars and strife. The concept of aristocracy, which has used the Republic of Plato as its foundation for existence, has been used by Satan as the motor of the subtle manipulation of this world in self destruction through the long centuries. "If ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not, and lie not against the truth. This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish. For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work." Plato and Aristotle Given Great Place in our Seminaries

We have given Plato and Aristotle a great place in many of our seminaries, made them the foundation of our civilization, and then misled everyone as we called our civilization Christian. It must be understood that these philosophers were practicing spiritualist mediums who were seeking to find knowledge from out of body experiences. They were under the power of Satan. Satan was their god with whom they actively sought communication and guidance. We have seen that the beginning point for Plato was his belief that we have existed in other lives and in the spirit world before we were born, that there is no real truth in observation and sound reason, that truth is only found in getting the introspection from the spirit world. It is for this reason that he insists that nothing must be taken at face value, but must be investigated according to what the spirits will say about it, trying to find the answers in the occult. We must realize that these men and their whole culture were rooted in witchcraft. They were pagans who were given over to consulting the dead. (necromancy) Deut. 18:11. They were wicked in their presumptions that they were qualified to govern and to teach. They thought they were a special class of men that deserved to be sustained and obeyed, as superior to the men who lived by honest toil. According to them they were superior because of their speculations about the fundamental concepts of life because they had been reincarnated as superior. (blue blood). They looked down on the practical people who made society function. They were without wisdom as true wisdom would harmonize all of these things, not fragment and create frictions in the society. They were, as the Bible says, men without natural affections, who presumed that they could be more just, living celibate not chaste, away from their families, fulfilling the description of Romans chapters one and two. They were unjust with their own flesh and blood and were wicked to think that they could promote justice for others with this basic crookedness in their own character. They understood it to be wisdom to destroy the families and to create by education a bond to the state that was stronger than that to the family. They were not as wicked as the men who have Christian light and practice and believe the same errors. Greek Philosophy is a false religion that is denounced by the Bible and in no way should be accepted by a Christian. It should be understood that it has been the instrument of Satan to confuse men’s minds, to bring them into an exalted position, in which they have come under the hammer of God’s unfailing work of justice in humiliating the proud. At the same time it has brought them into the intrigues of all of the nobility through the ages, promoting every kind of injustice. An innumerable multitude

of them and their subjects have lost their lives in terrible conflicts through the ages, in situations contrived by Satan through use of the idea that men are to dwell in hierarchies. From the so called privilege of the nobility, to initiate the virgins before marriage under their dominions, to the constant warfares between themselves, in which the loyalty by oath to their aristocracy required all of their subjects to suffer and die, because they were misled to think they were serving God under this influence. Thousands have suffered and died amidst all kinds of horrors in the convents and monasteries. For instance the invasion of Holland by Louis XIV in 1667, resulted in a six year war with untold destruction and deaths. He claimed Holland belonged to him because his wife was the elder sister of the Spanish king. History says: Even after the terrible situation of the middle ages the peasants still lived and died upon the same manor, worked for his lord in the same way that his ancestors had worked a thousand years before. Everywhere the same crude agricultural instruments were still used, and most of the implements and tools were crudely made in the village itself. The wooden plows commonly found even on English farms were constructed on the model of the old Roman plow; wheat was cut with a sickle, grass with an unwieldy scythe, and the rickety cart wheels were supplied only with wooden rims. The houses, in general, were small, with little light or ventilation, and often they were nothing but wretched hovels with dirt floors and neglected thatch roofs. The pigs and the cows were frequently better housed than the people, with whom they associated upon very familiar terms, since the barn and the house were commonly the same building. The drinking water was bad and there was no attempt to secure proper drainage. The peasant had no newspapers to tell him of the world outside his manor, nor could he have read them if he had them. Even in England not one farmer in five thousand, it is said, could read at all, and further east conditions must have been still more cheerless, for a Hungarian peasant complained that he owed four days of his labor to his lord, spent the fifth and sixth hunting and fishing for him, while the seventh belonged to God. --History of Europe - Robinson and Beard. This was the fruit of the justice wrought by the concepts of Plato after 2000 years. It is spoken of correctly as darkness, heathen, occult darkness, not just for the lowest class of society associated with the "body" in the "body," "spirit" and "soul or reason" as divided by Plato but a great darkness for the same so called celibate Philosopher kings at the top and the politicians and military in the spirit class.

Where is the book that has been written on the practical applications of Greek Philosophy? On the contrary it teaches that being practical and scientific is not enough, that one must couple with this psychic phenomenon of occult spiritual insight to try to get the rules of wisdom from the spirit world. (As we have said before the work of Satan in ancient Greece was to picture the gods as most immoral and unholy. The supernatural was oracular, based only on the possession and communication of men through and by demons.) Socrates was born as the son of an old established nobility, being a descendent of King Codro. (We must think then of him having a childhood surrounded by so called important people and amidst many slaves doing their bidding.) The Gods of Greek Philosophy Come From the Other Side of the Flood The Bibles says that "the beginning of wisdom is the fear of God." This presumes that God is knowable, God is active, God is a person, God is supreme, God is just, and God is Holy. It is obvious that the consulting of occult spirits who are demons and knowing and worshiping the supreme Jehovah are two irreconcilable systems. As in the days of Joshua chapter 24: "Now therefore fear the Lord, and serve him in sincerity and in truth: and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the flood, and in Egypt; and serve ye the Lord… Now therefore put away, said he, the strange gods which are among you, and incline your heart unto the Lord God of Israel." Did not the gods of Greek Philosophy come from the other side of the flood, the myths being founded in the giants sired by angels? Still we who are called evangelicals are permeated by their pollutions today through the subtility of Satan. Accepting scales of importance instilled through the values concealed by Satan centuries ago, the god of this world with its hidden roots, has permeated and brought about a form of godliness that denies the power to leave sin and separate our hearts unto the living God. Using the five points of Calvinism which were based on Aristotles definition of the impersonal unmoved-mover, they can only speak about being positionally pure; but God will judge every man according to his works. This is not an intellectual dissertation but an all or nothing proposition to hate and turn away from this foundation of paganism or find ourselves friends of the world and enemies of God. Plato admits his complete failure Plato never said that he had clarified anything from before birth nor concretely stated what it was, not even when he was over 80 years old at the end of his life. Remember that he wrote in his seventh letter, "from me, at least there has

not been nor ever will be written a recapitulation of the problems." He says that they cannot be reduced to formulas, only after working with them a long time and having lived and discussed them in common with others does the true significance begin as a spark in the soul, and then a flame which grows by itself.22 He says that wisdom is just a process that is improved upon by introspection butanyone who presumed to come to hard conclusions was unworthy of being called a philosopher. Is he not really saying that concrete knowledge is impossible and that his whole system was for him a complete failure? Greek Philosophy brings occult confusion for its founders as well as for its followers, that finishes in complete spiritual failure at the end of life, costing eternal damnation to all who delve into and confide in this occult system, instead of surrendering to the will of God the Creator. A Tool to Perpetuate a Feeling of Superiority Greek Philosophy is a tool to perpetuate a feeling of superiority, exclusiveness and social exaltation in the person. Its use assures the high connection in society that brings the person into a state of pride and loyalty to the power circles of this world, and assures strife and destruction. The Bible condemns it in the book of James, "Ye adulterers and adultresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God …God resisteth the proud… " Pride is the Fundamental Tool of Satan Why was not this confusing unsuccessful system buried with its founders? Because it originated within the racially proud nobles of the Grecian city states. This pride was the driving power behind Alexander the Great. Its aim was to form a superior aristocrat among these aristocrats of Athens. It was perpetuated by all of the aristocrats through the ages as a tool of self confidence to prove their superiority to everyone. It sought to lift men upward toward the position before God that Satan was in when he was cast down, and they have been cast down by God as well. It is a perfect tool of Satan to pull men into the business of running this world who at the same time submit themselves to the system of introspection and to the occult spirit world when they are in need of consul. Wisdom comes from God. Men are not wise in refusing this only true wisdom, perhaps even unwittingly seeking wisdom from spirit mediums, refusing to accepting absolutes in this life for the absolutes are according to this

philosophy, all in the spirit world. This tremendous ignorance forms the frame work of Satan’s domination of the world and his master plan of iniquity. Our Body is our Enemy Plato asserts that the soul in the body is unnatural and a kind of sickness. He believes, "That since man cannot participate in that which is the true reality while in the body, it is better to not have been born, and since we have been born it is better to die as soon as possible." Out of this distinction we have the revolting practices of asceticism, practiced still today for example, in the convents and by the members of Opus Dei. It has been practiced in all centuries by the Roman system whose roots are in Plato, by wearing bands of hooks that torture the flesh, by the whipping of ones own back and the crawling for great distances on bloody knees, all of this comes from the concept that the body is an enemy that must be depreciated. The sacrifice of Jesus on the cross was insufficient. This has come from Plato’s concept that the natural state of the spirit is without the body. The Crookedness of Platonic Love He works out what he calls different echelons of this love or eros into a hierarchy of levels that has as the first level the physical and progressively ascends with the involvement of the soul until the highest is that which is purely spiritual. The vulgar eros refers to the body and the heavenly eros to the soul. He teaches a fellowship or special relationship that goes farther than the intellect to encompass all of the people involved in it and calls it love. His basic teaching is that the physical love is vulgar, that it should be laid to one side. He convinced Augustine to abandon his common-law wife to be able to raise himself in the hierarchy of levels, because of this teaching as we shall see. He called that decision his conversion. This is contrary to Christianity as the highest level of fellowship that there is between God and man was practiced and intertwined in the act of matrimony in the life of Abraham and it is repeated in Ephesians chapter five in the same way uniting, comparing and making sublime the fellowship with the risen Christ and the physical and spiritual fellowship in marriage. The Christian way is to recognize that there is a spiritual love that grows and exceeds the physical love in its force but that the two are intimately related. Brain Washing Techniques

The attempt of Plato to separate physical and spiritual love and eliminate the physical, is what is used in the brain washing of the sects. Preferable a young person who has ties of affection to his parents, his brothers and sisters, his friends, his village, his home, his bedroom, his pillow, must break them, be withdrawn from them all. By withdrawing from the physical love of family and wife one is thrown into a turmoil, which is increased by the use of gymnasium to bring about physical fatigue, in which they are forced into long hours of intense mental concentration, pushing everyone to his limits. When one passes through this process of stress over a period of time the pain becomes so intense, an adaptation is made to form new affections in this new environment to help cope with the difficult situation. In this process a new set of affections and loyalties replace the original ones and you have the fellowship of the sect as the most important guiding loyalty in your life. You have been brain washed. Was not this the teaching of Plato? Has not this religious sect of Greek philosophy not been the common guiding light of the rulers of this world? The kings, popes and even presidents and dictators all have this poison root as their basic foundational atmosphere in which to rule and live their lives. It is an important tool of the mystery of iniquity. Notice that God and Christianity work to build and unite the family, the forces of Satan work to cause abandonment of the family. The fellowship of Plato was described as something akin to the loyalty and comradeship known between the officers and generals who had passed through many battles together. He conceived his Academy as an effort to form these intellectual bonds of human social attraction. The idea was to live together in a commune and discuss these things together until a bond was formed and a deeper understanding was reached that would permeate their fellowship. This would make them superior to all of the other nobles (the aristocrats among aristocrats) and social upper crust of the already exalted and racially conceited Greek nobles of the Greek state. At the root the argument for superiority of some over the many was the superior wisdom supposedly used by the person in the selection made in the moment of reincarnation a very antichristian concept. To do this Plato insisted on themto leaving the family and dedicating some years to the Academy. What was the wisdom of abandoning the family? Did this not bring about men who were without natural affection? That is to say less than human. How were they to solve the problems of the world and society by living apart from the family? This is just like their solving the problems about wisdom by consulting the occult spirit world. In fact this allows a tilt in the character of the person to make him more susceptible to the occult.

The truth about it is that we can see the most perfect application of this in our day by observing the people who have graduated from the Roman Catholic seminaries. The saying among them is that "they live without love and die without tears". Ask the people to come forward who have lived in isolation from the family even if they were in the army and you will find that it is a trauma. How many of the nobility through the centuries have been thrust at a tender age of eight to twelve years old into institutions with people as directors and teachers who were formed in the same ascetic way. A Distortion of the Personality The result has been a distortion of the personality. Plato felt that this was necessary to make him superior to prepare him to rule. The exaltation of human vanity involved in this has brought about the proud delicate personalities that have been used by Satan to destroy great portions of the population spiritually and physically through the centuries. The rulers have always been sensitive, or thin skinned, easy to feel slighted or offended; there has been a constant Satanic friction among the so called aristocratic leaders that has led to untold conflicts and human suffering. Men have been reduced to the artificial exaltations and authorities of hierarchies and had to follow foolish loyalties and whims in a storm of wars and conflicts that represent the state of this world in all ages. It is the domination of Satan, and the current of this world. The Dialectic The dialectic is the investigation of ones own soul and the soul of others by learning and teaching in community using reason to reach and find the real truth by remembrance of what one knew when he was out of the body before he was born. Dialectic communism came all the way from Plato and was based on concepts out of the teaching in the Roman Catholic seminaries. Have not the Roman Catholic priests been active in the propagation? Communism appears to be a modification of their basic Greek background that appeals to them. It was to put the justice in proper balance. Government was to come to a wisdom on how to run society by the philosophic introspection of Plato in the special fellowship among the commanders that took over the government. There is a comment from Fidel Castro’s Cuba that the officials up and down the chain of command are always living in great tension because they have no idea what new idea will be the law of the land and they could even be imprisoned by any move. This concept of living in a special fellowship that brings introspection and wisdom to give justice is an idea directly taken from Plato. A rebellion against the existing aristocrats was to be made on the charge that they had never brought about the justice that they were supposed to, and that this new

system gave opportunity for a new set of aristocrats to take over the rule of the government to bring about through the dialectic process the result. Naturally if we are expecting to receive wisdom from the occult world of how to have justice we have the persecution of many but especially the Bible believers. The Injustice of Plato Plato said that all of the bad things going on in the city could be eliminated, society could be brought into harmony and everyone could be happy and well adjusted if injustice could be applied to illuminate society. This is to be done by allowing the principles of philosophy and the philosophers first priority in a society where the governors and kings are dedicated publicly and privately in full cooperation with them to truth and justice, only then can the corruption of the human race be dominated. (Is he not saying first of all, if you just let me run everything I can fix the problems, I promise you utopia?) The Christian perspective is to ask how can injustice be eliminated if the person does not personally deal with his own injustice first? We have seen how Plato was unjust with his family and with others, insisting that they leave their families. We have seen how that he admitted to having no concrete advice or laws after a life dedicated to his study. We have seen how that he was illogical and disinterested in truth by the way he confused the words and the minds in his writings. We have seen how that he refused to have any absolutes, and in this statement made by his Republic he is asking us to live by the whims of the rulers, we are required to have tolerance to allow him to decide what he pleases. The people are to give all power and authority to him and the guardians who would enforce anything he decides without question, for instance killing of all of the children under two years old in all of Bethlehem. They are forbidden to have property but were not they the owners in all practical matters of the state? They were not serving the state; they by these theories were the owners of the whole country and its inhabitants. They were supposedly to be bound together in harmony having eliminated envy and pretensions among themselves. This principal point was not even enlarged upon by Plato. He only states it as a requirement to have the wise academy. This has never been able to be accomplished except when men are dwelling in harmony because of the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit in their hearts as in the early church in Acts 2:46. What is the objective and foundation of this utopian community? They understood it to be wisdom to destroy the family and to create by education a bond to the state that was stronger than that of the family. To make everyone feel superior to everyone else in the world even the other aristocrats of Greece.

The state should be occupied in the education of its citizens. It should be uniform and make of them brave warriors and prepare them with the classic arts to live in peace as well with the most important thing being to bring them to virtuous acts. (The concept that the problems of the human race can be cured by state education is the glaring false and anti-Christian conclusion of the Greek Philosophers.) Who really are the philosophers? Plato gives us the answer that they are those who are bonded together in a situation, where the most important priority is their group and they live without envy and seek together in communion with the occult world the real meaning of things, having abandoned the family life, but are very motivated and integrated into the political and power struggle. How the Conscience is Seared Plato divides the person also into the rational part in which the soul dominates the impulses, the passion part of the impulses, and the irascible or balky, questioning of conscience which is the helper of the reason and influences one to obey it. The rational principle will be the prudence and the irascible will be the strength which is related to temperance. The individual will also enjoy justice when he gives each of his parts the proper place. In Plato’s formula, we as Christians understand that the work of the Holy Spirit in the heart of every man is what he calls the balky part of man. He advocates that this voice of God in the conscience is to be never obeyed completely but that it is to be balanced. It is practiced with the phrase "I believe in doing the right thing but you must not be radical about it." It is to be balanced with the passions and with the reason. The "good" of Plato is Half Hearted Here again we find that this concept is a stumbling block to the salvation of someone who is in this cult. He understands the good as taught by the conscience or the Holy Spirit is not to be followed with all our heart and strength, but that the good of Plato is to be able to temper these tendencies and to find a happy medium or balance. He contradicts himself also in insisting on this balance but rejects it when he comes to the healthy family life, insisting in this case that the passions (love for family members) are to be suppressed. He and all his cult falls into the basic curse of Isaiah 5:20 "Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!" The truths are not obvious to those who have this subtle teaching implanted since their youth. They feel that all extremism is a lack of culture and understanding. To hear the preaching of the

final judgement and the reality of heaven and the lake of fire to them is not an obvious truth but on the contrary a sign of a lack of culture in the preacher. He is seen as out of balance and thus bad. The good is called bad and the evil, that is to say indifference and complacency are called good. The Elimination of Poverty and Wealth Plato says two conditions are necessary to bring about this justice, the first is to eliminate the poverty and the riches because both eliminate the possibility of fulfilling this mission. Plato says that the two highest classes, that of Philosopher-king and the guardians, should not be able to hold property or receive salaries, except for that which is necessary to live on. All the responsibility is to be placed on obedience to orders, instead of, as in capitalism each person being responsible for compassion, wealth, efficiency and thier effect on society. Socialism Comes from Plato The concepts of socialism have grown out of this idea. They do not own the wealth but as they are in charge of the government they administer it. They believe that the government is responsible for the redistribution of the wealth. According to Romans chapter 13 the government is the minister of God, "a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil." The task of government is to punish evil men for crimes against society. God has delegated authority to defend the good and punish evil, even with capital punishment, to be impartial, giving the same opportunity to all. Plato was not wise in that he understood that he had wisdom to administer or redistribute all of the wealth of land, yet having never shown his own worth nor had he any skills in administering wealth. This certainly was a bad example that this poison root has perpetuated through the ages in governments who have gone beyond their office of controlling evil and presumed that they have the task and capacity to administer the blood, sweat and tears of the people who live in their dominions. We have the situation where the government officials have little wealth in their own country, but are taking out huge sums from the treasuries of their nation and depositing in foreign soil. They punish the small criminal for stealing with prison. The large crimes of stealing committed by the governors of the land goes unpunished. This leads to a spirit of disobedience in all of the inhabitants and to the multiplication of robberies on a grand scale. Christianity teaches that "A mans life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth." but in the relationship between the person with

God and men. We have seen how that many of the ills of our world can be attributed to the men who are in the ruling circles, accepting Plato’s concepts as foundation stones. Thus Satan works with this subtle error and has brought about the misery and conflicts through the centuries. The nobility and aristocratic class abusing the people and then their supposed elimination for all, to be ruled by the dialectic fellowship of communism, all of which is used by Satan with its occult foundation to instinctively suppress the preaching of the gospel while supposedly working justice. True freedom would work this social justice by blessing the ones who feared God and seek his justice. Evil vice filled lives can never be helped economically as they are wasters and destroyers of themselves and society. The fact that these type of people are placed in ruling positions by the teachings about hierarchies has been one of the great impediments to so called civilization through the ages. Plato and Procreation by Selective Breeding Look again at the ideal of Plato to break up the family. He must have had a very unhappy childhood to want the state to take over the raising of the children. Since he envisions the incorporation of the women into the society as equals according to their capacity, he says it is necessary that the children be raised by the state and the state should decree the union for procreation according to the desire of the systems to have healthy offspring. (selective breeding!) Since the children are raised and educated by the state, therefore the state becomes one big family. These two conditions are supposedly made possible because of the just administration by the philosopher king and his fellow philosophers and the blind acquiescence of the multitude. The contrasts between the efforts of Plato and the the living God are glaring. Plato was the disciple of Socrates who’s first motivation seemed to be to be the rejection of the Oracles as arbitrary and foolish in many of their so called revelations of God’s will for men. His intention was to provide a less foolish manner of arriving at the revelation of wisdom. Socrates was persecuted by by the overruling suffocating control of the pagan priesthood, until under the pressure his efforts ended with him committing suicide. Plato was interested in becoming more respected than this priesthood, his whole work basically was to proclaimed that he was wiser than they; that he should be placed in the position to rule with his principles, instead of being guided by their many foolish pronouncements or oracles. In this he was hoping to supplant them. His method was basically the same as the pagan priesthood of seeking from the spirits of the other world revelation in the same occult manner, but he tried to systemize it to be more within reason. His whole work is about him having a

better way to receive supernatural messages from the gods and the supernatural world. The glaring fault and inferiority of his system is that he spent all of his efforts in trying to gain control of the society but never laid down any wisdom which he would use when he attained this position. His only claim was to have the method for getting the wisdom. Aristotle spent time on possible laws. He refused to give a concrete answer naming principles that would bring justice to society much less the person. The truth is that the occult can never do this but only promises to bring it about sometime in the future. In contrast, the God of Glory set forth these principles as his basic wisdom. He gave to every man, not just the elite, the ten commandments and upon these set forth a whole system of laws that would bring about justice and happiness in society. Deut. 4:6-8 talks about true wisdom, "Keep therefore and do them; for this is your wisdom and your understanding, in the sight of the nations, which shall hear all these statutes, and say Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people. For what nation is there so great, who hath God so nigh unto them, as the Lord our God is in all things that we call upon him for? And what nation is there so great, that hath statutes and judgments so righteous as all this law, which I set before you this day?" Dake comments, The outstanding example of Israel among the nations as revealing a contrast between Jehovah and idols, and the great blessings of serving God was not manifest in outward show, but in simple obedience to Jehovah. Physically, mentally, spiritually, supernaturally, militarily, materially, and governmentally, in every phase of human life and success Israel was so far above the other nations when in obedience that there was no comparison. For four hundred years they were judged by the judges. Then they sought under Samuel that the kingship be set up as a copy of the nations around them. The True Elite The definition of the truly Blessed man is found by Jesus on the sermon on the mount. He was saying that the true elite in this world were the ones that lived according to the poorness of spirit. The true happiness is walking surrendered to the Creator and being guided by the Holy Spirit. The Perimeters of Philosophy Plato says that the philosopher is one who loves to look all the way into things. That is to find total knowledge and is not content to look only at something superficially. He here declares this strange statement. "That which is absolute is absolutely knowable, that which is not, is not knowable absolutely."??? Therefore, he says "being" corresponds to science, which is defined as absolute and true knowing, the "no being", the ignorance, and the future, whatever is

found between these two corresponds to opinion. Opinion is in the realm of the senses and the rational. Education consists therefore in gradually conducting men from the visible world to the highest point of the invisible world of being. The good is perfection in itself while the ideas are perfections or that is to say good’s; it is not being because it is the cause of being. (Rep. 509 b) This text is foundational to Plato’s philosophy and must be ignored in all of the attempts to adapt the philosophy of Plato to religion. All of what is called Neoplatonism ignores this statement, that is plainly made by Plato, saying that everything is founded on substance, and substance is founded on good, and he states that all beings are subject to this. In this sense he plainly denies God as a first cause and to use Plato in the Christian Religion is a distortion of his plainly stated beliefs This future choice after death is the most dangerous so that a man should according to Plato live all of his life dedicated to preparing himself by studying philosophy and occupied with politics to understand how to elect his next reincarnation. Plato declares that ideas not only exist in the human mind but are concrete things that are property of divinity. (Is not this the basic supposition of all witchcraft by which it pretends to manipulate earthly reality?) This all ends on a negative note. The hypothesis is not workable, because everything is based, according to them, on subjective knowledge (knowing within ones self) and gives no place for being able to prove something true or false out side of ones self, so that what we call scientific evidence is disregarded. (This is saying that no one should think for himself, that his mind is not capable of understanding reality.) For this reason we have the priests willing to live in the most illogical situation in regard to family, Bible and substance and the spending of their time on earth. In the doctrines of Calvinism we have the same situation, in which because men are part of the group and agree with the doctrines they are saved. The idea of living wholly surrendered to the will of God in their lives is considered impossible and unimportant. In the Republic he places the good in the highest part of being and considered this the supreme value, in the Sophist he chooses to make being something

structural and talk about those possibilities. (Notice that all morals and ethics are thus eliminated from the discussion leaving only instinctive behavior according to our structure.) The cause of the world is the demiurge - creator of the world out of chaos from a goodness that is free of envy. This demiurge has created this temporary world, patterned after the true world of being. Nature is something like a living, gigantic intelligent animal. To make nature more like the real world time was instituted which is an ordered constant and systematic unfolding "moving image of eternity " which is observed in the movements of the heavenly bodies. The demiurge is the cause of everything that is order, reason, and beauty; but the world has another cause which is not intelligence but is necessity. Nature would be considered the father and necessity the mother which is without form and encompasses everything and participates in intelligence and is difficult to conceive. Evidently this formless recipient, this original wet nurse of everything is what limits the actions of the demiurge so that the natural world does not have the perfection of its spiritual model. Besides this there is space that is the recipient of everything that exists and is indestructible. So then Plato says the principals before the birth of the world were, being, space, and the mother of all generation.

Now it is plain to see in this Platonic cosmetology the lack of a motivation to identify the divine with the good on which the Neoplatonic religious interpretation rests. This can be seen if his concept of establishing by mathematical calculation a definition of virtue is compared to his legislative code. He faithfully spent all of his life looking for how to be virtuous and happy following in the steps of Socrates but never felt that he had arrived at anything concrete that he could write down and leave us. From his concept no doubt has grown the monastic idea which is unknown among the Hebrews. Cannot Something be an Idea and Never Exist? It is impossible that something is and is not at the same time.23 This is something that is purely academic and has never been demonstrated.

•What is the necessary being? (What is the essential being reduced to its minimum?) He says that it is the substance.24(That means in this double talk that being in its essence is an idea in the spiritual realm.) •What is being? he sums up by saying that being is the substance or spiritual idea. Met VII, 1 (Being is something that can be influenced in the spiritual realm and the idea of free will here is subtly attacked insinuating that the mover only allows one to suppose that he is free but really in the depth of his psychic he does what the mover makes his spirit moved to do.) •He defines substance as the to be was. He tries to say by this that the being in its essence always existed and is the being in the being. Plato declared that the value of being was related to the good, however Aristotle changed Plato’s concept to say the being has worth in itself. The value is not something in the being but that the being in itself is the value.

He says that there is a hierarchy of movements leading up to this immovably mover. He says that God is the creator of the order of the world but not the being of the world which is eternal and above or out of reach of divine creation.

Pagan Aristotle admitted to 47 or 55 spheres who were motor intelligences or gods. Aristotle spoke continually of gods and the idea that the first substances were considered by tradition as gods was "divinely spoken" and one of the precious teachings that he saved from tradition.25 Using arguments that are a priori --that is to say considered sound because they are self evidently so, but not born out by experience, and metempirical --the science which deals with things outside the sphere of knowledge achieved by experience, Aristotle invokes the theory over the perfection of the number 3 using as an explanation it is manifested in the width, height, and depth and lacks nothing. He considered that a vacuum was impossible and to prove it insisted that nothing could move in a vacuum and by so doing ignored completely the law of inertia. He insisted that the world was eternal apart from the gods who only acted upon this foundation. Fis, IV,11

He declares that the divine and nature makes nothing without a use and nothing happens by chance.

The soul is that which informs and animates or gives life to the body. He insists on distinguishing between the potential intellect and the actuating intellect. The latter having all of the truths and the intelligible objects in action. He never gets around to going much farther with this subject speaking only of the separation from the sensibilities. The only part of the person that is eternal is the active intellect. (The part of this definition that is used by the concepts of reincarnation and witchcraft, is that nothing is ever destroyed, that eternal means that the active intellect has always existed, this is the foundation of Plato belief in the preexistence of the soul.) Plato’s god’s or The God of Israel Glaring is the contrast between the efforts of Plato and the the living God. Plato was the disciple of Socrates who’s first motivation seemed to be to be a rejection of the Oracles as arbitrary and foolish in many of their so called revelations of God dealing with men. The effort was to provide a less foolish manner of getting the revelation of wisdom. Socrates was persecuted and killed for his effort by the overruling suffocating control of the pagan priesthood. Plato was interested in becoming more respected than this priesthood and thus his whole work basically to proclaimed that he was more wise than they and that he should be placed in the position to rule with his principles instead of their many times foolish directions. In this he was hoping to supplant them. His method was basically the same, that of seeking from the spirits of the other world revelation in the same occult manner but he tried to systemize it to be more within reason. "If Ye Have Respect to Persons Ye Commit Sin." The ideas of Plato were in operation when the apostle Paul says that not many Nobles are saved in I Cor. 1:26. "For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called…" As I have continued the expansion of the book on the Poison Root I have found that the ancient Greek philosophy is the foundation of our world today and the process with which the governors of the world think, and also the foundation by which Satan has, in very subtle workings, strengthened the rebellion against God in the world and in the church.

