Process Theology: Inspiration

PROCESS THEOLOGY:

INSPIRATION

by R.E. Slater

July 16, 2022

They live in a cyberpunk distopia but they look fly while doing it...

- Ashe, WestWorld, Season 3.6

First Observation

I'm a WestWorld Sci-Fi Junkie and just like the TV Series Wheel of Time can't get enough of these Isaac Asimov-like worlds of the future.

When I heard this cyberpunk statement in a video commentary by Collider or HaxDogma I couldn't help but think of BibleWorld - the world I live in, and have lived in, all my life. And as in my past, and now currently, am trying to do a better job of listening to, and understanding, OtherWorlds, from yet another perspective produced by my deep interest in process theology.

In the past I had mistakenly assumed BibleWorld was JesusWorld which includes at its core GodisLoveWorld. But lately, it does not seem this way as BibleWorld has become more like WestWorld in its violence towards others and self-centered attitudes. Though I'm sure SecularWorld has crept into BibleWorld there is also an UsWorld which is secular to it's core; very pagan; very indifferent to God; unloving; and, well, self-centered in everything it does. In contrast, A Jesus-centered Process theology teaches the inherent worth of others and to see life from their perspective. 

But before I go any further let me just say that mankind, as is creation, are infilled with the Image of God. That the Divine Imago Dei is loving, altruistic, selfless, sacrificial, and Other-oriented - and we can be this way too when we want to be. Meaning, we fight this ying-yang within ourselves of good v. evil, or a spiritual lack v. a Spirit infilling of our words and actions. But a fight that fundamentally was won by Jesus on the Cross of Calvary. A fight which is now being waged in the living lives of humanity and creation. A creation which can be more than itself but it takes a resurrected God of redemption to have made this so.

Second Observation

My BibleWorld is being replaced yet again by JesusWorld. Religious tradition like anything else needs refocusing from time to time. But in the BibleWorld of Christianity such as we see in the Biblebelt Churches of America, BibleWorld has conveniently forgotten Jesus' warnings and anti-Temple practices to Love God and not power as he stood against Judaism's current version of legalism over God's grace. Hence, BiblebeltWorld was not infilling its gospel with JesusWorld but  instead with MeWorld or ReligiousWorld. And it has been heartbreaking to watch.

I live in anguish and anger at BibleWorld's destruction of itself and society around it. It's religious rage is harming, destructive, demeaning. It believes itself to be acting like Jesus in righteous anger but has only shown itself to be acting like the religious hypocrites Jesus railed against. And the legalistic, religious Domionists of BibleWorld are also breaking apart a floundering American Democracy wishing to expand its democracies to all citizens and not just to the sectarian nationalists who are claiming their rights and beliefs as supreme over all other rights and beliefs. Whether it was Native Americans, Blacks in slavery, or groups like BLM/LGTBQ/Women, BibleWorld is often oppressive to those around it.

My new world - as I am trying to construct it and live it, albeit with my many flaws - is now becoming JesusWorld = GodisLoveWorld. No longer is BibleWorld at its theological center with all its many socio-political structural flaws, inequalities, racisms, and bigotries of every kind.

I've decided if i) the God I worship isn't Love, and ii) God's Love isn't the center of Jesus' Gospel, than all I've believed and have lived for is but chaff worthy of the fire or like a clanging brassy cymbal with its excessive grinding noise upon my migraine-induced church headache and theological ear.

I've had enough of EvangelicWorld. FundamentalWorld. JudgementalWorld. Of God'sWrathWorld. I wish to lean into RedLetterChristianWorld not only by word and deed but by doctrine, theology, and try to stay away from theological dogma, rules and laws, and self-righteous idolatry.

Third Observation

At the heart of all of this uproar is how BibleWorld reads it's Bible. I use to think the verbal plenary inspiration of the bible (VPI) was true. The church doctrine of VPI insists that the bible is true in all its words, tenses, and uses of its words (verbal); and is true in everything it describes across all of life, its events, and knowledge (plenary)

Now I find this doctrine deeply unhelpful. I was taught to read the bible literally, grammatically, historically, and contextually. All good except for reading the bible literally. This isn't good. Literalism has been the byproduct of reading the bible unquestioningly in its verbal and plenary forms which then has lead to the errant doctrine of biblical inerrancy which means the bible is error free even in its errors... (I know, a bit of an oxymoron).

The short of it is... the bible is a collection of cultural beliefs... some of which narratives speak of God but mostly speak of ancient religious beliefs about God. Since those days I would like to suggest we have done a lot more thinking of God which are just as worthy of consideration as those in the bible. Heresy! Right? No, process theology has a different take on Divine Inspiration which I'll explain in the addendum further below.

