Darwinists spin an explosion(don't try this at home)

 Evolutionists Spin the Cambrian Explosion — But Alas, All in Vain

David Coppedge

To understand a fossil bed, it’s important to know what came before and after it (or above and below it, to be more precise). The explosive burst of new body plans called the Cambrian Explosion is undisputed among paleontologists, even those who disagree with the ID understanding that Stephen Meyer argues for in Darwin’s Doubt and Return of the God Hypothesis Fossils before and after the explosion have come to light. Let’s see what kind of context they provide — and evaluate the evolutionary

 spin given in the reports.

Precambrian Sponge

A headline at Phys.org sounds promising: “Tiny sponge fossil upsets evolutionary model.” Below the headline, though, evolution appears to score points by stretching out the Cambrian Explosion into the Precambrian by tens of millions of years. Dribbling for this goal is David Bottjer, whom we saw promoting Vernanimalcula as a bilaterian ancestor before the explosion — a view later debunked by his colleagues (see Casey Luskin’s critique here, and Meyer’s discussion in Darwin’s Doubt, pp. 90-92). That fossil was 580 million years old; Bottjer’s tiny new sponge is dated 600 million. Here’s what he says about it:

       Though some evidence, including molecular clocks, has already pointed to sponges evolving earlier, this fossil shows that the Cambrian explosion might not be a period when a large number of new traits emerged, but a period when a large number of fossils could be preserved, as animals during the Cambrian grew larger and gained skeletons.

“This specimen is of an animal that had already evolved a number of fundamental sponge traits,” Bottjer said. “It implies that by the time this animal was living, most of the developmental genes for sponges had evolved.”

This raises the possibility that some aspects of early animals’ evolution, a good deal of which happened during the Cambrian explosion, happened even more gradually.

With an international team of colleagues, Bottjer discovered that the millimeter-wide, 600-million-year-old fossil has characteristics that many thought emerged in sponges only 540 million years ago.

“Fundamental traits in sponges were not suddenly appearing in the Cambrian Period, which is when many think these traits were evolving, but many million years earlier,” Bottjer said…. 

“These organisms don’t have all the bells and whistles that modern creatures do,” Bottjer said. “But this particular fossil has enough complexity that we can say we hadn’t been dating the early evolution of animal traits properly.” [Q

So that’s the upset: the Cambrian wasn’t really an explosion after all. Bottjer’s team paper was published in PNAS. Let’s take a look at it.

                       

What the Paper Claims

The paper claims that the existence of this sponge at 600 million years ago supports the notion that sponges diverged from a eumetazoan ancestor much earlier, such that this sponge already had most of the “metazoan genetic toolkit” associated with complex animals very early on. Bottjer also continues to promote Vernanimalcula as a bilaterian ancestor, despite the naysayers:

                    Adult forms have been reported only rarely, which has increased the difficulty of interpreting the putative fossilized embryos. However, reported Doushantuo microfossils include small tubular cnidarians and a small bilaterian form, Vernanimalcula, of which multiple fossils have been recovered. Alternative interpretations have been proffered for virtually all of the Doushantuo microfossils. The present report, which describes an unmistakable adult animal form, will alter the structure of this debate, although the full force of the implications will not be realized until more than this single specimen becomes available.

   

What’s the Surprise Here?

It’s hard to see what the fuss is about, though, considering that Meyer acknowledges in his books that sponges existed in the Ediacaran period (635-540 mya). In fact, sponge embryos provided his evidence that the Precambrian strata were fully capable of preserving fossils of the Cambrian ancestors, had they existed. It’s clear that if sponge embryos are found, adults were present to spawn them, so what’s the surprise there? Moreover, Meyer demonstrated that the Ediacaran period had its own mini-explosion, a “pow” before “biology’s big bang” (p. 87). Bottjer’s sponge is a case in point; “It displays the unmistakable gross anatomy of an adult sponge-grade animal, but beyond this finding, several distinct cell types and cellular structures can be clearly recognized, as displayed in the figures accompanying this report.”