The first thing that Satan has used is that he has made it to be understood that the philosophers are very high class, cultured and intellectual. He has hidden his control so cleverly, that, to my knowledge there never has been anything published about the worship of Satan by the rulers of this world, or that Greek Philosophy is a terrible anti Jehovah cult. He has this worship under the name of "wisdom." Precisely "the wisdom of their wise men shall perish" or as in verse 19 "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise." The deceit has been so complete that the desire to please the world has brought about the mixing of these concepts in the church, until we have multitudes who suppose they are saved, but living in rebellion and sin against their Creator. It can be seen that subtle Satan always twists Gods word a little to form his doctrines. He does not invent anything new. Who are the Philosophers? Plato gives his definition: those who are bonded together in seeking after wisdom by living apart from the rest of the world in communion that as they live together leaves all selfishness, and envy behind and seek the real meaning of things. He was not wise in teaching this unreal and impossible thing in this definition. Only by being born again by the blood of Jesus Christ could this condition exist as it did in the early church. To not jump over this real problem in human nature makes Plato unworthy to be a philosopher. Plato taught that nothing in this world is real. The real only exists in the spiritual realm. That to find out what something really is, one must in this community life style, bring to remembrance what he knew before he was born. Greek philosophy is built on the concept of the transmigration of the soul and reincarnation. Remember the reason he says that we must learn wisdom is so that we will be able to choose wisely when we are forced to choose, at the moment of being reborn again into the world. Plato teaches that basically our lives are ruled by fate or destiny and the life we live here is determined by our choice at a sort of lottery, where the ones to be born at a certain time are given turns to choose the lives they will live, and although one may not be among the first to choose, they will by using wisdom, still be able to get a good life out of the remaining choices. Plato admitted his failure when just before he died at 81 years of age he was asked to clarify anything that he had known before birth and state what it was. He said in his 7th letter "from me at least, there has not been, nor ever will be written a recapitulation of the problems." He says that wisdom is just a process

that is improved upon by introspection but that anyone who presumed to come to hard conclusions was unworthy of being called a philosopher. He is saying that concrete knowledge is impossible and that his whole system was for him a failure. Greek philosophy is a Satanic confusion that brings eternal damnation at the judgement. He says in the Republic that he would start the utopian community that would bring happiness by bringing about justice. He declares that the first step is that it would be governed by a philosopher king. (He believed in monarchy and was an enemy of democracy.) His job is to eliminate poverty and riches. He is to be tolerated by all of society to do his job. He would control the whole community by eliminating the family and the community would be improved by selective breeding. Out of these concepts have grown excuses for revolution and the doctrines of socialism and communism. The schooling would be with the purpose of creating a loyalty or comradeship that would be described as one big family. Each child would be taught to be a warrior and given the culture to enjoy peace. He proclaims that this wisdom is to be had by the rulers living in community and practicing celibacy. (That is never marrying, dedicating their lives to the whole group with children who knew not who their father was.) He says that society must be divided into classes. As man is composed of reason or soul, spirit and body. •The Philosopher-king is roughly the equivalent of the soul or reason. •If he decides and no one obeys it would be useless so he adds to this another class which is the guardian, military or police class that are the equivalent of the spirit who must be blindly loyal even to the point of denouncing or imprisoning their own mother. The rest of society is to do the useful work that they are assigned and are to tolerate whatever lot befalls them; they are the equivalent of the body and are considered the lowest class, the riffraff. This has been the idea of the Republic, the so called government of the best. This has implanted the idea that the so called high class, aristocrats or the nobility are superior to everyone else. In this sinful making of distinction of persons we have the intrigues of the haughty and naughty through out the centuries. They consider themselves to be above everyone else and Pauls says that hardly any of them have answered the call of God. Almost everyone of them are awaiting the final judgement to be cast into the lake of fire forever. They have been victims of Satans big trap, a secret religion that they have not even recognized as such. They are taught that the family life is a low class concept. From these concepts we have the celibate priests and nuns and the great immorality of our world is encouraged. The aristocrats send their children at tender ages to prep schools

built on the order of Plato where they are separated from the family and the opposite sex. They are taught that there is nothing that can be known for sure. They look down on someone who knows he is saved as being ignorant, for anyone who is educated knows that there is nothing that can be known for sure in this world. Remember they are taught to quibble about the definition of words so that any preaching to them personally is turned into a discussion about definitions and they leave the conversation feeling that they are superior and have won an argument and look down on the poor one who is not as educated as they are. They are taught that everything works by hierarchy which is the sin of the respect of persons according to James 2:9. Based on Aristotle they say that God has chosen to work through hierarchy and one must obey and receive teaching only from his or her immediate superior. This theory allows the Catholic to receive words about religion from his priest only. It prevents the aristocrats from receiving from the preacher of the gospel, considered to be low class, because of his lack of comradeship in their so called superior preparation. They are taught that wisdom is to be found in what is called dialectic reasoning. That is to say that since truth is not absolute, they must find it in close fellowship and introspection with the spirit world, find and announce wise decisions as they are developed. This is the reason for the Catholic’s insistence on tradition being of equal authority to the Bible. They are taught that they are to eliminate poverty and take the money from the rich and give it to the poor to form a perfect society. The roots of socialism and communism have all been in Plato. They are always in transition so that the poor are rarely really helped and Satan uses their ideas to perturb the whole production system making this philosophy a curse on society. They understand that they are not supposed to do any literal work. This is beneath them, their idea of philosophy is that they are supposed to only manage the society. When Aristotle divided knowledge into different fields, he proclaimed that there was one wisdom used in the process of investigation that was above all the others and the use of it by consulting the occult was called Metaphysics. It means to go beyond the physical laws to the spiritual reality behind it. Brain Washing was Used by Plato

Plato called love eros and placed this in a series of levels or hierarchies with the lowest being physical and the highest being spiritual. He taught that the natural condition of man was to be out of his body and that only in dreams, in oracular séance etc. could he obtain that out of body experience. He felt that the spirit in the body was an unnatural state something like a sickness for the soul. With this understanding he insisted that to be a true philosopher one had to live apart from his family in a community he called the Academy. Greek Philosophy is a Satanic sect. The attempt to find the true meaning of things or that is to say wisdom from the spirit world, by remembering what one knew before he was born, is the practice of the occult, the consultation of Demons. I repeat for emphasis, brain washing is done by removing the person from his family and friends, depriving one of all emotional support or attachment to parents, neighbors, community even the surroundings of home bedroom or pillow and placing him under maximum mental, emotional and physical fatigue until at some point he breaks under the acute pain this causes. He will then be forced to find solace by forming a new relationship or bonds of affection with those who are near him at the time of his breaking. This was exactly the thing that Plato advocated and practiced in the Academy. His curriculum was made up of gymnastics and mental toil and advocated many years of preparation. Aristotle entered at the age of 19. The end of all of this was to become the most aristocratic of all in the society and rule over it. The Greek culture was known for its racial pride in which they felt that they were far superior to all of the other people in the world and had as an unquestioned practice the use of all other men as slaves. Plato strove to make an exclusive fellowship that was to be superior to the existing proud rulers and aristocrats. Why has the false and failed system of Plato lasted through the centuries? It has been supernaturally nurtured by Satan. By it men have justified being a superior noble class that could lord it over everyone else and live off of their toil. The Cutting Edge of Sound Reason is Dulled The children of the high society are introduced into this system at tender ages and made to feel superior. (Some of the king’s children have been isolated from their families from the age of seven years old turning them over to these concepts in the hands of private tutors.) Aristotle was the private tutor of Alexander the Great. It is to be noted that the teachings of Aristotle did not have a moral effect on Alexander as he lived a life of debauchery. The rest of the world never gets around to understanding it, only accepting it as very high class and cultured to know these things.

Greek Philosophy presumes that God can be known only in conjecture, that what must be known is the reality in the spiritual world, that all reason falls short of getting to true reality in this world, and one must be brought to remember the true relation of things from the time before the soul is born. The Greek Philosopher uses mind bending abstractions and definitions to attempt to bring one to eliminate all resistance to the practice of the occult and bring one to a full surrender to the kingdom of darkness and investigation into the supernatural spirit world. In this sense it is a mental degradation. It mystifies and removes the cutting edge of sound reason by pretending that the philosophers have a hold on something that is so profound that you have no ability to comprehend it perfectly and you must place your confidence in them. This is especially so when the children of the elite are introduced to it as children or in their youth by tutors or older teachers with long impressive titles before they are able to form their own opinions. This is illustrated by the phrase, "Virtue is Knowledge." According to the dictionary Virtue is moral excellence, inherent power or merit. Knowledge is the clear perception of a truth, fact or subject; that which is known; information gained and preserved. This supposedly profound wisdom of Socrates is saying: Moral excellence is the equivalent of that which is known or learned, or that good character is the same as information. It is in essence saying that if you learn what they have to tell you you will be virtuous. You just follow their investigation and dominate their methods and you will be good. The good or virtuous man is the one who follows their way of thinking. It then follows that if you do not accept them and their concepts or admit that you cannot do so, they are superior. They are isolated from receiving understanding from you or anyone else by this doctrine. It lays down principles that makes their adherents scornful, cynical and secretly contemptuous of other ideas and in particular to the preaching of the gospel and for this reason "not many Nobels or aristocrats are saved." The mental degradation Plato refers especially to "ideas" which he usually chooses to call "substances". He never bothers to give another word for "substance" even though he ruined it as well as the word "idea" in its ordinary meaning. A lack of true intellectuality and honesty in investigation is demonstrated in his character by his overlooking this fact. He shows he is not interested in being helpful and clarifying but in being obscure and appearing intellectual and replaces and confuses clear thought by interjecting the distraction to consider the process of thought. This is the Satanic tactic to ruin clear thinking, confusing the mind. Satan is the

author of confusion. Once confused the mind is then opened to consulting not with God the Creator but with the spirit world to try to supposedly recall the impossible, that which you knew before you were born. It is based on the eternal existence of the earth and the circular theory of history. As Christians we know that the doctrine of the preexistence of the soul is a false doctrine. The True Beginning of Wisdom The Bibles says that "the beginning of wisdom is the fear of God." This presumes that God is knowable, God is active, God is a person, God is supreme, God is just, and God is Holy. It is obvious that the consulting of occult spirits who are demons and knowing and worshiping the supreme Jehovah are two systems that are irreconcilable. As in the days of Joshua chapter 24: "Now therefore fear the Lord, and serve him in sincerity and in truth: and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the flood, and in Egypt; and serve ye the Lord… Now therefore put away, said he, the strange gods which are among you, and incline your heart unto the Lord God of Israel." The gods of Greek Philosophy come from the other side of the flood through Babel and Babylon and have permeated what we call evangelicals today. The scales of importance that are of the god of this world with its hidden roots, has permeated and brought about a form of godliness that denies the power to leave sin and separate our hearts unto the living God. Remember Aristotle taught that the world is eternal and that there were 47 or 55 prime movers or gods. Fatalism was his message as only the prime movers were free. Nothing is said about this polytheism when using his definitions as is done by Zanchius in his book on Absolute Predestination. All of us who have come from the reformed tradition have used the five points of Calvinism which were based on the definitions of Aristotle, speaking about being positionally pure; this is not correct for God will judge every man according to his works. This is not an intellectual dissertation but an all or nothing proposition to hate and turn away from this foundation of paganism or find ourselves friends of the world and enemies of God. Plato supposed that he proved that anyone could remember things from the former state he was in, in the spirit world, by giving the example of a slave who when pressed was able to come to understand the theories of Petágoras. He uses this to bring in a doctrine of mother nature in which all nature is one and the same thing of which the soul is part, he presents all of this only as an hypothesis. Strange but these so called intellectuals blindly believe these things that start out to be only illustrations or hypothesis’. We who have not muddled our minds with his theories would say that on the contrary with this he illustrated that all men are created equal, that all are are philosophic in the true

sense of the word, the whole idea of his supposed superiority was proven wrong by his illustration. The apostle Paul speaks In I Cor. 13:12 of "now we see through a glass darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known." In contrast to this Plato claims that true philosophy must go farther than the human senses, it must get into the life before or beyond the grave and be able to distinguish between what is possible to be known in our normal physical consciousness and what can be known by our "soul in itself". The goal is, that as much as possible the soul should be separated from our body, so, that it lives waiting and in preparation for death, when the separation will be fully accomplished. To him the "out of body" experiences of occultism were his spiritual goal, to the Christian who has the positive assurance of the resurrection instead of reincarnation he is walking in guidance of the Holy Spirit willing and yielded to be in the body, or to depart to be with the Lord where he will find perfection, as he looks on the face of his Saviour. He is not working to separate his soul from his body, nor does he feel that the body is a hindrance, on the contrary he sees it as the temple of the Holy Spirit, an instrument of God. According to I Cor. 15 man will be given a new body, a new temple. One does not look forward in the Christian hope to be without a body. The aristocrat of the poison root believes that the sin is in his body and although he sins he is aloof from it. It is illustrated in the idea of the Greeks that they could use their slave for sex but were forbidden to show any emotion toward them. It was the body that was sinning, their soul was separate and they were working towards trying to make this separation more complete. The doctrine rooted in Calvinism teaches the same thing, positionally we are pure in Christ but we all sin everyday. This idea is rooted in this concept of Greek Philosophy not in the Bible that clearly declares that God forbids that we continue in sin according to Romans chapter 6.

Chapter 9 A Roll Call of the Heroes of Unbelief The effects on history can easily be seen by observing that the whole panorama of the western world was changed by Alexander the Great, during the life time of Aristotle. What had been a concept of the Greek elite, passed from

generation to generation, that they were a very superior race, in the city state and in the rivalry among these states as was that of Sparta with Athens. Their profound pride of race and feeling of superiority was suddenly inflated from the local limited view of themselves to a world wide one. The foundation of the unity between the city states functioned through the religious oracular priesthood. The efforts of Socrates bore fruit, the priesthood was modified in some of its extremely foolish pronouncements in their oracles. This was done by incorporating the concepts of his philosophy into the preparation of the pool of people, from among whom the priests were chosen. As a prerequisite to enter into the first mystery they began to include the preparation in the philosophical ideas of Plato. As men strove to enter into the high ruling class all over the empire they solicited entrance into the "sacred mysteries". In the four centuries of history that transpired before the days of Jesus, the rulers of the different provinces this doctrine of superiority became diffused from the pure Greek blood line to the ruling and so called high class people of every province. The residues of the ruling class of the former empires of Babylon, Syria, Egypt etc. were all amalgamated by the process of the sacred mysteries and the theories of superiority of the Greek Philosophy. They sought after proper religious stances, preenings and superficial demonstrations of loyalties that formed, the code of diplomacy among the ruling elite, and which included the admission to the first sacred mystery in which they were and are all unconsciously introduced and brain washed into the beliefs and loyalties to the occult under the name of "classic" Greek Philosophy. Even in the Hebrew culture we find that they were obsessed with empire. Their ideal in their minds had drifted from the salvation and service of God in the law of Moses to the empire of David and Solomon. They could not receive Jesus as Messiah because the Messiah they then and now conceive was to bring them to be the empire that would rule over the world. They saw the many miracles of healing but were always asking for a sign. The sign that would have instantly convinced them was the miracle of taking over the authority of the Roman empire and replacing it with the authority of Jerusalem over all of the world. There is an appeal to this element of pride every since the beginning of the world. Just as he said to Eve, "you will be as wise as God," we have Satan still ruling today, with this subtle manipulation, often in our most intimate spiritual Christian circles. Following from the work of Justo L. González who speaks about the tendency to go with the current of the Greek scholars in his work of a "History of Christian Thought." We notice in the three volumes some of the references to blatant intromission of Greek Philosophy through the ages. Notice how the

Septuagint LXX was done in Egypt in Diáspora and Alexandria and was manifested by Polyhistor a century before Christ, he also cited Demetrius from three centuries B.C. who related the history of the kings of Judah using the Greek system. Eupolemus two centuries B.C. claimed that Moses invented the alphabet, and the Phoenicians carried it to Greece. Artaphanus (3rd century B.C.) declared that Abraham taught Pharaoh the principles of Astrology, and that Moses established the worship of the Egyptians of Apis and Isis. In the second century B. C. Arstobolus wrote the Exegesis of the Law of Moses to demonstrate that what was of value in the Greek philosophy was taken from the law of Moses.

Philo of Alexandria in the first century, who lived as a contemporary with Jesus, endeavored to interpret the Hebrew Scriptures to make them compatible with the Greek Academy by speaking of them as allegories. He asserted that he believed in the infallibility of the Scriptures and at the same time for example he spoke of the "thorns and thistles shall it bring forth" by saying that there is nothing that grows in the soul of a foolish man more than the passions that hurt and afflict him. He called these passions burrs that represent pleasure, desires, sadness, etc. terminology out of the themes of Greek Philosophy. The god of Philo is a combination of the ideas of the beautiful of Plato with the God of the prophets. Using the concept of Plato of an impassive god, he presents the necessity of other beings to be intermediates. He took the concept of "logos" as an instrument of God in the creation of the world taking the idea-concept of Plato to take the place of the "demiurge" (from the Greek concept that means creation, people, God creator). Taking the elements of stoics in which there is a distinction between the word as pronounced and the word in its internal meaning. The internal corresponds to the world of ideas and the external to the reason and serves as the visible world. This logos is very different from the logos of the gospel of John chapter 1. The logos of Philo and Greek philosophy is inferior to the God that is defined as transcending in heaven above this world. Philo introduces the argument that the ecstasy is a goal which we can come to by a long process of mortifying the flesh and liberating ones self from the passions, and is the Greek stoic goal of coming to ecstasy by being moral. Using the Bible as an allegory, at the same time that Jesus lived in Palestine, Philo placed the Scriptures in eclipse. His motive seemed to be to try to make the Bible concepts greater in the eyes of the Greek scholars.. This subtle concept flowered in the next two centuries.

The Academy of Plato continued in existence until it was finally closed in the 529 AD by Justiniano. From the time of Christ the belief in the gods, goddess and myths slowly was disappearing but the Philosophy of Plato was modified into what is known as Neoplatonism, a religious philosophic system that has the concept of two worlds, the immortal and the preexistence of the soul, knowledge as reminiscence and his ideas of good. His doctrine had the tendency to make an ethical distinction between the visible world as the home of evil, while the world of the ideas were to be the goal of life and morality. (Out of this concept has grown the monastic practice or monasticism.) From early times, the doctrine of immortality of the soul attracted the Christians, who tried to find something in the prevailing Greek Philosophy to support the doctrine of life after death. It seems that many could not distinguish the difference between Plato’s theory of immortality from the Christian resurrection and judgment. The Philosophers worked in a very depressed atmosphere. Plato in Phaedón admitted the doctrine of the anamnesis. (the remembrance of things from the past supposedly before you were born, recollection.) The soul that descends into the body forgets the impressions received before birth, but on the contrary when one dies he remembers what happened in this life. "Life without a body is the natural condition of the soul, life in the body is not a natural condition for the soul, it is like a sickness." Aristotle joined this pessimism, "Since it is impossible for man to participate in the true excellence, it would be better for him to not have been born: but since he has been born it is better to die as soon as possible." The platonic system makes immortality a natural result of the divine nature in the person. (From this pagan source we have the doctrine of once saved always saved.) He says only the spiritual can have permanence. This is all very different from the Christian doctrine of the resurrection of the body and the final judgment of all things done in this life. Plato teaches that the future life is not a gift of God, but is the result of the divine in the human. Plato taught not only immortality but the preexistence of the soul and taught the transmigration of the soul from one life to another or what is called the reincarnation. All of this is very different from Christian doctrine. Not withstanding, the Christian thinkers who were anxious to interpret the new faith in the light of universally held beliefs of Greek Philosophy, came to include much of this in their early doctrines.

The doctrine of Plato about the understanding is that we must not confide in the senses to know the true knowledge. This is not the fault of the senses in themselves, but because they cannot testify to the idea (substance) of the things which are in the other spiritual world our physical reality is not to be confided in. He says that all true knowledge is based on the ideas. He used the theory of recalling and remembering that requires that one accept the idea of being saved by the indestructible divine nature innate or intrinsic in the soul remaining in the transmigration of the soul through many lifetimes. Naturally the Christians could not accept this, but they did accept the ideas of not confiding in the perceptions of the senses, and these were concepts that dominated Christian thought for centuries because it was taught by Augustine. Finally the platonic idea of good influenced the growth of Christian thought related to God. In Timeaus, Plato says that the origin of the world was the work of a divine artisan that took the material without form and gave it form, imitating the idea of the good. It is not of interest here if Plato took this as a myth or not, but its powerful influence on Christian thought in the first centuries. It is easy to take as parallel the ideas of Genesis and Timeaus. The difference between the idea of the being of a supreme Creator of the universe and the demurrage as an artisan of the universe using the theory of good brought about a joining of the ideas and the projection of an impassive God of Destiny in relation to the world. Although it were not for his polytheistic belief, many of his dialogs could be used as though the good was spoken of as the god of Plato, who was impassive, infinite, incomprehensible, indescribable. After Platonism, Stoicism was the system that had the most influence on the development of Christian thought. Its doctrine of logos, its high moral tone, and its natural law made a profound impression on the development of Christian thought. According to the stoic teachings, the universe was subject to reason or logos. This logos is not just an external force, but reason that is impregnated in the structure of all things. Our own reason is a part of this logos also, and because of this we are able to understand and comprehend it. All reason and all energy are encompassed by this logos, and is called the seed logos. Through the years this concept of logos was added to the Platonic beliefs as for instance was done by Philo, and used as a reference to elaborate and define the logos of the Bible. The doctrine of the stoics in regard to the logos was only one part, another was their pagan emphasis in ethics and its use on the Christian thinkers. From the their concept of the universal reason, came the existence of the natural order of things, and above all the natural order of human life. This was called the natural

order of human life, it is stamped in the being of all men, and they only have to obey it to be virtuous. In the beginning Stoicism was for a minority in which they establish a difference between the "foolish" and the "wise". With the passing of time, it became more flexible and in the Christian era it had become a popular current in the empire. The Christians were allied with it against those who derided the customs of austerity. Notwithstanding the persecutions that they suffered under Marco Aurelio (161-180), who at the same time was a great Stoic philosopher. Many came to think that the "natural law" of the stoics was the foundation of christen ethics. In due time there was a bridge erected between what was the most moral code of the empire and Christianity. But it was done at the cost of distracting from the wonderful news of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Aristotles influence continued being felt with his logic and his doctrine using "the first unmoved mover", these concepts had been assimilated into Platonism and his influence came through systems similarly as they had through Philo. 100 AD Clement I used the argument of the old testament and the stoic doctrine to exhort the Corinthians to obedience. His moral teaching used the subject of "harmony and concord". This theological school grew under the guidance of stoicism which influenced the practical spirit of the Roman people. In the so called Epistle of Barnabas, we have the first document in which the school of Alexandria is characterized by the influence of of Philo and of Neoplatonism. 150 AD Justino Martyr wrote in his dialog with Trypho, using the arguments the all knowledge is the result of the Stoic concept of logos. He concludes with "All that live reasonably are Christians, even though their thoughts are atheist: such as with the Greeks, Socrates, Heraclito and others who were similar." In summary, as a true half platonist, Justino tries to interpret relations between the Father and the Son by combining elements taken from the Hebrew concept of the angels and ideas from Plato, to emphasize the divine transcendence, by which the Verbo or Word became a bridge between the world and the supreme God who exists in absolute transcendence. 200 AD Tertullian repeatedly and explicitly attacks the intromission of Greek Philosophy in things of faith, however he himself was influenced by Stoicism, and speaks of Seneca with much esteem so that by his actions he contradicts his rejection.

220 AD Clement of Alexandria conceived that the truth could be found in the Greek Philosophy in the tradition of Justin. He declares that the philosophy was given to the Greeks as the law was given to the Hebrews to guide them to Christ. When he speaks of God he follows the practice of Neoplatonism asserting that to define God, it is necessary to do so by speaking of Him in negative terms. He declares that God does not have attributes, that he is above the category of substance; nothing can be directly from Him because he cannot be defined. Influenced by Aristotle he said that it was reasonable to think that the body of the Savior needed food to survive… that it was completely impassable, inaccessible to movement and feelings of pleasure or pain. 240 AD Origen when he was young, was present in the martyrdom of his father and it gave him courage, he was such an ascetic that he managed to castrate himself by his own strength. Origen’s point of departure was not the Word, but of a God whose principal characteristics were determined by Platonism more than by the Scriptures. He spoke of the world as being eternal, the pre-existence of the souls and the final salvation of the devil. 325 AD The influence was stronger in Arianism (the doctrine that the Son was not of the same substance as the Father, but was created as an agent for creating the world) than in the council so that Arianism was condemned by the Council of Nice. 360 DC Gregory of Nyssa makes more and better use of the Greek Philosophy. (Is there a good use?) Lector of Origen is agreed that philosophy is useful but is more conscious of it dangers. 370 DC Apollinaris in his Christology to demonstrate the unity of the Saviour speaks of the presupposed concept that man is composed of body, soul, and spirit. This three part constitution of his nature was interpreted in the light of the triple division of Plato. 380 AD Cyril confirms that the Logos or Verbo oor Word was united to humanity in general, not the individual. The interpretation shows that he took this position because of his being influenced by Plato. 420 AD Augustine to explain the creation introduced the idea of "Seminal Reasons" taking great variations from the Stoic and Neoplatonist traditions. By the influence of Plato he affirmed that the soul had no body, abandoning the position of Tertullian. The principal defender of the points of view of Augustine, Claudianu Mamertus, who answered for him, appealed to the authority of the ancient philosophers. After this time, because of Augustine, the

influence of Neoplatonism increased by way of the works of Augustine, Marius Victorinus, Gregory of Nyssa and others, and was accepted without controversy. Opposition will return in the time of Carlingian but is stopped by the translation to Latin of Pseudo-Dionysius, which increased the force of Neoplatonism. 500 AD Manlius Torcuatus Severinus Boethius of Osrogothic, Italy influenced all of the middle ages by his work of bringing to the front, the Classic Greek Philosophy, especially that had to do with logic and its universal concepts. 590 AD Pseudo-Dionysius (Acts 17:34) was an anonymous theologian, but because he placed this name on his work, it was presumed that it was written by the companion of Paul, for this reason it was given a place only second to the New Testament by the seminaries.. It gave a panorama that was essentially neoplatonic, and had a great impact all through the middle ages. His works were related to the hierarchy. It is impossible to know exactly who he was, but it seems that he came from Syria. He conceived the universe as a hierarchical structure which according to the Neoplatonic style everything came from God. In heaven the angelic intellect is divided in three grades of hierarchy and nine chorus’. The first level was composed of the seraphims, cherubims, and thrones. The second level was of dominions, virtues, and powers. The third and lowest level of hierarchy in heaven was principalities, archangels and angels. He taught that by this hierarchy God was pouring out his light on the world and that these divisions were not impairments but channels for the gifts of God. In the world these ecclesiastic hierarchies is formed by two orders, each divided into three grades. The priestly order is divided into Bishops, priests and deacons. The other and lowest order is composed of the monks, the faithful, and the penitents. It is taught as a reality that in the very strictest sense, each grade must communicate only with God through their immediate superior. This Neoplatonism has changed the gospel into something completely different from the message of Jesus Christ. The goal according to him was the deification of all of the intellects by the use of the sacraments and the help of the hierarchy. The three mystic steps are the purgative, the illuminative and the ecstasy. According to this anonymous author Christ formed and is in charge of this hierarchy and works only by it. This manuscript was taught all through the dark ages as a faithful interpretation of Paul the Apostle. 595 AD Leontius de Bysantium developed his Christology using the logic of Aristotle and the anthropology of Plato that had been before already

incorporated into the church to develop the hypothesis of the two natures, that is then used by applying it to one and the other to prove that Mary is the Mother of God. 840 AD Juan Scotus Erigena, native of Ireland, was noted for his love of Greek Philosophy, using it in his work "About the division of nature" by which he taught the restoration of all things and concluded that hell is only a metaphor. 1120 AD The influence of Plato was great, and various teachers taught the interpretation of the information of the revelation by the light of Plato such as, Chartre, Gilbert de Porrée, Thierry de Chartre and William of Conches. The fragments of Bernard of Chartres show his comparison of Genesis with Timeaus. He develops the idea, the theory that the temporal sword belongs to the king and the spiritual to the church. From Spain they translated the works of Aristotle to Latin and flooded Europe with them. It caused a great impact and a new stage of thought. (Many movements were exterminated with their doctrines. A certain Peter Bruyes was burned and his followers carried on for a long time before they and their histories and ideas were destroyed. The Waldenses lived through this persecution.) 1220 AD For teaching the pantheism of Greek Philosophy Amaury and Cacvin were condemned in 1210 and the books by Aristotle about metaphysics and natural philosophy were condemned. 1240 AD The University of Paris and Oxford make translations of Aristotle directly from the original manuscripts and cause everyone to take them into account. 1250 AD The Franciscans who are identified with the line of Augustine defend his Neoplatonism against the teaching of Aristotle. 1250 AD The Dominicans Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas manage to retain the Neoplatonism of Augustine and assimilate the ideas of Aristotle into the doctrine. 1280 AD Psellos justifies the use of the Greek Philosophy as a preparation for the reception of the gospel. 1285 AD Averroës writes "The Commentator" and defends in his writings the doctrines of Aristotle against Neoplatonism of Augustine.

1290 AD Duns Scotus takes a position half way between the illumination of Augustine and the Augustine-Thomasist position. 1300 AD The synthesis that all of the universe is a hierarchy, and that all of the ecclesiastics as well as the civilians are part of it based on Neoplatonism instead of on Christianity. Following this there was added the new synthesis of Aristotle, of the particulars from which seeds the destruction came, because it was taught that all of it was beyond human comprehension, that reason is beyond human comprehension and so that it is impossible to make a synthesis. They made philosophy to be a futility. 1500 AD Erasmo gave up on forming a theology and pretended to only return to the teachings of Jesus Christ, interpreting them from the stoic and platonic view. He came to the point in his writings asking Saint Socrates to pray for him. 1515 AD Zwingle desires to take his theology from the Bible but uses the philosophers to discuss the nature of God. 1520 AD Martin Luther declares that no one can become a theologian if he does so without Aristotle. 1540 AD Ignacius Loyola makes a list of approved books for study and includes Aristotle and Thomas Aquino. 1555 AD Philip Melanchthon formed a movement out of the theology of Luther just as they made for Calvin, he spoke approvingly of the Greek philosophers claiming that they knew God but not did not know his salvation. 1555 AD John Calvin makes a movement out of the theology of Zwingle like they did with Luther. He declares that the the providence of God is not only his foreknowledge but the production of events by God. When accused of fatalism by the Stoics, he says that it is not so because events are not from an interior necessity but because of the Universal Divine Kingdom. He insists that evil is not the permissive will of God but is the active will of God. Predestination is not to be studied from the point of view of the omnipotence and the omniscience of God but from a faith of gratefulness that gives thanks to God for salvation. 26 1560 AD Peter Martyr Vermigli established a school in Cucca where the scriptures and Aristotle were taught.

