The Dialectical Evolution of Sin & Remedies Against Satan's Devices

Thomas Brook's 'Precious Remedies Against Satan's Devices' is an easy reading 160 page workbook for recognizing sin, its source, consequences, and overcoming that. As in 'Holy War' by John Bunyan, Brook's approach more oriented toward defense against sin and snares of sin. Brook has an important chapter about sin masquerading as virtue, and that stimulates some deeper philosophical thinking about what sin is, what original sin was comprised of, how its correction was implemented and how sin appears to be for human beings as an existential encounter.

Thomas Brooks has an important chapter about sin masquerading as virtue, and that stimulates some deeper philosophical thinking about what sin is, what original sin was comprised of, how its correction was implemented and how sin appears to be for human beings as an existential encounter.

As an entry to that consideration one might inquire if all sin appears to be a pleasure. If in fact all sin seems to be a pleasure and if human beings generally pursue pleasure then it seems understandable that many people would do away with discrimination between different kinds of objects or activities of pleasure where some are considered good and some are regarded as evil. Do human beings ever do anything for-themselves they regard as evil, or isn't it instead always something thought to be good (even if one suicides to make a 'better' circumstance?

Socrates pursued virtue and would have had no trouble in saying that a man should pursue virtue instead of pleasure. If pleasure coincides with virtue well-enough, yet if a pleasure is in conflict with virtue choose virtue. Classical virtue may have a realm-of-forms and neo-Platonic foundation, and that is not worldly. It's theoretical, abstract and disregards pleasure when it must to the point of favorable comparison with the illusory regard in which material reality is held as maya or moksha by Hindu and Buddhists. Sakyamuni as a philosopher held reality to be illusory with nothing following life. His way of thinking was comparable to contemporary physical cosmology regarding the cosmos as a phenomenal steady-state of entangled particle-waves arising from virtual energy in a spatial-field with no permanent meaning or existence beyond the temporal.

The pursuit of pleasure rather than enlightenment of virtue or cosmology is for classical philosophers including Buddha an abnegation of man's higher calling to transcend material being and understand reality and mankind's place in it. Socrates felt that man's place in the Universe was a stage on life's way as a fractional element of the divine spirit existing in a protocol level of the Universe-project by The Intelligence (comparable to the Holy Spirit). Buddha thought nothing existed beyond or followed the temporal phenomenon. Christian virtue is different than either, and yet has similarities and differences to numerous to mention here.

Christian virtues are ontological duties following the will of God being. Christians resist sin keeping focused on the revealed will of God for human living. It has been compared to being a soldier on a mission eschewing worldly pleasures and disregarding pains and privations in order to complete the mission, or as Paul said, to win the race and the prize of eternal life with the Lord. The Christian life is definitely not one of simple pursuit of pleasure except that the highest good-God and salvation for a Christian-is also the greatest pleasure. It is not a material pleasure though.

Here one discerns the problems of what the good is, and of the inability of humans to do anything besides choose what they think is good and not evil for-themselves. Logically and rationally none could paradoxically Paul said that none are good-no not one, and Jesus paradoxically asked 'why dost thou call me good, none are good save the Father in heaven'.

Original sin's correction or containment was for Adam and Eve to be downloaded into temporal space-time from some sort of Paradise without it. For the spirit to be inextricably bound in flesh with all of its temporal thermodynamic urges and requirements is to experience sin and the biological drive for pleasure. Pleasure is a primitive sense experience of what works for the good of an organism. Maybe an amoeba feels some pleasure as it devours some micro-organism. Scientists like to say that life is just getting more energy input, yet I think that nearly all organic life must be pursuing that with pleasure as the motivator reinforcing behavior. For human beings to have spiritual awareness though they must think at a higher level and move beyond physical pleasure to philosophy and spirit. Wisdom is of God, and leads one to spirit and God, and that is good.

When God created the Universe after each day or phase of creation He said that it was good. Mass-energy for itself that God formed the Universe of is good, yet when human experience of the temporal Universe has their spirit implicitly entangled in and formed in mass-energy it is challenging to contemplate spiritual affairs or to know what that might be. The philosopher David Hume was an anti-sophist in effect urging people to cast into the flames books with metaphysics. Hume regarded metaphysics as nonsense. Modern anti-Christians and atheist therefore like David Hume a lot since anything spiritual seems to be metaphysical non-sense for the just-worldly. What is wisdom to man is foolishness to God.

Today's cultured despiser of religion- often atheists with a sensible organic self-limitation-despise the concept of sin. Sin is more than simply a discrimination against pleasure. Sin is not limited to existential temptation to-oneself; sin can occur in a dialectical paradigm wherein what is pleasure for one is harmful to another.