Sponges (phylum Porifera) are among the simplest of multicellular animals, hardly more complicated than other Ediacaran organisms. Bottjer’s tiny fossils look like little more than hollow tubes or cups. They are not bilaterians. The paper acknowledges that “sponges do not display tissue-grade anatomical characters or organs beyond a general gross, spongelike structure.”

From this unimpressive data, grand scenarios are drawn, ending with this promissory note:

Thus, just as implied by the current temporal extrapolations of phylogenomics, the “calibration point” afforded by this fossil suggests that the shared metazoan genetic toolkit must have originated in the Cryogenian. Furthermore, if a relatively advanced sponge existed 600 Ma, then so did coeval animals of the eumetazoan lineage that also descended from the same last common poriferan/eumetazoan ancestor. Thus, it is a clear prediction that fossilized organisms of eumetazoan affinity from similarly deep in time await paleontological discovery, and some such may already have been seen in the Doushantuo animal microfossils cited above.

i.e., Vernanimalcula. No other eumetazoans are mentioned. So Bottjer is not backing down from his claim, even after the stinging criticism by others that he is only seeing what he wants to see. Now he sees slow, gradual evolution in this sponge. Convincing? 

Ordovician Arthropods

More exciting are the discoveries from Morocco. Fossils of exceptional preservation in a remote region called the Fezouata formation, dated to the Ordovician period (485-443 Ma) that followed the Cambrian, have come to light. Live Science has photos of some of these beautiful fossils, including horseshoe crabs that look identical to modern ones.

What’s interesting is that many of the Burgess Shale-type animals are found here: trilobites, marrella-like arthropods, and anomalocaridids of enormous size (see an example here). A companion article on Live Science tells the story of their discovery by adventure and luck. 

So what context do these fossils provide about the Cambrian Explosion? Some diversification is evident, but mostly, it’s a story of stasis. Animals appeared abruptly in the Cambrian, then remained largely unchanged for tens of millions of years into the Ordovician. In the case of horseshoe crabs, that’s hundreds of millions of years on the evolutionary timeline. Not only do the fossils look thoroughly modern, they appear 20 million years earlier than thought (see this from the Geological Society of London). Live Science‘s photo caption says, “It shows a sub-adult that has fused segments at its rear, a characteristic that living horseshoe crabs still have today.”

Facts Versus Spin

Most of these articles mention the Cambrian Explosion, and spin the story to suggest the fossils are shedding light on evolution. “Spectacular Moroccan fossils redefine evolutionary timelines,” the Geological Society of London says. “As well as demonstrating the longevity of fauna thought to have been extinct millions of years previously, the Fezouata proves that other creatures evolved far earlier than previously thought.” 

Horseshoe crabs, for example, turn out to be at least 20 million years older than we thought. The formation demonstrates how important exceptionally preserved fossils are to our understanding of major evolutionary events in deep time’ says Peter Van Roy, also of Yale, who first recognised the scientific importance of the Fezouata fauna and is lead author of the study, part of a project funded by the National Science Foundation.

Live Science adds, “During the past few years, these newfound Fezouata fossils have rewritten evolutionary textbooks,” as if that is good. But what if the revision says, “Animals appeared suddenly without evidence of transitions, and stayed the same without evolving”? It would be like your accountant saying cheerfully, “Your IRA just lost 50 percent of its value; this will rewrite your retirement.”

Fossils are great; the more the better. Experience from other spectacular discoveries (e.g., Marble Canyon, Chengjiang) assures us that no surprises will change the situation — Charles Darwin’s own cause for doubt — once the spin is scrubbed off the data. New fossils tend to fall into the same bins. They don’t increase “our understanding of major evolutionary events in deep time”; instead, they add more data points to the same story: sudden appearance of complex body plans, followed by diversification and stasis. That’s not Darwinism; that’s design.

Shaking the foundation of Darwinism

 The Other Unsolved Problem of Evolution

Granville Sewell

It is generally accepted that the main problem with Darwin’s explanation for evolution is the existence of many apparently “irreducibly complex” features in living things, and especially in their cells. How could these features evolve gradually through apparently useless intermediate stages? In a 2020 Evolution News post I offered one spectacular example: the aquatic bladderworts, whose carnivorous traps have

trigger hairs attached to a valve-like door which normally keeps the trap tightly closed. The sides of the trap are compressed under tension, but when a small form of animal life touches one of the trigger hairs the valve opens, the bladder suddenly expands, and the animal is sucked into the trap.

