QUESTIONS!

Questions!

Juno, the Isle of Skye

The Bible tells us where the universe and we ourselves come from: “For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day.” Exodus 20:11. How? “By the Word of the LORD the heavens were made, and all the host of them by the breath of His mouth.” Psalm 33:6. When? “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Genesis 1:1. Was the earth molten in the beginning? “The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.” Genesis 1:2b. (If the earth had been molten in the beginning the Spirit would have hovered over steam not waters!) Did God simply speak and things that were not became things that are? “Then God said, ‘Let there be light’, and there was light.” Genesis 1:3.

If the triune God, i.e., Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit made everything in the beginning, then who made God? “Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever You had formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God.” Psalm 90:2. (God alone is eternal. To be eternal is to have no beginning and no end.)

When did time begin? Time began in the beginning when God created space, time, and matter. The trinity of space, time, and matter is creaturely and therefore has a beginning. What was there before the beginning? The triune God alone, who alone is not creaturely but is the sole Creator. Did God speak audibly and recordably, or was there simply just a ‘Big Bang” in the beginning? Again, “[T]he worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible.” Hebrews 11:2b. Also, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.” John 1:1-3. (Thus there was no “Big Bang” as commonly understood, because the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit brought creation into being over a period of six days.) Why did God take so long to make everything? He set a pattern for that which He formed in His own image to follow. (Thus we labour six days and rest every seventh, as did our Creator in the beginning.)

Isle of Skye

Did God expend energy that He needed to rest the seventh day when He created the universe from nothing? “Have you not known? Have you not heard? The everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, neither faints nor is weary. His understanding is unsearchable.” Isaiah 40:28. What does the Triune God say to those who claim that the universe came into being by means other than God has revealed in His written Word? “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell Me if you have understanding?” Job 38:4.

Dear reader, you are not alone in your struggle to make sense of a universe so often working grief against us. Why are there earthquakes and tsunamis? Why are there wars? Why is there so much suffering and death? God has provided the answers for these and such like questions in His written Word. Therefore, “Seek the LORD while He may be found, call upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the LORD, and He will have mercy on him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon.” Isaiah 55:6.

Where is God? “He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and have our being.” Hebrews 17:27b&28a.

HOW THE SCOTS INVENTED THE MODERN WORLD (Book Review)

Book Review:

HOW THE SCOTS INVENTED THE MODERN WORLD:

The True Story of How Western Europe’s Poorest Nation Created Our World & Everything in It.

Arthur Herman, Broadway Books, New York, 2001, paperback 472 pages.

(Also known as The Scottish Enlightenment: The Scots’ Invention of the Modern World.)

Introduction

This book is a must-read for all Scots, nay, it's a must-read for all Scots wannabes and whoever is left! 

The title may suggest satire, but it is a serious and very educational book. It covers the years of the Scottish Enlightenment so-called. Indeed, it is also sold under the more descriptive title of The Scottish Enlightenment, which runs through and takes place during the 18^th and 19^th centuries.

Having lived in Scotland, Canada and Australia I was interested in the sections that dealt with the Scots and their influence in these countries. However, I was most intrigued by the Scottish influence on founding and success of America. The Scots during the Enlightenment years were able to take an idea, whether theoretical or practical and develop it to the nth degree. From medicine to economics, from treatises to novels, from industry to politics the Scots were innovators and inventors.

The following is somewhat of a summary of the book’s contents:

The Scots did not invent technology, any more than they invented science – or capitalism or the ideas of progress and liberty. But just as in these other cases, the version of technology we live with most closely resembles the one that Scots such as James Watt organized and perfected. It rests on certain basic principles that the Scottish Enlightenment enshrined: common sense, experience as our best source of knowledge, and arriving at scientific laws by testing general hypotheses through individual experiment and trial and error. Science and technology give civilization its dynamic movement, like the ceaselessly moving pistons of Watt’s steam engine. To the Scots, they were the key to modern life, just as they are for us. A rapid succession of Scottish inventors, engineers, doctors, and scientists proved their point to the rest of the world.” P. 321-22.

