Michael Hoffman: I would answer that there are two fundamental differences that come to mind as being most striking.
1. The occult will have man play God. Man is a god. Human brain power reigns supreme and has license to tamper with Creation. The juvenile, if not downright infantile creed that whatever technology can be developed should be developed and applied as the scientist-god sees fit, is the religion of the elite at the top universities and laboratories.
The Christian, on the contrary, is in subjection to the Creator, the only God in the universe. Man may not usurp God's sovereign role. Techological change must be in accord with Nature. All other technology, as represented by "the Ring" in Tolkein's Lord of the Rings, leads to catastrophe.
2. I will have the eminent Timothy Dwight, grandson of Jonathan Edwards, chaplain to the patriot army in the American Revolution, and from 1795, President of Yale College, present the traditional Biblical-Christian view of human beings, totally at variance with “our" modern pop culture, which has been crafted by the occult:
"...all science...is founded in facts and is formed of facts, and the relations which spring from them. The first great fact in the science of man is that he is a depraved being. This is the first and fundamental fact, because out of it arise, and by it are characterized, all his volitions, and all his conduct. Hence, everything pertaining to Man is colored and qualified by this part of his moral nature; and no description of him can be true, and no doctrine sound, or defensible, into which this consideration does not essentially enter.”
[Timothy Dwight, Theology Explained and Defended (New Haven, Connecticut: 1839), vol. 1, p. 498].
www.revisionisthistory.org
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I think a little commentary might be in order here:
ReplyDelete"man... is a depraved being"
No, he isn't.
Due to Original Sin, his intellect (both reasoning power and memory) suffers from the absence of due knowledge, and his will tends to sin.
Off-topic:
I must confess that your book on usury has blown up my mind.
Being unable to contradict your main thesis, I'm currently revising my Bibles in order to check it out which ones stick to the translations you give in the text.
To my surprise, none of my preferred translations were clear enough on this precise point.
Following Ps.15:5 and Ez.18:8, I have had to reconsider translations that, up until now, were not my favorite ones, such as "American Standard Version", "English Standard Version", "Holman Christian Standard", "Roterham Emphasized" and "WEB Revision" in English, and "Biblia Latino Americana" and "Dios Habla Hoy" in Spanish.
I was used to read The Jerusalem Bible, and the Spanish EUNSA, the Bover-Cantera and last, but not least, the 7 vol. (8 tomes) commented edition of Nacar-Colunga.
To my dismay, this magnificent edition comments Ez.18:8 main point laconically stating that "It was only allowed to charge interests to the foreigner" ("Se permitía cobrar intereses sólo al extranjero").
cfr. Profesores de Salamanca: Biblia Comentada, vol. III, Madrid, 1967, Libros proféticos, Ezequiel, Cap. 18, p. 847.
It's sad to acknowledge it, but as Jean-François Revel said in his book "The Totalitarian Temptation", "The most powerful force in the world is lying".
Thank you for such a necessary work.
Having recently decided to leave the Roman Church and become Orthodox, I checked my new Orthodox Bible (The Orthodox Study Bible) which clearly states in Ez 18:8 that a man will lend his money with no interest ...
ReplyDeleteIt seems therefore that my decision to convert to Orthodoxy is the right one. I have found other discrepancies with translations. My previous Bible being the New Jerusalem Bible to which you have already referred.
However, I am no academic just a seeker of truth trying to get by, and my comment is made purely from a personal viewpoint.
Indeed I once heard said that those who like to "play God" will in the end learn they've been playing in the hands of the devil.
ReplyDelete