1570 AD The idea is advanced that it is ridiculous to try to know the world through the ancient philosophers, because it could be plainly seen that they were mistaken in many things. To understand the world it is necessary to examine it and reduce it to mathematic reality. 1570 AD Jerome Zanchius in Strousburg, begins his theology with the attributes of God, and writes the "Doctrine of the Predestination Expressed and Asserted" by which he changed the doctrine of Calvin of the predestination, not so much in its understanding as in its tone, employing the definition of God instead of the work of Grace as the main point of salvation. 1588 AD Francis Suárez writes 54 Metaphysic Disputations making a philosophy of the scholastic tradition of Aristotle and Aquinas and the Jesuits. 1600 AD Francis Bacon advances the idea of leaving the philosophers out, dedicating his efforts to the study of nature to be used along with the ancient opinions as were understood in a less developed time. 1600 - 1800 AD The orthodox Lutherans develop an independent theology taking into account the philosophers and scientists and move toward rationalism. 1605 AD Johann Gerhard writes what later will become to be known as "Systematic Theology" giving it the metaphysical foundation of Aristotle according to Suarez of Salamanca. 1620 AD George Calixtus among the Lutherans in Helmstedt reintroduces Aristotle into Germany. The theologians of the time construct a foundation of scripture based on the metaphysics of Aristotle. The Reformation loses its freshness. 1722 AD Count Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzzendorf of the Lutherans founds the Morovians on the idea that God is not known by the study of Theology but by the study of the Scriptures and in personal devotion. 1740 AD Jonathan Edwards who studied the Philosophy of Locke at Yale, later was converted and taught the sovereignty of God as the foundation of predestination in Calvinism.

Chapter 10

How Augustine baptized Plato

St. Aurelious Augustine (355-430 AD) was born to a mixed marriage. His mother was of the Christian faith and his father was of pagan origin. By the time he was 18 years old he had fathered an illegitimate son. His occupation was teaching what was known as rhetoric --the use of all of the powers of convincing by the spoken and written word. He is known as the architect of theology for the next thousand years, known as the middle ages. He wrote in his "Confessions"27. "All said and done I believe that it has been the will of God that I have read first these books of the Platonists before I began a study of the Holy Scriptures… if I had been first exposed to the Scriptures, and they had become sweet to me in their skillful use, and later had been exposed to the books of Plato, possibly they would have led me into their earthly current of piety, or I would have thought that these books would have given me the same effect as the scriptures, had I studied them first." In Book 8 Chap. 2 "I went to see Simplicianus who begot Ambrose, who is now bishop… I explained how that in my search I had read certain books of the Platonists… He congratulated me that I had not fallen into other currents of philosophy which are full of vain deceptions, according to the elements of this world, while in the works of Plato, God and his Word are implied everywhere. In Book 8 Chapter 12 he spoke of his conversion. He felt his sin and fell into a state where he said, "I continue with my miserable complaints, How long, how long will I continue saying tomorrow and again tomorrow? Why not now? Why not leave off this filthiness right now? I said these things with the greatest sadness and bitterness of heart. In a moment I heard the voice of a child in the house adjoining mine saying. Take and read! Take and read! Interpreting this to be a divine command to open the Scriptures, I read in silence the passage of Romans 13:13 "Let us walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wontonness, not in strife and envying. But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfill the lusts thereof." He said he did feel like reading any farther, nor the need to do so; because in this instant, there was something like a light of confidence that illuminated my heart and all of the darkness and uncertainty disappeared. He testified that from this moment he left his common law wife and became a monk! He considered that from this moment he had been converted. He told his mother about it and she accepted his decision and was filled with gladness. He comments that he henceforth did not search for a woman anymore. In this way

I was standing on the rule that God had revealed so many years before that I would be doing. You see, because of 700 years of Plato’s philosophy, this was considered the only way to be considered a spiritual guide. One had to live celibate, apart from his family, since this was his aspiration, he had felt blocked in this ambition, because he could not live without his wife. We who know the teaching of the I Corinthians chapter 7, just 4 pages from the text he read in the book of Romans that he had in his hand, it is plainly taught to leave his companion was a great sin not a conversion. He was interested in climbing the social ladder, to become part of the clergy class, and to do that he was adjusting to the concepts of Plato, as a qualification to eventually becoming a Bishop. In Book 9 Chapter 4 some time afterwards, being in the country he suffered a terrible tooth ache that became so bad he could no longer talk, and ask his friends to pray for him, they had no more than knelt down and began to pray, when the pain was instantly gone. This generated a fear and faith in him and he gave praise to God. But he says this faith did not permit me to feel saved from my past sins, since I had not yet been baptized to remit them. We notice here that Augustine believed that baptism with water was what brought salvation. That he had no idea of the personal abiding transforming power of God in his life in the born again experience of John 3 becomes apparent, he became a Bishop that did not even understand what it was to be born again. In Book 9 chapter 11 he speaks of the death of his mother Monica after she had been taken with days of high fever. Gaining consciousness she said that they could bury her here in Italy, and not to worry about were it might be, only asking that they would always remember her before the altar of the Lord. Before this she had always insisted that she should be buried by her husband in Africa. She passed away in Italy at the age of 56 when Augustine was 33. Then in chapter 13 he tells how that without doubt his mother had sinned since her baptism, unceasingly prays and asks for the prayers of others, who read his book for God to have mercy on the sins of his mother. We must understand from this that Augustine, who supposedly was converted before this time was not really ever converted and did not understand the life of Christ in us, which is the essence of Christianity. Certainly the idea of receiving forgiveness for sins after one has died is a purely pagan idea. Since there is no rectification of these ideas in his other writings we must presume that Augustine was a Christian in theory only, believing himself to be so because he was baptized. Yet never really became one according to the concept of II Cor.

5:17, "Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold all things are become new". Now for the next 800 years theology was based on his concepts which we shall see were a crude mixture of Pagan Greek Philosophy and the Bible. Not only this, all objections to his point of view until today are considered as heresy in Catholic circles as well as others. The objections and objectors to his theology were systematically destroyed by destroying them and their books. The continuous addition however of Greek philosophical concepts continued, as we have shown in the previous chapter. What a poison root to destroy the message and work of our Lord Jesus by the subtle planting of these concepts in minds by the arch deceiver. We shall see that the great falling away is in all parts of the world. The greatest part of what is called Christianity is subtly defended using the definitions of the poison root against the plain truths in the Bible. The nun Sister Mary Emily Keenan wrote The Life and Times of St. Augustine as revealed in His Letters for her PH. D. from the Catholic University of America. She states:28 Allusions to the various learned professions of St. Augustine’s time are numerous in the Letters, and many of them afford valuable information concerning this phase of contemporary life. The references to philosophy are especially pertinent. This is as one would expect, for Augustine had from his earliest years a deep natural interest in philosophy, had been brought back to the threshold of faith largely through the teaching of Plato and Cicero, and after becoming a Christian he had constructed a system of philosophy that is one of the major achievements of the ancient mind. His letters are permeated with his own philosophical teachings and we are not surprised that allusions to the profession of philosopher itself turn up frequently. In a letter to Hermongenianus, one of his earliest and mot intimate friends and associates in literary and philosophic studies, St. Augustine laments the fact that in his age philosophers are no longer to be seen. Wearers of the philosopher’s cloak there are, but these the Saint does not deem worthy of the name.29. The Saint thanks his friend for the candid estimate of the treatise he has submitted to him for criticism. He rejoices most, he writes, not in the fact that by this work he has vanquished the Academics, but in that he has broken and cast away from himself the odious bonds by which he was kept back from "the nourishing breasts of philosophy through despair of attaining the truth…" Twelve letters, all but one dealing with philosophical problems, were exchanged between St. Augustine and his learned friend. Nebridius cherishes

Augustine’s letters, he writes, because they bring to his ear "the voice of Christ and the teaching of Plato."30. Now, he continues, "whenever any school of error rises up against the truth…, it does not venture to leap forward except under cover of the Christian name." As a result, the Platonic school of philosophers, "after changing those few things in their opinions which Christ’s teaching condemn," have found it necessary to submit to Christ and His church.31 (This as we have seen is called Neoplatonism.) For example Robert E. Meager in his book An Introduction to Augustine 32 provides this mixture of Greek philosophy and Christianity; "…to pretend to be divine, to pretend that one’s words are one’s own, to be unmindful of the divine power and divine word is to sin." By the so called conversion of Augustine, which was the abandonment of his wife, cemented the foundation of the convents and monasteries after the style of Plato’s Academy for the following 1500 years in direct disobedience of our Lord’s desire in John 17:15; "I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil." In about 80 volumes written by him, we have Greek Philosophy married to the foundation of the Scriptures. As the theological studies were based for these many centuries on the foundation of Augustine the use of Plato and especially his ideas that were dispersed through them all, Plato became accepted as Christian. For this it is said that Augustine baptized Plato. This was all brought about as an appeal was made to the prestige of the world of his day. He thought that this would give the Word of God more credibilidad. He thought, as is common in our day, that he was using the arms of Philosophy to influence men to Christianity. It is a common concept among those who have never come to repentance or the new birth in Jesus. To illustrate the pollution of Greek concepts that Augustine injected in Christianity in The City of God 33 he writes. "According to his will, who with his highest eternal foreknowledge, without doubt he worked in heaven as well as on earth everything he wanted, not just in the past and present but also in the future. Notwithstanding, before the time comes for him to do what he wants to do that which his foreknowledge decided, we say that God will do what he wants to do; but when we ignore the time in which it is to be, as well as if it is to be or not, we say that God will do what he wants; not because God will have a change in his will that he did not have before, but because that it is beforehand decreed ab eterno in his immutable will, and it will therefore

happen." His belief was not in the personal interacting God of the Bible but in the god of destiny of the poison root. Augustine had in his final days the strong opposition to his doctrine by Pelagio. He finished his theology with his confrontation with this doctrine. Pelagio was from the British Isles. Although he is referred to as monk it would seem from his doctrine that he was not. His date of birth is unknown. We first hear of him when he came in contact with the doctrine of Augustine in the year 405 AD in Rome. He reacted violently against it because he said it left all of salvation dependent on God’s grace and left no place for human participation and obedience. In his Confessions,"You ask of me continence. Give me what you ask of me and ask of me what you will." (10,29) Pelagio had no place for such "quietism." After this episode Pelagio disappeared from the journals for four years, he is heard from just before the fall of Rome, just before his return to Africa with his friend and disciple Coelestius. He left from Africa for the East without having an opportunity to personally meet Augustine. (A common tactic of the priests to never personally confront their opponents.) In Palestine, Pelagio managed the backing of various bishops, but encountered an opponent in the fiery Jerome --one of the most notable figures in the fourth and fifth centuries-- who pronounced thunder and lightning from his refuge in Bethlehem. Jerome was backed up by Orosius and the position of Pelagio came to be unsustainable. Finally after a series of African synods, the matter came to Rome, because in various aspects it could not be condemned, where Bishop Innocence helped the bishops from Africa condemn Pelagio. His successor Zosimus for a time backed Pelagio and Coelestius, but later changed his mind and and condemned him. Little by little the doctrines of Pelagio were rejected in the East and the West until they were condemned in the Council of of Ephesus in 431AD. Some of Pelagius’ doctrines are known directly from his works that are still in existence. A few under his name, others from orthodox writers, and others in fragments that have been quoted in the works of his opponents. The principal surviving works are his "Exposition of the Pauline Epistles" and his "Book of Faith" sent to Pope Innocence trying to get his help. The theology of Pelagius seemed to be a reaction against the determinism of the Manichees. The last insisted that "good" and "bad" were based in nature as eternal principles, therefore the naturally "bad" could not do good nor the "good" bad. He was opposed to the concepts written by Augustine in his work About Free Will. It is against this work that Pelagio began his theological

campaign. Therefore the differences between Augustine and Pelagio were that the first was not willing to leave the absolute necessity of Grace, while the latter felt that this doctrine as expressed by Augustine was a threat to human liberty and responsibility. From a practical view point, Pelagio was interested that human weakness not be used for giving an excuse for sin. Against such people he asserted that by means of human nature man is capable of doing good. The power to not sin is in man and neither the sin of Adam nor the power of Satan can destroy it. The sin of Adam in no way is the sin of humanity, because it would be unjust and preposterous to condemn all for the sin of one. Neither could Adam’s sin destroy the liberty of all of his descendants to reject sin. While it is true that the enemy is powerful, but not so powerful that he cannot be resisted. The flesh also is powerful and wars against the spirit, but God gives the power to defeat the flesh. As a proof of this position, he cited the men and women according to the Old Testament who lived lives that were perfectly holy. It follows therefore that every man sins with his free will, and it naturally follows that children who die before they are baptized are not condemned. The guilt of Adams sin is not on their shoulders. Does this teach that grace is not necessary for salvation? Certainly not, because Pelagio insists that there is "universal Grace" or "grace from the creation" that is given to men. This grace not withstanding, is not an actuation on the part of God, that Plinval is correct in saying that "it is in some way confused with the grace to which we owe our existence and intelligence." Paradoxically, he calls it "natural grace.." Besides the grace of the creation, Pelagio affirms that there is a "Revealing Grace" or that is to say a "Teaching Grace" that consists in the revelation to men; God shows them the way they should follow. It is not that this offers man a special power to obey God, for this would take away from the revealed fact by teaching that man is incapable of doing good. Last of all there is the "Pardoning Grace" or "The Grace that remits sins". This is the grace that God gives a man who --by his own free will-- repents and strives to act correctly in repairing the wrongs that he has done. Again he notes that this doesn’t influence the human free will but is limited to the pardon of sin. Relating this to baptism, Pelagio insisted that the infants are innocent and therefore they do not need Baptism to be saved. Besides baptism doesn’t cause free will to be born to replace a physical condition in which one is in slavery to

sin. Baptism only breaks the custom of sin and calls the believer to a new life that he is called on to build with his own free will. Finally according to Pelagio, the predestination that Paul refers to is not a sovereign decree of God in which men are saved or lost, on the contrary it is his foreknowledge of what future decisions humans may make. "Predestination is not the same as foreknowledge." These doctrines were summed up by Augustine in his answers to Coelestius, the disciple of Pelagio into the following points. 1. Adam was created a mortal, because he would have died, even if he had not sinned. 2. The sin of Adam only hurt himself and not all of humanity. 3. The law as well as the gospel leads to the Kingdom. 4. That there were men before Christ who lived without sin. 5. That newborn infants are in the same state as was Adam before he fell. 6. That all of humanity did not die in Adam nor were they resurrected in Christ. 7. That man if he is willing, can live without sin. 8. That infants who are not baptized receive eternal life. 9. That the wealthy who are baptized cannot have any merit or receive the Kingdom of God, if they do not renounce their possessions. Augustine wrote the books: About the spirit and the law. About the nature of Grace. About Original Sin. You as reader may judge if Augustine interpreted Pelagio fairly or not. This information was taken from the, History of Christian Thought -- Justo Martínez. Augustine taught that procreation is sin It is interesting how that Augustine has promoted the monastic movement by his concepts and example. It is illustrated by his understanding that procreation was sinful. He says in his City of God 34 Of the shame which attends all sexual

intercourse. Lust requires for its consummation darkness and secrecy; and this not only when unlawful intercourse is desired, but even such fornication as the earthly city has legalized. …The greatest master of Roman Eloquence says, that all right actions are to be set in the light. This right action seeks the light, in so far as it seeks to be known, but yet dreads being seen. And why so, if not because that which is by nature decent is so done as to be accompanied with a shame-begetting a penalty of sin?. He says,35 …In such happy circumstances and general human well-being we should be far from suspecting that offspring could not have been begotten without the disease of lust, but those parts like all the rest, would be set in motion at the command of the will; and without the seductive stimulus of passion, with calmness of mind and with no corrupting of the integrity of the body, the husband would lie upon the bosom of his wife. Nor ought we not to believe this because it cannot be proved by experiment. But rather since no wild heat of passion would arouse those parts of the body, but a spontaneous power according to the need would be present, thus we must believe that the male semen could have been introduced into the womb of the wife with the integrity of the female genital organ being preserved, just as now, with the same integrity being safe, the menstrual flow of blood can be emitted from the womb of the virgin. To be sure, the seed could be introduced in the same way through which the menses can be emitted. In order that the groans of labor-pains should relax the female organs for partition, but rather the impulse of the fully developed foetus, thus not the eager desire of lust, but the normal exercise of the will, should join the male and female for breeding and conception. Notice how that Augustine had the pagan view that the body is corrupt and he considered the act of procreation a sin ignoring that the first command of God to man was "Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth and subdue it." The act of matrimony and procreation in matrimony is separating ones spirit and body to the commandment of God and is a holy act. Heb.13:4 says, "Marriage is honorable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge." From these pagan ideas springs the dogma of "Original Sin." Chapter 10 How Augustine baptized Plato At the second inaugural of Abraham Lincoln in 1865 only weeks before he was assassinated he said: "Neither party expected for the war, the magnitude of the duration, which it has already attained… Each looked for an easier triumph… Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes His aid

against the other." At that point the gaunt war-worn president’s voice cracked. He regained his composure, saying, "How strange that any men should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces." Grace Awakening- Chuck Swindall. We know that the peace of the world will never be accomplished until the angel takes the chain and binds Satan and casts him into the bottomless pit, only then will the thousand years of peace be possible. How is it possible that in a world of free moral agents they are continually manipulated by Satan into such destructive behavior, wars, killing, hatreds and continuous strife? The answer is in the passage about the fall of Satan in Ez. 28:14 where it speaks about the beauty, of this most spectacular creature, that was given him by the Creator, finally being the source and reason of the lifting up of himself. To make the glorious, dynamic, eternal kingdom, God accepted the necessity of making it populated with creatures who were free and autonomous within their capacities. The liberty, intelligence, imagination and enthusiasm with which God has endowed his moral creatures, that is to say angels and men, is the fertile soil that the Satanic point of view uses to bring them to his same condition of destruction. This inward fire of selfish pride and ambition brings us to its logical end, to ashes. Now what is the actual instrument, the methodology subtly used by the arch deceiver in society through the centuries? We have observed how that the Greek state composed of many thousands, most of whom were slaves was governed by about a thousand who considered themselves to be of such superior race, beauty, and culture that we have thought of their being a democracy because in their writings of their history, they never even took into consideration the many thousands of other men who were around them. They considered themselves to be superior on the basis of being reincarnated and in this mythical selection process were made to be elite. Out of this sophisticated aristocracy we have Socrates a descendant of King Codro who proposed that there was a higher position yet than the Greek elite. Plato elaborated on this by advocating occultism, the consulting of the spirits in the other world to find true reality. Through him we have the creation of a very interesting argument to be used, from then until the present, for lifting men to higher positions above their fellow human beings. This argument is found in the Republic which is considered the apex of Plato’s works. He sets forth the concept of justice as being the basis for happiness in the society. He declares that he can lift up a few men and attain justice. This is a great injustice to the rest. To illustrate howthe aristocratic class could be also called the pirates and the Satanic force behind the use of the mixing of Greek philosophy to get the so

called Christian empires of England, Spain, Portugal, and Austria. To illustrate the aristocratic argument being mixed with Christianity I found in the book printed by Overlook Press, NY of R. Buckminster Fuller Utopia or Oblivion where he mentions the pagan concepts of superiority from Plato that underlay the so called Christianity of the British Empire Pg. 118 [I will now talk about what it seem to me needs to be communicated by man today. Up to the time of Thomas Malthus at the opening of the 19th century we had had many great world empires-- but all the pre-16th-century great world empires such as those of Genghis Khan, Alexander the Great, the Ottomans, and Rome, were all what I call "flat empires," that is, they were all part of the same pre16th-century cosmology of man which conceived of the earth as being flat -- a great island, apparently surrounded horizontally to infinity by the sea. All of the great empires were flat postage-stamp empires inside the great infinity. All our ancient world maps show that the flat concept with civilization centered around the Mediterranean Sea, which term means sea in the middle of the land. And the people in the times of Alexander the Great or of Caesar or of Saladin, all thought in that flat way. That is why "simple, elementary plane geometry" is used and taught to beginners and "solid" is considered more difficult and "spherical trig" even more advanced and more difficult. When you think about the real consequences of that psychologically, philosophically, and mathematically, it is devastating. It means that "inside" the empire, we have something we call civilization, while "outside" the empire begins the unknown wilderness with pretty rough people and outside of that live dragons and beyond the dragons, flat infinity. What we have in flat land is and only local finiteness, and all outward around us extends the flat infinity. This meant then that the Greeks in attempting to communicate their mathematical conceptioning defined the circle as "an area bound by a closed line of equal radius from one point," …The Greeks talked only about the area that was "bound" as having validity, finiteness, and identity while outside, on the other side of the line, there existed only treacherous terrain leading outwardly to infinity and therefore boundless. This has a tremendous feedback effect and explains the ingrained fundamental biases in our present thinking. We tend to think only of one side of a line as definable, organized, and valid. "Our side" is natural, right, and "God’s country" and viceversa. All humanity has been conditioned to accredit only its own local area of experience as being natural, and the logical prototype of all that is good and acceptable with all else remote, hostile, treacherous, and infinite. Infinite systems may contain an infinity of variables. The ancient world was imaginatively controlled by an infinity of gods.

The British Empire was so called because the great business venturers -- the great outlaws-- the world men-- who ruled the world’s ocean found the British Isles to be their most easily defensible shipbuilding bases which coincidentially and conveniently also commanded the whole waterfront of all of the European customers for the venturers’ Oriental booty. The ventures "Shanghaied" their crews out of the British pubs and because there were so many ships with so many British sailors aboard, the world came to identify the most successful world outlaw organization as the British Empire. This was the first empire of man to occur after we knew that the earth was a sphere. A sphere is a mathematically finite or closed system. It is an omnisymmetrical closed system. A sphere is finite unity. Thomas Malthus, the professor of political economics of the East India Company, was the first economist ever to receive all the vital statistics and economic data from a closed system world. Once the world is conceived of as a sphere and finite, there are no longer an infinite number of varying possibilities identifiable uniquely as whims of gods. Because earth had been discovered by its high-seas masters to be a closed and finite system, the great pirates who controlled the seas took their scientists around the world to discover and disclose to them its exploitable resources. Only because the earth constituted a closed system could the scientists inspect, in effect, all the species and only thus was Darwin able to develop the closedsystem theory of "evolution of species." Such a system could not have existed before that, it would have had to have included dragons and sea-serpents. All the people in all the previous open-edged empires lived in a system, within whose bordering infinity anything could happen. Paganism (or peasantism) wasn’t illogical. Geometrically speaking, the pagans could have any number of gods because any kind might occur in infinity. There were an infinite number of chances of upsetting the local pattern, which was a most satisfying idea if it happened that the individual didn’t like the prevailing local pattern. It seems strange that we are not taught about the historical, philosophical, and economic significance of the foregoing transition from an open to a closed world system. However, the omission can be explained by realizing that a closed system would exclude any variable supposedly operating external to the system. This automatically would exclude any supernatural phenomena such as the theologies of the organized religions. And because the churches were strong and the great pirates wished to obscure both their monopoly of the riches of the closed system and their grand world ocean strategy for its control, significance of the concept of a closed world system was popularly unrealized.

Once a closed system is recognized as exclusively valid, the list of variables and the degrees of freedom are closed and limited to six positive and six negative alternatives of action for each local transformation event in the universe. In view of Thomas Malthus’ discovery that the world’s people multiplied themselves much more rapidly than they were able to produce goods to support themselves, what could prayers do to alter these hard facts? For approximately a century the world-mastering venturers "classified" Malthus’ books as secret information, belonging exclusively to the East India Company. Once "classified" that kind of information leaked out only amongst the pirates and the scholars. Marx, as a great scholar studying in England, encountered the Malthusian data. It was equally clear to Marx that there was not enough to go around. Marx said, "Since there is not enough to go around for all and not enough even for ‘many’ --certainly those few who are arbitrarily favored by the prevailing system and thereby enabled to survive their allotted span of ‘four score and ten’ ought to be the ones who are most ‘worthy’ and those who do the work are the most ‘worthy’ and those who do the work ‘obviously’ --to Marx" were the most worthy" That is logical thinking. Those who opposed him said that headwork and daring enterprise which alone conceived of the great value to be realized by society could also increase the abundance and support more people and that the enterprisers should be conceded to be the exclusive few who could and should survive. Others said it should be the bright ones -- who by their superior intellectual fitness alone could increase the numbers which could be supported. The choice of "who" should survive has always underlain all class warfare. Should it be the brightest, the toughest, the bravest -- or who should it be? Certainly, the corollary to Darwin’s theory of evolution which expounded "Survival only of the fittest" seemed to fit neatly with Malthus who observed that only a few were attaining their full span of years. It was assumed to be obvious by those in power that a scientific law supported and vindicated their position. Despite the great pirates’ satisfaction, the question persisted amongst the "outs" as to "who were the fittest"? Would it prove in the end to be the worker, or would it be some military class or would it be some intellectual class? Just before I went to Harvard University in 1913, before the start of World War I, an "uncle" gave me some counsel. He was a very rich "uncle." My father died when I was quite young. My "uncle" said, "Young man, I think I must tell you some things that won’t make you very happy. I know that you are impressed

with your grandmother’s golden rule: ‘do unto others as you would have them do unto you.’ But my uncle went on to tell me about the discoveries of Thomas Malthus. He spoke about the pre-Mathuesian times when there could reasonable have been any number gods. He made it clear that in the early empires, the concept of the golden rule was highly plausible. There seemingly were an infinity of chances that it could work. "But," my uncle said, "a few of us now know from the closed-system experts that the golden rule doesn’t work. Those few of us who are rich and who really have the figures know that it is worse than one chance in one hundred that you can survive your allotted days in comfort. It is not you or the other fellow; it is you or one hundred others. And if you are going to survive --and have a family of five and wish to prosper --you’re going to have to do it at the expense of five hundred others. So, do it as neatly and cleanly and politely as you know how and as your conscience will allow. At any rate, that’s what you are up against." He went on to say, "I’m not going to try to educate your grandmother because she’s quite happy in thinking her own golden-rule way, and --of course unknown by her --I have taken care of her one hundred alternatives." My uncle said there are few today who really know that this is so. There are those all around the world who have their gods. They keep dying off, short of their botanical years, but they keep themselves happy by giving their hopes and infinite possibilities. So we don’t tell them about it." …It was only a decade ago (in the nineteen fifties) that we had this completely surprising news that Malthus was indeed wrong and there now could be enough to go around --handsomely. The primacy of political ideologies is obsolete because they were all developed on the basis of the exclusive survival only of your party or my party --simply because there was not enough for both.] By this quote we can see a little of the immense damage done to Christianity. Plato declares that the state exists because of the dependence of one man on the other. In Book 4 (430d) he declares for a state to be happy there must exist justice. It is over simplifieing but we note that Plato argued that as the man himself was divided into three parts; Reason (or Soul), Spirit and Passion, that the state should have the same divisions. The class of Reason was to be the Magistrate or the Philosopher-King, the Spirit was to be the army, collaborators and enforcers in the government, for if the Philosopher-King decides something and no one obeys, it is necessary to have this group of assistants who will make it work by force. These two classes are called the guardians of the State. They are known as the aristocrats. The third class are all of we other people who are equivalent to the Body, or passion who are to do all of the work or production of society, they are taken as "riffraff", "trash", "scum" mere "underlings". He says that this division of Soul, Spirit and Body is even more obvious in the state

than in the personality of every person. He says that these distinctions are to be preserved by the extreme competence of the Philosopher-Kings. It might be better to say devious cleverness for he says, "It appears to me that our magistrates will often find it necessary to turn to deception and lies for the good of their citizens; and we have explained in one part how lying is useful as a remedy." From this has sprung the excuse to lie, or sanctified lie, called "mental reservation" in Roman Catholic theology. We note that Satan has used this same class system in the Oriental Hinduism. They have the Brahminic class who are the priests and intellectuals -Philosopher-Kings, the Kshatriya who are the warrior class, Then there is the artisan and agriculture class, the Untouchables, the equivalent of the slaves under the Greek system . If ye have respect of persons ye commit sin Now this is all complete paganism. James said that, "if ye have respect of persons ye commit sin" Jesus said, "Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon them. But it shall not be so among you: but whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister: and whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant." Moses was qualified to be a leader when he said, "Who am I?" Giving your life for others is the true wisdom and satisfaction. The lifting up of oneself is the opposite of the well being and happiness of the the Beatitude, Blessed are the poor in spirit. Philosophy is used as an excuse to lord it over others Paul says in 2 Cor. 8:13-15 "For I mean not that other men be eased, and ye burdened: but by an equality, that now at this time your abundance may be a supply for their want, that their abundance also may be a supply for your want: that there may be equality: as it is written, He that had gathered much had nothing over; and he that had gathered little had no lack. " We notice that it was not an equality of substance, some had more others had less, it was a social equality that would not permit the use of substance or wealth as a gauge of the person. Whether they had more or less they lived within their means and rejoiced in the sufficiency the Lord had given, and were esteemed on the basis of who they were as a person in Jesus Christ, not on a social level determined by their economic worth. There are many gifts given unto men. The gift of accumulating wealth is something like the gift of music. The one who has the gift of wealth is forbidden to look down on the one who has the gift or music. There are many gifts that are useful for eternal fruits, of which the gift of

accumulating wealth is perhaps not as important as others: the gift of preaching, the gift of administration and the gift of evangelization etc. Now we have had all through the ages the aristocrat class who have talked about their "blue blood" which speaks of their position above other men but also their lack of compassion for the ones under them. It is justified at its foundation by the pagan doctrine of reincarnation by which they can claim that they were born better. You don’t have to worry about bringing their welfare to be equal with yours, you are naturally superior. We have seen that the Greek Philosophy is illogical, impractical, and impious. It has one thing that has made it universal, it gives an excuse by which men can be made to feel superior to other men. This is a poison root of unending strife. Especially when these men always strive to have the power of government in their hands to enforce their superiority. Wars and Rumors of Wars There you have brought to light this subtle tool of Satan to ruin human kind. Here you have a justification for the many wars fought for personal slights, where untold numbers have died, women who have been misused without punishment, by the higher class, generations of grinding poverty, and untold lives ruined by harbored resentments. The justification of the so called superior class in seeing and treating the rest of their fellow citizens as riffraff or scum, has been based on their being unconsciously placed in the service of the archdeciever by the supposedly superior preparation, consisting in the submission to the mental confusion of Plato. In the subtle seeking of worldly wisdom by introspection into the spirit world they have unknowingly been changed in their personalities to caustic and haughty critics of the supposed "scum" below them with the sentiments generated by Plato’s hidden occultism. No distinction made between Pagan definitions of god and Jehovah of the Bible About 800 years before Plato’s time the children of Israel insisted on having their first King. The ideas of Royalty sprang from Nimrod and the superior priesthood functioning from the top of the tower of Babel supposedly to control the injustices spawned by the fallen condition in man. This obvious chain of events, wrought by the work of Satan the arch-deceiver, was cleverly hidden by burying it in the past, and speaking about wisdom, gymnastics and healthy bodies, physics and metaphysics. Almost all of history speaks only of the Greek foundation, men seem oblivious to the Pagan atmosphere of Babylon and Babel that spawned the Greek ideas. They make no distinction between the ancient ideas of the Pagans and the ideas of Jehovah God and the chosen race. The

mixing of the two has been so subtle that we have been living in the great falling away that was spoken of by Jesus centuries ago. Men have a form of Godliness but hold it in contradiction by continuing to be be bound in sin. They feel themselves to be chosen servants of God but live with one or more things in their lives that they know are in conflict with the will of God. They do this because they are confiding in doctrines derived from the definitions of the Greek god of Destiny. They interpret the Bible in the light of concepts about God himself that are clearly denied by the Bible. The Pagan Idea of the Hierarchy of Men These distortions of the word of God are held comfortably, because we have had the idea of the hierarchy of men introduced and accepted almost universally. They trust in the fact that so many men are confident that Augustine, Calvin or Luther or Spurgen were authorities that no one need question anything. II Cor. 10:12 teaches us that we are all equal before God and must decide all things for ourselves; "For we dare not make ourselves of the number, or compare ourselves with some that commend themselves; but they measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves are not wise." Men count themselves wise, or great philosophers, and base all of their concepts on other men, ignoring the fact they live in plain contradiction with the word of God. This state of affairs is all based on the natural tendency in our hearts to be independent from our Lord. We have chosen to form our own criteria about the conduct of our lives from the time that we committed our first sin, this is easily twisted by the archdeciever using the tools he has prepared down through the centuries. When I went off to college in 1948, they told me to be a very successful minister I should first of all get a liberal arts degree studying Philosophy and Greek and then upon this foundation continue my studies and get a Divinity degree. They were saying that if you don’t do this you will never be in the top positions. (They were telling the truth.) It is the top positions, the people who have been formed into aristocrats, that determine the direction of everything. It is self perpetuatingly determined, only those of these orientations can become part of their group of leaders. The charge is immediately made that these points are made to try to take the place of these men. The truth is that this whole concept of top positions, of hierarchy, must be abolished, not to be filled by someone else for our relationships to become truly Christian. The aristocratic upper class concept was installed, in the first centuries, into what was known as the church.