General Comments

I am quite confident that most of the book’s readers will find some things to disagree with, whether about the Highland Clearances, the Gaelic and/or Scots languages, Whigs and Tories or whatever. However, don’t let that put you off purchasing this excellent book!

The following is this Calvinist/Presbyterian minister’s own mildly satirical take on the book.

It was only after purchasing this book that I learned that it is also sold under another title: The Scottish Enlightenment. That would help explain some of the author’s biases (as I perceived them to be) that immediately become apparent. He seems to caricature the Scottish Church at the time of John Knox, and far beyond, as if it, and not the Civil Magistrates, ran the justice system in Scotland, running around hanging folk and burning others at the stake. To be sure, certain persons or bodies may hold a corrupting influence on matters of justice, but even back then the Church held the Keys of the Kingdom and not the Sword of Justice, which was of course the domain of the State! With suchlike misrepresentations of the Scottish Kirk Herman looks like he clearly holds an anti-Calvinist bias. ‘Yet in 1696 this old order was already on its last legs. The execution of Aitkenhead was the last hurrah of Scotland’s Calvinist ayatollahs.’ p. 10. ‘Calvinist ayatollahs’? At this point this Presbyterian minister felt like giving up on reading this book. That said, I soldiered on. Historical context is always a good place to begin whenever trying to get a handle on Christian influence. “Daddy Auld” and “Holy Willie” both belonged to the same Presbyterian Kirk that Robert Burns attended. Burns loved the former but detested the latter. Guess which one was the true Calvinist and which one wasn’t.

Herman was getting me a wee bit offside, then I read these words: “Yet the same fundamentalist Calvinist Kirk had actually laid the foundations for modern Scotland, in surprising and striking ways. In fact, without an appreciation of Scotland’s Presbyterian legacy, the story of the Scots’ place in modern civilization would be incomplete.” p. 12. With these words the author won me back, (and here, tongue-in-cheek, began our love/hate relationship for the rest of the book’s journey!).

For the record, John Knox brought the Reformation to Scotland. The Reformation was not just the Reformation of the Church in Scotland, but was the reforming of the whole of Scottish society. Set free from papal rule by Knox and the Reformation, Scotland was now at liberty to develop culturally. Sure, when any society is in a state of flux there may be certain extremes. However, the Reformation brought with it the freedom-ideal (i.e., from popes to princes, from tyrants to taxes) which, through time, developed into the so-called Scottish Enlightenment, the subject of this book.

Easy Reading

Herman’s style of writing and anecdotal illustrations lends itself to enjoyable and educational reading. He sets a good pace. After the rocky start I found myself agreeing with the author as we travelled in tandem (picture a bicycle built for two!) over the hillsides of history taking in the glorious Scottish vistas. Then we dismounted and walked the streets, closes and wynds of Glasgow and Edinburgh together while visiting pubs and clubs, interacting with knowledgeable patrons along the way. We visited Culloden Battlefield and others as Herman visually described the directional change of Scottish culture in its bloodbath aftermath.

Enlightenment Proper

We (almost) became the proverbial two peas in a pod when he wrote,

At its [i.e., The Scottish Enlightenment’s] core was a group of erudite and believing clergymen (unlike the various abbés of the French Enlightenment, who were by and large skeptics, and clerics only as a matter of convenience and income). They resolutely believed that a free and open sophisticated culture was compatible with, even predicated on, a solid moral and religious foundation. Robertson and the rest saw the doctrines of Christianity as the very heart of what it meant to be modern.” p. 193.

