The Narrow Bandwidth of Definition 3

Why is all of this discussion important for Christians today? 

Why is this topic of the narrowness of the bandwidths of characteristics that define the essence of things living and non-living in the natural world…included at the beginning of a book entitled…A Popular Defense of the Bible and Christianity?

This argument for the necessity of an independent agent…a thinking Creator God…as the active Designer behind the invention of the narrow bandwidths of characteristics that define each and every living thing on this planet…in terms of their complex, highly specified, and coherently integrated body-plan architectures and lifestyle habits…crosses over seamlessly and beautifully…for the same reasons…into the equally compelling argument…that the biblical narrative stories of faith likewise must have a divine origin.

Certainly the storylines of the biblical narrative stories of faith like those of Abraham, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, David, Ruth, Hannah, Esther and Mordecai, Elijah, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, Joseph and Mary, John the Baptist, Peter, James, John, and Paul…to name a few…are not the product of accidental invention.

The letters, words, sentences, and grammatical structure of the biblical narrative stories of faith did not self-assemble by random-chance trial-and-error…any more than computer software language codes self-assemble to produce debugged and error-free applications such as word processing and financial accounting spreadsheets.

The narrow bandwidth of the characteristics and details of the life-script calling of Abraham…the “father of faith” as defined in the New Testament in Hebrews 11:1 and 11:6…cannot be the product of blind, mindless, unguided, indifferent, trial-and error, random-chance iterations of human experiences.

We see no trial-and-error, unguided natural selection of variant traits in the storyline of the life of Abraham.  Even when factoring-in human error and imperfect character…the God-composed journey of faith life-script for Abraham…is the epitome of being well-defined and narrowly bounded top and bottom by horizontally limiting graph-lines.

The same can be said for the narrow bandwidths of the characteristics of the individual personalities of each and every positive character in the biblical narrative stories of faith.

We correctly marvel at the information content that is placed within the seed of an apple tree…that when placed in the ground to die as a seed…it then rises-up with incredible directional momentum, intent, and energy…to become a large tree bearing a very definite type of edible fruit…apples.

So it is with the God-created human personality…that has an upper and a lower horizontal graph-line that uniquely defines who and what we are…but also what we are not.

I do not have the innate capacity to be an Abraham, Joseph in Egypt, Moses, Joshua, David, Peter, or Paul.  Their personalities and unique life-scripts…are simply not me.

Our uniquely divine callings…as modern-day new covenant Christians…is to first die as a seed in the ground (Jn. 12:24)…to pick up our cross to follow Jesus Christ…into individualized journeys of faith to match our optimum sweet-spot arrangement of innate personal characteristics and abilities.

This is what separates and differentiates…in the most subtle yet profound way…the virtue of faith in Jesus Christ on the one hand (Gen. 22:8; Num. 21:8-9; Isa. 53:4-5)…and on the other hand the condemnation of going our own way in unbelief (Isa. 53:6; Jn. 7:7, 8:24)…in choosing to be our own junior gods living in the self-sovereignty of autonomous individualism.

Hebrews 11:6 says that without faith it is impossible to please God…because only God can connect the narrow bandwidth of the characteristics that define who and what we are individually capable of achieving…with a matching, God-composed, life-script calling and mission-plan that fulfills our created destiny…the human equivalent of the brilliantly diverse lifestyle habits we see in the enumerable living things in the natural world…like the apple tree mentioned above.

Because the narrow bandwidths of the storylines of the biblical narrative stories of faith cannot possibly be the product of accidental invention…the aim of this book is to make the arguments that these stories of faith cannot also plausibly be the product of worldly conventional normalcy and thinking…and like the complex inventions of lions, elephants, and zebras in the natural living world…must have a divinely created origin.

The narrow range of the storyline details contained within the bandwidths of the biblical narrative stories of faith…which have supernatural callings, goals, missions, and outcomes…coupled with dependence upon God to successfully complete these missions…places these stories at the zenith, the pinnacle, the peak of human moral capacity.

