Bavinck on truth

Scripture, accordingly, uses the word “truth” in more than one sense. And philosophy, too, as a rule distinguishes between three concepts of truth: truth or veracity in essence (in things); truth or veracity in expression (in words); truth or veracity in knowing (in the intellect); in other words, metaphysical, ethical, and logical truth or veracity. 121 Metaphysical or ontological truth consists in an object, person, or cause being all that belongs to its nature. In that sense gold that is gold not only in appearance but also in reality is true gold. The antonyms of truth in that sense are falsehood, spuriousness, vanity, nonbeing. In this sense truth is a property of all being; it is identical with substance. Especially Augustine often spoke of truth in that sense. All being or essence as such is true and beautiful and good. Granted, there is immense diversity in degrees of creaturely being; yet all things have received from God a unique being of their own and as such participate in the divine being. 122 From the consideration of this creaturely being Augustine moves to the consideration of God. In Scripture God is called the true God in distinction from idols, which are vanities. Thus, in Augustine, God is the true, unique, simple, immutable, and eternal being. By comparison to his being, creatural being is to be considered nonbeing. God is the “supreme being, the supreme truth, and the supreme good.” He is pure being. He does not possess but is the truth. “O Truth, which you truly are!” 123 In addition, God is also the truth in the second sense, that is, the ethical sense. By ethical truth we mean the correspondence between a person’s being and a person’s self-revelation in word or deed. Those who say one thing but think another are untrue; they are liars. The antonym of truth in this sense is the lie. Now in the case of God, there is complete correspondence between his being and his revelation (Num. 23:19; 1 Sam. 15:29; Titus 1:2; Heb. 6:18). It is impossible for God to lie or deny himself. Finally, God is also the truth in a logical sense. This truth consists in correspondence between thought and reality, the conformity or adequation of the intellect to the [real] thing. Our concepts are true when they bear the exact imprint of reality. In this sense truth is opposed to error. Now God is the truth also in that he knows all things as they really are. His knowing is correct, unchangeable, fully adequate. Indeed, in his knowing he is the truth itself, just as in his being he is the ontological truth. God’s knowledge is dynamic, absolute, fully correspondent truth. It is not acquired by research and reflection but is inherent in the divine being (essential) and precedes the existence of things. It is of one piece with God’s very nature and, therefore, substantial truth. God’s word, law, and gospel, accordingly, are pure truth. They are all as they should be. Now though these three meanings of the term “truth” are distinct, they are also one. This unity arises from the fact that truth in all three senses consists in correspondence between thought and being, between the ideal and the real. God is truth in a metaphysical sense, for he is the unity of thought and being. He is completely self-conscious. He is truly God, fully answering to the idea of God that is present within himself. God is truth in an ethical sense, for he reveals himself, speaks, acts, and appears as he truly is and thinks. And he is the truth in a logical sense, for he conceives things as they are; rather, things are as he conceives them to be. He is the truth in its absolute fullness. He, therefore, is the primary, the original truth, the source of all truth, the truth in all truth. He is the ground of the truth—of the true being—of all things, of their knowability and conceivability, the ideal and archetype of all truth, of all ethical being, of all the rules and laws, in light of which the nature and manifestation of all things should be judged and on which they should be modeled. God is the source and origin of the knowledge of truth in all areas of life; the light in which alone we can see light, the sun of all spirits. “You I invoke, O God, the truth in, by, and through whom all truths are true.” 124

The pre-flood world

Made this observation decades ago, but it's worth repeating: Greek myth seems to provide the impressions of the pre-flood world better than anything. Greek myth and the Homeric epics that is... Not saying it's historically accurate,  just saying Greek myth in general has the feel of the pre-flood world and gives the best glimpse here and there...

Other than Greek myth some of the description (and visual art) of the New World (America) given by its first European explorers and colonists, and even to the second and third generation and more, have the sense of a little bit of pristine, pre-flood nature. The wilds of the forests seemed of different scale than elsewhere. The natural lighting seemed like a heavier sky. Explorers described the Ohio river as crystaline and clearer than any river they'd ever seen. We had gigantic trees as well, before blight took them all out.