Wolf-Ekkehard Lӧnnig and Heinz-Albert Becker, in their article on carnivorous plants that is quoted in the post, write that 

it appears to be hard even to imagine clearcut selective advantages for all the thousands of postulated intermediate steps in a gradual scenario…for the origin of the complex carnivorous plant structures examined above.

A More Fundamental Difficulty

How plants could gradually evolve water-tight traps with valve-like doors and trigger hairs is a very difficult problem. But a recent article of mine, “Human-Engineered Self-Replicating Machines,” focuses on a more fundamental problem: we really have no idea how living things are able to pass their current complex structures on to their descendants generation after generation, without significant degradation — much less how they evolve even more complex structures.

The new peer-reviewed article in the journal BioCosmos explains why human engineers are not close to building self-replicating machines and argues that “we are unlikely to be successful in explaining how the self-replicating machines we see everywhere in the living world could have arisen through entirely natural causes, when we still do not know how such machines could be designed.”

The Problem of Self-Replicating Machines

A few paragraphs from the new article:

With all our advanced technology, we are not close to producing human-engineered self-replicating machines. This is significant because it is widely believed that the first self-replicators on Earth must have arisen through chance chemical processes — it being impossible to appeal to natural selection of replication errors before anything could self-replicate. 

To better appreciate the enormous difficulties in designing such machines, and thus the difficulties in understanding how the first living things arose on Earth, let’s think about what would be required to build, say, a self-replicating “Model T” car.

We know how to build a simple Model T. Now let’s build a factory inside this car, so that it can produce Model T cars automatically, and call the new car, with the Model T factory inside, a “Model U.” A car with an entire automobile factory inside, which never requires any human intervention, is far beyond our current technology, but it doesn’t seem impossible that future generations might be able to build a Model U.

Of course, the Model U cars are not self-replicators, because they can only construct simple Model T’s. So let’s add more technology to this car so that it can build Model U’s, that is, Model T’s with car-building factories inside. This new “Model V” car, with a fully automated factory inside capable of producing Model U’s (which are themselves far beyond our current technology) would be unthinkably complex. But is this new Model V now a self-replicator? No, because it only builds the much simpler Model U. The Model V species will become extinct after two generations, because their children will be Model U’s, and their grandchildren will be infertile Model T’s. So back to work, and each time we add technology to this car, to move it closer to the goal of reproduction, we only move the goalposts, because now we have a more complicated car to reproduce. It seems that the new models would grow exponentially in complexity. And even if we were able to engineer self-replicating cars, it is hard to imagine that without any human maintenance these cars could keep reproducing themselves for more than a few generations before errors accumulate to the point that all replication halts.

And here we have ignored the very difficult question of where these cars get the raw materials they need to supply their factories. 

Some will object here that the first living things may have been much simpler than self-replicating cars. It is widely believed that you only need to explain how very simple self-replicators could have arisen though chance chemical processes, because then natural selection of the resulting duplication errors could take over and explain how self-replicators far more complex than cars could have arisen. But even if we could explain the appearance of simple self-replicators, imagining trying to design self-replicating cars may help us appreciate the enormity of the difficulties facing any scientific explanation (let alone one which relies on replication errors) for the unimaginably complex self-replicators that we see everywhere in the living world. 

Against nincsnevem X

 The tenth installment in my responses to Mr.nevem.

 "The fact that Jesus "only" wanted to "prove" that he is not "invisible spirit creature perhaps a demon" and "not such a conjuring", etc. only your vision into in the text,"

This unhinged rant is based on Mr.Nevem's attempted use of 

Luke ch.2:36-39NIV" they were talking about these things, Jesus himself stood among them, and said to them, “Peace to you!”irit 37But they were startled and frightened and thought they saw a spirit. 38And he said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? 39See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have."