Here, the healthy tension between the author and this Calvinist/Presbyterian/Reformed Evangelical reviewer returned. However, I started to give Herman the “silent treatment” when I went on to read his mention about “bringing the Kirk into the modern world, even in the teeth of bitter opposition from Presbyterian hard-liners.” p. 194. Aaargh! Actually, regardless of any “Presbyterian hard-liners”, it is the Kirk with its Law and its Gospel from Knox onwards that brought us into the modern world of which The Scottish Enlightenment was but a by-product. No Reformation, no Enlightenment. Herman has hitched the cart to the wrong end of the horse! Okay, I feel better now after that little rant! Yes, the Scottish Enlightenment may be a movement in its own right, but it would still be chained to a post if it wasn’t for the Reformation.

The “bromance” was back on between me and Herman when I read Chapter 9. “That Great Design”: Scots in America. This chapter begins with an anonymous quote, “Call this war whatever name you may, only call it not an American rebellion; it is nothing more than a Scotch Irish Presbyterian rebellion.” – Anonymous Hessian officer, 1778. Among other things, this chapter dealt not only with the war for independence, but the after effects of The Great Awakening which began with the Calvinist preacher George Whitefield in 1740. Another Calvinist, Jonathan Edwards is discussed as is the founding of Princeton, the Calvinist University. These Calvinists were well-educated and therefore were well-read, interacting with the likes of the writings of Thomas Reid, Adam Smith and David Hume and other members of the so-called Scottish Enlightenment. Indeed, most of America’s Founding Fathers were Calvinistic. Hence the American War of Independence, Declaration and Constitution etc.

Begone with the image of “Calvinist ayatollahs” as conjured up by Herman in the opening chapters of his book. Calvinism isn’t a vacuum seeking to be filled, but rather is a movement seeking to glorify God in all things, including influencing The Enlightenment with the clear teachings of the Bible, from morals to economics to nation building to individual freedoms. All truth belongs to God. Therefore, whether found in the penmanship of Smith, Hume, Witherspoon, Jefferson, Hamilton, Montesquieu, et al, all ideas must be tested against Scripture. “Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.” 1 Thessalonians 5:21. (This is what Christians mean when they apply the verse “Plunder the Egyptians”, see e.g., Exodus 3:22 where God promises His people silver, gold and fine clothing from their Egyptian captors when they leave their slavery.)

Christian Influence

 Note the following:

The Edinburgh editors of the Scots Magazine … concluded that “the unhappy commotions in our American colonies” were due almost entirely to “clerical influence,” and that “none … had a greater share … than Doctor Witherspoon.” Horace Walpole, son of the former prime minister, rose in parliament to speak. “There is no use crying about it,” he said. “Cousin America has run off with a Presbyterian parson, and that is the end of it.” On June 28, 1776, Whitherspoon was in Philadelphia as part of the New Jersey delegation to the Continental Congress. They were there to draw up a declaration of American independence.”

Thus America is the product of the Bible. The Calvinist Witherspoon’s middle name was Knox, yes, after John Knox. He was the only "clergyman" (a Presbyterian minister) to sign the Declaration.  

Did The Scottish Enlightenment have any bearing on the founding of the United States of America? Were John Witherspoon, Thomas Jefferson et al well-versed in it? Of course they were. They lived during those times. However, they came under the influence of Scripture against which they tested all ideas.

Conclusion

How were the Scots able to invent the modern world?

[Robert] Burns … understood how important education can be in shaping the character of the inner self. And here, too, Scottish Presbyterianism managed to achieve something that had profound consequences for the future. In 1696 … Scotland’s Parliament passed its “Act for Setting Schools,” establishing a school in every parish in Scotland not already equipped with one… The reason behind this was obvious to any Presbyterian: boys and girls must know how to read Scripture. Knox’s original 1560 Book of Discipline had called for a national system of education. Eighty years later Parliament passed the first statute to this effect. The 1696 act renewed and enforced it.

            Arthur Herman’s How the Scots Invented the Modern World is well worth taking the time to read. The Scottish Enlightenment certainly made a great impact on the world. But don’t forget to learn, like every Scottish boy and girl back then, to read Scripture. That way, like them, you will learn discernment and maybe you will contribute meaningfully to the modern world. 