The governing class in the church, the bishops, deacons, the presbyters, became the aristocrats. It was not the intention of Jesus as we have seen. The ones who were able to take hold of the promises of God and find his consolation and wisdom for themselves, and do it as well for others were the ones to be named as elders, bishops or deacons. They were to be more humble and be used of God to serve more. The oracular priesthood of Babylon, that has been passed down through the centuries through the Catholic system, visible in the triple crown of the Pope existent before the times of Christ, has copied the concepts of Plato, or better to say, is the perpetuation of the ancient system in which he lived. The reformation was promoted by men who were originally priests and members of the hierarchy in this system. The great light they saw that brought about the tremendous modifications to society, never allowed them time or energy to examine the more subtle influences of their understanding about God, nor his way of uniting and bonding the true body, the true church and the Jehovah of the Bible. The Early Church was Without Hierarchy I present the following texts for study. There is not one case of one pastor being mentioned as the Bible pattern, but the term is used in the plural: Acts 11:30, 13:1, 14:23, 15:2, 15:4, 15:6. 15:22, 15:23, 16:4, 20:17-18, 20:28, 21:18. I Cor. 12:28-29, Ef. 4:11,Phil. 1:1, I Tim. 3:1-2, 5:17, Titus 1:5, Heb. 11:2, 13:20, James 5:14. In the book of Revelation the elders are always spoken of in the plural. 4:4, 4:10, 5:5-6, 5:8, 5:11, 5:14, 7:11, 7:13, 11:16, 14:3, 19:4. The Bible clearly states that every elder in the local church is considered a Bishop. In Titus 1:5 the apostle Paul commands Titus to ordain Elders (more than one in each church) in every city and then calls them bishops in giving the qualifications for them. In Acts 20:17 we read Paul called for the elders and in verse 28 states that they have been made overseers to feed the Church of God. There is no room to think that there were men over the elders in the local churches as the term Bishop connotes today but that they were all called, elders, bishops or overseers in the Bible. There is No Distinction of Clergy--Laymen We find that Jesus sent out his disciples two by two and that they almost always are mentioned as in the company of several. We cannot find an incident in the New Testament of only one pastor in a church, as it has been the custom for many centuries, based on tradition, not on the Word of God. When we

repent and are baptized and become part of the church it is understood that if we aspire to minister we must go to a Bible School or Seminary and by doing this we are considered to have left the laymen class and become part of the clergy class. Upon careful reflection we notice that this was never the intention of Jesus our Savior and was not understood by any of the Christians when the Bible was written. We find that our whole concept has been subtly changed. We would not accuse anyone in our day. No Example of the One Pastor in the Early Church We find that when the Bible spoke of only one pastor it was to infer that Jesus was that only pastor. I Peter 2:25, "For ye were as sheep going astray; but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls." Are the Pastors Angels? Rev. 1:20 is used to say that the angels were really the seven pastors of the seven churches. But of the millions of millions of angels mentioned in Rev. 5:11, I suppose that there are angels assigned to all churches. It seems difficult to justify from the the Word of God that we could call a pastor an angel. In I Timothy 3:6 we have the idea of the danger of being lifted up with pride and falling into the the condemnation of the Devil. Each of these themes would merit a book but we are touching on some of the points most hurtful to the Kingdom of God. As mixing pre-suppositions of the poison root of Greek Philosophy within the practice of the church. Having the title of the pastor it is easy to fall into the practice of being aristocrats with in the church, accepting reverence as with the title of Reverend. I remember with what pleasure I had personal cards printed with this title as soon as a denomination gave me a license to preach. It is with the same pleasure we take the title of Doctor when it is bestowed, as honorary or by study. The priests take the title of father against the explicit command of our Lord in Math. 23:9. If we analyze the words of our Saviour we are on prohibited ground as he states in Matthew 20 of ministering and not being ministered to. He speaks in Matthew 23:7-9 against the taking of titles of distinction. This desire shows how susceptible we are to vanity, being lifted up with pride and falling into the condemnation of the Devil. This is true in our world today, as so many men showing themselves to be novices have engaged in building their own reputations, for all of this century have failed to preach condemnation, the message of the Holy Spirit of sin, righteousness and judgement to the nations. Because of this we had the hippies and the drug culture who have no reason for life. It has left the world

with out a moral compass in life and the ministers under the condemnation of the Devil. The Aristocrat Class Requires the Riffraff Class The devastation and distortion of the work of the Lord on the earth is great because of this divergence. Without our being conscious of it, we have been carnal in our outlook just as the Corinthians were. "Is Christ divided? was Paul crucified for you? or were ye baptized in the name of Paul?" In the exaltation of the Clergy class, we have the aristocrats in the church of our Saviour and if we have aristocrats we also have the "riffraff" in direct contradiction to the teachings of our Lord. It is a subtle disgrace of untold and unimaginable dimensions that has had a devastating effect. Leaving the work of the Lord in the hands of a few has left untold harvests unattended and wasted. Untold talents have never been developed. Untold rewards never awarded. We have been left with a system in which the laymen class generally are left in a passive state where they understand that all that they can do is give and pray. This brings another effect, as men are not active in the work of the Lord, their hearts go wondering into other matters and multitudes have lost their way having been smothered by the pleasures and cares of this world. All through the dark ages it was diligently taught that God worked only through the hierarchy. This was taught as the word of God by using a manuscript that used the pen name of Dionysius. This was not the real name of the man who was probably a Syrian who wrote it about the year 590. They claimed its ranking or authority to be on the same level as scripture by teaching everyone that it was written by the Dionysius who was a convert of Paul (Acts 17:34) after his sermon on Mars Hill, that his understanding of the Gospel was the same as the New Testament and this teaching was added to the teaching as though it was Pauls. This text book conceived the universe as a hierarchical structure using the concepts mentioned by Plato. In heaven the angelic intellect is divided in three grades of hierarchy and nine chorus’. •The first level was composed of the seraphims, cherubims, and thrones. •The second level was of dominions, virtues, and powers. •The third and lowest level of hierarchy in heaven was principalities, archangels and angels. He taught that by this hierarchy God was pouring out his light on the world and that these divisions were not impairments but channels for the gifts of God.

In the world these ecclesiastic hierarchies are formed by two orders, each divided into three grades. •The priestly order is divided into Bishops, priests and deacons. •The other and lowest order is composed of the monks, the faithful, and the penitents. It is taught that in the very strictest sense each grade must communicate only with God through their immediate superior. This Neoplatonism has changed the gospel into another message that is something completely different from the message of Jesus Christ. The goal according to so called Dionysius was the deification of all of the intellects by the use of the sacraments and the help of the hierarchy. The three mystic steps are the purgative, the illuminative and the ecstasy. According to this Satanicly influenced anonymous author, Christ formed and is in charge of this hierarchy and works only by and through it. Anyone who has ever seen a private meeting of the priests with their Bishop as they one by one kneel and kiss his hand as he enters the room, can see the training that was received by Luther, Calvin and other priests. What heady evil delight must run through the life of the man elevated to these constant adulations and flatteries. This whole spirit is not that of the blessedness of the "poor in spirit" of Jesus, but the heady Satanic wine with which men are mesmerized to be his instruments of unrighteousness. How many men and women of God were martyred because they did not manifest what was considered the proper respect to these who are beguiled and victimized by this pagan vision of high office and authority? Jesus came that men might come directly to the Father. Satan subtly has nullified the work of Christ with these concepts. The Dangers of Being The Pastor in the Congregation We must realize that this same heady wine, diluted to a greater or lesser extent is served in the office of the pastor in the congregation. By being the pastor we are occupied in the administration of the congregation which tends to distract us from the work of evangelization and doctrine. We have the distraction of how to relate to the other churches and how to guide our group among them. This is a factor that has brought about the many apparent divisions in the Kingdom of God. If God recognizes someone as his disciple, who am I to look down or divide myself from him? These attitudes are made possible because of the unbiblical confidence in systems of hierarchies brought into our concepts from paganism. The one Pastor Has an Impossible Task

Since the office of the pastor is not a Bible institution it becomes an office that is impossible to fill, with many sincere and consecrated men becoming exhausted and discouraged. In Acts 14 the scriptures present the founders of the church being forced by persecution to leave and the believers continue to meet and rejoice in the presence of the Saviour. Some in the confrontation with the world are more mature than others. They not only find comfort in the Lord for their own problems, but comfort the others as well. Upon the return of the founders of the church, after things have calmed down, with the help of the Holy Spirit they are able to notice who these people are that are serving the Lord more in the congregation. In a special meeting of the group they are exhorted that "it is through much tribulation we are to enter into the kingdom of heaven" and they were set apart not above the others; these more mature men whom are called Elders; with prayer and fasting they were commended to the Lord. They did not send back to Antioch asking for a man of experience to come and shepherd the people. Nor did they insist on sending these men back to home base for them to study and learn how to be Elders. They understood that what God had done at Jerusalem he had again done in Antioch and would again do here. Notice that they set forth elders, the word is plural, more than one. If one fell, the others could correct and hold the situation steady. If one was thrust out as an evangelist or church founder there was no need to make a search over a wide area for his replacement. There remained men who were ministering and the work carried on. The work of these men was to bring all to maturity and ministry. New ones were constantly coming to maturity and ministry in the meetings where all were encouraged to minister. The elders evolved into four areas of ministry by the work of the gift of Jesus working in them for the benefit of his body the church. The elders were all, pastors and teachers. Some of them, not all became evangelists. Some of the evangelists, not all became searching anointed preachers who were supernaturally gifted to preach and apply the word of God by being supernaturally illuminated in their preaching, discerning and applying the word in a marvelous way to situations and were known as prophets. Not all of the prophets but some were thrust out to be guided to the founding and vision of the church in all of the world and were known as apostles. The work of all was, "For the perfecting of the church, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ." If the Bible is clear that every Christian has a ministry, this phrase is not saying that these men are special ministry class that are to perfect the church, are to minister to the church, and are to edify the body of Christ but that they are to guide the church that the whole body might become

perfected permitting the exercising of the ministry of each and every member for the edifying of the whole body of Christ. The verse has been distorted to mean that only these appointed officials are to minister and are to perfect the church leaving out the responsibility for the work of the ministry. It has been a disastrous subtlety of Satan, using the point of view of the poison root of Greek Philosophy, to discourage and stop the spontaneous spread of the gospel. This clergy idea was unknown in the early church. When the persecution came on the church at Jerusalem, every one ministered wherever he went. After the death of Stephen "…they that were scattered abroad went everywhere preaching the word." Not just the deacons and apostles, every one had ministered in their meetings in the homes and everyone was a minister. Satans answer to this was eventually to make the church a political organization officially recognized by the government, and then raise up men and recognize some of them as aristocrats and by doing so take the ministry away from the saints and confide it to only a few. The division of Clergy and laymen was made along the lines of the Republic of Plato. The dynamic of the early church has never been restored, and cannot be until humility takes the place of aristocracy in the unbiblical clergy class. The first shall be last exactly on this particular. The pastor is first, he takes the floor and has the last word at the expense of developing the ministry of each of the members. By bringing out these truth it is not my purpose to start a new movement or to tear down what exists, it is rather that each of us as pastors repent before God of any vanity and self glory and put our selves to the task of developing and placing as many people as possible of our congregation into our pulpit but more especially into the many situations that we have never touched, realizing that much of our so called professional seminary preparation has been a subtle attack against the true ministry and its task in the church. Making room for the work of the Holy Spirit to prepare a group of believers who will never need to call in an outside pastor again, but function as a result of our ministry, as Christ intended. The elders are, "For the perfecting of the church, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ." Of course if every member aspires to the ministry in the sense of being the Philosopher-king it will bring disaster. The ministry must be redefined into Bible dimensions. The consecration to seek to do the will of God and the ministry of God on our job, in our community and in all circumstances. Seeking to fulfill the great commission by finding the key to the salvation of those around us, constantly asking to be taught by the revelation of the Holy

Spirit of Bible truths so that the gates of Hell that bind them can be opened according to Math. 16:19-19. One of the saddest things is the principle mentioned in I Peter 5:5 "God resisteth the proud and giveth grace unto the humble." We who are the pastors have come to have a certain air of importance or confidence that is vanity or pride and not humility. This pride is especially noted in the lack of identifying the work of the Lord in all people who have repented and have been accepted by him and form part of the kingdom of God. From our exalted position of aristocrat in the church we have felt that it is our privilege to reject every person who is not of our movement or our experience. We are rejecting the Holy Spirit and his work by so doing. We break the commandment. "Quench not the Spirit." Could we not trace much of the many divisions in the body of Christ to the aristocratic attitudes that have come from the system of Plato injected into customs and messages of Christianity? For instance accountability to God is for every Christian. If every Christian realized that God works individually and intimately with every person and their local body was directed by a group of godly men, would they not be able to work much more with every other local body not ignoring many of them as is the case today? As it is now, it is understood in many parts that since the other bodies are not of our denomination, we have no respect or coordination with them. This must grieve the Holy Spirit. We must realize that the divisions are accomplished by making men think that they are superior to the others. Some look down on others because they have a superior experience. Others because they have a more pure doctrine. Others because they have a better fellowship. Because Plato’s basic idea of aristocracy in the church is accepted, these and many other variations are used without remorse of conscience.

Chapter 12 Thomas Aquinas Adds Another God The bare facts of Thomas’s life are simple and quickly told. He was an aristocrat, the son of a count of Aquinas and was born in 1225 at his father’s

castle, Rocca Secca, near the great Benedictine Abbey of Monte Cassino, in southern Italy. There, at Monte Cassino, he received his early education; at the early age of ten he was sent for six years to the University of Naples, no doubt suffering what we have noted of the brain washing technique of Plato, there he came under the influence of the newly formed and energetic Dominican Order. In spite of his families opposition, he joined this Order and continued his education, at Paris and at Cologne, under its auspices. At the age of 27 he took his degree, Doctor of Theology, and settled down to a life of lecturing and writing, interrupted by frequent journeys in the service of his Order and the Church. He died at the age of 49 on March 7, 1274.36 Thomas in more than 70 chapters makes a summery that manages to incorporate the ideas of the Greek god of Destiny and that concept of aristocracy into a synthesis with Christianity upon which all Roman Catholic Theology has been built, unfortunately much of it has been retained in Reformation theology until this day. Out of the long dissertation of Summa it is necessary to only touch on some basic thing like the definition of God to make this book widely readable. In the book Tensions in Contemporary Theology edited by Moody Press 1976 pg. 257. Professor Nelson Pike stakes out serious problems with the traditional view of God as timeless, or eternal. These may be best understood in contrast to the argument for a timeless God given by Thomas Aquinas. (Summa 1.9.2.) The argument has two major steps. First, Aquinas argues that God is immutable in His essence, and that eternality is derived from immutability, He offers three arguments for God’s immutability. The first argument is based on God’s pure actuality (existence) as follows. 1. Everything that changes has potentiality (potential for change), for change is passing from a state of potentiality (for change) to a state of actuality (of having undergone that change.) 2.But there can be no potentiality in God He is pure actuality (if God had potency in His being He would not be the Being that He is). 3. Therefore, God cannot change in His being; He is unchanging, or immutable.

The second argument for God’s immutability follows from His simplicity:

1. Whatever changes is composed of what changes and what does not change (for there must be continuity in change, otherwise there is not one thing that changes but a series of annihilations and recreations of new things). 2. But there can be no composition in God at all; He is an absolutely simple Being (if God were composed. He would not be God but a creature). 3. Therefore, God cannot change in His being; He is immutable.

The Third argument of Aquinas for God’s immutability is from God’s Absolute perfections:

1. Whatever changes acquires something new that it did not have before the change. 2. But God is immutable and cannot change(as was shown earlier). 3. Therefore, God is not temporal; He is eternal, or timeless.

And for Aquinas eternality is not the same as endless time. They are only accidentally similar in that both are without end. But they are essentially different in that eternality is an essential whole, or unity; whereas time is broken up in endless parts. Both involve a "now," but the eternal now is immovable and innumerable, while the temporal now is movable and innumerable. God, then, is an essentially different Being from all creatures; He is both immutable and eternal by nature. It is this traditional view of God that come in for particular criticism from Nelson Pike. Pike lays out six criticisms of this traditional view of God in his book God and Timelessness (N. Y. Schocken, 1970.) First, timelessness would eliminate God’s foreknowledge. The Bible presents God as foreknowing the future (see Rom 8:29; I Pe 1:2). But there is no future for a timeless God everything is an eternal now with Him. An eternal God does for-see; He already sees everything in one single and eternal now. Hence if we are to accept the biblical view of God we must reject the Greek view of God as

timeless, which was incorporated into Christian theology by traditional theists such as Augustine, Anselm, and Aquinas. Second according to Pike, the traditional doctrine of God’s timelessness conflicts with the doctrine of Creation. For a timeless God cannot act in time but only in eternity. But the Bible presents this world as a creation in time, that is, as a temporal world with a beginning in time. Therefore, a timeless God cannot create a temporal world. Again, the influence of Greek philosophy by way of scholastic theology has seemingly corrupted the Christian view of God as temporal and changing. The third charge Pike levels at the concept of a timeless God is that it would eliminate His personality. For whatever cannot respond intellectually, emotionally, and volitionally to persons is less than significantly personal. This is what is meant by being personal. But this is precisely what a timeless Being cannot do. For timelessness implies immutability, and an immutable Being cannot change His mind, feelings, or will. In fact, He cannot change in any way. But an unmovable, unchangeable, impassible Being that cannot be touch with the feelings of our human infirmities is certainly less than significantly personal. The fourth problem seen by Pike with the traditional notion of a timeless God, is that of worshipability. It would seem that a supreme but temporal God who could respond to a person’s needs would be more worthy of worship than One who cannot change. Why pray to a Being who cannot be moved by one’s petitionary pleadings? An eternal and unchanging God is less worthy of worship--if worthy at all--than a temporal God who can responsively interact with human needs. Fifth, Professor Pike contends that timelessness is incompatible with the incarnation of God in Christ. In the incarnation, the Eternal entered into and lived in the the temporal world. But in the traditional view, the eternal and changeless cannot become temporal and changing. The two are essentially different and, hence "never the twain shall meet." The incarnation of God in human flesh is seemingly impossible within the framework of traditional theism. Sixth, a timeless God is not in accord with the basic biblical and creedal language about God. The Bible repeatedly speaks of God as changing His mind in answer to prayer (Jos.10) or upon the repentance of men (Jon 3) or because of human wickedness (Gen 6). Further, Pike would agree with Oscar Cullmann that the biblical language favors a temporal view of God, in, for example,

phrases like "from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God" (Ps 90:2). The Hebrew word ’olam and the Greek word aionois, usually translated "everlasting" or "eternal," mean "age lasting" and denote an endless time (cf, the phrase "day and night forever" in Revelation 20:10). Indeed, the New Testament phrase for eternity is literally, "unto the ages of the ages" (anionas ton aionon). With these usages the early creed of Christendom concur, in summation, Pike writes, "I shall conclude that the doctrine of timelessness should not be included in a system of Christian Theology." Plato is the source of the doctrine of timelessness, "But Plato was not a Christian nor can I think of any reason, why a Christian should accept Plato’s judgement on this matter." In view of this, Christians should discard the timeless and immutable concept of God for a temporal and changing concept.

Gnosticism The views of Thomas were easier to accept because of the assault of centuries of Gnosticism. Gnosticism was used as an attack on the Christian faith in the first six centuries. It teaches that knowledge rather than faith is the key to salvation. It swept over the church from Syria to France like an epidemic and caused much confusion among Christians. Dake gives this nine point summary of it in the index of his Bible. (1) A claim to a higher and special knowledge of truth, a tendency to regard knowledge as superior to faith, and an insight into new light which the ordinary believer did not possess. (2) The separation of matter and spirit, the flesh being essentially sinful and the source of all evil. (3) The attempt in solving the problems of creation, and the origin of evil by a creator as being distinct from the Supreme God. (4) A denial of the true humanity of Jesus Christ, looking upon the life of Christ, and especially His sufferings on the cross as unreal. (5) A denial of the personality of the supreme God. (6) A denial of the free will of man. (7) A claim that spiritual communion with God is attained through asceticism or denial of pleasures and comforts of life on one hand; on the other hand, an indifference to sin leading to failure and licentiousness. (8) A combination of certain Christian doctrines with various pagan philosophies to tone down the distinction between them. This appealed to many in the church who were dissatisfied with the simplicity of the gospel. (9) The Old Testament Scriptures were the product of the inferior creator of the world, who was the God of the Jews, but not the true and supreme God. It is regrettable that some parts of gnosticism are fostered by certain elements of the church today. All these points are fallacies and must be rejected by Bible believers. After Thomas in the twelfth century you notice that this doctrine is

hidden under the name of Roman Catholicism which claims to be the only true Christianity. Plato set forth his ideas in parts according to each dialog. Until the day of his death he had no understanding of how to work out a logical synthesis of them. He managed in some form to make a logical order of some of them in The Republic and possibly it became for this reason the most famous dialog.

Chapter 13 The Reformers The reformers were mostly priests whose preparation was rooted in Greek Philosophy. They saw the discrepancies of the Roman Catholic system with the great truths of gospel and with great heroism, at the risk of their lives, broke the political yoke of Romanism. They are to be admired as great men, made so by their love of the truth. They tried to return the affairs to the Bible pattern to the extent that they were able to comprehend the deviation from the Scriptures. It is the task of each one of us to continue searching the Scriptures under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit with a heart that is open to obey. Without this willingness to suffer for the cause of the Kingdom of God these things will remain hidden from us of course. We note the tip of what would turn out to be a huge iceberg of unbelief. If we refuse to stand for the truth revealed to us we never have the magnitude of the damage to the Kingdom of God unfolded to us. The apostasy was great and the reformers went as far as they could. John Calvin John Calvin (1509-1564) began his life as a studious priest and came to be a great hero of the reformation. According to the book "Asi fue Calvino" by Van Halsem pg. 29 Among the studies preferred by Calvin were classic Latin, logic, and the writings of the fathers of the church, especially Saint Augustine and Tomas Aquinas. When there came a confrontation in the University of Paris between the rector Nicholas Cop and the powers of the hierarchy of Rome. Nicholas Cop the young rector of the University of Paris spoke out in a landmark speech on the day of all saints quoting from Erasmos speaking on the theme "Blessed are the poor in spirit" with many ideas from Luther and other reformers. Calvin, his friend of more than ten years helped him with the preparation of the speach. This brought down the wrath of the heiarchy against Cop and then against Calvin and they had to flee for their lives. About two

years later in 1536, he was present when Farel and Viret participated in a week long debate oraganized by Bern in Laussane with 174 priests present. He was unable to contain himself and spoke eloquently citing Ciprian, Tertulian, Augustine and many others citing the exact books and chapters from memory. The people were very exicited by this then unknown man and a monk raised his voice and said this is the true doctrine. He wrote about the errors of Catholicism and the curse of consulting the dead in his "Epistle of Calvin to King Francis I of France." Calvin as Assessor of the Councilmen of Geneva The cantons or states of Switzerland had managed to expel the Roman Catholics from their domains, all of the churches were taken over and converted into what became known as the reformed churches. In the beginning they had no tradition, no ecclesiastical laws, nor any fountain literature, and there was a great need to lead and care for the churches. The authorities found someone to help them in the person of John Calvin the french lawyer and expriest, a scholar who had the intellectual capacity to build the necessary written framework. Calvin invested the best years of his life to adjust all things to the new reality, a society without connections to Roman Catholicism. He wrote the "Institutions of John Calvin" which began as a catechism which he continually polished and added through out the rest of his life. It was a heroic and difficult task, but was very different from what we call in our time a spiritual awakening. He struggled to bring the population to Christian customs, but it seems he never was able to understand the the use of the Bible method to cause them to change their lives through the preaching of repentance to bring about the conversion of the people. Calvin Never Testified to His Personal Conversion It is a surprising fact that John Calvin, the same as many ex-priests today never gave testimony of his own personal conversion. His definition of how to become a Christian seemed to be that as a person becomes more and more impressed with his sinfulness that he must come to fix his attention more and more in the work of Christ and by this change in attitude he was considered to be part of the church. (Institutes of the Christian Religion- Book. 3 Communion of the saints; pardon from sin - page 201. Trad. from Latin to Spanish) I have never discovered where he rejoiced with his personal testimony for instance as something related to Rom. 8:16 "The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God…" It seems that he never knew the joy of being born again. His parting word to his fellow pastors a little before his death

were, "My sins have always disgusted me… I pray that you might pardon me for my sins, and if there is anything good in me take it as an example." He, as are all of the Roman priests, was a scholar whose foundation was constructed over his studies in Greek Philosophy. With all of his tremendous and sacrificial struggle he never was able to identify this poison root. According to Calvinism Everything is God’s Fault We have a Christianity based on subtle concepts of Satan that have been placed in our understanding of God and the gospel many centuries ago and are accepted without question. The concept of fatalism from the definition of the Greek god of destiny that was the root of Greek Philosophy and century in century interpreted into our understanding of Christianity. Each generation of teachers built upon the former. Augustine from the fourth century was built on by Aquino in the thirteenth and the reformers such as Luther and Calvin were priests who were able to only partially unravel the subtle intromission of the pagan factors into Christianity. In Book 3 chapter 21 he declares his position over the theme of the fatalism in his doctrine which is one of the themes of this book. "Be on guard against the indiscretions of the curios. However one looks at things concerning predestination, they are always cloudy in a way and the curiosity of men make it tangled and dangerous; because human understanding cannot refrain, even with all of the limits and guides, cannot keep from falling into prohibited paths and elevate himself with the ambition, if it were possible, to not leave a secret of God without his study and investigation. Especially when we see that there are many who fall into this daring error, among whom we notice those who are in other concepts are not really bad, it is necessary that we advise before hand how to conduct themselves in this area. The first is that when they want to know the secrets of predestination, they penetrate into the temple of Divine Wisdom, in which he who enters boldly will not find a way to satisfy his curiosity and will fall into a tangle from which he will be unable to free himself. Because it is what the Lord desired to be hidden in himself and which only he understands, so that when man enter without any preparation whatsoever and speak of these things, they cannot go back and examen in eternity the majesty and greatness of Divine Wisdom; he cares only that we worship him and not that we comprehend him, so that we will finally see him as admirable The secrets that he has willed we should know are to be found in his word. He has determined there every thing we need to know for our good and blessing." He then cites Augustine to justify his statement. Notice

that the ideas we will examen of Zanchias were founded in Calvin. Leaving out texts such as those about erasing of names out of the Book of Life they were unconsciously bound by the definitions of Aristotle in their interpretation of the scriptures. They as we still do today had another god along side Jehovah.distorting their understanding. It is the poison root. From the Institutes the reformed church has taught for centuries the doctrine of Calvin remembered by we preachers by the term TULIP. Known as five point Calvinism. Total depravity: Unconditional election: Limited atonement: Irresistible grace: Predestination of all who are saved. Each one of these concepts subtly throws the responsibility for our salvation away from our need to repent and places the blame for our being lost on God. For instance: The totally depraved can do nothing, nor even realize their need for God, and it is God’s fault that he put us the human race in this place of condemnation for the sin of Adam and only when he chooses to work can anyone come to be saved. (Here is the subtle implication of the arch-deceiver that it is God’s fault, God’s lack of initiative.) For instance: the elect are the only ones who will be saved and only God foreknew and chose them before they ever existed. The lost are turned into the lake of fire because God did not choose them from the eternity past. (Here is the subtle implication of the arch-deceiver that it is God’s fault, God’s lack of initiative.) For instance: Jesus only died for the ones whom God chose to be saved. The only ones saved have become so because God applied irresistible grace to them and it is implied that God will not do so for the multitudes who are unsaved. (Here again is the subtle implication of the arch-deceiver that it is God’s fault, God’s lack of initiative.)

For instance: Therefore all who are to be saved will be saved and God will save them by making them persevere. (Here is the subtle implication of the archdeceiver that it is God’s task, God’s initiative and although we live sinning in the flesh but in our hearts we are sure to be saved. It’s result is the Pagan idea that the flesh is evil but the spirit is pure and contradicts the preaching of Jesus that the body brings forth the fruits of the soul. Luke 6:45) With this doctrine we have the same fat hearts and ears dull of hearing of Isaiah 6:10 in our generation. To be Armenian Gives Place to the Pagan God Keeping in mind that Calvin died in 1564 when Zanchi was 38 years old. Calvin was succeeded by Theodore Beza who was 43 at the time and lived to the age of 84. Beza’s theology while claiming to only continue the ideas of Calvin, (who had refused to spell out a clear and precise doctrine of predestination,) placed it under the knowledge of God so that it could be confused with predeterminism. He just carried the doctrine of Calvin to its logical conclusion. Their handling of the doctrine was to seem more a work of reading the mind of God than a proclamation of undeserved grace. 37 Jacobus Arminius was four years old when Calvin died. He was a convinced Cavinist all of his life. As a young scholar he was called upon to refute the doctrines of Direk Koornhert who found that the doctrine of predestination as taught by the new strict school a denial of the justice of God. As Arminius studied he found that in many points he was in agreement with Koornhert. Four years later he became professor of Theology at Leyden. A fellow professor Franciscus Gomarus opposed him and took the strict position that Christ died only for the elect. At the death of Arminius in 1609 his chair was filled by Simon Bisschop whose views were the same. Forty six pastors finally signed a document called the Remonstrance in 1610. This document rejected the doctrine that the elect could not fall from grace and that Christ did not die for all. In the fourth decree he speaks about how God decreed to save and damn certain persons in particular. This decree has its foundation in the foreknowledge of God, by which he knew from all eternity those individuals who would be saved through his preventing grace. We can see then that even the position of Armenius must be abandoned to escape having the pagan God of fatalism along side our Creator. Make no mistake about it. This god is a monster that mocks and defames the God of the Bible. The scriptures are clear.