Sin is a meta-social delimitation marker for right conduct too. To avoid sin has social consequences for the good, while choosing to sin often has bad social consequences. An easy example is murder; the Joker might enjoy murder-art yet his victims not at all. Adolph Hitler probably thought he was pursuing good and pleasure, yet 50 million people died as a consequence and hundreds of millions more were wounded or displaced. Sin is a socially transmitted disease like herpes or H.I.V.-it goes around and comes around; the spiritually discerning soul eschews it.

Sartre's 'Being and Nothingness' is tome of first-person description of conscious experience. Nothing is expressed on sin or of ontology in the book. It is a technical -analytical description of the phenomena of mind. His sequel 'The Critique of Dialectical Reason' describes how people interact socially from an existential point of view. One could use 'The Critique' as a template for how sin-particular and general-circulate quite readily. Of course there are meta-Diabolic elements at work besides we are informed in the Bible. One discerns a large social awareness disconformity between sin as an existential pleasure phenomenality and sin as a dialectical social currency with grave consequences.

Just being in the material world as a part of it without thought at all would make cabbages if the human race. Rational thought is fundamental for human beings. Spirit is greater than and the foundation of the material. Christians have that as an article of faith and so did classical virtue. Thus one returns returns to Brook's 'Remedies Against Satan's Devices'; sin is the organic form of pursuit of pleasure only-a regression to full amoeba-hood morally, with disastrous consequences for the human spirit, and the hope of the human spirit for reconciliation unto God through the atoning sacrifice of the Son.

Brooks wrote the following on page 22-23;"Remedy (4). Seriously to consider, That even those very sins that Satan paints, and. Seriously to consider, That even those very sins that Satan paints, and puts new names and colors upon, cost the best blood, the noblest blood, the life-blood, the heart-blood of the Lord Jesus. That Christ should come from the eternal bosom of his Father to a region of sorrow and death; that God should be manifested in the flesh, the Creator made a creature; that he who was clothed with glory should be wrapped with rags of flesh; he who filled heaven and earth with his glory should be cradled in a manger; that the almighty God should flee from weak man—the God of Israel into Egypt; that the God of the law should be subject to the law, the God of the circumcision circumcised, the God who made the heavens working at Joseph's homely trade; that he who binds the devils in chains should be tempted; that he, whose is the world, and the fullness thereof, should hunger and thirst; that the God of strength should be weary, the Judge of all flesh condemned, the God of life put to death; that he who is one with his Father should cry out of misery, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Matt. 27:46); that he who had the keys of hell and death at his belt should lie imprisoned in the sepulcher of another, having in his lifetime nowhere to lay his head, nor after death to lay his body; that that HEAD, before which the angels do cast down their crowns, should be crowned with thorns, and those EYES, purer than the sun, put out by the darkness of death; those EARS, which hear nothing but hallelujahs of saints and angels, to hear the blasphemies of the multitude; that FACE, which was fairer than the sons of men, to be spit on by those beastly wretched Jews; that MOUTH and TONGUE, which spoke as never man spoke, accused for blasphemy; those HANDS, which freely swayed the scepter of heaven, nailed to the cross; those FEET, "like unto fine brass," nailed to the cross for man's sins; each sense pained with a spear and nails; his SMELL, with stinking odor, being crucified on Golgotha, the place of skulls; his TASTE, with vinegar and gall; his HEARING, with reproaches, and SIGHT of his mother and disciples bemoaning him; his SOUL, comfortless and forsaken; and all this for those very sins that Satan paints and puts fine colors upon! Oh! how should the consideration of this stir up the soul against sin, and work the soul to fly from it, and to use all holy means whereby sin may be subdued and destroyed!"

Brooks commented on the way sin may approach gradually as is so evident today in the American media where each advance of sin culturally is explained as 'the new normal'. Sin has become a kind of partner of science in the U.S.A. without scientific recognition of the diabolic impact. Scientific progress is exploited as evidence to support the eradication of moral criteria. A Universe without a divine presence that is entirely measurable and manipulable by human action is reinforced constantly. Nothing in science is capable of studying the spiritual. In fact the spiritual cannot be defined in physical terms although researchers have studied the brain with imaging technologies during prayer to learn what regions might be used and what biochemical responses could produce euphoric or tranquil states of mind.