HUMAN NATURE

Human Nature

Jesus told Nicodemus that in order to see and enter the kingdom of God one must to be ‘born again.’ (John 3:3). Yet even when born anew by the Spirit of God, residual sin remains in the Christian until glory (Phil. 3:12; Heb. 12:23). Converted man carries with him the rotten remains of his pre-conversion man. (Rom. 7:20&25). The Christian is taught to count his ‘old man’ as having been crucified with Christ. (Rom. 6:6).  Therefore, for the Christian, the ‘old man’ has been put off and the ‘new man’ put on. (Eph. 4:22-24; Col. 3:9&10). The ‘old man’ for the Christian is his pre-conversion sinful nature. He is now a new creation. (Gal. 6:15).

The non-Christian too has an ‘old man’ ‘new man’ aspect to him/her. However, for the non-Christian the ‘old man’ is the residue of his/her pre-Fall or Adamic nature. And his/her ‘new man’ is his/her fallen nature. Thus the ‘new man’ for the Christian is the restoration of the non-Christian’s ‘old man.’ Thus the non-Christian and the Christian have at least one thing in common: Each suppresses his ‘old man.’

This has startling implications for Christian evangelism. For the Christian knows the non-Christian ‘knows’ the triune God - the Creator of the heavens, the earth, the sea and all that is in them – but is simply suppressing the truth in unrighteousness. (Rom. 1:18-21). Thus the Christian ‘new man’ appeals to the ‘old man’ in the non-Christian. He does so with the confidence that the non-Christian will experience pangs of guilty conviction because he/she knows deep down that the Christian is telling the truth about his sinful condition.

In dialogue the Christian is able to use the Law and the Gospel of God to convict and save the non-Christian. For example, the Christian may ask the non-Christian if he has ever told a lie. Deep down the non-Christian knows that it is wrong to tell lies and that he has indeed lied on occasion. Thus God’s Law convicts as the non-Christian’s Adamic ‘old man’ inwardly admits the truth and thus his sin is exposed. The Christian then tells the non-Christian about the gracious provision that God has supplied to save sinners from the punishment their sins are due.

Jesus Christ is God’s provision for sinners. He is the Word, i.e., the 2^nd Person in the Trinity, become also fully human forever. He is THE ‘new man.’ Unlike the rest of mankind Jesus Christ never had a fallen nature. Since becoming also a Man His human nature has always been pre-Fall Adamic. He alone is without sin. Therefore He was able to take away the sin of the world. This He did by living a perfect life and dying an atoning death on a cross. He perfectly kept the Law of God in its entirety as representative of all who have or will put on the ‘new man.’ His death on the cross was to pay the price owed for their sins.

Dear reader, deep down you know that you are a sinner. This you will see even more clearly if you would simply stop comparing yourself to the axe-murderer, and instead compare yourself to the perfect Man Jesus Christ. The Gospel is the good news that God, by His grace alone, forgives sinners in Jesus Christ.

May the Lord be pleased to renew and release in you that perfect Adamic nature, that ‘old man’, every non-Christian tries so hard to keep shackled in solitary confinement. 

CONSIDER THE STARS

Consider the Stars

Is it just me, or do you too get the impression that God wants us to consider His starry handiwork? The Bible opens with a God’s-eye view of how He made creation in the beginning. God spoke His Word and by the power of His Spirit things that were not became things that are. Thus the Father, the Word, and the Spirit, the eternal Triune God, i.e., the Creator transcends His creation.

              When He spoke to Job about the wonders of what He had done, among other things, He asked Job rhetorically and somewhat poetically, ‘Can you bind the cluster of Pleiades, or loose the belt of Orion? Can you bring out the Mazzaroth in its season? Or can you guide the Great Bear with its cubs? Do you know the ordinances of the heavens? Can you set their dominion over the earth?’ Job 38:31-33. God is in control of all the stars – from supernovas to the course of Halley’s Comet – yet man cannot even control the climate or the weather on one speck of dust called earth!