1 John 5:7

If the Holy Spirit doesn't have a problem with 1 John 5:7 then I don't have a problem with 1 John 5:7. If a priesthood of scholars (half of which are practical or actual proclaimed atheists) have a problem with 1 John 5:7 I couldn't care less. I'm a spiritual warrior. I consider God's word as I hold it in my hand, pure and whole, to be supernatural. The English Bible as culminated in the Authorized Version, 1611. Shepherded into time and refined by the Holy Spirit Himself. As a spiritual warrior I want the real thing. I want a real sword. 

If this angers shallow scholars like Mark Ward and his, no doubt, new giddy follower, James White, then so be it. 

(Mark Ward with his book Authorized, is the new stud in the camp of champions of the Critical Text bibles. Don't call him Mark 'mental' Ward. That wouldn't be nice, just because he sounds like Keith Olbermann after hearing a Trump speech. He says people shouldn't be allowed to read the KJV. He also says it's a sin to read the KJV. Hence his status as new stud in the camp. Not even James White has had the courage to go that far.) 

Joy

Joy is higher than and different from happiness or pleasure. Happiness and pleasure, for instance, tap out eventually. Joy is a perpetual fountain. Joy comes from God. Happiness and pleasure are contingent on worldly, or external things. Joy is a higher, real emotion that exists in the presence of God. 

The Stakes by Michael Anton

Get newly published book The Stakes by Michael Anton to get an overall sense of what is happening today. Here is a lengthy excerpt at American Greatness.

Why dumb elites think they are elite and what they're missing

It use to be to get access to books and other higher cultural influences you had to go to a university. If you were an average Joe, that is, and your father didn't have a library and tutors and musicians and what not in the house.

Thus there was a true separation between the educated and the uneducated. (Without going into other unique avenues: church schools, charity, the more monomaniacal self-educated, etc.)

This is not to say that even back then the educated had by default more understanding and wisdom than the so-called unwashed. Traditional knowledge and common-sense could still out pace a university education. Nothing was guaranteed. 

Still, on the whole a university education separated a person from the mass of humanity.

Fast forward to today. I can get and read any book or hear any musical work or what have you a student at a university has access to. Obviously I'm not talking about hard sciences here, but liberal arts. Liberal arts and related subject matter are really what self-identified elites think of when they think about their superiority over the masses regarding education. But you don't have to go to a university to get those influences. Even if you start sentences with '[B]ut.'

Not just that, but modern university students are hamstrung by having leftwing Marxist professors who have the I.Q. of dupes executed the morning after a successful Marxist revolution.

Thus they're in worse shape than me. 

Which is why self-identified elites are so dumb today. 

Getting clear on what has to happen biblically

When you're a real Christian and a true patriot it's difficult to accept end time reality. So we complain and truly suffer when we see it happening. (Plus, we don't want to be or sound like the demons who call themselves Christians yet root for Satan every step of the way.)

Meaning, we know things won't go on in Promised Land glory as our American history has been (for those not easily indoctrinated by the various poisons of Marxist propaganda). Things are supposed to get bad. Satan and his fucktard brood are supposed to get the upper hand before they are slammed into hell for eternity. 

There seems to be a spell of paralysis cast over a nation when a handful of human demons and their handful of followers can wreak so much seeming chaos and damage and general evil. Our national pride says, no way, we'd rise up and kill them. Yet when it's actually happening we sit back in national paralysis.

Satan is loosed. It kills us to see what calibre of human and angelic shit is causing all this hellish shit show. We see the difference between the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Satan really is stark and simple. As stark and simple as most of the biblical proverbs. A good man is good; and an evil man sucks. 

It's hard to watch what is happening in these times. It's also hard to feel our fate being in the hands of a decrepit, evil witch politician or an election process riven with corruption. We have to put up with this?

We all have fantasies of executing the demons. No point in getting all fake upset when the other side says they want someone  (or everyone) dead. We want them dead too. God will kill them in time. The second death that is eternal. What we do until then is hard to say.

Let's all start tracing out the obvious

Christians have to start seeing the obvious. Myself included. We're deep into the end state of end times here. Satan is no longer constrained. He is "deceiving" the nations. China as the Dragon has no fear to commit a brazen act of war against a nuclear power. The Dragon has traitors inside every nation giving it the green light. Even Islam is kind of standing back lately saying, "Whoa, we only dreamed of this..." 