Fourth Observation

Over the years I've searched and searched and can find no helpful hermeneutic of the bible which can save it from the polarizing diatribes of preachers and congregations. My own hermeneutical preference is centered on some hash of Process-based Covenant Reformed Theology because its what I'm familiar with. It's also how I intend to revise Covenant Theology underlaid by Process Philosophy.

In the past I did a lot of work on biblical themes of promise, community, continuity v discontinuity between the Testaments, Law v Grace, Jesus as the Midpoint of Salvific History, Kingdom, Messianic Christ, as so forth. Now I intend these themes are restate them in process terms hoping to lift up BibleWorld back into JesusWorld and GodisLoveWorlds again.

What I am leaving behind is WesternChurchWorld = JohnCalvinTheologyWorld (determism) = EvangelicalWorld. I began with ArminianWorld (freewill) then lifted it up to include OpenandRelationalTheologyWorld and lastly discovered ProcessWorld easily incorporated the last two ventures into its  own OpenandRelationalProcessWorld. At the last, ProcessWorld seems a much healthier version of GodisLoveWorld = JesusWorld = RedLetterChristianWorld.

In contrast, a Self-Professing Bible built on today's evangelical church beliefs admits to closed, circular arguments of its doctrines and its religious communities circumspection of life. The problem? It cannot disprove itself because its artificial churchy boundaries have been raised so high and are attended to daily. Thus, their ApologeticWorld is more like BlindMindedWorld than it is IlluminatingWorld.

In my own experience, Christian friends have willfully closed their ears, overtalked me in arguments, showed great indifference to the church's movement away from its first love in Jesus, and have either unfriended, abandoned, or consigned me to their version of anathema... even as they have consigned their own faith to anathema by not listening to people like myself, or say, Rachel Held Evans, who have expressed deep concerns, criticisms, and movement in other directions more helpful to the Christian faith. At the last, I can no longer subscribe to the verbal, plenary inspiration and inerrancy of the bible as proper church confessions to my own faith profession. Its results are choking the church with unlove and excluding fellowship and all the while misleading the Church of God down the wayward paths of idolatrous biblicism.

Conclusion

And so, I've left BibleWorld's fortresses and bastions and have headed out across a WestWorld of God's own lands and countries to find another world more like God'sWorld and less like CardboardWorld.

Central in my journeys must be a God of love; a Christ who redeems; the need to advocate for loving redemption; and a healthy suspicion towards those who speak for God when seeing death and destruction coming by their words and deeds of sin and evil. At the last,

We all live in our own cyberpunk distopias but perhaps rather than looking fly about it in appearance to others we might better concentrate on a loving heart honoring God and neighbor.

Peace,

R.E. Slater

July 16, 2022

Verbal, Plenary Inspiration (VPI = VPP preservation)

Definition: We believe that the inspiration of the Bible is plenary (inspiration extends to all parts of the Bible equally), verbal (inspiration extends to the words, letters, tenses and other parts of speech used in Scripture).

A Qualifier to the Idea of Divine Inspiration

A new Process definition of Inerrant VPP is both a delimiting, yet expanded, version of Divine Inspiration from its Classic Version:

In fact, God has been speaking to mankind throughout time immemorial of the homo sapien journey - including its evolving idea of God. Even as God has been speaking to creation since the beginning of time, in everyway possible, and by all means possible - whether through creational evolution or by the socio-political theologies of evolving religions, God has not stopped speaking. It is on us to hear God's heart aright and bring His Words to light by the best possible means.

Moreover, in order for God to speak to creation God must be presently immanent within-and-about creation. No man, or any part of creation, may restrict God's Words to a culturally, temporally, or geographically-limiting location by way of dead documents or religious interpretations holding to an admixture of God's Words with man's errant religious beliefs. God's Words of Love are transportable across time and cultures by loving words and deeds regardless of the religious institution, even that of the Church, which says otherwise. - re slater

Inspiration's Historical Perspective

Presently, when God speaks, God is speaking everywhere and through everyone - especially to those the Church may not deem Christian. Such is the nature of divine inspiration. It is wide open, expansive, unrestraining, and most of the time troubling to behold when understanding the deafness we give to it. The prophets of the bible were especially upset over God's people not loving one another or their neighbors. In effect, Israel doomed itself on its rise to power and prominence but restricting God's loving words and deeds to forms of institutionalization of God's heart via man-made laws and doctrines. They had lost God's speech within their own speech and works.