              Our awe of the starry firmament was expressed some three thousand years ago by David, the sweet psalmist of Israel, when he said ‘When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars which You have ordained, what is man that You are mindful of him, and the son of man that You should visit him?’ Psalm 8:3&4.

We are each but a handful of dust. So why would the great Creator even bother with us? Conversely, why do some handfuls of dust not bother with God? Isn’t it the height of arrogance for us not to consider the God who made the stars? For isn’t it so that we will consider the creator of the stars that God invites us to consider them in the first place?

After He converts the Christian one of the lessons that God teaches him or her every day is that it’s not all about ‘me’! Each day the Christian rises to be taught afresh that it is all about God! God is our reason for being. That’s what the starry night sky teaches us. On account of our forefather Adam’s rebellion against our Creator in the Garden of Eden each of his offspring (including you and me) is born with a bias away from God. Though God created us upright (Eccl. 7:29), because of the Fall, each of us is born as a ‘Leaning Tower of Pisa’, i.e., sloping away from God and toward sin. Self-centred self-ism is included in this sinful disposition.

One of the first words we learn to say as children (right up there with ‘momma’ and ‘dadda’) is ‘mine!’ When fallen humanity collectively considers the stars it says, ‘mine!’ But the ‘finders keepers, loser weepers’ rule does not apply to the stars. The universe is not some cosmic fairytale fender-bender that once upon a time ‘Big Banged’ itself into being. The stars belong to the Triune God. For ‘In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.’ Genesis 1:1. Why the rush to keep God out of mind when fallen man considers the stars? Behold! Man, the Leaning Tower of Pisa! Who needs God when a fertile imagination will do! Thus we selfishly freeze God out of the picture. For in this world it’s all about me: ‘Mine!’

And doesn’t fallen man think that outer space is a vast waste of space? Why would God waste all that space? Again, this question is an expression of selfish self-centredness. But it’s not all about me. It’s all about God! When God spoke the stars into the sky He said, ‘Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs and seasons, and for days and years…’ Genesis 1:14.

Some four thousand years ago Abraham was very old when God promised him a son from his own loins. So Abraham asked God for a sign. ‘Then He brought Him outside and said, “Look now toward heaven, and count the stars if you are able to number them.” And He said, “So shall your descendants be.”’ Genesis 15:5. Abraham is the father of all believers. And Abraham’s greatest Son is Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the World, the Word become also flesh. Jesus is God and man in one Divine Person forever. Abraham Kuyper said of Jesus, ‘No single piece of our mental world is to be hermetically sealed off from the rest, there is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry: “Mine!”’

Christ selfish? Dear reader, consider the stars again.

DUST IN HEAVEN

Dust in Heaven

Dusting (also known as rearranging dust!) is an endless chore, for apparently the dust in our houses is mostly dead skin that has flaked-off us. Will there be any dust in Heaven? We might as well ask if there will be people in Heaven, for the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground. (Gen. 2:7; 3:19)

‘Out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them. And whatever Adam called each living creature [lit. soul], that was its name.’ Genesis 2:19. The word ‘soul’ has to do with breathing. The word ‘animal’ is from the Latin anima meaning breath, soul, or life. Man and animal share the dust of the ground and breathe the same air. Thus both are living souls. It is God who animates.

Under inspiration of the Holy Spirit David the Psalmist says of the LORD, ‘For He knows our frame; He remembers that we are dust.’ Psalm 103:14. The same psalm begins and ends with David saying, ‘Bless the LORD, O my soul.’  Man is able to bless or praise the LORD because, unlike the animals, the LORD God created man in His own image. (Gen. 1:27) Man is a soul-spirit with a body. (1 Thess. 5:23)

Were the Creator-God to clothe Himself with the dust of the ground He would look like man. This He did when the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. (John 1:14) But as the two natures of Christ are eternally distinct, so the soul of man must not be confused with some aspect of God. The soul is not a divine spark. The Creator creature distinction remains forever. God is God, man is man, and animal is animal. (Gen. 1:25)

