MAN: THE CHOICEMAKER
by
James Fletcher Baxter © 1997
All Rights Reserved
Human knowledge is a fraction of the universe. The balance is a vast void of ignorance. Human reason cannot function in a void, thus, the intellect can rise no higher than the criteria by which it perceives and measures values.
Humanism makes man his own standard of measure, however, as with all measuring systems, a standard must be greater than the value measured.
Based on ignorance and an egocentric carnal nature , humanism demotes reason to the simpleton task of excuse-making for the rule of feelings and glands.
Because man cannot invent criteria greater than himself, the humanist lacks a predictive capability. Without transcendent criteria, humanism cannot evaluate options with foresight for survival and progression. . Lacking instinct and foresight, man is blind to potential consequence and is unwittingly committed to averages, mediocrity, and regression.
The void of human ignorance can easily be filled with a functional faith while not-so-patiently awaiting the foot-dragging growth of human knowledge and behavior. Faith, initiated by the Creator and revealed and validated in the Bible, brings a transcendent standard to man the choice-maker. Other philosophies and religions are man-made and thereby lack prophetic validation. The foresight vision of faith in God and His Word is survival equipment for today and the future.
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At the sub-atomic level of the physical universe quantum physics indicates a multifarious gap or division in the causal chain; particles to which position cannot be assigned at all times, systems that pass from one energy state to another without manifestation in intermediate states, entities without mass, fields whose substance is as insubstantial as "a probability."
Only statistical conglomerates pay tribute to deterministic forces. Singularities do not and are therefore random, unpredictable, mutant, and in this sense, uncaused.
The finest contribution inanimate reality is capable of making toward choice, without its own selective agencies, is this continuing manifestation of opportunity as the pre-condition to choice it defers to the natural action of living forms.
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The survival and progression of life forms has all too often been totally dependent upon the everpresent mutative potential and undeterminative appearance of one unique individual organism within the whole spectrum of a given species. Only the uniquely equipped individual organism is, like The Golden Wedge of Ophir, capable of traversing the causal gap to survival and progression. Mere reproductive determinacy would have rendered life forms incapable of such potential. Only a moving universe of opportunity plus choice enables the present reality.
* * *
Man is The Choicemaker. His title describes his definitive and typifying characteristic. Recall that his other features are but vehicles of experience intent on the development of perceptive awareness and the following acts of decision. Note that the products of man cannot define him for they are the fruit of the discerning choice-making process and include the cognition of self, the utility of experience, the development of value- measuring systems and language, and the acculturation of civilization.
The arts and the sciences of man, as with his habits, customs, and traditions, are the creative harvest of his perceptive and selective powers. His articles, constructs, and commodities, however marvelous to behold, deserve neither awe nor idolatry, for man, not his contrivance, is earth's own highest expression of the creative process.
Man is The Choicemaker. The sublime and significant act of choosing is, itself, the Archimedean fulcrum upon which man levers and redirects the forces of cause and effect to an elected level of quality and diversity. Further, it orients him toward a natural environmental opportunity, freedom, and bestows earth's title, The Choicemaker, on his singular and plural brow.
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Tampering with man's selective nature endangers his survival, for it would render him impotent and obsolete by denying the tools of diversity, individuality, perception, criteria, selectivity, and progress. Coercive attempts produce revulsion, for such acts are contrary to an indeterminate nature and nature's indeterminate off-spring, Man the Choicemaker.
Until the oppressors discover that wisdom only just begins with a respectful acknowledgement of The Creator, The Creation, and The Choicemaker, they will be ever learning but never coming to a knowledge of the truth. The rejection of Creator-initiated standards relegates the mind of man to its own primitive, empirical, and de-limited devices. It is thus that the human intellect cannot ascend and function at any level higher than the criteria by which it perceives and measures values. Additionally, such rejection of transcendent criteria self-denies man the vision and foresight essential to decision-making for survival and progression. He is left, instead, with the redundant wreckage of expensive hindsight, including human institutions characterized by averages, mediocrity, and regression.
Humanism, mired in the circular and mundane egocentric predicament, is ill-equipped to produce transcendent criteria. Evidenced by those who do
not perceive superiority and thus find themselves beset by the shifting winds of the carnal-ego; i.e., moods, feelings, desires, appetites, etc.,
the mind becomes subordinate - a mere device for excuse-making and rationalizing self-justification.
The carnal-ego rejects criteria and self-discipline for such instruments are tools of the mind and the attitude. The appetites of the flesh have no need of standards, for at the point of contention standards are perceived as alien, restrictive, and inhibiting. Yet, the very survival of our physical nature itself depends upon a maintained sovereignty of the mind and of the spirit.
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tool of the intellect - a Transcendent Standard by which he may measure values in experience, anticipate results, and make enlightened and visionary choices.
Only the unique and superior God-man Person can deservedly displace the ego-person from his predicament and free the individual to measure values and choose in a more excellent way. That sublime Person was indicated in the words of the prophet Amos, "...said the Lord, Behold, I will set a plumbline in the midst of my people Israel." Y'shua Mashiyach Jesus said,
"If I be lifted up I will draw all men unto myself."
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That human institution which is structured on the principle, "...all men are endowed by their Creator with...Liberty...," is a system with its roots in the natural order of the universe. The opponents of such a system are necessarily engaged in a losing contest with nature and nature's God.
To the advent of a new era we commend the present generation and the multitudes in the valley of decision.
Behold!
The Age of Man the Choicemaker.