I Jn. 2:2 "…he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world." God provided salvation for whosoever would come and in the great commission sent each and every redeemed person to proclaim it to all the rest of the world. God is looking down from his throne and judging the hearts of men. Psa. 11:1 "In the LORD put I my trust: how say ye to my soul, Flee as a bird to your mountain? For, lo, the wicked bend their bow, they make ready their arrow upon the string, that they may privily shoot at the upright in heart. If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do? The LORD is in his holy temple, the LORD’S throne is in heaven: his eyes behold, his eyelids try, the children of men. The LORD trieth the righteous: but the wicked and him that loveth violence his soul hateth." Psa. 102 "For he hath looked down from the height of his sanctuary; from heaven did the LORD behold the earth; to hear the groaning of the prisoner; to loose those that are appointed to death; to declare the name of the LORD in Zion…" We must recognize that no where in the Bible is there found an exhortation to trust in fate. For to do so is to worship the pagan god set up by Satan. It is possible to hear those who understand what is being said in this work to say that they do not believe in fate but they confess that God knows all things and that God would not be God if he did not know everything. This vestige of fatalism is exactly what has continued to blossom over and over again into the making of God into a monster. This bedrock error can be easily understood to be untenable for the Bible believer when the closing words of the Bible say to us in Rev. 22 "I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star. And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely. For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book: And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book. He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen."

There is no tone in these word that imply that those foreknown from the foundation of the world would come to him. That only those foreknown from the foundation of the world would be blotted out of the book of life. No! the word says that some who were in the book of life would be blotted out for taking away from the Word of God. The idea that God foreknew the reaction of all men in the use of their free will before the foundation of the world, is here clearly refuted. It is Impossible that there be Free Will and the Conduct of each Free Agent be Foreknown We must go farther than Armenius and renounce completely the ideas of the poison root. It is objected that the infallible prophecies are the very proof of our Jehovah God. In this we must be completely in accord. The current of events are foreknown. It is necessary to be precise and say that it is impossible that there be free will and the conduct of each free agent be foreknown. In the end one or the other position must be taken. All Bible believers must take the position against the foreknowledge being determinate or in the end reject free will. The immutability of God is that with freedom and all of the pressures to be just that it brings about, God will pilot events to his foreknown purposes. God has examined in minute detail the generation chains and the possible influences but sits on his throne and observes just what these men will do compared to what was anticipated from them. Some have to be blotted out of the Book of Life, some make it into the kingdom that were not anticipated. It is his good pleasure that things should be so for he said "…let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely." To insist on God having foreknown all things, would make him hypocritical in all such claims set forth in the Bible. In making an atomic bomb it was necessary to bring the material to a critical mass. In much the same way God in his justice waited more than 400 years for the iniquity of the Amorites to become full. Their wickedness finally reached critical mass and they were destroyed. The same thing had happened in the flood and to Sodom. In the same way only the father knows the day and the hour as he alone is weighing in justice the events of the gentiles being broken off in unbelief for the Jews to grafted in. No one can presume a chronology for the time before the 70th week of Danial.

How the final events will take place are known and our immutable God has promised that coming the moment of deterioration to the level of moral critical mass the events that will lead to the inauguration of his kingdom known as the 70th week of Daniel’s prophecy will come to pass. How many false prophets have we had because they were at the core deceived by the false god of fatalism and trying to please God. It is the subtle work of Satan. We must cast out even Armenianism or we are breaking the first Commandment.

Chapter 14 The Wisdom of God I notice from Dake that Wisdom is used at least 15 ways in the Bible. Human Education Acts. 7:22 Man’s Wisdom I Cor. 1:19-22. Human Philosophy and religion. Col. 2:23, I Cor. 3:19, II Cor. 1:12, Gal. 1:14. Earthly, sensual, devilish wisdom Jas. 3:14-16. Prophet anointing Lk. ll:19. Godly Training Lk. 2:40, 52. Anointing to speak. Lk. 21:15, Acts 6, I Cor. 2:7. Ministerial ability Eph. 1:8, 17, 3:10. Col. 1:19, 28. Christ the wisdom of God. I Cor. 1:24, 30, Col 2:3, 3:16. Divine gift of wisdom. I Cor. 12:8. Divine attribute of God. Rom. 11:33. Heavenly wisdom. James 3:17-18. Spirit of revelation. II Peter 3:15. Ability of Christ. Mt. 12:42, 13:54. Native insight Rev. 13:18, 17:9.

The beginning of wisdom is the fear of God. Without a point of reference, our concept is cloudy and floating. You remember, that the point of reference of pagan Socrates was the ignorance of man, of which he declared that, the man who knows he is ignorant knows more than the man who is ignorant and does not know it. Because of his presumption that man knows nothing he begins to build on the idea of making suppositions and carrying them to the extreme to see if it is true or not, we call this method hypothesis. The Greek myths about the gods clouded up all of this for Socrates. The work of Satan was to picture the gods as most corrupt, immoral and unholy in ancient Greece. Was it not that these came from accounts of the activity of the giants on the earth that contributed to the calling of the judgment of the flood in the days of Noah? It says that the angels who were already fallen or fell in the act of taking the human women and procreated with them. The children were giants who no doubt acted in the same immoral way as their fathers. Could the genesis of these myths have come from histories known by the sons of Noah? Notice that

the intent of this book is still working at clearing up these myths, placed as barriers by Satan. The true wisdom of God is that we know that we exist and that we exist because of the work of our God. No man can be ignorant of this. As we know our God we are able to have a true perspective. The perspective must take into account the fact that we are mortal. That just as we are born we also must die. That the concept of continuing on in our spirit without our mortal bodies is a truth that God has given us intuitively (everyone has this insight). From the days before mechanized delivery, a sage said of the intelligent horse used to deliver milk, who knew the whole route, with out a word from his driver, he walked the whole route, who stopped as his master walked from the truck to the doors of the homes mile after mile until everyone had their milk at daylight. If that intelligent horse could think "I wonder what’s going to happen to me, I am getting old," he would have a soul. The fact that all men have this concern is a proof of the imperative of the need to surrender to the will of our Creator. To find the purpose of our lives then must be understood as to know how to live wisely. We need to have the correct priorities. For instance, we could read all of the 50,000 books in a library but it would cost us all of our time on earth. What would be the use in knowing everything in the library at the time of our demise if we did nothing else in our lifetime? There must be a balance in everything. Physical exercise is good but to overdo it is to shorten our life and waste our time. With just a little time spent on it, if the natural pattern of our lives does not proportion it, is all that we can properly spend, there are other things more urgent. I Tim. 4:8 "For bodily exercise profits little: but godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and that which is to come." Jesus taught the wisdom of God. There must be not just a knowledge of our ignorance and need for guidance, but a looking to the Creator in a spirit of humility and petition. There must come a moment when we declare before God and the world that we are inadequate to order and direct our lives and a casting of ourselves on the purpose of God. We have all sinned and come short of the mark. We have done it not just by a mistake but by the use of our own free sovereignty and in insolence chosen arbitrarily to do that which we have chosen, casting aside our clear premonitions and knowledge that it will not be the best for all, but doing it anyway because we do have the power of choice and we decide to use it as we please. This is sin.

The corner stone was laid down, "Jesus began to preach repentance for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus tells about the true philosophy; the Wisdom of God. "Blessed are the poor in Spirit; for their’s is the kingdom of God." Cursed are the proud who live by their own wits for they shall fall into a wasted life that will terminate in hell forever. Jesus spoke the parable of the talents and of one who received his talent, did nothing with it and was cast into outer darkness. We have existence, intelligence, talents and power of action. Jesus spoke another parable illustrating the failed life that used the wisdom of this world when he taught about those who took the rented vineyard and killed the owners son and ruined everything. The wisdom of God begins when in poorness of spirit we look in fear of God for the way that is blessed and provided by God for those who seek him. There will always be tremendous conflict in this existence over the earth for this way of life will be taken as an offense by the masses, who are in rebellion against God’s plan serving their own selfish will. The subtle work of Satan is to cause us to think we are living in the blessing of God while in the hidden service of Satan. Our real state or condition is to be discerned by our fruits. The apostle Paul tells us how the wisdom of this world is under the wrath of the Creator in Romans 1:18-28 "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things. Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen. For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: and likewise also the

men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient…" Our personal redemption from this state is necessarily miraculous. It requires the active work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts. Better to say it is a new pact with God that requires our collaboration with the Holy Spirit to work in our own hearts. It requires our investigation of the will of God in his word and the same careful application and intimate investigation in our hearts. God’s philosophy is the assimilation of the truth and attitude of God by His miraculous help without abandoning personal sovereignty and initiative. The benefits are known immediately and enjoyed forever. Bible wisdom- Knowledge puffeth up but Love edifieth. If any man think that he knoweth anything, he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know. But if any man love God, the same is known of him. I Cor 8.

Chapter 15 Counteracting the Intervention of Satan in History This book is about reviewing the Bible truths, taking into consideration the subtle historical sabotage made by Satan that has influenced us to presume certain foundational doctrines of pagan origin, by which they have distorted and annulled the scriptures. I suppose if the Lord Jesus tarries it will be a task of several generations and will bring about controversy in the church and profound changes in the testimony of the church before the world. The true church will become more hated by the world but at the same time the world will be more influenced by the true church. From the second verse of the Bible we can see that God has had detours in his plans. It seems unlikely that God the master architect created the earth without form and void. In other parts of the Bible we are told of rebellion in heaven and fallen angels and Satan being cast down. There is an indication that there has been temptation, the battle of selfishness versus true love in every creature who will be part of the eternal kingdom of God. Not a theoretical battle of words, no

a battle that has resulted in the destruction of worlds, of lives, of happiness and souls forever. Jehovah of the Bible is the creator of all things, is the guide who strives with all men, who examines the conscience and intention, who responds to all men. For Satan to work his rebellion he concentrates on first of all, the downfall of every man into sin, by which the fellowship with God is broken, and then the work of making the Creator distant so that we "walked according to the course of this world according to the prince and the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience." In Genesis 6:5 we read that God had taken his kingdom to a new harvest. Every righteous man that it was possible to produce for the world as it was in that day had been taken. He was unable to allow things to go on, the moral storm had come to "the turning of the fruitful land into barrenness, for the wickedness of them that dwell therein." "God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart." The Bible plainly says that the creation from Adam to Noah had not turned out as God had hoped and he was very grieved by this fact. That he was sorry that he had made man on the earth. This is a doctrine of God very different from the definition of foreknowledge that we have given God. We must face up to what part of our doctrine of omniscience is unscriptural. We must carefully extract everything in this definition that is from pagan Greek concepts or any other source. The definition of God as the unmoved-mover who knew everything, as to where every drop of rain would fall, every bird would fly and fall, every thought that entered into the mind of every man forever as completely something ante biblical. We must take the words of the Bible or we must deny the Bible and take this pagan theory. We have accepted and taught the mountain top theory about Bible prophecy that says that the prophets never saw the valley between the first and second coming of Christ. That they saw the two peaks on the horizon and never realized the two thousand years that we have already seen in between. However if we look at the Bible we read about the optimism with which our Lord came and preached to Israel in and around Jerusalem. His incarnation and appearing was foreknown before the foundation of the world according to the scriptures but the many whom he had foreseen and placed in the book of life did not respond to his call for repentance. We read of his disappointment in the

Matthew 23 which he closes with the words, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!" Is not this the same kind of situation that we have before the flood? The scripture speaks of Jesus praying in John 17, "I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world… I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me…" Again in Matthew 13 we read that the disciples asked "Why speakest thou unto them in parables? He answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given. For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance; but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that that he hath." Some would comment on these scriptures that they contradict what has been stated thus far but I understand that if we take into account the whole Bible he is saying those who have spiritual inclination to seek a better city have spiritual ears to hear and they are given more. The parables were given to leave the casual hearers who had no spiritual commitment to go on their way that the ministry could be concentrated on the ones that have something in their choice, by their free will that was willing to change their course from the current of this world. The Bible teaches that God has looked in great detail into the succeeding generations all the way to the reconciliation of all in all spoken of in I Cor. 15. That does not in anyway bind the free wills to anything. This is proven by names being blotted out of the book of life¨He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment; and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name before my Father, and before his angels. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches. And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book."38 In the midst of the moral swirling storms such as was represented in the life of Joseph and his eleven brethren God is working out step by step the salvation of any and all who have the disposition to serve him. All of the extent of the storm is being played out and God knows that the eventual end will be the same as it was before the flood. At that time Michael will stand up and herald the coming

of the stone not made by hands that will be the tribulation and second coming of our Saviour. The time is not set in the sense that from all eternity it was known that in the year exactly of ???? the devil would be bound. There would be no free will if this were true. What is assured according to the Bible is that God is immutable in his character and will never compromise his Mercy, nor his Holiness, nor his Justice, he will never bend or deviate for his own self convenience. This is illustrated in Christ on the Cross. He will adjust with these immutable attributes to every penitent sinner, changing his life and his influence in the swirl of the moral storm. In the same way whole generations of foreseen men who had their names written in the book of life were never born as their forefathers were cut off without descendants because of their wickedness. These things are all plainly stated and advocated in the Bible. We have for many centuries been dominated by the false pagan god of destiny of Aristotle. God’s attributes according to the Bible The God of the Bible is a spiritual being John 4:24 with a personal body, a personal soul, a personal spirit. Dan.10:5-19. God has a body presence and moves from one place to another as do other persons. Gen. 3:8, 11:5, 18:1-22, has a voice Psalm 29. breaths Gen 2:7, rests Gen. 2:1-4, lives in a city located in a literal place called heaven. Jn 14:1-3, Heb. 11:10, 13:14, Apoc 21, who normally is seated on a literal throne, Isa. 6, Dan 7:9-10, he walks around, Gen. 3:8, Psa. 18:10. God has personal feelings of sadness and pain. Gen.. 6:6 anger, I Kings 11:9 repentance, Gen. 6:6 jealousy, Ex. 20:5 hate, Prov 6:16, love Jn. 3:16, pitieth, Psa. 103:13, offers fellowship and communion to us, I Jn. 1:3, takes pleasure 147:11. God as a person has a spirit Psa. 143:10, Isa. 30:1, with a mind, Rom. 11:34, with intelligence, Gen. 1:26, Rom. 11:33, has power, Ef. 1:19, 3:7,20, Heb 12:3, has truth, Psa. 91:4, with faith and hope, Rom. 12:3, I Cor. 13:13, with justice, Psa. 45:4, with faithfulness, I Cor. 10:13, with knowledge and wisdom, Isa. 1:18, I Tim. 1:17, with reasoning, Isa. 1:18, is a discerner, Heb. 4:12, with character immutability, Heb 6:17. God is Holy, Holy, Holy, God is Love, the Satanic efforts to distort the the image of God and make him arbitrary and repulsive by the use of those principles of Greek Philosophy of fatalism and the circular theory of history,

makes it necessary that we rethink very carefully our comprehension of these things of such great importance. Psa. 78:36 says of the people who insist that they are saved by predestination and live tolerating sin in their lives, "Nevertheless they did flatter him with their mouth, and they lied unto him with their tongues for their heart as not right with him, neither were they steadfast in his covenant. From this summery we can see that the text of the scripture of "for by thy sorceries were all nations deceived; and in her were found the blood of the prophets and of saints and all them that were slain on the earth" Revelation 18. fulfilled in the case of Socrates. He opposed the Demon directed Chaldean mystery religion that was practiced in the Temple of Apollo in Delphi. They as always has been their custom, underhandedly did him in. How much more have the righteous of all ages suffered from the same priesthood, that is in somewhat under another guise perpetuated today, still constantly underhandedly obstructed in the preaching of the Gospel. They supposed that he was going to flee for his life and leave them in peace. He left them with a tremendous problem as his actions of being consistent with his convictions left him as a martyr that captured the imagination of men everywhere. How Were They to Solve the Problem? The reaction has been predictably the same in all ages. Satan and his character is predictable. He assimilated the ideas of the philosophers into the lower level or the first mystery in his Babylonian priesthood rule of the world. This system has been compared to an elephant which copies and imitates its enemies and slowly assimilates or digests them, there are a lot of strange noises and it takes time but eventually every opponent and his ideas is accommodated to this system and becomes part of the so called tradition. Catholic is not a Bible term, it is correct however in the sense that all cultures and with their contradictions go through this process and are assimilated by this symbolic elephant into their practices and traditions. In our day we see it passing before our eyes. In an effort to overcome the terrible fruits, exemplified by the "holy inquisition" for an example they are permanently in "renewal". Read the books a hundred years ago and they were in renewal. This is the elephant digesting the opposition. We have seen in the last 30 years the changing of the mass from a ritual that had the priest with his back to the congregation and spoken in Latin to the introduction of guitars and adapting of the precious choruses such as "Beautiful Words of Life" and "I am a witness to the power of God" into their liturgies. Chapter 16

The Pagan God in Todays Theology We must examine the presence of the pagan god of destiny in the theology that we have received as it slipped through the reformation unnoticed. We must clarify the tenants the doctrine of Aristotle. Starting from Vol 1 page 140 of the History of Philosophy by Nicholas Abbagnano in his summery of Aristotle. All substances are divided into two categories. The substances that are sensitive and in motion and the substances that are not sensible or movable. The first kind constitute the physical world and are divided into two; the substances that constitute the four elements of the sublunar world (meaning the orbits of the heavenly bodies in the universe), and the others that reproduce and are subject to decay and corruption. Philosophy is the science that has as its object the immovable and transcendent being, the motor or motors of the heavens, and therefore is, speaking in the most proper sense, theology. As such it is the highest science because it is the study of the highest reality which is the divine.39 The highest philosophy is to be called Metaphysics. He declares that the substance involves the impossibility of separation or being away from being. This is used to declare that God is in every being. God is the first motor the first cause from which all things are moved. God creates all the order in the universe which is compared to a family or an army.40 God is the creator of the order of the universe but is not the being of the world. Plato -The Universe is Beyond Divine Creation For both Plato and Aristotle the substance and structure of the universe is eternal and beyond the limitations of divine creation. Aristotle says that god’s superiority consists only in the perfection of his life, not in his being or reality as he says that no substance is more real than any other. 47 or 55 Gods Both philosophers are polytheists. Aristotle spoke continually of gods, the first substances were traditionally considered gods and when speaking of the traditional belief that god was in everything and that the primary substance’s were considered as gods was divinely spoken and one of the most precious

teachings saved by tradition; admitting 47 or 55 gods according to the information he received on the celestial bodies. The use of the definition of God according to Aristotle can be illustrated by noticing the manner that the Greek error is used for defining the attributes of God according to Aristotle instead of the Bible by observing Jerome Zanchius (1516-1590) who was a disciple of Calvin, in his book Absolute Predestination .41 Observations on the divine attributes necessary to be premised, in order to our better understanding of the doctrine of predestination. Although the great and ever-blessed God is a being absolutely simple and infinitely remote from all shadow of composition, He is, nevertheless, in condescension to our weak and contracted faculties represented in scripture as properties or Attributes, which, though seemingly different from His Essence, are in reality essential to Him, and constitutive of His very nature. He starts of by jumping over the contradictions represented to say that though seemingly different from His Essence, must be added as essential. His first sentence, (albeit unknown to him) is adding the Jehovah of the Bible to the god of destiny of Aristotle.

Position 1. God is, and always was so perfectly wise, that nothing ever did, or does, or can elude His knowledge. He knew, from all eternity, not only what He Himself intended to do, but also what he would incline and permit others to do. "Known unto God are all His works from the beginning of the worlds." (Acts 15:18)

Position 2. Consequently, God knows nothing no, nor will know anything hereafter, which He did not know and foresee from everlasting, His foreknowledge being co-eternal with Himself, and extending to everything that is past, present and future, are naked and open to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.

Position 3. This foreknowledge of God is not conjectural and uncertain (for then it would not be foreknowledge), but most sure and infallible, so that whatever He foreknows to be future shall necessarily and

undoubtedly come to pass. For His knowledge can no more be frustrated, or His wisdom be deceived, than he can cease to be God. Nay, could either of these be the case, He actually would cease to be God, all mistake and disappointment being absolutely incompatible with the Divine nature.

Position 4. The influence which the Divine foreknowledge has on the certain futurition of the things foreknown does not render the intervention of second causes needless, nor destroy the nature of the things themselves. My meaning is, that the prescience of God does not lay any coercive necessity on the wills of beings naturally free. For instance, man, even in his fallen state, is endued with a natural freedom of will, yet he acts, from the first to the last moment of his life, in absolute subserviency (though, perhaps, he does not know it nor design it) to the purposes and decrees of God concerning him, notwithstanding which, he is sensible of no compulsion, but acts as freely and voluntarily as if he was sui juris, subject to no control and absolutely lord of himself… This made Luther,42 after he had shown how all things necessarily and inevitable came to pass, in consequence of the sovereign will and infallible foreknowledge of God, say that "we should carefully distinguish between a necessity of infallibility and a necessity of coaction, since both good and evil men, though by their action they fulfil the decree and appointment of God, yet are not forcibly constrained to do anything, but act willingly".

The Will of God II. to consider THE WILL OF GOD, with regard to which we assert as follows:

Position 2. Although the will of God, considered in itself, is simply one and the same, yet, in condescension to the present capacities of man, the Divine will is very properly distinguished into secret and revealed…

Here we have the heart of the matter. There is taught that there is the revealed will of God which is the Bible but that there is another law which is secret. This law is pictured as making everyone comply with that which was foreseen from eternity. According to this doctrine as one reaches out to choose between an apple and a pear there is no noticing the secret law working that makes one choose what God has foreseen from eternity. As a man encounters friendship with a woman he thinks that he chose to fornicate with her, but it is not him it is the secret law from all eternity that foresaw this sin. According to this secret will theory, Jesus knew exactly all who were going to follow him from all eternity. But this doctrine insists that Jesus as he lamented, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!" foreknew from all eternity that they were not going to repent. Is God playing games with us? Was Jesus really tempted? Can just anyone be saved? Was Jerusalem foreordained to reject Jesus? Did Jesus not know this? Was his weeping over Jerusalem only an act, a performance in as much as he knew the results before the foundation of the world? When we get to the bottom of this doctrine, we see Satan planting in the ear of every one who believes it, Jesus was being a hypocrite when he spoke of "whosoever will may come." He was stage acting when he wept over Jerusalem. This whole concept comes out of Greek paganism, the poison root. This "secret will" theory is added to Christianity subtly by placing the god of destiny along side Jehovah God, it breaks the first commandment. We have placed another god before Almighty God. It has resulted in great and impressive temples filled with multitudes who do not live obedient to God. When a man has not repented and is not repented but walks in disobedience to God; he is not a part of the real church. Can you begin to see the great falling away of the last days that is spoken of II Thes. 2.3 that is over all of the world. Many of these churches full of unrepentant men have supernatural manifestations. But it is the supernatural of the world of the demon spirits. There are no laws that force the "entes" to work. It is a false theory spawned to fool men into supposedly supernatural proofs selectively worked by the demons that men may place their confidence in something that will surely bring them to eternal destruction. he physical laws. This study was called metaphysics beyond the physical. These laws are the foundation of witchcraft.

The Foundation of Witchcraft Aristotle in his studies tried to define secret laws which were in control of Physics and the physical laws. This study was called metaphysics. Beyond the physical. These laws are the foundation of witchcraft. In The Seduction of Christianity by Dave Hunt and T. A. Malone43 we have the definition of sorcery. The belief in laws that control spiritual forces, which in turn control the physical world through the power inherent in spoken words, is the essence of sorcery. In contrast to the biblical doctrine of grace, this insistence that God Himself must work even His own miracle within a framework of laws that enables us to tap into and dispense spiritual power by what we think, speak, or do is the basis for all ritualism and occultism. When the witch doctor slits the roosters throat, sprinkles the blood in a certain pattern, and chants a formula, the gods must come through because they are bound by "spiritual laws" to do so. Leading occult authority Manly P. Hall explains: Ceremonial magic is the ancient art of invoking and controlling spirits by a scientific application of certain formulae. A magician, enveloped in sanctified vestments and carrying a wand inscribed with hieroglyphic figures, could by the power vested in certain words and symbols control the invisible inhabitants of the elements and of the astral world… By means of the secret processes of ceremonial magic it is possible to contact these invisible creatures and gain their help in some human undertaking. We are Responsible for our Lives and our Destiny The tone of all of the scriptures is that we are responsible for our lives and our destiny. Who can say that at any moment he cannot close this book? The great point is that, if salvation is predestinated from the foundation of the world then so is the amount of wheat that will be grown this year and the number of fish that will be caught. Can we then say since it is decided from eternity and I don’t feel up to it, I will not go out and cast my nets or plant the wheat, it makes no difference. What a subtlety of Satan to apply such ideas to salvation. It is to sabotage the gospel.

Zanchias says,44 And yet, alas! how many are there who cavil at those eternal decrees which, were we capable of fully and clearly understanding them, would appear to be incomprehensible! Divine preordination has for its objects all things that are created. No creature, whether rational or irrational, animate or inanimate, is exempted from its influence. All beings whatever, from the highest angel to the meanest reptile, and from the meanest reptile to the minutest atom, are the objects of God’s eternal decrees and particular providence. However the ancient fathers only make use of the word predestination as it refers to angels or men, whether good or evil, and it is used by the apostle Paul in a more limited sense still, so as, by it, to mean only that branch of it which respects God’s election and designation of His people to eternal life (Rom. 8:30, Eph. 1:11). But, that we may more justly apprehend the import of this word, and the ideas intended to be conveyed by it, it may be proper to observe the term predestination, theologically taken, admits of a fourfold definition, and may be considered as: 1. That eternal, most wise and immutable decree of God, whereby he did from before all time determine and ordain to create, dispose of and direct to some particular and every person and thing to which he has given, or is yet to give, being, and to make the whole creation subservient to and declarative of His own glory: Of this decree, actual providence is the execution. 2. Predestination may be considered as relating generally to mankind, and them only: and in this view we define it to be the everlasting, sovereign and invariable purpose of God, whereby He did determine within Himself to create Adam in His own image and likeness, and then to permit his fall; and to suffer him thereby to plunge himself and his whole posterity (inasmuch as they all sinned in him, not only virtually, but also federally and representatively), into the dreadful abyss of sin, misery and death. 3. Consider predestination as relating to the elect only, and it is the eternal, unconditional, particular and irreversible act of the Divine will whereby, in matchless love and adorable sovereignty, God determined with Himself to deliver a certain number of Adam’s degenerate offspring out of that sinful and miserable estate into which, by his primitive transgression, they were to fall, and in which sad condition they were

equally involved, with those who were not chosen, but being pitched upon and singled out by God the Father to be vessels of grace and salvation. Not that that there was anything in them that could recommend them to His favor or entitle them to His notice, but merely because He would show Himself gracious to them, they were, in time, actually redeemed by Christ, are effectually called by His Spirit, justified, adopted, sanctified, and preserved safe to His heavenly kingdom. The supreme end of his decree is the manifestation of his own infinitely glorious and amiable tremendous perfections: the inferior or subordinate end is the happiness and salvation of them who are thus freely elected. 4. Predestination, as it regards the reprobate, is that eternal, most holy, sovereign and immutable act of God’s will, whereby He hath determined to leave some men to perish in their sins, and to be justly punished for them.* *When we say that the decree o predestination to life and death respects man as fallen, we do not mean that the fall was actually antecedent to that decree, for the decree is truly and properly eternal, as all God’s immanent acts undoubtedly are, whereas the fall took place in time. What we intend, then, is only this, viz., that God (for reasons without doubt, worthy of Himself, and of which we are by no means in this life competent judges), having, from everlasting, peremptorily ordained to suffer the fall of Adam, did likewise, from everlasting, consider the human race as fallen; and out of the whole mass of mankind thus viewed and foreknown as impure and obnoxious to condemnation, vouchsaved to select some particular persons (who collectively make up a very great, though precisely determinate number) in and on whom He would make known the ineffable riches of His mercy. Here it is admitted that the Bible is not the basis for this doctrine. Undoubtedly he began his book by numerating the decree’s of God. Later upon consultation he changed the word to position, however here in his summary it was necessary to leave the word decree. By this he states that all persons and things are dedicated to their end. He then uses the term predestination saying that it is applied to only the saved. He is certainly in contradiction. He is locked into the subtile pagan definition of the god of destiny. The Lord is not slack concerning his promise… not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. II Peter 3:9

He declares that actual providence is the execution and by this says that all things are controlled by God, thereby at the root of this theory Satan is manipulating the world to ruination while using this subtle argument to blame God for the destruction he is causing. He arbitrarily insists that God thought up the creation and fall of man and chose that in the great majority men fall into the abyss of sin, misery and death. God chose to send the great majority to the lake of fire and chose to deliver a certain number of Adam’s degenerate offspring making only a tiny percentage vessels of grace and salvation. He declares that this all manifests his His own infinitely glorious and amiably tremendous perfections. He says, God has determined to leave some men perish in their sins. He says that it is Gods fault that men perish. He then puts a postscript (*) explaining that without doubt God has everything decided from all eternity and nothing we could do is able to change it. That we should let his doctrine go at that because our fate and the destiny of all things has been forever decided and we must without doubt just believe that all things that happen and all men that are lost or saved do so because of their destiny. We are truly spiritual in his estimation just to trust that beyond death we will have this seemingly great unjust system explained to us. (for the decree is truly and properly eternal, as all God’s immanent acts undoubtedly are). This position places all the blame for the wicked destruction done by Satan through the centuries as the fault of God. Is it possible to have a worse theology? Is it not blasphemy even though it was done with good intentions under the guile of Satan’s deception from the beginning? Why write thousands of books to try to put a better face on this wedding to the poison root?