To prove that the resurrected Jesus was human and not superhuman.i

  I simply pointed out that if this spirit was visible then what is being refer to is not a spirit being as these tend to be unseen. The account further shows they were afraid of the sight, so obviously they thought they were seeing an apparition of some sort perhaps conjured by a demon which would explain the apprehension

 We know that spirit beings can take on fleshly bodies indistinguishable from humans see Luke ch.24:4-6. so Jesus' demonstrating that he was not an apparition would prove nothing about whether he had become a spirit being or not

  In support of the claim that Jesus was made a spirit being with corresponding spirit body upon his resurrection

1Corinthians ch.15:45KJV"And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit."

1Corinthians ch.15:47,48KJV"The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven. 48As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy: and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly. 

The first Adam is made of dust the second Adam(since his resurrection) is not made of dust i.e no longer human but super human

2Corinthians ch.5:1KJV"For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens."

 Let us take careful note of the sequence of events there is no remodeling of the earthly house it is DISSOLVED and replaced by a heavenly house not of human origin.

Galatians ch.1:1NIV"Paul, an apostle—sent not from men nor by a man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead—"

suggesting that Paul did not consider the risen Christ to be human but superhuman.

Against Nincsnevem IX

 The ninth installment of my responses to mr.nevem

"The "spiritual body" ("sōma pneumatikos", 1 Cor 15:44) is not the opposite of the real human body, but is contrasted with the corruptible, mortal, sinful human body, as we have seen, Jesus' "spiritual body"had flesh and bones Luke 24:39

Jesus mortal body had no sin so the contrast could have nothing to do with sin if his body had sin it could not serve as a sin offering the contrast is not between what is sinful and what is sinless but what is mortal and what is immortal 

Luke ch.24:36-39NIV"While they were still talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.”

37They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost. 38He said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds? 39Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have

 Spirit creatures are invisible so spirit is being used here in the sense of a phantasm that such an invisible spirit creature perhaps a demon might conjure, thus Jesus allowed them to touch his incarnated superhuman form to prove that he was not such a conjuring. So this passage in no way proves your contention the fact that Jesus could not take his sinless flesh and blood into heaven proves that sin is not the issue only the superhuman can enter spirit realm.

There are also legal considerations all sin offerings must be completely consumed for instance whatever was left of the Passover had to be burned 

Exodus ch.12:9:10NIV"Do not eat the meat raw or boiled in water, but roast it over a fire—with the head, legs and internal organs. 10Do not leave any of it till morning; if some is left till morning, you must burn it. "

Thus to conform to this pattern Jesus cannot legally retrieve his human body as that would cancel the atonement.

The wages of sin is eternal death not temporary disembodiment for his atonement to have truly substitutionary value the loss of his human perfection to death must be permanent

One more thing you are not scoring any points with me with your half-truths and distortions against the brothers. You see contrary to your lies I am fully aware of our past I am also aware of the bloodstained and corrupted past and present of your church  and not for all the money in the world would I exchange pasts with that cabal of murdering thugs called the Catholic church.

Revelation ch.18:24KJV"And in her was found the blood of prophets, and of saints, and of all that were slain upon the earth.

Against NincsNevem VIII

 The eight in my responses to Mr.nevem

Nincsnevem:"JEHOVAH Cannot foreknow a thing if it is not foredetermined."

This is a very poor "solution" for the problem of how free will and divine predestination relate to each other. The way WTS theology handles this issue, and the end result they got out of it (a God who is not inherently omniscient, therefore existing in the flow of time) clearly shows how absurd the biblicist approach is.

AservantofJEHOVAH: The CONCLUSION that infallible foreknowledge is only possible where there is an unalterable predetermination combined with a knowledge of this predetermination is not a Solution to any problem. It is a logical deduction we live in a cause and effect reality thus every effect must have a preceding and effective cause JEHOVAH is the first Cause(and in an important sense the only one that matters). But there are no effects without preceding causes.

 If  the eternal future is unalterably predetermined then logically there is a causal chain

 Responsible and if JEHOVAH is the first cause then the buck stops

With him.

