The Human Choice - 19
Now I must try to illustrate and clarify what is meant by "Truth is the reality of the order in which we exist."
When a cabinet-maker builds a chair he places various materials into an ordered relationship; if the order is true to the purpose he creates the "authority" of a chair. If the order is not true to its purpose then the chair breaks down.
So the order of the materials is the authority (reality) for the chair. The order creates the authority that is our reality; so our truth is the reality of the order that has been created.
The truth, order and authority all pre-exist but in non-physical form. The chair-maker has the chair in mind before he makes it; he has in mind all his acts of creation before he acts.
It is fundamental that the authority for life is vested in the order of matter and all things that exist either do so in their true order or are faulty. This applies to all things from an atom to a computer - a human, or even a government. It is order which creates the authority that is our reality.
Meaning: if we build it wrong it falls down; if we live wrong people suffer.
Let's consider a bucket of milk. Bucket and milk are ordered very differently. The bucket has authority to contain the milk and confer on it a degree of portability, but the milk has no authority for transporting the bucket ... except ... except that the milk might be devoured by some other order and be converted into energy. However, when this is done the milk, as such, no longer exists; the order and authority of the milk has been dismantled and converted into a new order and new authority.
This is the way it always is; if we want to change the authority; then we have to change the order. The order is the authority, that authority is the reality of what exists and the truth that we have to deal with in our everyday lives.
The order of creation imposes a force (authority) with which we can live in harmony or fight against. We have a choice, in harmony or in discord; we are free to enjoy or to suffer.
If we ignore the substance of authority we have little chance of coming to rational and beneficial decisions.
A false order creates a false authority and as such will always be in conflict with true order and authority; the degree of conflict will relate to the degree of disorder. Mankind has the ability and free-will to create both order and disorder.
So order came into physical existence with the creation of matter and even God cannot change this without destroying it.
M't.5:18. I tell you this: so long as heaven and earth endure, not a letter, not a stroke, will disappear from the Law until all that must happen has happened.
Mankind has a choice within limits. Outside of these limits there is also choice, but that choice carries a penalty. The further the deviation from reality the greater the penalty the community must suffer.
Social suffering is not offender specific, that is, the person breaking the rules may not be the one to suffer the immediate pain but, once the social crime enters into the community, the consequent social suffering is inevitable. Personal justice, if not served by community action, awaits the judgment day.
If people are going to attack authority, when they are wanting to attack injustice, then they are led into injustice themselves just as Jesus implied when he said, M't. 22:22 Then pay Caesar what is due to Caesar, and pay to God what is due to God.
Those attacking authority are self-destructive because authority, as we have seen, is fundamental to life while injustice is a result of false order. In other words: if we don't maintain the correct order we, as a community, get the authority we deserve.
There is no way of beneficially attacking injustice other than by reforming the faulty authority. To do that we have to know, and accept, the true authority. To correct a faulty authority we have to change the order and the order of our community is in the hands of our community.
If our car behaves badly it is useless to kick and abuse it. To do that is to fight against the order of our car. Correct effort is to find what is out of order and fix it.
So let us not forget: Truth is the reality of the order in which we exist.
Now let us go to the key to it all. I will, unless otherwise stated, be quoting from the "New English New Testament". This modern translation was authorised by: The Baptist Union of Great Britain and Ireland; The Church of England; The Church of Scotland; The Congregational Union of England and Wales; The Council of Churches for Wales; The London Yearly Meeting of the Society of Friends; The Methodist Church of Great Britain; The Presbyterian Church of England; The United Council of Christian Churches and Religious Communions in Ireland; The British and Foreign Bible Society; The National Bible Society of Scotland.
This Bible claims to be a new translation of base reference materials in light of the best of modern scholarship. If reference is made outside of the Gospels area, or outside of this translation, it will be so indicated.
Quotations attributed to Jesus are in an individual typeface; other quotations are in italics. choice19.htm