The human mind does exist within a physical brain housing unit (skull) and may consciously and subconsciously have a relationship with God. The relationship is entirely of grace though-God provides all communication required, all divine instructions given through revelation. In physical terms of power the relationship is mono-polar that like gravity flows in just one direction (toward the heart matter in the case of gravity). Numerous physical means for God to accomplish one-direction control of this Universe and of its social issues are theoretically possible and appear to the thinking individual rather easily. For instance the entire history of the Universe could have been predetermined, or God could have the allegorical 'tachyon' channel to subtly talk with select people. With radio one hears an example of one-way communication. With a superior spiritual communications and control 'technology' God can interrogate and shape the mass-energy of the Universe in conformity with his own choosing from among possibilities He made himself. That raises the question of why God chooses anything or creates anything to choose from. It also may bear indirectly on the subject of why evil exists though God is perfect.

The problem of exploiting science to support the reduction of moral standard accountability to divine standards reminds me of when cosmonauts orbiting earth in the early 1960s said they had visited heaven, looked around and didn't see God anywhere-that was an almost primitive misinterpretation of the Bible's use of the word 'heaven'.

To be fair though evolution is a stumbling block for many fundamentalist Christians who share the opinion of the Diabolic applications of science crowd that evolution theory is in direct contradiction to the Bible account of creation and actually, it is not. Dr. Science quality quack creation pseudo-science harms Christian evangelical missions work to save the lost. It isn't necessary for Christians to disprove evolution in order to defend the point that God created the Universe. God could have evolved 14 billion years in 14 seconds if he had a will to-his mastery of matter and energy is beyond any human comprehension. Popular education is based on evolution science and it has a kind of self-evident truth about it that dogmatic, hierarchical priesthoods without proper hermeneutic templates find impossibly difficult to explain without quack science to contradict it directly.

Popular movies with evolution themes saturate public imagination and they offer fuel to the Diabolan fire to burn down the Christian mission. The film 'Lucy' with a cute blond named Scarlet Johanson playing the lead role is about evolution-with eponymous reference to the first human-like ancestor skeleton found living around Lake Tanganyika 3.5 million years ago-a short Australopithecus female about 3.5 feet tall. The star of the film 'Lucy' is a modern woman who, like that 3.5 million year old fossil excavated by Lewis Leakey's son Richard, is named 'Lucy'.

The second chapter of Genesis has Adam and Eve created outside space-time in a place named Eden. They are then thrown out of Eden and into a world that was created in stages-evolved-in chapter one. It is possible to argue about the values of the time literals of chapter one (e.g. how long is a day before light or stars were made), yet to interpolate Bishop Usher's calculations into chapter one is a mistake made by the Diabolic and the fundamentalist set-and the latter are also wrong about interpreting the time and symbolic referent values of the Revelation quite commonly (pre-tribbers have it wrong).

At any rate Lucy accidentally ingests an illegal drug designed by the Japanese Yakuza in enormous quantities that have the side effect of making her brain use 100% instead of the normal 10%. Morgan Freeman is a kind of scientific narrator explaining evolution's biological history on Earth during the film. There are flashes of predator-prey actions and comparisons to moderns in the same roles. Lucy will evolve herself to the highest condition eventually in record time. She evolves millions or billions of years ahead intellectually speaking in a day or two with the magic smart drug. So therefore logically she understands quantum mechanics itself and makes herself into a quantum computer to reshape reality. That's a neat trick that I have though God could do, yet one sees that it would be science and immoral Diabolans that would have that divine kind of power in the brave new world (a point not made in the movie 'Lucy').

Unknown perhaps to the producers of Lucy- another skeleton was dug up a couple of years ago 40 miles north of Lucy's burial site that is two feet taller. It is a male named, I believe, Mr. Big who would have towered over Lucy.

Mr. Big was 5.5 feet tall and lived in the same time period 3.5 million years ago. Mr. Big was probably the brains of the outfit and was the same height as the average 19th century Brit. Maybe Brit brains advanced in 3.5 million years somewhat since they invented fish and chips whereas the Tanganikans probably ate fish sushi style, yet 'Sir' Elton John's moral reasoning has taken a turn Mr. Big might have regarded as wrong.

There are fewer murders in modern Britain than there were in the Middle East of 10,000 B.C. when Jericho began to be settled. Mass war capacity has increased with homosexuals on U-boats, Tridents or whatever ready to push nuclear missile trigger-buttons in a kinder, gentler way. High-tech Megadeath is so civilized. It takes a while to build up, like catastrophe theory mathematics, while in the interregnum from doom atheist organizations extol the love, peace and humanhood of sin and faithlessness. The film starring Lucy should have had Mr. Big playing the sadistic, chauvinist, little-better than a chimpanzee-sort-of-guy named Caesar.