Nincsnevem:But okay, let's say that inherent omniscience implies that there is no free will (as Calvinism - according to many - follows). Well, then there is no free will, because the believer does not absolutize the truths concerning man against those concerning God, but vice versa.

Don't like the end result? Chapter 9 of the Epistle to the Romans is the answer for you.

The bible declares that JEHOVAH is the epitomy of Justice if this word is to be more than an academic matter it certainly ought to mean that he deals with is intelligent creation in a fair minded way i.e the opposite of asking us to accomplish what he fully knows is impossible and then charging his failure to render us capable of compliance to us as wrongdoing on our part 

And then not content with this punish us with eternal suffering for what is plainly his fault.

Some wonder why there are so many atheist, I marvel that there are so few with the mainline churches promoting this nonsense as divine revelation

Daniel ch.4:37NIV"Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and exalt and glorify the King of heaven, because everything he does is right and all his ways are just. And those who walk in pride he is able to humble."

Nincsnevem:In church history, the following solutions were basically created:

1. Pelagianism

2. Semipelagianism

3. Molinism

4. Thomism

5. Calvinism

I have given the order not in the order of the development of the given theology, but in the extent to which human free will is absolutized at the expense of divine order. In this regard, WTS is Pelagian.

AservantofJEHOVAH:Mr.nevem speaks as if liberty is some kind of human invention and not the creation of a truly omnipotent God who is free to communicate his own genuine liberty to his offspring it is an inability to produce such a genuine liberty

Which would be a necessary(though not sufficient ground,) for any true morality that injures the divine majesty.

 Any affection mechanistically predetermined from eternity is affection in name only, as would be any other "virtue" so predetermined be a mockery of said virtue. If JEHOVAH Cannot the deliver the liberty that makes true virtue possible then a huge question mark is put over his deity

Fortunately for all concerned the JEHOVAH of scripture is incomparably superior to the "jehovah" of Christendom.

And has promised to deliver GENUINE liberty in abundance to all the faithful

Romans ch.8:21NIV"For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. 20For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21that h the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God."

Nincsnevem :Does God's foreknowledge influence our free actions? In theory, we must answer no, otherwise we cannot talk about free will. However, how this foresight is compatible with freedom is answered by different theories – as we have seen – the Thomists and Molinists have different views. Before the Thomist-Molinist debate, answers were usually given that viewed divine knowledge separately from divine will.

They said that if we contemplate God's foreknowledge in itself, it cannot influence people's actions. Jerome writes, "Something will not happen in the future because God knows it will happen in advance; but God knows it in advance because it will happen" 

AservantofJEHOVAH :missing the point as usual ,if it is accurately foreknown from eternity then it was unalterably predetermined from eternity ,the causal chain starts with JEHOVAH exclusively so the buck stops with him for every eternally predetermined outcome.

                Isaiah ch.46:10NIV"I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say, ‘My PURPOSE will stand, and I will DO all that I please.’"ose

So JEHOVAH is not a mere passive of observer of a future that has determined itself he is the architect and builder of the future. He goes about this project with the liberty of his intelligent creation in mind.

Nincsnevem:(Dial adv Pel 3 6). Similar statements are made by Origen, Eusebius, Epiphanius, Chrysostom, Augustine, etc.). Modern analogy: I look at my watch and find that a train will arrive at the railway station in half an hour; it does not arrive because I know it, but I know it because it will arrive. Augustine says that just as our reminiscences do not alter or influence past events, so God's foreknowledge does not influence future events (Lib arb III 4 4; cf. Civ V 10).

No thought ,just mindless parroting of dead men. I'm sorry but it's difficult to take anyone who thinks JEHOVAH'S foreknowledge is comparable to man's seriously .JEHOVAH is the first cause ,ALL of the information and energy in the universe came out of him he has established by his omnipotence what is determined and what is undetermined. He can create genuine liberty because he is invincible ,no creature can interfere in his purpose regardless of the choices they make or don't make hence he is utterly fearless.