Further, whenever God speak's into our minds and hearts I don't expect for a minute that God's inspiration comes out "inerrant and error-free, all-knowing or all-fulfilling, or even to be beheld as unquestioning." It simply is coming out through the filters of lives God is speaking to both then and now. How we might hear God's inspiration to us would be different from another of the same message. 

In this case, I can point to the process community I've discovered. At present, we are all speaking of the same God of love in many different ways and forms. It's how the Spirit of God works and is comforting to see as a body "politic" comes together in solidarity to what Christian is and isn't. However, that doesn't mean that this same community cannot be corrupted some time in the future. Especially if it is institutionalized by the Church via doctrine and dogma. Which is why I and others write so vociferously to help guide Process Christians in principle rather than by dogma.

Conclusion

So forgive me if I read the bible as a collection of imperfect documents sharing the narratives of men and women who, like us, were trying to figure out what a God of love meant to them in their lives, their tribes, their heritage, traditions, folklores, believes, and relationships with those around them.

If God is a God of Love then that Love must be judicially restorative, generative, renewing, valuative, and conjoining. If it is just all blood and guts, legalisms, stonings, and genocides than no, those bible people got it wrong back then just like today's Church of bible people have gotten it wrong again in inspiration's hit-and-miss history.

R.E. Slater

July 17-18, 2022

Verbal plenary preservation

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In Protestant theology, verbal plenary preservation (VPP) is a doctrine concerning the nature of the Bible. While verbal plenary inspiration ("VPI") applies only to the original autographs of the Bible manuscript, VPP views that, "the whole of Scripture with all its words even to the jot and tittle is perfectly preserved by God in the apographs^[1][2] without any loss of the original words, prophecies, promises, commandments, doctrines, and truths, not only in the words of salvation, but also the words of history, geography and science; and every book, every chapter, every verse, every word, every syllable, every letter is infallibly preserved by the Lord Himself to the last iota so that the Bible is not only infallible and inerrant in the past (in the autographs), but also infallible and inerrant today (in the apographs)."^[3]

Basis

The doctrine of VPP is founded on God's promise in the Scripture to perfectly preserve his words and this is affirmed in the historical confessional statements of the Christian faith.^[4][5][6]

Scripture

God's inspired words once given will be forever preserved: "The words of the Lord are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times. Thou shalt keep them, O LORD, thou shalt preserve them from this generation for ever" (Psalm 12:6-7). Those who deny that the Bible teaches preservation say that verse 7 here refers to the preservation of God's people, not His words.^[7][8]

The late Carl McIntire, the founding pastor of the historic Bible Presbyterian Church, understood verse 7 to mean preservation of the divinely inspired words of God as he had preached in 1992 a sermon entitled "Help, Lord!", from Psalm 12, saying:^[9]

"Now come verse 6, ‘The words of the LORD are pure words,’ not one of them is mistaken, ‘as silver tried in the furnace of earth, purified seven times.’ All the dregs are out. Here is a marvelous affirmation and vindication that God's Word is perfect. ... Now, ‘The words of the LORD are pure words.’ And then verse 7, how I love this: ‘Thou shalt keep them O LORD,’ that is, keep His words; ‘thou shalt preserve them from this generation forever.’ No matter what happens, one generation come and another passes away, God is going to preserve His words ... from one generation to another. The words of God will be preserved throughout all the generations.

Other Bible verses quoted to support divine preservation being verbal (words) and plenary (all, full, entire or complete) include the following:^{[10][3][11][12]}

• Psalm 105:8: "He hath remembered his covenant for ever, the word which he commanded to a thousand generations."
• Ecclesiastes 3:14: "l know that, whatsoever God doeth, it shall be for ever: nothing can be put to it, nor any thing taken from it: and God doeth it, that men should fear before him."
• Matthew 4:4: "But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." (See also Luke 4:4 for similar verse.)
• Matthew 5:18: "For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.
• Matthew 24:35: "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away." (See also Mark 13:31 and Luke 21:33 for similar verses.)
• John 10:35: "If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken."
• 1 Peter 1:25: "But the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you."