Both man and animal were affected by Adam’s sin because God cursed the ground from whence they come. (Gen. 3:17) Men began to behave more like animals than the Creator. (Rom. 1:23; 2 Pet. 2:12) And so, like animals, man returns to the dust. ‘I said in my heart, “Concerning the condition of the sons of men, God tests them, that they may see that they themselves are like animals. For what happens to the sons of men also happens to animals; one thing befalls them: as one dies, so dies the other. Surely, they all have one breath; man has no advantage over animals, for all is vanity. All go to one place: all are from the dust, and all return to dust. Who knows the spirit of the sons of men, which goes upward, and the spirit of the animal, which goes down to the earth?’” Ecclesiastes 3:18-21. Speaking of man, the writer of Ecclesiastes goes on to say, ‘Then the dust will return to the earth as it was, and the spirit will return to God who gave it.’ Ecclesiastes 12:7. So how can there be dust in Heaven if it keeps on settling on earth when we die? Well, there is dust in Heaven because of the resurrection. First by Christ’s resurrection, then the collective resurrection of the people He has redeemed.

Christ rose bodily from the tomb and ascended bodily into Heaven. Therefore the dust of this earth has entered Heaven in the Person of Jesus Christ! By His death on the cross He has redeemed God’s creation from its curse. However the full consummation of Christ’s redemptive work comes with His return to earth. Then this earth will be renewed. (Rev. 21:1&2) But just as Christ rose with the same body with which He died, so will His people rise with their same bodies – but without the effects of sin. So also the earth (from which we are hewn) will be renewed as it is incorporated into Heaven.

The dust of the earth is everlastingly held together in Jesus Christ. For ‘He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation … And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist.’ Colossians 1:15&17.

THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS (Movie Soundtrack)

“Yes, it’s haunting and universal in its call. The soundtrack version combines not only the endangered cultural distinctiveness of the Mohican (we are to suppose) and the Scot (in his ambiguous Britishness), but the emergent Canadian; the eternal Celtic interlacing surpassing all.” – Stuart McKinlay 

Link to soundtrack (unsure of copyright status)  https://youtu.be/aVjwBNsiOv0

Original Score (tracks 1-11) by Trevor Jones, (tracks 10-15) by Randy Edelman, (track 16) by Ciaran Brennan and performed by Clannad.

“Like the Celtic knot, the Celtic Triquetra symbolises the Trinity, i.e., the eternal One and the eternal Many. The three counterpoint musical themes of The Last of the Mohicans soundtrack, though each is distinct, merge into one. The Many interpenetrate the One as the One interpenetrates the Many. So musically pleasing to the human ear! So Celtic! So Trinitarian!” – Neil McKinlay

MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS (Movie Review)

My brother Stuart and I viewed the movie Mary, Queen of Scots.

 Stuart was in Scotland while I was in Australia. 

The following is our take on it:

Internet Photo

Neil McKinlay: Dot and I watched Mary, Queen of Scots at a local movie theatre. I usually try to leave all my analytical apparatus at home so that I can simply enjoy the movie as a form of entertaining escapism. However, we weren’t long into the movie before I began to be distracted. I was left to wonder at my ignorance of how cosmopolitan Scotland (and England) was back in the late 1500s. Apparently the country was sexually, genderally(?!), and culturally revolutionary. As was England, whose queen, Elizabeth, thought herself more bloke than blokette! Who’d have thunk it? Why weren’t we taught any of this at school back in the day? Yes, of course, I’m being facetious!

Why spoil a good story, a great true story, with distracting diversity – if you are not trying to follow an agenda instead of actual history? All that spectacular Scottish scenery, mountains and moors, rivers and reefs, all those gallantly galloping horses with bobbing banners and flapping flags, all those great battle scenes, all those delicately embroidered costumes, all those magnificent cold-brick castles with their opulent throne-rooms, and their banquet halls with intricate tapestry-clad walls, all those conversations and supplications – spoiled! Wasted!