Chapter 16 The Living Fountain, The Pure Root "Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: the sceptre of thy kingdom is a right sceptre. Thou lovest righteousness, and hatest wickedness…" Psalm 45:6-7 Turning from the static god of destiny, of fatalism, let us look to the only true and living Jehovah. He is mighty to be praised for contrary to the false god of destiny who is unreachable and untouchable with our petitions and painted as arbitrary, Jehovah is not arbitrary. The Scriptures teach us that he is always and forever and in every aspect a worker of righteousnesss. To understand the

pure root we must comprehend that our God works by moral law and is subject to it. He is not arbitrary but is Holy. God sent his son who spoke clearly about God’s relation to man. "…which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandment hang all…" The apostle James in 4:17 inspired by the Holy Spirit declared this truth from another angle, "…To him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin." The subtle satanic work in the false gospel is to use his common weapon of deception, flattery. Satan works at making God so high and elevated that it is impossible for us to reach Him. With the help of Greek definitions of deity, they have been able to paint God as without personality, as one whom it is impossible to communicate or confer with. By using Aristotle’s definition of the unmoved-mover we have a denotation that is an insult and a blasphemy to the Jehovah of the Bible. With this definition, God is made to be responsible not only for the salvation but also the condemnation of all men. To accept the word unmoved in regards to Jehovah is to blaspheme. With this definition, the God of the Bible becomes a monster who is blamed for all of the bad things in the world. Satan has so cleverly done his subtle work that the blame for all of the ruination brought by him upon the earth is placed on God. God is love, He Will Give you a Second Chance? Out of this doctrine is born the concept of a second chance. Inasmuch as God is to blame for all events, then in the end He being good, will take responsibility for events and somehow restore all things. God cannot be so bad that he will not give us at least another chance to remedy our situation. This whole doctrine is another variation on the the first lie, Thou shalt not surely die. This is is the root of much of the preaching of God is Love or its variation God is a Good God. All of the idea of making a new testament, covenant or pact through repentance, and living by grace is eliminated. Solace must be found in believing a doctrine instead of believing in the present and glorified Jesus’ presence in our lives. Men are supposed to find solace in magic acts called "sacraments" and the consultation of the dead. The dead ones consulted were given the name of Saints. By this subterfuge the rebellious fallen Cherub has brought the men of this world to the worship of Satan thinking they are

worshiping God. Loyalty, blind submission in obedience to the organization and to their superiors has replaced intelligent submission to God. The true holy act is the submission of one’s free will to his Creator within the most intimate sanctuary of his soul. This indispensable act of covenant is detoured to a submission to man and organization. The sacred act of volition is twisted to place it in the hands of something other than Jehovah our Creator. This misplaced consecration is called holiness by them, but is in reality the greatest wickedness. It is the breaking of the first commandment and replacing the Creator with the pagan Greek god of destiny or as in the case of evangelicals placing him alongside the Creator. Isn’t this is an important part of the great falling away spoken of by the scriptures? It has been taking place since the first century. Fortunately, we have many people even with the wrong theology who have touched the throne of God and been wonderfully converted. Their actions are twisted, their vision blurred, but they are born again children of God who walk by His spirit. It is to these that that this book is written. It is my hope that they will become more salty, that they will become sharpened to be used more by God by his guidance. Most churches, should we not say all are a mixture of those confiding in ritual and those who have been genuinely converted. May many be able to make the covenant and have the living water move the remaining years of their lives. A Circular Theory of History? The concept of this false god, who has predestined all details of his creation, spawns the circular theory of history, that is that all things have been always settled, therefore we understand in the long run every thing repeats itself. That all things are known from the beginning and that their restoration and their subsequent deterioration is an endless cycle upon which the logic of reincarnation and the greatest hopelessness is built. The wife beater in this life becomes a wife to be beaten in the next life which generates another wife beater who must be also beaten as a wife, forever multiplying circle in circle without hope. The attempt to find truth by this system is only another aspect of the subtlety of Satan’s mask by which the responsibility and urgency of the gospel’s demand that, every one use his own free will and everyone individually must confront the inevitable final judgement, is replaced by fatalism and static resignation. The precious unique time given in our existence to repent or neglect it and be lost forever is dissipated with the distractions of this world until it is eternally too late.

God Has Never Had a New Thought? The abasing of the Creator with these pagan concepts has created a conscience in the population of a static god apart and withdrawn from the daily lives of the people. This blasphemy is the root of all of the definitions of Aquinas in which he shamelessly presumes, as the root of his definitions of God that he is static with never any change. Isn’t he saying that God is dead, is an eternal stone without the capacity to interrelate or respond to his creation, or change the closed circle of repeating history forever spinning without end? He is teaching a blasphemy of Satan, pretending that God has never had, nor ever can have a new thought. This God therefore is an image just like the ones of stone, wood or precious stones that were observed by Paul in Athens in his sermon recorded in Acts 17. In one sense this book is just an amplification of Paul’s message. These concepts are subtly false, defamatory and perverse, a blasphemy against the Creator by Satan. God is the Maximum Dynamic of Eternity Our precious God is exactly the contrary of a static being. He is holy, all powerful and the greatest dynamic of the universe. He has not finished his creative activities and never will. He is immutably and exactly the Creator and is just as creative today as when he put the foundations of the universe in place and created the angels and reordered his work in Genesis 1:2. This activity is forever and immutably continuing. The Linear Theory of History We could illustrate his work of creation with Henry Ford who made his first car, then his first factory, and then sold the first million cars in one year, and has continued the process finding the successors within his organization to continue to the present day; and without doubt the greatest innovations to transportation are still in the future. If, with all of our human limitations, this dynamic is present in one creature and one family or organization, how much greater is the dynamic of the eternal Creator who lives from everlasting to everlasting? I proclaim that the things that "eyes have not seen and ears have not heard" will be always a part of the dynamic developing eternal kingdom of God. Repudiating as unchristian and pagan the repetition theory of history, the closed circle of history theory is a slander invented by Satan who is the father of lies.

The Christian concept from the Bible is linear, that is to say that the innovations will never stop nor will the continually increasing acceleration of development of the glorious kingdom of God of our Creator. The text, "There is nothing new under the sun," is referring to the circle of sowing and the reaping of sin by men in rebellion against their Creator in the human experience. In no way is it limiting the dynamic growth of the eternal Kingdom of God within which he created the sun and since has continued in expansion every since. This we are able to conceive by the increase of population and science on the earth. You and I as a new creatures, generation in generation, with the capacity to work with God for all eternity are an example of this expansion. We must cast away the false gospel of a static god, who has been conceived from the depressing fatalism. It is derived by the subtleties of pagan philosophy, as having formed and foreseen and predetermined everything. Let us look up to the Creator presented in the Bible from whom we receive the warmth of his fellowship and guidance, from the moment of being born again at our repentance, when we place all of our confidence in Jesus. "Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me." Rev. 3:20. Dogmas are Incompatible With Christianity In the Systematic Theology of the attorney and evangelist Charles G. Finney written about 1840 we find the Biblical perspective that does not leave our benevolent Creator responsible for the sin of anyone nor the sinfulness of His creatures. I am taking most of what follows from him and urge that he be studied for more details. Forty years ago I digested these things and this book is the fruit of many of these insights incubated over the years. Dogmas in Principle are Obnoxious Every uninspired attempt to frame for the church an authoritative standard of opinion which shall be regarded as an unquestionable exposition of the word of God, is not only impious in itself, but it is also a tacit assumption of the fundamental dogma of Papacy. The so called Fathers who attempted to write a law for the conscience of men that was immortal and infallible did more than admit the need for a Pope they assumed by their creed to create an immortal one, or rather to embalm their creed and and preserve it as a pope for all generations. Those who have adopted the confession of faith and catechism as an authoritative standard of doctrine, have absurdly adopted the most obnoxious principle of Popery, and elevated their confession and catechism to the Papal throne and into the place of the Holy Ghost. It is as absurd in

theology as in any other branch of science, as injurious and stultifying as it is absurd and ridiculous. It is better to have a living than a dead Pope if we must have an authoritative expounder of the Word of God, it would not preclude hope of improvement. We must hold as a sacred duty to not defend the judgments of men in the past, but must expose the so called unalterable dogmas, and its unvarying terminology, to the most thorough discussion, and hold and treat them as the opinions of any one else; and if upon further discussion and investigation I see no cause to change, I hold them fast; but if I can see a flaw in any one of them, I shall amend or wholly reject it as further light demands. True Christian consistency implies progress in knowledge and holiness, and such changes in theory and in practice as are demanded by increasing light. The Moral Government of the Universe Law, in a sense of the term both sufficiently popular and scientific for my purpose, is a Rule of Action. It is applicable to every kind of action be it of mind or matter, whether intelligent or unintelligent, free or necessary action. Physical law is a term that represents the order of sequence, in all the changes that occur under the law of necessity, whether in matter or mind in the material universe. All mental states that are not subject to the sovereign actions of will are under this law. Moral law Applies to Only Those Actions We Can Do Moral law is a rule of moral actions with sanctions. Its sanctions are enforced according to the value of the precept. Moral law is the rule of liberty as opposed to necessary or involuntary actions. It is the rule for the government of free and intelligent action as opposed to the necessary and unintelligent action. It is the law of liberty as opposed to the law of unintelligent action and force. The true definition of law excludes the supposition that it can, under any circumstances, demand an absolute impossibility. To talk about the inability to obey moral law is to talk nonsense. Moral Law Exists Where There is Consciousness and Intelligence It eternally existed in the divine reason. It is the idea of that state of will which is obligatory upon God, upon condition of his natural attributes, or in other words upon condition of his nature. As a law it is entirely independent of his will just as his own existence is. It is obligatory also upon every moral agent,

entirely independent of the will of God. Moral law can never change or be changed. "Thou shalt love," or be perfectly benevolent is its uniform and its only demand. It is as immutable as God is, and for the same reason. To talk of changing moral law is to talk absurdly. Nothing can be law, in any proper sense of the term, that is not and would not be universally obligatory upon any or all moral agents under the same circumstances. Whose Right is it to Govern? The highest well-being of the universe demands moral government. It is the government of free will by motives as distinguished from the government of substance by force. Moral government includes the dispensation of rewards and punishments; and is administered by means as complicated and vast as the whole of the works, providence, and ways of the grace of God. Government must be founded on a good and sufficient reason, or it is not right. No one has a right to subscribe rules for, and control the conduct of another, unless there is good reason for doing so. Moral government is indispensable to the highest well being of the universe, of moral beings, and this is sufficient reason for its existence. Our nature and circumstances demand that we should be under a moral government; because no community can perfectly harmonize in all their views and feeling, without perfect knowledge, or to say the least the same degree of knowledge on all subjects upon which they are called to act. But no community ever existed, or will exist, in which all possess exactly the same amount of knowledge, and where the members are, therefore, entirely agreed in all their thoughts, views and opinions. But if they are not agreed in opinion they will not harmonize in their conduct. There must therefore in every community, be some standard or rule of duty. However diverse the knowledge they must all agree that law is necessary. It must be necessary, and not understood to be just advisory, with penalty attached to it, for every act of disobedience. If disobedience be persisted in, exclusion from the privileges of the government is the lowest penalty that can be exacted. (This separation is the casting away into the lake of fire at the last.) The good then of the universe requires that there should be a moral governor. We have just seen that the highest well-being of the universe is the end of moral government. It must, therefore, be his right and duty to govern, whose attributes, physical and moral, best qualify him to secure the end of the government. To him all eyes and hearts should be directed, to fill this station, to exercise this control, to administer all just and necessary rewards and punishments. It is both his right and duty to govern.

The governor and the subject must, therefore, be under reciprocal obligation, the one to govern, and the other to be governed, or to obey The one must seek to govern and the other must submit to be governed. The right to govern implies the right and duty to dispense just and necessary rewards and punishments -distribute rewards proportioned to merit, and penalties proportioned to demerit, whenever the public interest demands their execution. How Law is Determined It implies obligation, on the part of both of the ruler and the ruled to be always ready, and when occasion arises, actually to make any personal sacrifice demanded by the higher public good -to meet any emergency, and exercise any degree of self-denial that can, and will, result in a good of greater value to the public than that sacrificed by the individual, understanding always that voluntary sacrifices will have an ultimate reward. It implies the right to employ any degree of force indispensable to the maintenance of order, the execution of wholesome laws, the suppression of insurrections, the punishment of rebels and the disorganizers, and sustaining the supremacy of moral law. Should an emergency arise in which a ruler had no right to use the indispensable means to secure order and the supremacy of law, the moment this emergency occurred, his right to govern would, and must, cease. Should the circumstances occur under which the sacrifice necessary to sustain, would overbalance the good to be derived from the prevalence of government, this would create the emergency in which the right to govern would cease. This moment will come and the governments of this world will be swept away by the coming of Jesus who is the stone not made by hands. God Must Govern Because He is the Best Qualified God’s right to govern is not that he is sole owner and creator but that he is the best qualified to govern and for him to refuse would be sin on his part. To him who knoweth to do good and doeth it not is sin. James 4:17. The true wisdom in its most ample aspect is that which is convenient, appropriate, feasible, functional for all moral beings in the universe in the light of all eternity, or that is to say the past, present and future. From the other aspect anything that is contrary or inconsistent with this definition is not wise, not legal, and must be prohibited by moral law.

Theories of What Constitutes Moral Obligation The practical tendency of the various theories of what constitutes moral obligation. The theory that the sovereign will of God as the foundation of moral obligation. What is right? the primary signification of the term is straight. when used in a moral sense it means fit, suitable, agreeable to the nature and relation of moral agents. Right in a moral sense belongs to choice, intention, straight with, or conformed to, moral law. This theory of the sovereign will, was held by the ancient Greek and Romans, although advanced by many theologians and philosophers such as Kant it is short sighted, for the foundation of moral obligation is the measuring stick with which right is determined. This theory begs the question, leaving us in the dilemma of a floating definition. If God’s will is the foundation of moral obligation, it follows that he is an arbitrary sovereign. He is not under law himself, thus he could have no moral character, and to speak about the Holiness of God would be meaningless. The theory that the goodness, or moral excellence of God is the foundation of moral obligation. It is impossible that virtue should be the foundation of moral obligation. Virtue consists in a compliance with moral obligation which must exist before it can be complied with. This view leaves us seeing God as arbitrary instead of Holy. The idea of arbitrary sovereignty is shocking and revolting, not only to the human heart, whether unregenerate or regenerate, but also to the human intelligence. Religion, based upon such a view of God’s character and government, must be sheer superstition or gross fanaticism. This leaves the virtue of Plato as just that. The theory of moral order being the foundation of moral obligation. If by moral order be meant the fit, suitable, in the sense of the law, it is absurd to represent moral order as the foundation of moral obligation. Does God require us to love moral order for its own sake? "Thou shalt will moral order with all thy heart, and with all they soul!" If this theory is right then benevolence is sin. The theory that the nature and relations of moral being are the true foundation of moral obligation. The relations must be a matter of choices made and this theory leaves as it’s inadequate foundation as only the power to choose.

The theory that duty is the foundation of moral obligation. This is only a variation of the theory of right as being the the foundation and would have to have the true foundation to determine what is duty. The theory that teaches the complexity of the foundation of moral obligation. The advocates of this theory, perceiving its inconsistency with the doctrine that moral obligation respects the ultimate choice or intention only, seems disposed to relinquish the position that obligation respects strictly, only the choice of an ultimate end, and to maintain that moral obligation respects also the acts of the the will making choices that are suited to its character and nature. If willing or choice embraces several distinct alternatives, how can they all be expressed in one word --love. This theory is a carry over from the Greek ideas of beautiful, truth, and virtue as being ultimate ends. But it begs the question for the determination of these concepts is by the foundation. The theory of self interest as the foundation of moral obligation. It states that it is the obligation of a moral agent to seek his own happiness. If I am to love God and my neighbor it is only to promote my own happiness. Whoever believes this cannot know the difference between virtue and vice. The teachers of this theory must fatally mislead all who consistently follow out their instructions. In preaching, they must, appeal wholly to hope and fear. If they pray, it will only be to implore the help of God to accomplish their selfish ends. It is hardly conceivable that one could more efficiently serve the devil than by the inculcation of such a philosophy as this. The theory that the utility of an action as the foundation of moral obligation. The utilitarians teach what ever is expedient is right. They miss the true nature of virtue or holiness. Instead of representing virtue as consisting in consecration of the soul to the highest good of being in general, they must represent it as consisting in using means to promote good. The theory that right is the foundation of moral obligation. This supposes a law of right separate from the law of love. They go so far as to affirm it conceivable that doing right might necessarily tend to, and result in, universal misery. This philosophy tends naturally to fanaticism. The tendency of this philosophy is illustrated in the spirit of many reformers, who are bitterly contending for the right, which after all, is to do no one any good. This philosophy teaches a false morality and a false religion. It exalts right above God and exalts love of right above love of God. It preys upon the human soul, and turns into solid iron all the tender sensibilities of our being.

The true theory that the highest well-being of God and all in the universe as the foundation of moral obligation. With this theory the whole subject of moral obligation becomes perfectly simple and intelligible; so plain, indeed, that "the wayfaring man, though a fool, cannot err therein." Every moral agent knows in every possible instance what is right, and can never mistakes his real duty. In the honest pursuit of this end there can be no sin, no mistaking the path of duty. Why are there so many that have profession but not possession? How is it that there are so many theological and philosophical fogs that so bewilder the world? It is in these false foundations that Satan has done his undercover work of confusion and destruction giving faulty definitions of virtue. Moral Obligation is Universal I take this opportunity to worship God in a manner that I have never observed. That is to thank our Creator for the efforts that he has put forth and is putting forth. In the first place it has cost God arduous and onerous work for all of the creation that he has made and is making up to this present moment in this dynamic work of creating the eternal kingdom. Between the first and second verse of the Bible we find the what seems to be a whole era. It is not logical that a God of order would create a world without form and void. In II Peter 3:5 "For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water perished: for the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men." This proves that the material world was spoken into existence not eternally existent as was the doctrine of the poison root of Greek Philosophy. This proves that the world was not created all wet as in Gen. 1:2, but dry and later flooded after which it was restored again in Gen. 1:9-10. "The world that then was" from kosmos, social system, was deluged and perished. This refers to the pre-Adamite world that totally perished by the flood of Gen. 1:2. Ps. 104:59. There was no man or bird left after this flood. Jer.4:23-26. This was when Lucifer rebelled. (Notes from Dake’s Bible) It seems that this time is spoken of in Is. 14:15-20 when all were destroyed whereas eight were save in the flood of Noah. (Was this the time of the dinosaurs when the petroleum was made?) We praise our God in whom we move and have our being for this time of recreating in six days of arduous work our beautiful earth on which we dwell. It is the contrary of the Greek concept of an immovably God for he is in constant

energy and attention moved, touched and striving with each of his creatures. "My spirit shall not always strive with man, that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years." Gen 6:3. As the population increases the toil increases. The fact that of his infinite capacity doesn’t take away the arduous work and discipline that is involved in his fulfillment of obligation that is implied in his Holiness. We worship him in thankfulness for his faithful attention to all creatures in the universe. Satan would tell us that he has been undisciplined and cast the world adrift, spinning myths of blasphemy that makes men exclaim in their deception, "Where is God!". For those who know him the word says in Psalm 139. "…thou knowest my thoughts afar off …art acquainted with all my ways. …not a word in my tongue, but, lo, O Lord, thou knowest it altogether. …Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid thine hand upon me. …search me O God, and know my heart: try me and know my thoughts: and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting." If we are tired almost to exhaustion by a long close personal conversation, we can see the arduous work that our God is doing in knowing and "contending" with everyone to incite them to good. He insists on his attention to his creatures, for him not to do so he would be irresponsible, unloving and unholy. He even is concerned about the animals. Jonas 4:11, Luc. 12:6. I dare not depart from the Word of God in this matter, let us look at Rev. 17:18 that mentions those "…whose names were not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world…" it is declared that God in his planing had a list of the results for every phase of his work before he began it. Romans 8:29 says "For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren."

Eph. 1:3-14 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ… According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love… Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will…To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved. In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace; wherein he hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence; Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself: That in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which

are on earth; even in him: In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will: That we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ. In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise, Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory. Laying aside the pagan influence we have had subtly placed over our understanding we encounter these texts to be important and true, but they do not represent the great current of the Bible. The great emphasis of the Bible is to encourage, exhort, insist that everyone be part of this number of the saved. Laying aside the filtering force, the "spectacles" of Greek Philosophy, the great effort should be to make these texts fit perfectly and consistently with the vast body of scripture which constantly insists on the responsibility of everyone to choose for himself his eternal destiny. If we begin to harmonize all of the scriptures we notice the exhortation of Rev. 3:5 that says, "He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment; and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name before my Father, and before his angels." Whoever believes the word of God and is not parcelized because of the influence of the poison Greek root, taking into account the whole body of scripture, can understand that the names written in the book of life are tentative, that is to say they are a reckoning on the part of the Creator as to the probable response of each person awaiting his definite action according to his own free will toward the Kingdom of God. The promises addressed to whom he did foreknow, are to the foreseen redeemed, whosoever they prove to be, by the use of their free will in their life time. The investigation of the scriptures on this point well could be another book. A Definition of Sin Sin is the refusal to consecrate the whole being to the highest well-being of God and the universe and consecrating it to the gratification of self. This selfish intention, or the will in this attitude toward life, makes efforts to secure its end, and these efforts make up the outward life of the selfish man. Moral depravity is sinfulness, not of nature but of voluntary state. It is not a sinful nature but a

sinful heart. It is a sinful ultimate aim, or intention. The Greek term amarti, rendered sin in our English Bible, signifies to miss the mark, to aim at the wrong end. Sin is a wrong aim, or intention. It is aiming at, or intending selfgratification as the ultimate and supreme end of life, instead of aiming, as the moral law requires, at the highest good of universal being, as the end purpose of life. Original Sin Some argue that sin is a universal effect of human nature, and therefore human nature must itself be sinful. If sin implies a sinful nature then it is implied that the Angels, Adam and Eve had it because they sinned. Free, responsible will choosing selfish gratification in the presence of temptation, is an adequate cause. We dare go no farther for it makes God the cause of sin. It is said that no motive to sin could be a motive or a temptation, if there were not a sinful taste, relish, or appetite in our beings. We notice that Eve craved the fruit for knowledge and not for sin. Our appetites are good and proper, it is the temptation of the will to seek their unlawful gratification that is sin. If one uses them in accordance with the law of God, he does right, if he makes their gratification his end, he sins. God made all things and saw that they were good. Are Infants Sinful? The suffering and death of infants previous to transgression is adduced as a proof that they have a sinful nature. This argument must assume, that there must be sin wherever there is suffering and death. But this assumption proves too much, as it would prove that mere animals have a sinful nature, or have committed sin. Physical sufferings prove only physical depravity. Previous to moral agency, infants are no more subjects of moral government than brutes are; therefore their sufferings and death are to be accounted for as are those of brutes, namely, by ascribing them to physical interference with the laws of life and health. Another argument for the sinful constitution is that unless infants have a sinful nature, they do not need sanctification to fit them for heaven. This argument assumes, that, if they are not sinful, they must be holy; whereas they are neither sinful nor holy, until they are moral agents and render themselves so by obedience or disobedience to the moral law. This assumes that previous sinfulness is necessary to be holy. Were Adam and the angels first sinful before they were sanctified? But it is assumed that unless moral agents are at first

sinners, they do not need the Holy Spirit to induce them to be holy. But who can assume that anyone will become holy without being enlightened by the Holy Spirit? We understand that God is faithful to all men everywhere to contend with them to be holy. Is Sin a Misfortune or a Crime? We deny that the human constitution is morally depraved, because it is impossible that sin should be a quality of the substance of soul or body. If a child has a sinful nature, it is his misfortune not his crime. "Sin," says the apostle, "is anomia," a "transgression of, or a want of conformity to, the moral law." That is, it consists in a refusal to love God and our neighbor, or, which is the same thing, in loving ourselves supremely, more than them. To represent our make up or constitution as sinful, is to represent God, who is the author of the nature of our being as the author of sin. To say that God is not the direct former of the constitution, but that sin is conveyed by natural generation from Adam, who made himself sinful, is only to remove the objection one step farther back, but not to obviate it; for God established the physical laws that of necessity bring about this result. The doctrine of constitutional sinfulness, that it forces us to sin, makes original sin and actual sinning, a mere calamity, and not a crime. It is a contradiction to affirm, that a man can heartily believe in the doctrine in question, and yet truely and heartily blame sinners for not doing what is naturally impossible to them. The secret conviction must be in the mind of such a man, that the sinner is not really to blame for being a sinner. For in fact, if this doctrine is true, he is not to blame for being a sinner, any more than he is to blame for being a human being. Thus, the advocate of this doctrine must know. It is vain for him to set up the pretense that he truly blames sinners for their nature, or for their conduct that was unavoidable. He can no more do it, than he can honestly deny the necessary affirmation of his own reason. Therefore the advocates of this theory must merely hold it as a theory, without believing it, or otherwise they must in their secret conviction excuse the sinner. Grace Plus Nothing We note again that the those who proclaim "Grace plus nothing" really are legalist in their assumption. This doctrine naturally and necessarily leads its advocates, secretly at least, to ascribe the atonement of Christ rather to justice than to grace --to regard it rather as an expedient to relieve the unfortunate than to render the forgiveness of the inexcusable sinner possible. The advocates cannot but regard the case of the sinner as rather a hard one, and God as under

an obligation to provide a way for him to escape a sinful nature, entailed upon him in spite of himself, and from the transgressions which result from his nature by a law of necessity. If all of this is true, the sinner’s case is infinitely hard, and God would appear the most unreasonable and cruel of beings, if he did not provide for their escape. This all must be lodged in the mind of those who believe this dogma of original sin. If Men are Without Excuse There can be No Sinful Nature The fact that Christ died in the stead and behalf of sinners, proves that God regarded them not as unfortunate, but as criminal and altogether without excuse. If they are without excuse for sin they must be without a sinful nature that renders sin unavoidable. If men are without excuse for sin, as the whole law and gospel assumes and teaches, it cannot possible be that their nature is sinful, for a sinful nature would be the best of all excuses for sin. This doctrine is a stumbling block both to the world and the church, infinitely dishonorable to God, and is an abomination alike to God and the human intellect, and should be banished from every pulpit, and from every formula of doctrine, and from the world. It is a relic of heathen philosophy or the poison root, and was foisted in among the doctrines of Christianity by Augustine. We have seen how that the definitions of Aristotle of the unmoved-mover ignores the possibility of moral law. It makes all of the acts of God arbitrary which would leave him without the possibility of holiness. Liberty or Death That the glorious benefits that comes from the use of the liberty that God has given are essential to the dynamic growth of the eternal kingdom are evident to everyone. For example I went to the birthday party of my granddaughter Rachel at a Pizza place that had opened with a very new concept. I was told that some man sold out his interests in computers and dedicated his genius to making a set of computer controlled animals, who were playing music on a stage to entertain the customers. The animals blinked their eyes, frowned, smiled shook their heads and played their instruments in perfect timing to their musical presentation. These marvelous computer controlled puppets seemed alive as the curtain rose and they sang a new song every few minuets. But with all of the dedicated and perfected work of the genius, the interest of children and adults alike after a few numbers was lost, they did not even look that way at the opening of the curtain as they sang their new song and the curtain closed again. This is the way the eternal Kingdom of God would have been if free will would not have been introduced. Surely our forefathers were misled to accept

the theory that only God moves and that all is moved only by Him as were these puppets. No, the limitation was only in certain general aspects as outlined by Paul when he spoke to the Athenians that God "hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation; that they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him…" The scripture doesn’t say that every thought and act were predestinated, it sets forth certain limitations on the field of action as to length of life, and one can freely operate his free will only within the established fixed universal laws of being in only one place at one time, within a limited span of years, a limited attention span, the power to concentrate on a limited number of things at once, the need for rest, and the factor of work which seem all to be part of the plan of the universe.