Do any other stories in the history of human experiences and literature exceed the themes of moral character found in the God-composed life-scripts for Abraham, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, Ruth, Hannah, David, Elijah, Esther and Mordecai, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, Joseph and Mary, John the Baptist, Peter, James, John, Philip, Paul, Barnabas, Silas, Aquila and Priscilla, Apollos, and Timothy…to name a few?

The journey of faith life-scripts for Abraham through Paul recorded in the Bible…not to forget Enoch and Noah…are on the top-most shelf of the optimum sweet-spot potential for human experienced and actualized moral character…in the same way that we cannot conceptually improve upon the lifestyle habits of lions, elephants, falcons, dolphins, or hummingbirds.

The fact that every living thing today is at their individual points of optimum development…with no actual large-scale, in-progress change apparent…and no further conceptual change in body-plan architectures and lifestyle habits imaginable…combined with the top-most examples of moral character to be found in all of human history, experience, and literature…in the biblical narrative stories of faith…this then makes a compelling argument against the naturalistic, evolutionary program of incremental gradualism…as the explanation…as the mechanism…for how we got to this point.

If incremental gradualism is the mechanism that produced the diversity of life…then incremental gradualism would still be in operation today…would still be the observable paradigm of reality today and going forward.

The narrow bandwidth of a well-defined living thing…renders this concept of achieving functional coherence through a step-by-step development…using the accumulation of incrementally gradual random-chance accidents…to be an invalid theoretical program…refuted by empirical human observation today.

The narrow bandwidths of definition for living and non-living things…and for the biblical narrative stories of faith…remove the option for these things to be lost within the vast space of raw possibilities (to borrow a phrase from the book Undeniable by Douglas Axe, page 160).

The undermining of the narrow bandwidth definitions of truth…by the philosophy of post-modernism that says that all truths are relative…is the equivalent in the field of biology of saying that the genetic borders around development are wide-open to big changes…that the defining characteristics of living things are not absolute.

The science of taxonomic classification would counter by saying that the well-defined characteristics of living things in their completed, end-point definitions…universal across-the-board without exceptions…is inconsistent with the Darwinian notion of continuous and ongoing change…propelled by the relativity of open-ended, unstoppable random-chance…rather than the premeditated stopping-point parameters of intelligent design.

Satan attempted to lure Jesus Christ with the open-ended and non-specific ambiguity of the temptation of “all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them” (Mt. 4:8)…during the temptation in the wilderness.

Jesus rejected this offer in favor of the more complex, highly specified, and coherently integrated life-script…written before “the foundation of the world” (Rev. 13:8)…to become the Passover Lamb of God atoning sacrifice for mankind’s sins…starting with His birth in a manger in Bethlehem.

If the storyline plots of the biblical narrative stories of faith are accurately defined as the zenith, the pinnacle, the peak of human moral character in action…amidst the otherwise vast space of raw possibilities…this then identifies and separates out the optimum, sweet-spot end-points for the purpose and meaning of human life…similar to the information content that is pre-programmed into the seeds for apple, orange, and olive trees.

The dovetail match between our created abilities…and our unique God-composed life-scripts…is the connection that raises the biblical narrative stories of faith up into the elevated bandwidth of precise definitions that is the reality of the billions of complex living things in the natural world…each of which is well-defined in terms of functional coherence…rather than being a random-chance assemblage of developing parts taken from the vast space of raw possibilities…the main tenet of accidental creation that is central to naturalistic materialism.

This is why Hebrews 11:6 says that it is impossible to please God without exercising faith in Him…and why Jesus said in Mark 8:36 “For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?”

This top-most level of moral character contained within the narrow, well-defined bandwidths of the biblical narrative stories of faith…that argue for their divine origin…is the popular defense of the Bible and Christianity I want to pursue…from many different angles and directions…in this book.

From A Popular Defense of The Bible and Christianity.