It seems like the source much of the ideology undergirding predestination is a desire to project human type insecurity and presumption of scarcity on JEHOVAH. JEHOVAH Possesses absolute logistical supremacy . He has the ultimate high ground unlimited firepower and an unblinking all-seeing eye on the entirety of the theatre he has no need to plan. He does not need certainty as to the future decision(s)

 of any creature to be guaranteed of absolute success. Thus He has no apprehension about conferring Genuine liberty upon his intelligent creation.

Nincsnevem: However, this solution holds only as long as we are solely considering divine knowledge, disregarding divine will. In reality, God does not merely observe future things; they do not have an existence independent of His will that would determine divine understanding.

God does not weigh our actions after the fact, their motives, and the responsibility for them. He foresaw all this, and everything happened as he saw. In His knowledge, things and actions appear with their full causality, hierarchy of values, and interaction.

AservantofJEHOVAH: the "it's God's will" argument invariably makes things worse because it means that without violating any objective standard He could have willed otherwise and arbitrarily chose to will the eternal suffering for the vast majority of humanity and a sizable plurality of his angelic hosts. Truly a doctrine of devils. See 1Timothy4:1 surely it would have been better to create no intelligent being at all

        Job ch.3:11NIV"“Why did I not perish at birth,

and die as I came from the womb?"

Nincsnevem: why God's foreknowledge does not influence us? The full answer depends on answering another question: in what does God foresee our free acts of will? There are three  answers to the latter question: either the Thomists', the Molinists', or the one that it is an unfathomable mystery for us.

aservantofJEHOVAH : Talk about a round about way of saying I don't know. One more time JEHOVAH is the first cause free moral agency is not some human contrivance it is a divine gift if the gift is phony which would be the case if eternal determinism is true then the giver is to blame not receiver

Nincsnevem:"either so if evil is eternally predetermined then logically JEHOVAH Alone is to blame."

This is also a very poor solution to the theodicy problem. With this much power, God is to blame because he kept the murderer alive, even though if he hadn't kept him alive, he would have fallen back into the primordial chaos.

AservantofJEHOVAH: or God could have chosen to not create the killer at all having known from eternity that he had no choice but to kill because murder is a value term that only applies to those with genuine free moral agency we don't speak of random falling objects objects as murdering those they may fatally strike.

So if determinism is true there is no crime only divinely predetermined misfortune. 

The fall of eastern Rome

 

Against Nincsnevem. VII

 "This is really easy to answer: according to his human nature, Jesus is a Messianic King, according to his human nature he is the heir to David's throne, and of course Jesus' humanity is not God, not YHWH. Jesus' human and divine natures are distinct but inseparable.,"

Here is the thing Mr.nevem the verse makes no mention of a nature but of a person so if this person( not nature) is equal to his Father is not the most high or he is his own Father stop putting words in the prophet's mouth 

Also there is a small matter of the Holy Spirit who is not the Father of Jesus according to the Nicene creed and not incarnated if he is equal to the Father then obviously the Father of Jesus is not the most high.

So your fudge fails the person (not the nature) of the Father is greater than the person of the Son and if the spirit is a person greater than the person of the spirit.

Luke ch.1:32NIV"He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, "

A similar problem exists with Matthew ch.24:36

Matthew ch.24:36KJV"But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my FATHER ONLY. "

Why would the unincarnated Spirit not know the day or hour

And if you could just put the smug away for a minute(because it is clearly impeding your judgment) you will see that the question was mainly about the identity of the most high because, by definition the most high can have no equals so who is this unequalled Father of Jesus.

So it really doesn't matter whether the human Jesus was less than his father if there is a divine Jesus that is equal to his Father his Father is not the MOST HIGH as per the dictionary definition of that term

Against nincsnevem VI

 The sixth of my responses to Mr.Nevem

"obviously only for God. Predestination tries to emphasize the viewpoint according to God, which doesn't deny, just relativizes the human viewpoint."

Actually it relativizes away the human viewpoint

Where obedience is impossible a charge of wrongdoing is simply not permissible according to natural Justice and of course where determinism is the case, any obedience to any command at variance to what has been predetermined from eternity would by definition be impossible.

  

 Romans ch.4:15NIV"because the law brings wrath. And where there is no law there is no transgression."

Where compliance is impossible a Just accusation of wrongdoing cannot be made.