Confessional statements

The confessional statements supporting VPP include the following:^[13][11][14]

Westminster Confession of Faith ("WCF") (1643–1648)

The Old Testament in Hebrew (which was the native language of the people of God of old), and the New Testament in Greek (which, at the time of writing of it, was most generally known to the nations), being immediately inspired by God, and, by His singular care and providence, kept pure in all ages, are therefore authentical; so as, in all controversies of religion, the Church is finally to appeal unto them (Chapter 1:8)

The 1658 Savoy Declaration of Faith and Order, the 1677/1689 London Confession of Faith and the 1742 Philadelphia Confession of Faith all follow WCF 1:8.^[15][16]

Helvetic Consensus (1675)

God, the supreme Judge, not only took care to have His Word, which is the ‘power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth’ (Rom 1:16), committed to writing by Moses, the prophets, and the apostles, but has also watched and cherished it with paternal care ever since it was written up to the present time, so that it could not be corrupted by craft of Satan or fraud of man. Therefore, the church justly ascribes it to His singular grace and goodness that she has, and will have to the end of the world, a ‘sure word of prophecy’ (2 Pet 1:19) and ‘holy Scriptures’ (2 Tim 3:15), from which, though heaven and earth perish, ‘one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass’ (Matt 5:18). (Canon I)

Like the Helvetic Consensus Formula, the Westminster Confession of Faith cites Matthew 5:18 as proof text of the special providential preservation of the divinely inspired Holy Scripture.^[17][11][18] The late Rev Dr Carl McIntire also understood Chapter 1 of the Westminster Confession of Faith to be teaching the special providential preservation of God's words when continuing from what was quoted above in his 1992 sermon entitled "Help, Lord!", from Psalm 12, he said with regard to verses 6 and 7:^[19]

Now I am very happy that in the great Confessions of the Christian world, our Confession—the Westminster Confession—has its Chapter 1 on the Word of God. ... Now the Lord says, "I am going to keep my Word—it is like silver that has been tried. I am going to keep that to all generations, all generations." That means that no matter what the conditions are, God is going to have on this earth some churches and some pastors until the last generation were taken away who will maintain this Word like we are doing here and like we are seeking to do throughout the whole Christian world.

Views

Timothy Tow (Singapore)

On VPI and VPP the late Rev Dr Timothy Tow, founding pastor of the Bible-Presbyterian Church and founding principal of Far Eastern Bible College ("FEBC"), wrote: "We believe the preservation of Holy Scripture and its Divine inspiration stand in the same position as providence and creation. If Deism teaches a Creator who goes to sleep after creating the world is absurd, to hold to the doctrine of inspiration without preservation is equally illogical. ... Without preservation, all the inspiration, God-breathing into the Scriptures, would be lost. But we have a Bible so pure and powerful in every word and it is so because God has preserved it down through the ages."^[20]

Ian Paisley (Northern Ireland)

On the same twin doctrines the late Rev Dr Ian Paisley, moderator of the Ulster Free Presbyterian Church for more than 57 years,^[21] said: "The verbal Inspiration of the Scriptures demands the verbal Preservation of the Scriptures. Those who would deny the need for verbal Preservation cannot be accepted as committed to verbal Inspiration. If there is no preserved Word of God today then the work of Divine Revelation and Divine Inspiration has perished."^[10]

Edward F. Hills (U.S.)

The late Dr Edward F. Hills also penned: "If the doctrine of divine inspiration of the Old and New Testament Scriptures is a true doctrine, the doctrine of the providential preservation of these Scriptures must also be a true doctrine. It must be that down through the centuries God has exercised a special, providential control over the copying of the Scriptures and the preservation and use of the copies, so that trustworthy representatives of the original text have been available to God's people in every age. God must have done this, for if He gave the Scriptures to His Church by inspiration as the perfect and final revelation of His will, then it is obvious that He would not allow this revelation to disappear or undergo any alteration of its fundamental character."^[22]

William Aberhart (Canada)

William Eberhart (1878-1943), pastor, high school principal, Bible school dean, radio Bible teacher and Premier of Alberta from 1935-43, wrote in 1925: "I can still believe the Lord Jesus Christ, when he said: ‘For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled’ (Matt. 5:18). ‘Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away’ (Matt. 24:35). If these words mean anything, they inform us that the Lord Jesus intended to see to it that the Bible, His Word, would be preserved for us in a perfect, infallible state."^[23]

Others

More views upholding the doctrine of perfect preservation or VPP can be found quoted in "The Historic Views of the Church Concerning Preservation" by Rev (Dr) P. S. Ferguson. These views include those of English puritan Thomas Cartwright (1535–1603), Professor William Whitaker (1548–1595), Bishop and Divine John Jewel (1522–1571), Cambridge-educated puritan preacher Nicholas Gibbens, German Lutheran dogmatician Johannes Andreas Quenstedt (1617–1688), English Presbyterian clergyman John Flavel (1627–1691), English puritan and theologian Edward Leigh (1602–1671), Puritan Thomas Watson (1620–1686), Puritan John Owen (1616–1683), first regent and first principal of the University of Edinburgh Robert Rollock (1555–1599), Swiss-Italian Reformed scholastic theologian Francis Turretin (1623–1687), Westminster divine Richard Capel (1586–1656), original member of the Westminster assembly John Lightfoot (1602–1675), Pastor Dr Jack Moorman, Professor Albert J. Hembd and the Rev N. Pffeifer.^[24]