And what about Doctor Who, aka David Tennant, who played someone who, to the naked eye, certainly resembled John Knox, the one through whom “modern democracy was born” (Ridley, John Knox, p. 426). However, the long beard and hamburger hat were the only similarity. Instead, we saw some women-hating imposter ranting and railing, while at the same time women!, while singing, were dinging the pulpit in blads instead of him.
Great movie material was torn into strips and was flushed down the toilet to end up in that sceptic tank of oblivion.

Bottom line: I would not recommend this movie to anyone.

Stuart McKinlay: Yes, the trouble with Mary: It is an obnoxious appropriation of character and reputation to further our acceptance of perverse or perverted sexuality as enlightened normality. The historical figures' characters are traduced to support this corruption. Not for the gullible. I would recommend that the film should be seen, and considered as a marker in the decadence, not of the period, but the film makers. Very well made as an absorbing costume drama, though, and a scenic wonder for Scots especially to guess the marvellous locations, even if, on the whole, it is not a pretty picture.

SCIENCE

Science

There are two ways of conducting science, i.e., with God or without God. Those who do science with God deal with mind and matter. Those without deal only with matter, which they call the physical or material world. To them the mind is not any sort of immaterial essence, but simply another name for the brain in which a series of chemical reactions take place which they call thoughts.

Duck Bay, Loch Lomond

To the Christian, a human being is a creature that God has created in His own image. To the Materialist we are the result of blind forces called Natural Selection or Survival of the Fittest otherwise known as The Theory of Evolution. Some consider Science and Evolution interchangeable. However, given honest thought, anyone can see that Evolution is not science but is instead philosophy. It is a worldview.

John Calvin and Charles Darwin had two completely different worldviews. The worldview of the former was based on the revelation of God and that of the latter was based on the speculation of man. Rejecting the revelation of God in Scripture left Darwin with no option other than to speculate about what he saw in creation. Thus he came up with his Theory of Evolution – which theory is promulgated in his best-selling book The Origin of Species. Ashley Montagu says, ‘Next to the Bible no work has been quite as influential, in virtually every aspect of human thought, as The Origin of Species.’ There you have it, two books in strict competition. One is revelation from the Creator, and the other is speculation by a creature about other creatures the Creator has made. One is Biblical and the other is Materialist. But which sees creation more clearly: Calvin with the spectacles of Scripture on or Darwin with the spectacles off?

It all begins in the mind, or, as those who try to do science without God would have it, it all begins in the brain. Whether the law of physics, chemistry, biology, logic, economy, linguistics, ethics, morals etc., each presupposes a Law-giver. Even the Law of the Jungle, i.e., Evolutionism, presupposes a Law-giver! Whereas the Christian presupposes the Creator God, the Evolutionist, lest the Almighty get a foot in the door, presupposes blind forces, i.e., time, chance, and matter. It is the difference between doing science in the laboratory with the lights on or having the lights off. On account of inherent laws, both competing parties can conduct empirical experiments, weighing, measuring, mixing, balancing, observing, dissecting, and both can predict the same end results. However, the Christian sees actual order in these things, while the Materialist sees only “apparent” order, i.e., design. E.g., ‘We live on a planet where we are surrounded by perhaps ten million species, each one of which independently displays a powerful illusion of apparent design.’ (Dawkins). It’s hard to see how one can actually conduct any scientific study of anything in creation if one must presuppose beforehand that any perceived design is a ‘powerful illusion’. Why do this to oneself? Oh, yes, any design in creation would presuppose a designer, i.e., THE Designer!

To the open-minded, all science must begin with, ‘In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.’ Otherwise, you’re acting as blindly as the blind-forces you believe in (Psalm 135:18). ‘If the blind leads the blind, both will fall into the ditch.’ Matthew 15:14b.