Atonement the Moral Government’s Important Feature Moral law is not founded in the mere arbitrary will of God or of any other being, but it has its foundation in the nature and relation of moral agents with their own personal and free intellect. There is a distinction between the letter and the spirit of moral law. The letter relates to the outward life or action; the spirit respects the motive or intention from which the act should proceed. For example the spirit of the moral law requires disinterested benevolence, and is all expressed in the word --love. The letter is found in the ten commandments and other such precepts. There can be exceptions to the letter but never to the spirit. The letter of the law says "the soul that sinneth it shall die;" but the spirit of the law admits and requires that upon certain conditions, to be examined in their proper place, the soul that sinneth shall live. Every law giver is always understood as pledging himself dully to administer the laws in support of public order, and for the promotion of pubic morals, to reward the innocent with his favor and protection, and to punish the disobedient with the loss of his protection and favor. Laws are the property of all. Atonement There is an important difference between retributive justice and public justice. Retributive justice consists in treating every subject of government according to his character. , The exercise of public justice consists in the promotion and protection of the public interest, by such legislation and such administration of law, as is demanded by the highest good of the public. It implies the execution of the penalties of law where the precept is violated, unless something else is done that will as effectually secure the public interests. When this is done,

public justice demands, that the execution of the penalty shall be dispensed with, by extending pardon to the criminal. Retributive justice makes no exception, but punishes without mercy in every instance of crime. Public justice makes exceptions, as often as this is permitted or required by the public good. Since the head of the government is pledged to protect and promote the public interests, by a due administration of law, if in any instance where the precept is violated, he would dispense with the execution of penalties, public justice requires that he shall see, that the substitute for the execution of law is provided, or that something is done that shall as effectually secure the influence of law, as the execution of the penalty would be. He cannot make exception to the spirit of the law. Either the soul that sinneth must die, according the the letter of the law, or a substitute must be provided in accordance with the spirit of the law. Repentance is Not Enough The execution of penalties is not to be dispensed with merely upon condition of the repentance of the offender; it should be known to be upon a condition not within the power of the offender. Else he may know, that he can violate the law, and yet be sure to escape with impunity, by fulfilling the conditions of forgiveness, which are upon the supposition, all within his own power. If mercy is to be exercised, it should be upon a condition that is not to be repeated, nothing shall be done to undermine or disturb the influence of law, or that shall encourage the hope of impunity. If an atonement were to extend its benefits to all worlds, and to all eternity, it would nullify its own influence, and encourage the universal hope of immunity, in case the precepts of the law were violated. This would be indefinitely worse than no atonement and finally lead to total anarchy. Atonement Defined The word atonement is synonymous with the Hebrew word cofer which means to cover and was applied to the lid on the arc of the covenant with the mercy seat upon it. The Greek word rendered atonement has the meaning of substitution. An examination of these original words, in the connection in which they stand, will show that the atonement is the governmental substitution of the suffering of Christ for the punishment of sinners. It is a covering of their sins for his sufferings. The doctrine of the atonement is purely a doctrine of revelation and can be based solely on the Bible. The atonement was made for

the benefit particularly of the inhabitants of this world, from its very nature, as it is calculated to benefit all the inhabitants of this world; as it is a most stupendous revelation of God to man. Its nature is adapted to benefit all mankind. All mankind can be pardoned, if they are rightly affected and brought to repentance by it. It brings us untold blessings, it is probable that, but for the atonement, none of our race, except the first human pair, would ever have had an existence. It is for all mankind and sinners are universally condemned for not receiving it. If ministers do not believe that it was made for all men, they cannot heartily and honestly press its acceptance upon any individual, or congregation, that there is any atonement for him or them, any more than there is for Satan. What is a sinner to believe as a condition of salvation? That it is merely an atonement for somebody? Is this saving faith? No, he must have the word of God for it that it was made for him personally. But upon this subject of the extent of the atonement, let the Bible speak for itself: John 1:29 The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world. John 3:15-18 That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. John 1:29 The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world. John 4:42 And said unto the woman, Now we believe, not because of thy saying: for we have heard him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world. Rom. 5:18 Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life. II Cor. 5:14-15 For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead: and that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again. I Tim. 2:6 Who gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time. I Tim. 4:10 For therefore we both labour and suffer reproach, because we trust in the living God, who is the Saviour of all men, especially of those that believe. I John 2:2-4 And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world. And hereby

we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments. He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. That the atonement is sufficient for all men, and, in that sense, general, as opposed to particular, is evident from the fact, that the invitations and promises of the gospel are addressed to all men, and all are freely offered salvation through Christ. Isa. 45:22 Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else. Isa. 55:1 Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Isa. 55:2 Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread? and your labour for that which satisfieth not? hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness. Isa. 55:3 Incline your ear, and come unto me: hear, and your soul shall live; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David. Mat. 11:28-30 Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. Luke 14:17 And sent his servant at supper time to say to them that were bidden, Come; for all things are now ready. John 7:37 In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. Rev. 3:20 Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me. Rev. 22:17 And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely. The Atonement Made for All Men Again: I infer that the atonement was made, and is sufficient for all men from the fact that God not only invites all, but expostulates with them for not accepting his invitations. Prov. 1:20-23 Wisdom crieth without; she uttereth her voice in the streets: She crieth in the chief place of concourse, in the openings of the gates: in the city she uttereth her words, saying, How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity? and the scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge? Turn you at my reproof: behold, I will pour out my spirit unto you, I will make known my words unto you. Isa. 1:18 Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. Ezek. 33:11 Say unto them, As I live, saith the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel? Isa. 48:17

Thus saith the LORD, thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel; I am the LORD thy God which teacheth thee to profit, which leadeth thee by the way that thou shouldest go. Isa. 48:18 O that thou hadst hearkened to my commandments! then had thy peace been as a river, and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea: Micah 6:1-3 Hear ye now what the LORD saith; Arise, contend thou before the mountains, and let the hills hear thy voice. Hear ye, O mountains, the LORD’S controversy, and ye strong foundations of the earth: for the LORD hath a controversy with his people, and he will plead with Israel. O my people, what have I done unto thee? and wherein have I wearied thee? testify against me. Mat. 23:37 O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! Again God complains of sinners for rejecting his overtures of mercy. Prov. 1:24 Because I have called, and ye refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded; Zec. 7:11-13 But they refused to hearken, and pulled away the shoulder, and stopped their ears, that they should not hear. Yea, they made their hearts as an adamant stone, lest they should hear the law, and the words which the LORD of hosts hath sent in his spirit by the former prophets: therefore came a great wrath from the LORD of hosts. Therefore it is come to pass, that as he cried, and they would not hear; so they cried, and I would not hear, saith the LORD of hosts: Mat. 12:3-6 But he said unto them, Have ye not read what David did, when he was an hungred, and they that were with him; How he entered into the house of God, and did eat the shewbread, which was not lawful for him to eat, neither for them which were with him, but only for the priests? Or have ye not read in the law, how that on the sabbath days the priests in the temple profane the sabbath, and are blameless? But I say unto you, That in this place is one greater than the temple. Luke 17:17-20 And Jesus answering said, Were there not ten cleansed? but where are the nine? There are not found that returned to give glory to God, save this stranger. And he said unto him, Arise, go thy way: thy faith hath made thee whole. And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: John. 5:40 And ye will not come to me, that ye might have life. Acts 7:51 Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye. Acts 24:25 And as he reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come, Felix trembled, and answered, Go thy way for this time; when I have a convenient season, I will call for thee. The Atonement Represents God as Unmerciful?

Some have objected that the atonement represents God as unmerciful because they suppose that it was demanded to satisfy retributive instead of public justice. The atonement was the exhibition of a merciful disposition. It is infinitely the most illustrious exhibition of mercy ever made in the universe. The mere pardon of sin, as an act of sovereign mercy, could not have been compared, had it been possible, with the merciful disposition displayed in the atonement itself. It is objected that the atonement is unnecessary. The testimony of all men everywhere in history has been that they offered expiatory sacrifices. This shows that human beings are universally conscious of being sinners, and under the government of a sin-hating God; that their intelligence demands either the punishment of sinners, or that a substitute should be offered to public justice; that they all have the idea that substitution is inconceivable, and hence they offer their sacrifices as expiatory. It is objected as unjust to punish an innocent being instead of the guilty. Yes it is impossible for a just God to punish an innocent moral agent. Christ voluntarily "suffered, the just for the unjust." He had a right to exercise this self-denial; as it was by his own voluntary consent, no injustice was done. Regeneration by the Holy Spirit In the Bible this is known as the new birth, to have a new heart, to be a new creature, to pass from death to life, to become holy. It is to express the thing done which is to make a sinner holy (separated in heart unto God), and expresses also the fact, that God’s agency induces the change. However in the Bible the sinner is required to make to himself a new heart. "Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light. " Ef. 5:14I cor. 4:15, James 5:19-20. Conversion and regeneration imply the simultaneous exercise of both human and Divine agency. The sinner puts forth his activity, and God draws him into life; or rather, God draws, and the sinner comes forth to life. Regeneration is not a change in th substance of soul or body, as the sinner has all the faculties and natural attributes required to render perfect obedience to God. He needs to be induced to use these by the preaching of the word to enlighten him. The heart is spoken of as the fountain from which good and evil action flow."…out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things: and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things." Mat. 12:34. A selfish ultimate choice is, therefore, a wicked heart, out of which flows every evil; and a benevolent ultimate choice is a good heart, out of which flows every good and commendable deed.

The universal necessity of Regeneration It surely is impossible, that a world or universe of unholy or selfish beings should be happy. It is impossible that heaven should be made up of selfish beings. With out regeneration a selfish soul can by no possibility be fitted either for the employments, or for the enjoyments of eternal life and heaven. "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." Jn. 3:3 Regeneration consists in the sinner changing his ultimate choice, intention, preference, changing from selfish love to benevolence, in other words, in turning from the selfishness of self-gratification, to the supreme love of God and the equal love of his neighbor. This is called repentance in the Bible. The Holy Spirit is always faithful and takes the truth, the things of Christ and shows them to the Soul of every person. Regeneration is nothing else than the will being influence by truth. Irresistible Grace mocks intelligence The doctrine of irresistible grace derived from Aristotles definition of God insists that man must await God’s timing, and have his constitution recreated before he can possible do anything but oppose God! This is to tell him the greatest and abominable of falsehoods. It is to mock his intelligence. What! call on him, on pain of eternal death, to believe; to embrace the gospel; to love God with all his heart, and at the same time represent him as entirely helpless, and constitutionally totally depraved and the enemy of God and the gospel, and as being under the necessity of waiting for God to regenerate his nature, before it is possible for him to do otherwise than to hate God with all his heart! He stands and waits for God to do what God requires him to do, and which no one can do for him. Neither God nor any other creature can regenerate him, if he will not turn, will not repent. See the subtle Satanic apostasy, the tares in the gospel preached for many centuries. The nature of the change shows that it must be instantaneous. The preparatory work of conviction and enlightening the mind may have been gradual and progressive. But when regeneration occurs, it must be instantaneous, a change from entire sinfulness to entire holiness. The scriptures represent regeneration as the condition of salvation in such a sense, that if the subject should died immediately after regeneration, and without any further change, he would go immediately to heaven. When the scriptures require us to grow in grace, and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, this does not imply that there is yet sin remaining in the

regenerate heart which we are required to put away by degrees. But the spirit of the requirement must be, that we should acquire as much knowledge and experience as possible in our moral relations, and continue to conform to all truth as fast as we know it. This, and nothing else is implied in abiding in our first love, or abiding in Christ, living and walking in the Spirit. Theories of Regeneration The taste scheme regards the sensibility and the heart as the same thing. The sensibility is the state of being able to perceive. Moral depravity consists a nature that relishes sin. They often illustrate their ideas of the sinful taste, craving, or appetite for sin, by reference to the craving of carnivorous animals for flesh. A change of heart in the view of this philosophy, must consist in a change of one’s nature. It must be a physical change wrought by the physical power of the Holy Spirit. They hold that there is nothing man can do about this, that it is an sovereign, irresistible, act of creation. They hold that once this work is done then the person becomes active in his conversion. They hold that the soul, in its very nature, is enmity against God; that therefore the gospel has no tendency to regenerate or convert the soul to God; but on the contrary, that previous to regeneration by the sovereign and physical agency of the Holy Spirit, every exhibition of God made in the gospel, tends only to inflame and provoke this enmity in their nature. They deny that this sinful relish, or craving for sin is ever wholly destroyed in this life, but that a holy desire is implanted by the Holy Spirit and this has a tendency to convert the person. This theory assumes the dogma of original sin. As they confuse the appetite with the will they have denied the possibility of a victorious Christian life and the theory throws the blame of being unregenerate upon God. It is selfevident that God alone is responsible for the fact that any sinner is unregenerate. The logical consequence of this theory would be that it becomes necessary for the regenerate to live holy and practice holy exercises as they can do nothing else by their new natural appetites, and that falling from grace is impossible.

The divine efficiency theory is really the ancient heathen philosophy that denies second causes, and teaches that what we call laws of nature are nothing else than the mode of divine operation. It maintains that the universe exists only

by an act of present and perpetual creation. It denies that matter, or mind, has in itself any inherent properties that can originate laws or motions; that all action, whether of matter or mind, is the necessary result of direct divine irresistible efficiency or power; that this is not only true of the physical universe, but also of all of the choices and exercises of actions of moral agents in all worlds. They contend that regeneration is effected by a direct act of divine power or efficiency as irresistible as any creative act whatever. It is possibly from this that we have what could be called The Spittoon Theology of Election using the text from II Tim. 2:20-21; "But in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood and of earth; and some to honor, and some to dishonor. If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honor, sanctified, and meet for the master’s use, and prepared unto every good work." They teach that if you are designed to be a spittoon there is nothing you can do about it, this violates equality of the men in the gospel.. You must resign yourself to your fate. They say nothing about the important work that is prepared for everyone that will give them their place as priests and kings. They teach that the moral character of every moral agent, whether holy or sinful, is formed by an agency as direct, as sovereign, and as irresistible, as that which first gave existence to the universe; that true submission to God implies the hearty consent of the will to have the character thus formed (perhaps to be figuratively a spittoon), and then to be treated accordingly, for the glory of God. The objections to this theory is that it tends to produce and perpetuate a sense of divine injustice. To create a character by an agency as direct and irresistible as that of the creation of the world itself, and then treat moral beings according to that character so formed, is wholly inconsistent with all our ideas of justice. Our own consciousness affirms that we ourselves are the sovereign and efficient cause of choices and action of our will. This theory represents God as the only agent, in any proper sense in the universe, for if God produces the exercises of moral beings in the manner of this theory we are no more than the wind and the waves. According to this theory no being but God can have moral character, for none other is the author of his own actions. This pagan theory degrades God and degrades man.

The susceptibility scheme is a philosophy that maintains the necessity and the fact of a physical influence super added to the moral or persuasive influence of the Holy Spirit as the essence of regeneration. To reply to this idea it is necessary to state that it is greatly to be feared to disparage the work of the Holy Spirit and I would never disparage or seek to deny anything taught or

implied in the Bible, that I understand that the Holy Spirit is continually faithful in dealing with all men. The question that is raised is in regard to the mode and not to the agency of divine agency in regeneration. It has been common when the dogma of physical regeneration is called in question for the theologians to cry out and insist that this is Pelagianism, and that it is a denial of divine influence altogether. The point in consideration is simple, whether the Bible teaches that there is also a physical influence of the Holy Spirit that changes the nature in awakening sinners to repentance. They use several proof texts such as Luke 24:45 "Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures," It is said that this implies a physical influence in the opening of their understanding. Such language in common usage would imply such instruction was imparted as to secure a right understanding of the scriptures. Can this mean a physical prying open, pulling or forcing a part of the natural being? I think not. The context plainly teaches that it was only the convincing that was done. Luke 24:46 "And said unto them, Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day: Then he said unto them, O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken: Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory? And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself." It seems he expounded the scriptures to them and in the light of that measure of divine illumination which was then imparted to them, they understood the things which he explained to them. It does not seem that this passage warrants the inference that there was a physical influence exerted. It certainly affirms no such thing. Acts 16:14 "And a certain woman named Lydia, a seller of purple, of the city of Thyatira, which worshipped God, heard us: whose heart the Lord opened, that she attended unto the things which were spoken of Paul." What is her heart that it should be pulled or forced open? All that can be meant is, that the Lord secured her attention, or disposed her to attend, and so enlightened her when she did attend, that she believed. There are many passages that represent God as opening the spiritual eyes, and petitions offered to God that he might do this. It is implied from them that this is a physical influence that changes the nature of the person. We are in the habit of using such expressions when nothing more than a moral or persuasive influence is intended, without inferring that we are changing the physical capacity of the person. Why would we resort to such an assumption in these texts?

Again a physical influence is inferred when sinners are represented as asleep or dead in trespasses and sins. All such representations are only declaratory of a moral state, a state of voluntary alienation from God.

The Divine Moral Suasion theory is the last to be considered and teaches that regeneration consists in a change in the ultimate intention or preference in the mind, or in a change from selfishness to disinterested benevolence or unselfish well working. This change is induced by and effected by a divine moral influence; that is to say the Holy Spirit effects it through or by the truth. In John 3:5-6 the Bible says "Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." In I Ped. 1:23 "Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever." In James 1:18 "Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures." In I Cor. 4:15 "For though ye have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet have ye not many fathers: for in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel." Men are represented as being sanctified by and through the truth. John 17:17 "Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth." John 15:3 "Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you." When God affirms that he regenerates the soul with or by the truth we have no right to infer that he does it in some other way. This he does affirm; therefore the Bible has settled the philosophy of regeneration. I understand that this is the true root. Much of this material is from Charles Finney’s, Systematic Theology for more study. The dramatic contrast between the seeking of supernatural help by consulting the spirit world to receive blessings and guidance to foreword our desires and plans is the false religion rooted in Satanic subtlety; on the other hand the full surrender of our lives to the Creator to fulfill our place in his kingdom by his supernatural and personal help is the true religion. In essence there are only two religions the true and the false. The fierce attack against repentance

The fiercest attack against the gospel has been against the simple act of repentance. Without this condition being met no one becomes part of the eternal Kingdom of God. A man can be misguided and hoodwinked all through the pilgrimage of this life unless he places himself unconditionally in Gods path in true repentance. Having the heart truly regenerated, then the Holy Spirit takes all repented children of God by the hand guiding them safely through any and all dangers to eternal salvation. Keeping the pact with God by Jesus Christ makes it impossible that anyone can take us out of his hand. If man does not, in the fixed purpose of his heart, aim at total abstinence from sin, and at being wholly conformed to the will of God, he is not yet regenerated and does not so much as mean to cease from abusing God. Election The elect were chosen to salvation, upon condition that God foresaw that he could secure their repentance, faith, and final perseverance. The Bible doctrine of election is not that any are chosen to salvation, in such a sense, that they will or can be saved without repentance, faith, and sanctification. Nor is it that some are chosen to salvation in such a sense, that they will be saved irrespective of their being regenerated, and persevering in holiness to the end of life. The Bible most plainly teaches, that these are are naturally indispensable conditions of salvation, and of course election cannot dispense with them. Nor is it that any are chosen to salvation for or on account of their own foreseen merits, or good works. II Tim. 1:9: "Who hath saved us, and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began." The foreseen fact, that by the wisest governmental arrangement God could convert and sanctify and fit them for heaven, must have been a condition in the sense of their election to salvation, but could not have been the fundamental reason for it, as we shall see. God did not elect them to salvation, for or on account of their foreseen good works, but upon condition of their foreseen repentance, faith and perseverance. The Bible does not leave the question of the final salvation of the elect as a group as a real uncertainty as it is the positive fruit of this dispensation. It is foreseen that there will be a innumerable multitude of saved at the time of the new heaven and new earth out of every tribe, tongue and nation. Rev. 7:9. Charles Finney who lived over a century ago, as well as many other past generations, was unable to see the faulty definition of God’s attributes and bases many of his comments on election, upon the attributes of God. He never mentions the texts about elect men being "blotted" from the book of life. The

word elect should be confidently taken as the assurance that God’s work of atonement would bring forth in due process of time a group of redeemed. All of the promises are to this group. On the other hand, the the only way that is given in the Bible of being assured that we are of the elect is that we are continually walking in surrendered unconditional obedience to Gods will as we know it, and have therefore the assurance of our fellowship with God. The timing of the end The revelation or the prophecy of God is based on the limitations that God has placed on us. For instance men were free but they crossed a line, a limitation, at Noah and at Sodom. The wickedness in the city would not bring forth any more fruits of the elect and and God’s Holiness could not remain unblemished if the city were allowed to continue. The plan of almost a thousand years life span was modified in the construction of the kingdom to 120 years at the flood. God has assured us that he will bring all of this to a successful conclusion when he puts all things in subjection under Christ’s feet. We are not to know the times or the seasons. We are to work ahead step by step according to his direct leading. At some time in the future, it may prolonged or shortened, some men who were calculated to freely choose to serve God, will fail and be blotted out of the book of life. Other men will choose that were not originally foreseen to do so. The harvest will dwindle. The accounting that was made by Abraham the friend of God before Sodom will be repeated just as it was in the days of Noah. Nothing was said about the predestined hour for the destruction of Sodom. The world is coming to the same crisis that was represented in the days of the flood. God speaks of this moment when the "Vials of Wrath will then be poured out." Only the Father knows this time because it is rooted in the combined sum of the tempest of free wills. Satan does his thing, freedom reigns, the weeds finally drown out the good seed. God, in triumph calls the marriage supper of the lamb as the multitude that no man can number of all ages and circumstances are drawn to himself, and makes a new heaven and a new earth. The mighty eternal kingdom is inaugurated to continue in dynamic constant progress and advancement for all eternity. Just as we marvel at the tiny new born infant that wonderfully grows and develops this wonderful sense of humor and special talents, so God with the same loving care that we use in raising our children, guide this mighty kingdom for all eternity. The principal conditions and points of convergence of this seething dynamic mass of interacting free wills are known and declared to us in sure prophecy. We understand that election is very particular having looked into a variety of options of the free will that bring about the existence of each of us. The most important weight must be given to the elect as the foreseen fruits of the

creation. The elect are the reason for the work of creation. Giving this group of the saved as the basic motive for the Creation we must know that the many promises about God being faithful to us to provide our perseverance in grace until death when we encounter him before his throne are rooted in the great reality of our existence foreknown before creation. It is reasonable to infer from the infinite benevolence of God, that his present government will secure a greater amount of good than could have been secured under any other mode of administration. It is no doubt true that he could so vary the course of events as to save other individuals than those he does. Suppose there is a man in this town, who has so strongly intrenched himself in error, that there is but one man in all the land who is so acquainted with his refuge of lies as to be able to answer his objections, and drive him from his hiding places. Now, it is possible, that if this individual could be brought in contact with him, he might be converted yet if he is employed in some distant part of the vineyard, his removal from that field of labor to this town, might not, upon the whole, be most vital for the glory of God’s kingdom; and more might fail of salvation through his removal here, than would be converted by such removal. God being just and holy has no partialities for individuals, but moves forward in the administration of his government with his eye upon the general good, designing to secure the greatest amount of happiness within his kingdom that can be secured by the wisest possible arrangement, and administration of his government. As for example Daniel had to wait weeks for the answer from the angel. Foreknowledge and election are not inconsistent with free agency. The elect were chosen to eternal life, upon condition that God foresaw that in the perfect exercise of their freedom, many could be induced to repent and embrace the gospel. How may we ascertain our own election? Those of the elect that are already converted, are known by their character and conduct. They have evidence of their election in their obedience to God. Those that are unconverted may settle the question each one for himself, whether he is elected or not, so as to have the most satisfactory evidence whether he is of that happy number. If you will now submit yourselves to God, you may have evidence that you are elected. But every hour you put off submission, increases the evidence that you are not elected.

Every sinner under the gospel has it within his power to accept or reject salvation. The Holy Spirit is constantly working with every man in the whole world with infinite care to convince him of sin and judgement and justice and the uncertainty of life. The elect can know their election by accepting the offered gift. The non-elect can know their non-election by the consciousness of a voluntary rejection of offered life. If anyone fears that he is one of the nonelect, let him at once renounce his unbelief and cease to reject salvation, placing himself in full obedience to God and in life long supplication for God’s power to follow him in his suffering, and then the ground of fear and complaint instantly falls away. Why should the doctrine of election be made a stumbling-block in the way of sinners? In nothing else do they make the same use of the purposes and designs of God, as they do on the subject of religion; and yet, in everything else, God’s purposes and designs are as much settled, and have as absolute an influence. What would you say if you should be called in to see a neighbor who was sick; and, on inquiry, you should find he would neither eat nor drink, and that he was verily starving himself to death. On expostulating to him about his conduct, suppose he should calmly reply, that he believed in the sovereignty of God, in foreknowledge, election and decrees; that his days were numbered, that the time and circumstances of his death were settled, that he could not die before his time, and that his efforts he could make would not enable him to live a moment beyond his time; and if you attempted to remonstrate against his inference, and such an abuse and perversion of the doctrine of decrees, he should accuse you of being a heretic, of not believing in divine sovereignty. Now, should you see a man on worldly subjects reasoning and acting thus, you would pronounce him insane. Should farmers, mechanics and merchants, reason in this way in regard to their worldly business, they would be considered fit subjects for bedlam. Reprobation is the rule for the majority The greatest number of those who have lived are shown clearly to have died in sin and rebellion against God, that is to say in reprobation. The term reprobation, both in the Old and the New Testament, signifies refuse, cast away. Jer. 6:30: "Reprobate silver shall men call them, because the Lord hath rejected them." The doctrine is, that certain individuals of mankind are, in the fixed purpose of God, cast away, rejected and finally lost. II Cor. 13:5-6 "Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates? But I trust that ye shall know that we are not reprobates." Some men are reprobates, in the sense that God does not design to save, but to

destroy them. That he does not delight in their destruction for its own sake; but would prefer their salvation, if under the circumstances in which his wisdom has placed them, they could be induced to obey him. But he regards their destruction as a less evil to the universe than would be such a change in the administration and arrangements of his government as would secure their salvation. Therefore, for their foreseen wickedness and perseverance in rebellion, under circumstance the most favorable to their virtue and salvation, in which he can wisely place them, he is resolved upon their destruction; and has already in purpose cast them off. Sinners are reprobated when their cup of iniquity becomes full. We can know we are reprobates if are enjoying a long course of prosperity in sin, Ps. 92:7; if we habitually neglect the means of grace staying away from peaching and neglecting the Bible; if we have grown old in sin; if we receive no chastisements, Heb. 12:7-8; when we are not reformed by chastisement, when you are not reformed by them but harden your heart under the stripes, why should he not leave you to fill up the measure of your cup of iniquity? Reprobates also embrace damnable heresies as a mark of their reprobation. Perseverance of the Saints It is said that the natural tendency of this doctrine condemns it. It is said that real saints do fall into at least temporary backsliding, in which cases the belief of this doctrine tends to lull them into carnal security, and to prolong their backsliding, if not to embolden them to apostatize. To this I reply that if real Christians do backslide, they lose for the time being their evidence of acceptance with God; and with all, they know that in their present state they cannot be saved. This objection is leveled rather against that view of perseverance that says, "once in grace, always in grace," that teaches the doctrine of perpetual justification upon condition of one act of faith. The true doctrine holds no ground of hope to a backslider, except upon condition of return and perseverance to the end. Moreover, the doctrine as here taught is, that perseverance in holiness, in the sense, that, subsequent to regeneration holiness is at least the rule, and sin only the exception, is an attribute of Christian character. Every moment, therefore, a backslider remains in sin, he must have less evidence that he is a child of God. I find no instance in the Bible in which the saints are enjoined or exhorted to fear that they shall actually be lost; but, on the contrary, this kind of fear is everywhere, in the word of God, discountenanced and rebuked, and the saints are exhorted to the utmost assurance that Christ will keep and preserve them to

the end, and finally bestow on them eternal life. We understand it as the faithfulness of God. They are warned against sin and apostasy, and are informed that if they apostatize they shall be lost. They are expressly informed, that their salvation is conditioned upon their perseverance in holiness to the end. They are also called upon to watch against sin and apostasy; to fear both, lest they should be lost. When we consider the nature of the certainty of the salvation of the saints, that it is only a moral and conditional certainty, we can see the propriety and necessity of the warning and threatenings which we find addressed to them in the Bible. Shipwreck Does not the Bible furnish abundant instance of warning in cases where the result is revealed as certain? The case of Paul’s shipwreck is in point. God by Paul revealed the fact, that no life on board the ship should be lost. This he declared as a fact, without any revealed qualification or condition. But when the sailors, who alone knew how to manage the ship, were about to abandon her, Paul informs them that their abiding in the ship was a condition of their salvation from death. The means were really as certain as the end; yet the end was conditioned upon the means, and if the means failed, the end would fail. Therefore Paul appealed to their fears of death to secure them against neglecting the means of safety which had been revealed to them, and thus cause them at once to fear to neglect the means, and to confide in the certainty of safety in the diligent use of them. It is a case where a revealed certainty of the event was entirely consistent with warning and threatening. It is a case where the certainty, though real, was dependent upon the warning and threatenings, and the consequent fear to neglect the means. This case is a full illustration of the revealed certainty of the ultimate salvation of the saints; and were there no other case in the Bible where warning and threatening are addressed to those whose safety is revealed, this case would be a full answer to the assertion, that warnings and threatenings are inconsistent with revealed certainty. Paul feared to have the means of safety neglected in the life and death emergency at sea and the emergency of neglecting the means of eternal salvation. Heb. 4:1"Let us therefore fear, lest a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it. …Let us labor therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief." Heb. 6:1-6 "Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection; not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith toward God, of the doctrine of baptisms, and of laying on of hands, and of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment. And this will we do, if God permit. For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have

tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, and have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come. If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh." Carefulness a mark of the elect There is a danger that I can be mistaken in my ultimate intention. I am much exhorted by the scriptures to make my calling and election sure by examination of my life and motives continually to be sure that I and others do not fall into a false hope. This carefulness is the sure mark of the elect, those who are careless give an important sign of not being regenerated. With this holy fear of God we have the sure hope of the perseverance of our souls. Rom. 8:32-39 "He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." If this doctrine of the perseverance of the saints is not true, I cannot see upon what ground we can affirm, or even confidently hope, that many of our pious friends who have died have gone to heaven. Suppose they held on their way until the last hours of life. If we may not believe that the faithfulness of God prevailed to keep them through the last conflict, what reason have we to affirm that they were preserved from sin and apostasy in their last hours, and saved? If the sovereign grace of God does not protect them against the wiles and malice of Satan, in their feebleness, and in the wreck of their habitation of clay, what has become of them? I must confess that, if I did not expect the covenanted mercy and faithfulness of God to prevail, and to sustain the soul under all circumstances, I should have little expectation that any would be saved. There is no other hope than in the keeping power of Christ of those surrendered to him.

Chapter 17

Abiding or Academy The Academy of Plato placed emphasis on people abiding together in harmony and union to search out the wisdom by means of consulting the spirits of the the occult world. (Phaedon ) The Bible stresses repentance to bring the relation of the person to the Father through Christ by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. The abiding of I John or John 14:10-18 is the Bible system of education. The union of the pagan academy and the Christian ideas has brought about the clergy class. The education system of the Roman empire grew out of the ancient concepts of the Academy of Plato and the Lyceum of Aristotle. This has been modified evolving through the centuries into the system of education we have today. It is necessary that we understand that this whole system is different from the concepts of the Bible. In the book "Curso de Historia de la Filosofía" by Diaz Garcia and Quintanilla Ponce on page 195 we read, "The ideas of Plato about education are a correlation of his political-ethnic concept. His educational system is closely related better to say fused with the political order… …the education is fa unction of the state: only by a perfect eduction can the state be perfect… …and inversely, only the state can know where each citizen can be employed and in what order and it is the task of the state to designate the place that corresponds to them. The education is understood to be limited to the warrior class (aristocrats). Plato did not believe in educating everyone. Many were inferior and could not be taught (344a). It was to be determined by birth and a cloudy factor of destiny. (Notice that the concept of socialism comes from this concept.) Aristocracy is based on Re-incarnation For Plato it was better to be cloudy or fuzzy about your understanding so that the concept of superiority of class and one man over another could be substantiated from a privilege gained from the gods before and by birth. Aristotle on the other hand felt that education should be for everyone.

