Order

This date in our four years of daily Pages has been given to order in all that exists related to the earth planet that includes its atmosphere.  Does the evidence justify the claim of most scientists that there is an order in nature’s reality that permits a method of its discovery of a pattern, the foundation for verifiable truth in replication, and an implication about how we should then live?  The Christian should have no difficulty with that process of discovery and do whatever is necessary to advance the implications of it.  Tension between theistic naturalists and human naturalists relates to the source of the earth and humankind, and the presence/absence of that intelligence/evolvement of the earth context and consequences.  The debate becomes troublesome in that the theist finds evidence and logic for consideration both within nature and in faith beyond nature, while the exclusively oriented earth naturalist finds evidence only in nature.  The conflict was a part of human history long before the dramatic presentation of Darwin’s research in 1859.  The conflict has settled into an ongoing, sometimes contentious debate, since Darwin that settled on the competition between revealed religion espousing God in nature and mankind’s meaning, and scientific interpretation of nature in a context in which mankind is the only representative for high intelligence.

The biblical revelation of Christianity includes a belief in the authority of its teaching.  Beginning in ignorance for the individual, faith in God is educated with revealed information.  No other literature is like it, so the believer begins with a miracle claim.  Authority for that claim rests in whether or not the claim works in a faith experience obedient to the claim.  Uncounted millions of persons have witnessed that it does work for them so to inspire faithfulness to it.  Scripture represents all that God does as in the context of human orderliness.  The order for the priests given to Moses and Aaron is very specific, and taken by Israel’s priests as so firm that violation was seen as grievous, so grievous that the priesthood extended it more specifically than even God had it.  The Apostle Paul was concerned about the order of the church so that there would be no deviation in what God would have for his people.  To have been so specific about human matters in the keeping of the ministry of the priests and apostles is strong evidence that God would be orderly in setting matters of the extent of creation in an order – as he defined order.  That which may be seen as disorder may be the consequence of the fault of sin, or it may possess some function related to the order of things.  There seems to be considerable disorder in much of what one does in cooking or performing surgery, but inconvenience belongs to the order.  To follow the references to order in the Scripture makes the reader feel that there is not only an order in what God is and does, but order is expected of his children in the course of earth life.  Our lag in searching out the order of God has much to do with our troubles related to our faith.  The order of God to the direction of service is partly related to balancing out the disordered lives of persons.  In counseling persons, the counselor finds considerable disorder, and that related not only to functioning in nature but the functioning of human beings in self context.

It is clear, for example, what the order for the family is, but it is common that the disorder of pride, ego, mismanagement, selfishness, greed, morality, and other factors in the human experience make us feel there is something wrong in the system in which we live.  When God informed the first parents that life would be earned by the sweat of the body and infants born in pain of the body we know there is some disorder in that meant to be an ordered existence in the beginning of mankind.  Disorder was managed early in the process.  The Kingdom of God is described in part by some orderliness related to perfection that no one would want to violate – if enough were known and followed.  The beauty we often find in our lives is related to the orderliness of the factors that make it up.  The flow of music well cast, or language well chosen, or life well planned, are all built on concepts within our grasp.  Admittedly it takes some doing.  Discipline must be generated and followed to bring it off.  Those who miss it may leave their sad words of failure and disappointment.  Those who have realized the goal leave poetic reverie about the experiences of life, love, achievement, beauty, even challenge to make the order a part of our lives.  A study of the life of Christ represents to us God’s approval to life form that meets divine order from the beginning: Jeremiah 29:11.