A world with no religion too would lead to a Universe run by and for Satan evidently-and that would be consistent with what is known about the primary Lord of Looseness from reading scripture. On the other hand, with enough Priesthood of Believers organizing maybe that is the way a Christian majority will arise. A Christian majority using ecological economic leadership (it is more than classical economic abstract market management and includes an environmental 'hands on' approach neither Luddite nor oppressively stagnant as a kind of Egyptian, dynastic 'time-freeze' cultural stasis of conservation).

Thus one notes why Hollywood and the Federal government has decreasing trouble advancing morals that are not consistent with divine standards. Especially in the same sex marriage issue, a history of Hollywood and media , television and federal promotion of homosexuality built to a crescendo this month with former athlete Bruce Jenner's cover on Vanity Fare in a bikini as a castrated makeover into a neo-woman. With 'Sir' Elton John leading the British homosexual advance and with the Rhodes Scholar influence of Bill Clinton the decline of U.S. moral norms was inevitable without an active priesthood of believers existing as an ecclesiastical backbone for the church.

Thomas Brooks wrote on page 24 of 'Precious Remedies...'; "Sin gains upon man's soul by insensible degrees. "The beginning of the words of his mouth is foolishness, and the end of his talking is mischievous madness." (Eccles. 10:13) Corruption in the heart, when it breaks forth, is like a breach in the sea, which begins in a narrow passage, until it eats through, and cast down all before it. The debates of the soul are quick, and soon ended; and that may be done in a moment that may undo a man forever. When a man has begun to sin, he knows not where, or when, or how he shall make a stop of sin. Usually the soul goes on from evil to evil, from folly to folly, until it is ripe for eternal misery!"

Brooks explains that the Satanic device luring men to sin with examples of famous sinners such as David or Peter who were still forgiven, in order to trick the soul into believing that little (or large) sins are forgivable and not to worry much about doesn't show the huge repentance of those men to their one-time huge sin.

Brooks page 31; "And therefore, though you may escape temporal

judgments, yet you shall not escape spiritual judgments: 'How shall we escape, if we

neglect so great salvation?' (Heb. 2:3) says the apostle. Oh! therefore, whenever Satan shall present God to the soul as one made up all of mercy, that he may draw you to do wickedly, say unto him, that sins against God's mercy, will bring upon the soul the

greatest misery; and therefore whatever becomes of you, you will not sin against

mercy."

Brooks wrote on page 30 that;

"Remedy (2). The second remedy against this device of Satan is, solemnly to consider, That God is as JUST, as he is merciful. As the Scriptures speak Him out to be a very merciful God, so they speak Him out to be a very just God. Witness His casting the angels out of heaven and His binding them in chains of darkness until the judgment of great day.* Witness His turning Adam out of Paradise. Witness His drowning of the old world. Witness His raining hell out of heaven upon Sodom. Witness all the troubles, losses, sicknesses, and diseases, which are in the world. Witness Tophet, which "has long been prepared; it has been made ready for the king. Its fire pit has been made deep and wide, with an abundance of fire and wood; the breath of the LORD, like a stream of burning sulfur, sets it ablaze." (Isaiah 30:33) Witness His treasuring up of wrath against the day of wrath. But above all, witness the pouring forth of all His wrath upon His bosom Son, when Jesus bore the sins of His people, and cried out, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?""

and

"The third remedy against this device of Satan is, seriously to consider, That sins against God's mercy will bring the greatest and sorest judgments upon men's heads and hearts. Mercy is God's Alpha, justice is His Omega. David, speaking of these attributes, places mercy in the forefront, and justice in the rearward, saying, "I will sing of Your love and justice." (Psalm 101:1). When God's mercy is despised, then His justice takes the throne!* God is like a prince, who sends not his army against rebels before he has sent his pardon, and proclaimed it by a herald of arms: he first hangs out the white flag of mercy; if this wins men in, they are happy forever; but if they remain rebellious, then God will put forth his red flag of justice and judgment. If His mercy is despised, His justice shall be felt!

The higher we are in dignity, the more grievous is our fall and misery."

Brook's 'Remedies...' page 30-"Ah Lord! this mercy! humbly beg, that whatever you give me up to, you will not give me up to the ways of my own heart; if you will give me up to be afflicted, or tempted, or reproached, I will patiently sit down, and say, It is the Lord; let him do with me what seems good in his own eyes. Do anything with me, lay what burden you will upon me, so you do not give me up to the ways of my own heart. Augustine says, 'It is a human thing to fall into sin, devilish to persevere therein, and divine to rise from it. Deliver me, O Lord, from that evil man—myself!"