The slaves were excluded from education and politics: according to him there are men who exist as natural slaves, that is to say that they are not capable of truly free human activities such as rhetoric these men have been born to obey not to give orders and it is justice that they should be the property of others… in many respects it seems that he was advocating the education of the gentleman that is in our times set forth by Locke, …without allowing forth

much autonomy to the student, not asking of him to find new avenues of learning and understanding… …favoring an education that was authoritatively and intellectually directed at forming a respectful attitude in the secular as well as in the religious… …the goal of education in this phase of the development Hellenic was for the system of education to make everyone completely loyal to the state… In Sparta the education was to form the citizen into a soldier… …It is the monopoly of the state… …The Sophists… …virtue is teachable…" The Bible Concept of education The Hebrew education was the opposite of the Greek. Instead of sending his son off to an academy the father taught his son. Every man was to teach his own son. Much has been made of the school of the prophets in the days of Elija trying to justify the existence of Seminaries and Bible Schools. This was an attempt among the 7000 who had not doubled their knees to Baal to find true worship when all of the priesthood and all of the Temple activities were controlled by Jezebel. Today this is reversed. The true worship that practices the presence of God in their congregations and the growth of people in the Lord are asked to send their most fervent and genuine laymen to school to drill them into becoming aristocrats, Philosopher-kings, or clergy class. The schools teach the fine points which when examined closely include the understanding of how to accommodate all of the "poison root" into Christianity. Thus assured, the students will come forth with the wine of superiority that was called the leaven of the Pharisees. They in turn upon graduation will begin by their very attitude to hinder the growth of the ministry of each and every Christian turning them into spectator Christians. The greatest indictment against the schools is that they cannot produce converts to become their students, they must go out to other places to find them. In the Bible we see that the local church was the only Bible school that existed. The leading of the Lord in the thrust of the great commission and the accompaniment of the more experienced by the less experienced was the only training mentioned in the Bible. In this sense the Bible schools and Seminaries can only pretend to be super churches to biblicaly justify their existence. In the founding of the Church the sent ones (apostles) spoke and the rest listened. The persecution came and it was prudent for these leaders to flee. Then the remaining converts met and all ministered as they could. Later the apostle returned and observed the ones who were serving, bearing the burdens of the congregation, and with prayer and fasting ordained them to be elders in the congregation. The number of elders was always plural. There was no place for the Philosopher-king. Their task was to regulate the growth of the Christians by assuring their participation in the body. They never tried to bring everyone in to obedience to themselves but into

obedience to the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit guided the church in such a way that it constantly produced more mature elders. The Holy Spirit would eventually send out men to other locations. The Bible teaches that education is the acquiring of true wisdom by being instruments in the Kingdom of God. This is opposed to Plato’s education that is to make men loyal and useful to the state. James declares that wisdom is to be sought from God. God will bring about the circumstances that will place us in a constant pattern of learning from circumstances, and from one another for all of our lives. We learn from others in appreciation of the God given gifts, given to fellow Christians. This learning process is very different from the academy where the goal was to form a respect for the customs and traditions in order to make one a good citizen in his religion and useful to his state. On the contrary we are to understand that what we see in the world, always in rebellion against God, is the depravity of man. Instead of accepting the tendency to infuse in us respect for the higher schools of learning, we are taught to be alert and discerning about all doctrine to identify what is true and what is tare. We must not build on what is traditional knowledge for we are to examine all things and retain that which is good, by the work of the Spirit of God in our hearts. The true education has always been an intimate walk with God. It begins at repentance and is typified by the constant unspoken prayer almost on our lips at all times, "Lord teach me." The abiding of I John is the true system of education and is the same method as was used when the disciples walked with Jesus and learned through his showing them how. We must be suspicious of all kinds of education that are not found in the Bible. The training of the Holy Spirit involves continually putting into practice what we are taught. It involves obeying God and not men. It involves going against the current of this world and suffering reproach as the normal condition of serving God. We must understand that the system of Christian education in our day is very displeasing to God. I accept that there are many sincere people, some are exercising God’s gifts of teaching, who are working very hard to please God in this system. "By their fruits you shall know them," can be applied to Christian education. Where is the educational system that wins its own students out of the world by bringing them to born again experiences? Do not they all have to go to the churches to find their students? Is it not common for people who are fervent

and fruitful to go to the Bible School and Seminary and then upon their graduation, we find that they are not fervent nor fruitful? This is a very grave accusation against our whole system. The system of education of Jesus produced and produces fruits in interaction with the world. Something that it is difficult to say in general about our so called Christian higher educational systems patterned after Plato. What are some of the things that are wrong with our system of education? It is a little hard to analyze until we first of all admit that there are no precedents for Bible Schools and Seminaries in the Bible. Fat Hearts and Heavy Ears Our century is marked by this last day sign. As it is prophesied that there will be a great falling away at the end time let us be warned that we can very easily become part of this last day apostasy or more than likely are already a part of it. The eleventh chapter of Romans speaks of the condition of the unbelief of Hebrew hearts by which they were cut off from the vine and that at the end of time the same would happen to the Gentiles. They believed many things, and were convinced that they were the chosen of God in the earth, but were really filled with unbelief and cut off. I have proposed that this is true of evangelicals today. Where do we hear the mention of this sign, the cutting off of the gentiles, from those who preach on prophecies. A wrong definition I was amazed after more than 40 years to discover that the definition given for grace as an undeserved favor is not Biblical. It has been slipped in from the doctrine of fatalism of the pagan Greek Philosophers many centuries ago. In 1570 AD Jerome Zanchius in Strousburg begins his theology with the attributes of God to write the "Doctrine of the Predestination Expressed and Asserted" by which he changed the doctrine of Calvin of the predestination not so much in its understanding as in its tone, employing the definition of God instead of the work of Grace as the main point of salvation. This doctrine is supposedly proven by use of the text mentioned in Romans 11 where it is said that God had reserved 7 thousand from doubling the knee to Baal. This interpretation makes God guilty of not preserving the rest of the

world. (Wasn’t it that 7,000 chose to walk with God and he kept them as they abided in him in this atmosphere of great wickedness?) Grace plus nothing is legalism From these foundations we have the doctrine of Grace plus nothing. This doctrine of Grace plus nothing is really a subtle legalism that says that we are saved because God made a legal decision at the foundation of the world and we are saved by what he legally decided. One says we are saved by our legal act, the other says we are saved by God’s legal act. We have moved the legalism from man to God but it is nevertheless legalism. With this definition we are eliminating the intimate communion that is in the "abiding" from the understanding of salvation which is the only true Christian life. Leaving out the covenant concept of abiding leaves a false doctrine. Is being saved by election and saved by grace the same thing? Has it not been taught as such? Election and salvation is finally decided according to our conduct in our lifetime. The blotting out of the names from the book of life is done according to the misconduct of the person if our heavenly father finds that in practice they did not live as foreseen by him. Election and salvation cannot be synonymous. Why Fat hearts and dull ears? Multitudes have been convinced to walk to the front of a church and accept the work of God in them, then been baptized and have considered themselves to be permanently and irrevocably saved, a special people just as the Hebrews in Paul’s day thought of themselves the chosen in all of the earth but with fat hearts and dull ears. For they have not left off following the world in their hearts and in practice. The live without reproach still walking in the current of this world instead of against it. They are saved positionally after the pattern of the Greek pagan idea of the divided man; in their spirit they are seated with God; in their bodies they sin in word, thought and deed, and contend that God cannot see it for they have been pardoned by the blood of Jesus by a legal act of God for all eternity. They have a power that comes from men’s education, men’s organization, men’s fellowship. They know nothing of the power of the Holy Spirit to save and keep from all sin, to have an intimate walk with the Jesus moment by moment. If they once have had such an experience it has been thought of as a highlight. They walk comparing themselves among themselves, (we give each other Doctors degrees) and we feel that we have everything, you see our hearts are fat so our ears cannot hear.

The concept of Grace plus nothing notwithstanding the constant and many times justified attack on legalism is at the heart of the matter legalism. They believe that we are saved because God decreed it in a legal act from all eternity and we tend to be hardened in our hearts to all preaching founded on a true spirituality of abiding and obeying the Lord at all times in a constant communion with Him. Fortunately men believe this doctine with their heads but in practice live as true God fearing pilgrims seeking God’s direction. Fortunately many true Christians who are abiding in Jesus are found among the ranks of this false doctrine, abiding and serving God with all of their hearts. Having a different intellectual doctrine, but in practice are being constantly led by the Holy Spirit. Since no effort has been to clarify the difference between temptation and sin they go along with the congregation. There are tares and wheat growing together. The goodness and severity of God We live in the last day condition of being fat, with ears dull of hearing, as in the days of Jesus and Isaiah. For example I have heard it said of the wooing of the Holy Spirit calling men to leave their rebellion against God, "I’m not going to leave anyone lay a guilt trip on me." The church today in great part is in the same unbelief that the Jews were in, in Romans 11 and its prophesy is being fulfilled that the blessing will be lost by the unbelief of the gentiles and passed back to the Jews in last days. The true doctrine of the Bible The true doctrine of the Bible is very different. The Bible states that he who walks in the light of Jesus Christ purifieth himself. "Whosoever abides in him sinneth not… Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him; and he cannot sin, because he is born of God. In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil…" I ask that you dear reader not be lost as was the multitude of the Jews in the days of Paul. Is your heart so fat and your ears so dull that you cannot contemplate the plain words of the Bible in I John 3. The illustration as given by Paul is in Ephesians 5. He mixes the giving of the married lovers one to another as being of God and of the even greater experience of giving with all grace on our part to God and he giving to us, with all grace all things. This intimate fellowship or abiding is the true definition of grace in the Bible.

For instance when the young lady sees a young man that she likes she begins to treat him graciously, pleasing him in everything. The young man overcomes his fear of rejection and responds, also treating the young lady graciously. The relation deepens, there comes a time when they decried that they want to graciously dedicate themselves to one another for all of their lives and they feeling the state of mutual grace in which they are related, get married until death do them part. The true definition of Grace The true doctrine of Grace is not just grace on the part of God, he woos first, the whole Bible speaks of fellowship with our God and Creator. Christ left us the cup of the new testament, new covenant, new contract, new pact. How is this fellowship established? It is our repentance where we graciously pray "not my will but thine be done in me now and forever" and God’s grace is through the reconciliation of the cross joined to ours, the new relationship begins and will last for all eternity. Working together, ever lovingly giving to God, in which all of our activities are at the core, a worship of God. Notice the indispensable requirement of repentance as was introduced the preaching of our Saviour in Matthew 4:17. We give freely all of ourselves, and with all graciousness give all of our hearts to God forever. God can and does always respond on the grounds of the sacrifice of our dear Saviour and graciously gives us all things. The true definition of true grace is this -- freely, graciously, giving of our hearts to Him and he freely, graciously, giving all things to us in Jesus. It is this abiding all of our days that is called the grace of God. "By grace are we saved." We are saved by this constant loving relationship with God. He asks whosoever who wills to repent, come and give his all graciously to God. God will respond giving his fellowship. There is also fellowship with all who likewise live in this fellowship with God. Grace "an unmerited favor"? Using the definition of Grace as "an unmerited favor" has placed us outside of the abiding that would make us a true Christian. We suppose ourselves to be Christians but have never been part of the vine and never known the flow of the living water of the Holy Spirit into our hearts. We are merely living as philosophically religious, having always reserved part of our lives to ourselves in resistance to God, never fully coming to true repentance and true conversion. The Holy Spirit is given to those whom obey God. Acts 6:32. My body sins but my spirit is holy?

To think that one can have a hope for heaven because he thinks he is positionally righteous based on a theological doctrine, but live in rebellion to God his Creator on some point; is to be another of the religious people lost under the pagan Greek concept of the body being evil and ones spirit being good. The Christian concept is that the body is the temple in which the soul lives and the fruits of the soul produce the works of the body. You can tell that our definition of Grace as an unmerited favor is mistaken by the Luke 2:40 "And the child grew, and waxed strong in Spirit, filled with wisdom; and the grace of God was upon him." Jesus had the unmerited favor of God upon him? No, grace was merited and with one text we see our definition has been wrong. In Heb. 12: 15 men fall into a root of bitterness because they fail of the grace of God. They fail of the unmerited favor? This definition just doesn’t work. We must seek God about how many more of our foundations of education are equally misleading?

Chapter 18 By the Power of God or Men The Mount of Temptation -- The dramatic difference in the presentation of the gospel. --By the systems of this world or the system of God. The Christian world has been in great part ruined by the conflicting worship of Jehovah alongside the Greek god of Destiny. The salt has lost its savour. This is illustrated by the opposition of churches and denominations, to the use the preaching of the truths of the word of God, as a means to bring men to repentance. They feel, that this type of preaching is hurting their efforts. In many parts they are operating on a different system using the concepts of men instead of the methods of the apostles. They are working very hard by their system to create bonds of friendship with people in their community that hopefully will result in being able to bring in new friends to the congregation. This is the standard procedure used to bring about the growth of their church. In many communities the pastor works hard to be part of community life, and tries to make it be the accepted and popular thing to come to church, walk the aisle and accept Christ and be baptized. Bringing the people to be part of the

fellowship and eventually the new people will respond with a pledge card, contributing to the growing annual budget. This budget is skilfully invested to promote the popularity of the church. More and more influential people are added. This pastor becomes known for his many baptisms. The effort is made in many churches to somehow get a large enough budget that will allow a church to be able to offer a salary that would be attractive enough to influence one of these talented pastors to serve them. with the right minister they can become the most notable and popular church in their area. This present day concept operates on the accepted idea that the people who are the elect of God from all eternity will come forward and accept Christ if we can just get them to hear the preaching and the invitation. Upon making this decision for Christ they have become participants in their unshakeable destiny to be part of the people of God forever. We are told their unconsecrated walk afterwards is only a lack of maturity and that they are growing towards the true maturity. That they hold grudges, get intoxicated now and then, fall into fornication, get divorced and remarried, that they curse and blaspheme Jesus Christ when they are very provoked, and lie when they are under pressure and maybe even out of habit. all of this is considered immaturity. There is an accepted idea that receiving a religious feeling when in the congregation, as the hymns are sung and illustrations are made by the preacher in his sermons, is proof that they are true Christians part of God’s elect. They are taught the use of the Bible and some are even active in visitation, and are convinced that their fellowship is the truest, and most blessed of God found in their community. Some congregations generate these religious feeling as they make a point of worshiping God by uplifting their hands. Exhortations are made to just lay aside everything, put everything out of their minds, to fix their minds on God and his greatness, in so doing they bring an emotional experience over the people. Who can object to worshiping God? But if one is fornicating, or is stealing, or resisting God’s will in their lives, refusing to consecrate themselves totally to Him, and by this understands that he really is not in too bad a condition because he can feel deeply when they have the worship service? Is not this a false worship? How easy it would be to clarify this in each worship service by saying. "Brothers your worship of God must be based on your total consecration to whatever God might require of you. Your worship is a foul savour instead of a sweet savour if you put your disobedience out of your mind and just worship with your lips and your raised hands and not from your heart."

To fail to make this clarification makes one suspect that this is a congregation that has no fear of God and is apostate, dedicated to just soothing the people gently in their disobedience, mistakenly trusting in the theories of the Poison Root until they are surprised by death and fall into hell forever. Such is the subtility of Satan. There are many problems that come about because the people are not truly converted. These pressures have been channeled through what is called Christian counseling, using many rules and concepts from psychology to try to overcome the frictions. The correct Bible view is to believe that Jesus leads and solves all of our problems in our walk with him. Psychiatry and psychology are used to try to give relief to those who want to go on with out obeying God. When the servant of God making an intelligent effort to preach the word of God to remedy the situation, he is considered to be unwise, even a troublemaker. But isn’t this the task of every true minister who loves the souls and wants to avoid their eternal condemnation at all cost? The word of God must be used as a measure, as a medicine, as a sword, that men may see their danger and flee to the safe ground of full surrender to our Creator. For instance Evangelist Charles G. Finney taught in his Revival Lectures. that the only way anyone can be comfortable outside of being fully surrendered to God, is that he believes some lie to be the truth. A man who really loves the souls of the people will seek the counsel of God as to what these comforting lies are. He will apply the light of the word of God to them. When this is properly done it will bring about a revival. He goes farther to say that the matter should be pursued just as a man hunts rabbits. Finding under which brush pile the disobedient are comfortable he carefully eliminates the limb of lies one by one until the rabbit begins to run. At that time he seeks God’s wisdom as to where they will run to seek cover and anticipates and destroys this refuge by illuminating it also with the Word of God. He says that the gospel must be preached in such a way that the hearer must do one of three things: accept his condemnation, turn his whole life in consecration over to God, or go crazy. This practical and sane manner to proceed is based on confidence in the Word of God. Confidence that all who come in true repentance to him will receive the joy of forgiveness and the consoling presence of the Holy Spirit. He will enable them to always come for themselves without intermediaries directly to the throne of Grace with all of their problems.

What happens in the spiritual atmosphere in most places today? If the Word of God is used in this manner, it immediately comes under censure and criticism from the great part of what is called evangelical circles. The preaching of the Word of God to bring men to "godly sorrow" to work repentance in them is considered to be fanaticism. They explain that "One can draw more flies with honey than with vinegar." They contend that it is a total lack of wisdom to preach in such a way that the whole congregation or better still the whole community gets stirred up. For when the world is feeling the pressure of the Word of God they are prone to throw back the reproach of Christ upon the church. This result is in total conflict with expansion efforts of the church used in most places today. The choice must be made by each congregation either to seek a consecration to suffer the reproach of Christ, or to seek to be an outstanding congregation before the world. Is the choice between these methods optional? By this we notice that the apostasy is truly great in these last days. As men have held the doctrine of the poison root they have taught that discipleship is optional. Jesus said that the time will come when we will be hated of all men for his sake. Who will remain faithful as this time arrives? Who will stand out of these great churches? Will they not all be swept away? They are built on the sand of intellectual belief in a supposed historic fact, not on the rock of personally following Jesus. It’s as if Peter would have been saved if he had heard the call of Jesus to come and follow him and would have responded, "I believe that you are the Son of God but I choose to not to leave here, just believing is enough," and then returned to his fishing. If several hundred others had joined him and said the same thing they could have started a fellowship of those who believe that Jesus was the Son of God and there you would have had the situation of many congregations today. In John 12:42 "…among the chief rulers also many believed on him; but because of the Pharisees they did not confess him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue: For they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God." Is not this the position of thode who believe but refuse to become disciples? This subtle call to give only mental or verbal ascent to the Lordship of Jesus but to trust in their fate or destiny of God from the foundation of the world, rejecting the working of repentance brought about by the preaching of the word of God, proves that the pagan false god of destiny is being worshiped though they are saying "Lord, Lord". This refusal will bring about the eternal

destruction of all who are taken in by this subtlety. Truly the last day apostasy is great. Can we peer through the distance of 19 centuries and look at the church today in the light of the apostles. In place of repentance there has been subtily substituted a faith in the Greek god of destiny. Through the subtilty of Satan the well organized machinery and the huge buildings all built to the Greek God. Even the arqetecture is copied from the Mars Hill. All is done in the name of the humble Jesus of Nazareth but the favor with men has complete priority over the obedience to Jesus. Simple direct commands of Jesus are overlooked: such as, The Servant is not greater than his Lord, Call no man father; be ye Holy; be ye perfect as my Father in heaven is perfect; Blessed are the poor in Spirit; Blessed are you when men shall persecute you falsely; Swear not at all; Lay up treasures for yourself in heaven; Take no thought for your life; Seek ye first the kingdom of God. Worse than the Absolutions of Luther’s Day In a hope built on the fatalism of the god of destiny, the church community cheerfully breaks the commandments of Jesus on every side and they live as they please, reassured by the minister in almost every message that they are once saved and always saved. That they have all sins past present and future under the blood of Jesus. The absolutions which Luther objected to (in which they bought the absolution to steal or fornicate before hand and then commited these sins with impunity,) have their modern counterpart in the preaching that all sins past, present and future are pardoned when we become elect. This falsehood has been spread until much of what is called Christian today is much worse off than were the people in the dark ages in the early days of Luther. They were told that as soon as the money was paid they had the absolution to commit adultery. Today it is preached that there is nothing to do but lament the sins, for God knew we were going to commit them from eternity and chose us anyway. "I’m not going to let anyone put a guilt trip on me." is a common phrase and they, as the Jews in Jesus day are sure that they are superior to everyone else and their use of this phrase shows that they do resist the Holy Ghost just as in the days of Jesus, for His task is to convince of sin. They call resisting this call of the Holy Spirit to lead a holy or separated life a "guilt trip" and think that ignoring his prodding as the highest spirituality. The apostasy of the last day has almost entirely smothered out the true gospel. An Acid Test For Apostasy

When God gave Eve the warning against eating of the tree of good and evil for she would surely die; the archdeceiver softened the message and made it amicable. Today we have the acid test for apostasy. "Is the message to please men or to please God?" The message of every true follower of Jesus is a conflictive message. It is the "salt" of the moral climate. Jesus makes it clear, "the disciple is not above his master, nor the servant above his lord." We are to beware of men "for they will deliver you up to the councils and they will scourge you." "Brother will deliver up brother to death." These and many more admonitions are given about the gospel being conflictive for the unconverted hearers. If He Would Have Used Wisdom Today we have a strange sort of wisdom that is always spoken of. If the preacher of the gospel stirs up any conflict it is immediately charged; "If he would have used wisdom in his preaching this would not have happened." It is supposed that there is a wisdom or skill that will allow us to preach the gospel without causing conflict. The idea is that we are to bring men in the world to Christ without arousing any sense of opposition. Are we to outwit Satan and take men out of his hands without his becoming aware of what is happening? We are to apply this skill or this so called wisdom on a friendly basis with everyone, so that they will esteem our church and our friendship so much that they will get to know us and walk the aisle for Jesus without ever causing any conflict. When there is a conflict because of the preaching of the Word of God, it is felt that the proper skill was not used, that the truth was not smothered in sufficient love, we lacked love in our presentation, or our timing was too abrupt or we lacked longsuffering, or we were not sufficiently joyful in our spirit, or with our message we broke the peaceful ties that had been worked to breing about with the men we are in contact with in our community, or we were not gentle enough, we did not have the faith to wait on the Lord to save them, or we were too bold and were not practicing meekness, or we were too fanatical and lacked temperance. In this manner a strange unbiblical supposed fruit of the Spirit is used to lift up this skill of using this so called wisdom in the preaching of the gospel. Men have supposedly learned how to work around the obstacles that Jesus and the apostles faced. With tongue in cheek we could say that if John the Baptist had only known this gospel he would not have been beheaded. Or Jesus could have used this modern gospel and avoided the conflict and escaped the cross. A new and better presentation has been given to the gospel. But those who suppose this are not outwitting Lucifer, they are being outwitted by Satan.

The main obstacle to the acceptance of the Jewish nation of the Messiah was that he did not throw out the power of the Roman conquerors, indeed overthrow Rome itself and govern all of the world from Jerusalem. If Jesus had done this he would have had no opposition to being proclaimed the Messiah by the Jews. Their opposition came from his insistence that to follow Him one had to suffer reproach and persecution. The God of this world was in unalterable opposition to him. Paul gives his command in Rom. 12:2. "Be not conformed to this world." As I look back over 50 years, a guiding sign of deception in the false men who have fallen into bad testimony and discredited the Lord, was that they drew many followers because they were going to take the world for Jesus. They attracted many to the task from many congregations who were going to make the Kingdom come before the King comes back. The truth of the Bible is that this is impossible. Until Jesus comes mounted on the white horse in Rev. 19 the world will be against the message of repentance. The men who gather multitudes under the pretense of bringing in the Kingdom with out the return of the King are pleasing men instead of God. Invariable their message is accomodated by leaving out the use of some of the Word of God and by thus doing the world doesn’t hate them. The true servant of God will live all of his life in conflict and reproach as he applies the Word of God to bring men to repentance. I understand that many of these things mentioned here are new light to our generation. However, our careful meditation with the scriptures and in habitual investigation in the Holy Spirit will bring us to rectification or leave us in eternal condemnation. It will make us confront the service of God or that we are serving men more than God. The Bible speaks about the terrible words. Depart from me! from which there is no remedy, we chose to break our pact with God or better proved that our pact was never profound and forever we are lost. Many men will prefer to remain Philosopher-kings and part of their elite circles as to take the lowly ways of Jesus. May God help us. The gospel of Jesus did not come to bring peace but conflict that will illustrate and divide the goats from the sheep. The use of of message of this book is to be prayerfully used in the situation of every one who receives this light. Some who have never been converted will reject the message and reproach us as their enemies. Others will repent and find the joy and fellowship of His suffering. Forty years ago I first read the Systematic Theology of Charles G. Finney. Slowly through the years it gave me perceptions that were used by the Holy Spirit to see the discrepancies that brought me to the study that resulted in this book. I realize that perhaps many more years will pass before these things will

have an acceptance. Perhaps other young men just as I will be enlightened with some truths and then near the end of their lives many years from now they then will be able to pursue in greater detail the illumination of the subtleties of the mystery of iniquity. Having recieved the knowledge of these things, it has fallen my mission to publicize the word abroad. The use of these truths can only have a usefull result as the hearer is guided in his testimony and actions by the Holy Spirit to put them into effect for the salvation of those he touches. He that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not to him it is sin. The End.

Abbagnano, Nocolás --History of Philosophy, Toma 1 Aquinas, Thomas --God and His Creatures Augustine, Aurelio --Confessions Augustine, Aurelio --The City of God Bowman, Thorlief --Hebrew Thought Compared with Greek Calvin, John --Institutes of the Christian Religion Chevalier, Jacques --Historia del Pensamientos Christian, James L. --An Introduction to the art of wondering D’Arnott, Peter --An Indroduction to the Greek World

Diez García y Quintanilla Ponce -- Curso de Historia de la Filosofía Dynnik, --Historia de la Filosofía Editorial Planeta, S. A. Gran Enciclopedia Larousse Edwards, Jonathan --Philosophy of Jonathan Edwards Enciclopedia Universal Europeo Americano Toma XIX Encyclopedia Britanica Finley, M. I. --The Ancient Greek Finney, Charles G. --Finney’s lectures on Systematic Theology Fuller, Buckminster --Utopia or Oblivion Gardner, John B. Green Jasper, Murry, Oswyn --The Oxford History of the Classical World Graves, Robert --Los dos nacimientos de Dionisio Hadas, Moses --Hellenistic Culture, fusion and Diffusion Hefly, James --Heroes of the Faith Heim, Roger and Wasson, R. G. --Les Champignones Hallucinogènes de Mexique" Jones, W.T. --A History of Western Philosophy Jowett, B. --The Diologues of Plato Kennan, Sister Mary Emily --The Life and Times of St. Augustine as revealed in His Letters Long, A. A. --Hellenistic Philosophy and the Classsical Tradition Martínez, Justo --History of Christian Thought Meager, Robert E. --An Introduction to Augustine

Messinesi, Xenopon Leon --Meet the Ancient Greeks Parkinson, G.H. R. General Editor --An Encyclpaedia of Philosophy Pember, G. H. --Mystery Babylon the Great Robinson and Beard. --History of Europe Sainz de Robles, Federico Carlos -- Ensayo de un Diccionario Mitológico Universal Shapiro, Herman --Medieval Philosophy Swindall, Chuck .--Grace Awakening Swindall, Chuck --Grace Awakening Wallbank, T. W. , Taylor Alastair M. --Civilization past and Present Zanchius, Jerome --Absolute Predestination

Chapter 1 How Christians have been misled into breaking the first commandment Pg. 1 Chapter 2 The Serpent beguiled through subtlety and corrupted the simplicity of Christ Pg.9 Chapter 3 Was the death of Socrates Martyrdom or Suicide? Pg 18 Chapter 4 Men making themselves feel superior Pg. 20 Chapter 5

Plato’s works and his final disillusion Pg. 22 Chapter 6 Aristotle, Obscure Occult Metaphysics Pg. 33 Chapter 7 The foundation of Greek Philosophy is a Most Cruel Slavery Pg. 38 Chapter 8 Plato and Aristotle were Wicked Men Pg. 40 Chapter 9 A Roll Call of the Heroes of Unbelief Pg. 54 Chapter 10 How Augustine baptized Plato Pg. 60 Chapter 12 Thomas Aquinas Adds Another God Pg. 73 Chapter 13 The Reformers Pg. 75 Chapter 14 The Wisdom of God Chapter 15 Counteracting the Intervention of Satan in History Pg. 79 Chapter 16 The Living Fountain, The Pure Root Pg. 82 Chapter 17

Abiding or Academy Pg. 107 Chapter 18 By the Power of God or Men Pg. 111

1 Finis J. Dake notes (on page 25 of his Bible) 14 proofs that there is no set time to die. • It was said to Abimelech: You are a dead man unless you give up this man’s wife. (Gen. 20:3-7) • Honor parents, that your days may be long on the earth (Ex. 20:12, Eph. 6:2) • Because of your sins you will quickly perish (Lev 26, Deut 28) • The wicked shall not live out half their days (Ps. 41:1-2) • Consider the poor, the Lord shall keep him alive (Ps. 41:1-2) • With long life will I satisfy him (providing he meets the conditions of Ps. 91:1-9) • Keep my word for length of days, and long life shall they add to you. (Pr. 3:1-2) • The years of the wicked shall be shortened (Pr 10:25) • He that hardeneth neck shall suddenly be destroyed (Pr. 29:1) • I will add to your days 15 years (Isa. 38:5) • I am deprived of the rest of my years (Isa. 38:10) • For this cause many are weak and sickly among you and many have died (I Cor 11:29-30) • He that will love life, and see good days, let him keep his mouth from evil (1 Pet. 3:10-11) • Many have been cut off in death because of sins. They could have lived longer if they had not committed them, and such judgment had not become necessary (Ex. 9:15, 12:15, 19, 30:33, 31:14, Lev. 7:20-27, 17:4-14, 18:29, 19:8, 20:3-18, Num. 9:13, 15:30-31, 19:13 ) 2 This term will need the chapters which follow to understand it’s import. 3 Luther as quoted in Absolute Predestination by Jerome Zanchius pag. 23 4 To be explained in the following chapters. 5 published by Routledge in 1988 Pg. 486

6 The definition will be unfolded in the future chapters.

1 page 81 2 published in Madrid by Aguilar on pages xxv--xxxvii: 3 Los dos nacimientos de Dionisio (The two births of Dionysus)page 83 4 On pg.107. 5 Volume XIX p.736 6 on page 101 7 pg.1001 8 pg 249 9 --Muller History of the Dorians vol 2, p. 405 10 (428 d) 11 Met. IV, 4 12 Met VII, 13 Cat. V. 2b 14 Phys, II, 5 15 Met., IV and Met., X 16 (Letter VII, 341 b-d) 17 Met. IV,3 18 Met. IV, 4 19 Met. XII, 8 20 (Inst. 1,18)

21 Book 7 Chap 20 22 pg. 12--17 23 Epit. 1.1 24 Epist. 6, 1 25 Epist. 118, 21 26 pg. 23 27 Book 22 Chapter 2 28 14 Bk. 18 29 Bk 26 30 This information is taken from The Medieval Mind. 31 These facts are taken from Gonzoles, Justo --History of Christian Thought 32 Rev. 3:5-6 Rev. 22:19 33 Met. VI,I 10267 a, 19. 34 Met. II, 2) 35 published by Maranatha Bible Society, P. O. Box 466, Litchfield, MI 49252. 36 De Serv. Arb. cap. 44 37 Harvest House Publishers, Eugene, Oregon 97402 on page 98 38 Absolute Predestination, page 43

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