It's still paved with the best intentions

 

Against nincsnevem V

 The fifth installment in my responses to Mr.Nevem

"But of this, the formula Jehovah / God = the Father is only logical for the Watchtower Society. The divine name Yahweh or Jehovah does not denote only one person,"

Well how about this then

 Luke ch.1:32NIV"He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the LORD God will give to him the throne of his father David, "

Most high =Father of Jesus

JEHOVAH = Most High Psalm ch.83:18

JEHOVAH =Father of Jesus

 

Of course if the Father of Jesus is truly the MOST HIGH as per the dictionary no other can be his equal or even his approximate.

On the most high God and his son

 The God and Father of Jesus Christ is the most high God (human councils notwithstanding)

Psalms ch.83:18KJV"That they may know that thou alone, whose name is JEHOVAH, Art the Most High over all the earth."

Thus no one not numerically identical to JEHOVAH can be the God of Israel or the most high God

If the claim is that the triune God is JEHOVAH Then it logically follows that no one other than this triune God can be called JEHOVAH in as much as Jesus nor the Father are triune according Trinitarian orthodoxy then neither Jesus nor the father can be called the most high or the God of Israel

it is also claimed that no member of the trinity is a God there are not three gods but three persons.

So the fact that the father is called the God and one God is a problem because it means that the father is A God in his own right also the Father is the God of the son

Revelation ch.3:12 KJV" that overcometh, I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go out thence no more: and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my God, and mine own new name. "

There fore the Son is definitely not the most high

Acts ch.3:13NIV"The God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob, the God of our fathers, hath glorified his Servant Jesus; whom ye delivered up, and denied before the face of Pilate, when he had determined to release him. "

Luke ch.1:32NIV"He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The LORD God will give him the throne of his father David,"

So the God and Father of Jesus is the Most High God I.e JEHOVAH

Against nincsnevem IV

 My fourth installment on my responses to Mr.Nevem

Edgar Foster's blog

"God would undergo change by incarnation if he were to become human in such a way as to cease to remain God; "

God would also under go change if he became a creature the categories of Creator and creature are mutually exclusive.

Hosea ch.11:9ESV"I will not execute my burning anger;

I will not again destroy Ephraim;

for I am God and not a man,

the Holy One in your midst,

and I will not come in wrath.c"

Unless this is not meant to be understood as a permanent and unchangeable in carries no force.

1Kings ch.18:27KJV"27And it came to pass at noon, that Elijah mocked them, and said, Cry aloud: for he is a god; either he is talking, or he is pursuing, or he is in a journey, or peradventure he sleepeth, and must be awaked."

The notion that JEHOVAH Can ever be subject to human frailties is nothing but grist for mockery

Sophistry masquerading as sophistication.

Against nincsnevem III

 The third installment of my responses to Mr.Nevem

Edgar Foster's blog

"The Catholic doctrine does not claim that the Son was Changed by the incarnation" well ,before the incarnation he had one nature and afterward he simultaneously possessed two mutually exclusive natures

Romans ch.1:22,23ESV"Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things." Paul is saying that is foolish to even suppose that JEHOVAH Would outwardly resemble a mortal man.

How much more so then to claim that he is literally a mortal man.

Against nincsnevem II

 My responses to mr.nevem continued

Edgar Foster's blog

Next Jesus dares to judge:

You claimed"Jesus, on the other hand, pronounced a clear judgment on Satan (Jn 16:11; cf. Jn 5:22, 27; 1 Jn 3:8; Col 2:15)."

John ch.16:7-11NIV"But very truly I tell you, it is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. 8When he comes, he will prove the world to be in the wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment: 9about sin, because people do not believe in me; 10about righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer; 11and about judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned."

So it is the advocate from the Father in effect the Father himself who has condemned Satan. So like Michael Jesus defers to his God when it comes to Judging the great enemy

Jude 9 NASB"But Michael the archangel, when he disputed with the devil and argued about the body of Moses, did not dare pronounce against him an abusive judgment, but said, “The LORD rebuke you!”