Remember, when Jesus returns it is the end of time itself. And when He returns we all will die physically. I.e. everybody will be in a spiritual body. So time and space regarding the Second Coming location will likely be the general area of His death and resurrection. Yet looking very different. Mt. Zion, for instance, is likely to appear as a real mountain.

If you can pinch yourself and you still have a physical body you can know it isn't the real Jesus.

Theologian as concern troll

John Murray, Reformed theologian, rejected the Covenant of Works. 

Basically the reason he rejected it is because he was being a concern troll.

A concern troll affects to having a discernment that lesser beings are incapable of.

When a theologian engages in concern trolling he is being vain. 

A vain theologian is a weak theologian.

A vain theologian is capable of veering into any kind of heresy.  

It is no surprise John Murray's place of employment has harbored many theologians who have veered into many kinds of heresy.

Being like Jesus

Calvin said imitate Jesus. Bavinck wrote about it. It's the most under-the-radar practice a Christian can do. To be just like Jesus in any given moment, event, situation, circumstance. It's a true shock. 

If we know Jesus it is easy to imagine. To do.

And it gets one into strange territory. For instance, I'm sitting here watching a sporting event. What would Jesus be doing in a human body on Earth with some down time? I think he'd be communing with the stars. The heavenly host. 

Of course Jesus would always have a strong aim. We don't have his work to accomplish. So when we emulate Jesus it's more a dialing our fallen nature back in and composing ourselves. 

Joy plays a role too. C. S. Lewis defined joy as: “[A]n unsatisfied desire which itself is more desirable than any other satisfaction.”

A state or feeling of not needing anything else to be complete. 

https://pursuingveritas.com/2014/05/29/c-s-lewis-on-meaning-and-joy/

Somewhat like the fact that we are actually surrounded by stars. Beneath us, above us, around us. Imaging tapping that energy. You'd see a different world. Experience a different world.

Also, in play is the notion that you have to have language inside you to see things outside you. To really see the New Jerusalem, for instance, and for it to be truly real, you have to meditate upon it, the language of it, and stoke that imagery up. Find different sources. Obviously the Bible. Thomas Watson is good for this. His Lord's Prayer book, the part about Thy Kingdom come, he goes deep into describing the Kingdom of God.

Meditate upon the name Jehovah

Marxists have changed the name of God. From Jehovah to 'Yahweh.' 

"Scholars have determined that after millennia of getting it wrong the real name of god - er, God - is actually Yahweh. This way you can say the new name of God and yawn at the same time. Also, with God's new name being enforced by establishment Christianity it's now easier to make up any new shit you want to believe about God."

Jehovah is a name that thunders with the authority of God. Yahweh is a name that cringes before the demands of pedophiles.

Meditate upon the name Jehovah. Yeah, the pedophiles will call you Jehovah's Witnesses, a cult they probably started, but you will know you are meditating upon the true, fear inducing, name of the LORD of HOSTS, the Creator of Heaven and Earth (and Hell, where the Marxist, pedophile, scholars who changed the name of God will be).

Everything the Bible says is true and basic

I read a site like the Gospel Coalition every now and then. Establishment Christianity. Lately they are 'teaching' 'less knowledgeable' Christians about the 'danger' of conspiracy theories. While not one of them knows the little fact that conspiracy theory is a coinage of the CIA to cover up their activities. Activities such as the trafficking and fucking of children. Way to go, TGC! 

Also, they don't say it outright, but everything they write is weighted rhetorically in favor of Biden winning the election. Because when you finally have one guy doing everything he can to fight back evil in the country and the world you have to go against him. At least if you're an establishment Christian with the jizz of Satan dripping down your chin. 

They are practical Marxists who want to please the world. And they're very stupid. Not just ignorant but stupid. And let's just say it: evil as fuck.

I honestly hate them. Their churches stink. They stink. 

They secretly love abortion, which is why they push for leftist victory. Abortion is their human sacrifice to their god, Satan. 

They are the abomination of desolation in the Temple.