So it was Michael's fear of JEHOVAH Not any imaginary subordination to the prince of darkness that restrained him

Colossians ch.2:14,15NASB"having canceled the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. 15When He had [n]disarmed the rulers and authorities, He Made a public display of them, having triumphed over them through [o]Him."

So nothing to do with condemning Satan but rather with his fulfilling of the Law . Which disarmed the religious leaders the victory was not in his own strength but through his God JEHOVAH.

Colossians ch.2:12 NASB"Having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead. "

1John ch.3:7,8NASB"Little children, make sure no one deceives you; the one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous; 8the one who practices sin is of the devil; for the devil [c]has been sinning from the beginning. The Son of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil. "

Christ was sent by his God and Father to liberate us from sin. So again the pronouncing of the Father Judgment which is what Michael did btw

Against nincsnevem

 A response to an interlocutor at Edgar Foster's blog 

Timestamp 6:27 A.M

@nincsnevem Next:our hope

You claimed"Ephesians 4:4 easily disproves the two-class salvation invented by Rutherford in 1935, since there is only "one hope".

Ephesians ch.4:4-6ESV"There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call— 5one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. "

Of course there is nothing in this verse that proves or disproves an earthly paradise for the vast majority of humanity. It's not the location or the surroundings that make a paradise it's the company joyful fellowship with JEHOVAH and his saints.

After all sin began in heaven

Paul says that those he was writing were CALLED to a single hope by whom by the one Lord i.e the Risen Christ those who live and died prior to Christ ascension certainly can't respond to this call because they are incapable of hearing.

Those who passed on without a witness can't hear this call

Romans ch.10:14NIV"How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?"

Of course if there was some kind of post mortem evangel to departed spirits none of this would be an issue. Spirit beings would not need faith they would see these spiritual realities first hand.

But Paul's urgency suggest that if the living aren't reached in this life with the gospel and if they don't put faith in it. They have no share in these promises i.e heaven.

Paul says that those he was writing were CALLED to a single hope by whom by the one Lord i.e the Risen Christ those who live and died prior to Christ ascension certainly can't respond to this call because they are incapable of hearing.

Those who passed on without a witness can't hear this call

Romans ch.10:14NIV"How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?"

Of course if there was some kind of post mortem evangel to departed spirits none of this would be an issue. Spirit beings would not need faith they would see these spiritual realities first hand.

But Paul's urgency suggest that if the living aren't reached in this life with the gospel and if they don't put faith in it. They have no share in these promises i.e heaven.

John ch.3:5 NIV "Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God UNLESS they are born of water(Baptism) and the Spirit."

That would appear to rule out the dead.

Luke ch.16:16NIV"“The Law and the Prophets were proclaimed until John. Since that time, the good news of the kingdom of God is being preached(Not to spirit beings), and everyone is forcing their way into it."

Matthew ch.11:11NIV"Truly I tell you, among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist; yet whoever is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. "

This is clearly not refering to anyone's present status but their prospects Jesus himself was not at that time literally in the kingdom

The ancient worthies represented by John had no prospect of a place in the heavenly paradise.

Hebrews ch.11:39,40NIV"These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised, since God had planned something BETTER for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect."So by JEHOVAH'S design the vast majority of mankind have no prospect for entry into the heavenly kingdom. This is only a conundrum for those emotionally invested in the false heaven/eternal conscious torment binary. The bible does not recognise any such binary.

Let's go back to the begining

Genesis ch.2:8,9ASV"And JEHOVAH God planted a garden eastward, in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed. 9And out of the ground made JEHOVAH God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the TREE OF LIFE also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil."

Note there was no tree of death in this garden so death and the death dealing were not part of JEHOVAH'S purpose for man.

The tree of life was a symbol of the permanent physical perfection man was meant to enjoy.

Genesis ch.3:22,23ASV"And JEHOVAH God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil; and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever-therefore JEHOVAH God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. "

The restoration of the earthly paradise i.e the human perfection epitomised both Adams has always been a key component JEHOVAH'S agenda

Acts ch.3:21NIV"Heaven must receive him until the time comes for God to RESTORE everything, as he promised long ago through his holy prophets."

To be continued.