Identification of the Preserved Text

Garnet Howard Milne (New Zealand)

Garnet Howard Milne, who has served as pastor of two Reformed churches in Wainuiomata and Wanganui in New Zealand,^[25] in Has the Bible been kept pure? The Westminster Confession of Faith and the providential preservation of Scripture (2017) writes that Presbyterian William Jenkyn (1613-1685), who succeeded the distinguished Westminster divine William Gouge (1575–1653) at West Friars London, believed with Augustine and Whitaker that the “inspired words had been preserved and could be identified and that if they could not, they could have no assurance that they have the Word of God at all”.^[26]

Milne in the same book, after quoting Professor Whitaker (1548-1595) at p. 328 Disputation on Holy Scripture (Cambridge: The University Press, 1849), says “the canon of Scriptures was confirmed and received individually throughout the centuries ever since God had dictated those Scriptures for the church” and this means “the common or received Greek text of the New Testament and the Masoretic text of the Old” which Whitaker sees as “the authentic texts of Scripture” and such a view precludes the possibility of discovering any ancient codex in the future that would recalibrate the Word of God with a fundamentally different text than the one “endorsed by the Holy Spirit in the multitude of believers”. Quoting pp. 165 & 117 Disputation on Holy Scripture, Milne says that Whitaker also believes in the very words of the text, and not merely the sense, to be important and “the church possessed the very words, and all the words of the Holy Spirit in the extant originals in his day”, i.e. the Hebrew and Greek texts or the apographa which “so closely reflected the autographs that ‘in one sense’ could be called ‘originals’”.^[27]

Milne goes on to say that the believing church has always taught God’s Word is locatable in the Masoretic text of the OT and the Greek common or majority text of the NT, which have not been hidden, and, where there are variants in the manuscripts, the church has not found it an onerous task to collate the texts and arrive at the authentic autographic text, the Holy Spirit confirming the divine authority of God’s Word in the hearts of His people down through the ages, while the lack of spiritual insight is possibly why those who are not or are less spiritually awakened have adopted without much thought or consideration translations based upon the critical texts and eclectic texts of Westcott and Hort and other modern textual critics.^[28]

Samuel Joseph (Singapore)

Samuel Joseph in The Preservation of God’s Inspired Words in the Holy Scriptures says that if God has promised to preserve His Word, and has in fact preserved it down to every jot and tittle according to His promise, the crucial question is whether He has told us where to find His Word today as there would be little point in saying that the preserved words of God are “somewhere out there,” if we did not know where and had no way to find out; he goes on to say that the application of the principles codified into seven “biblical axioms” by Dr Jeffrey Khoo (The Burning Bush, July 2011, pp. 74-95) leads unmistakeably to the Hebrew Masoretic text of the Old Testament and the Greek Textus Receptus of the New Testament being the Preserved Text.^[29]

Bible Presbyterian Church and School in Collingswood, NJ

The Bible Presbyterian Church of Collingswood, NJ, U.S. – pastored previously by McIntire and currently by Christian S. Spencer – state at 4. Bible Translations: “We believe that God literally and verbally inspired the text of the Bible in the original Hebrew and Greek manuscripts (including certain passages in Daniel and elsewhere, in Aramaic). We also believe that God has faithfully and accurately preserved this original text in the Masoretic Text (Old Testament) and the ‘Textus Receptus’ (New Testament), the ‘majority text’ manuscripts used to translate the King James Version of the Bible”.^[30]

The Faith Christian School, also in Collingswood NJ, U.S., leaves no room for doubt about the school’s belief in VPI and VPP and where the autographic text can be found today in the school’s Statement of Faith at Inspiration: “We believe that ... the 66 canonical books of the Bible are alone the inspired, "God breathed", Word of God ... We believe that the inspiration of the Bible is plenary (inspiration extends to all parts of the Bible equally), verbal (inspiration extends to the words, letters, tenses and other parts of speech used in Scripture), ... inerrant (contains no factual error), infallible (never teaches error as truth although it records the sins and folly of man and reveals it as such), authoritative (is the final authority for the believer in all areas of faith and practice) and preserved today in the Hebrew and Greek Texts underlying the King James Version of the Bible, not merely in the original manuscripts.”^[31]

Thomas Ross and Kent Brandenburg / Bethel Baptist Church, CA

Thomas Ross^[32] and Kent Brandenburg,^[33] both of Bethel Baptist Church in CA in the U.S., subscribe to VPI and VPP and identify where all of the inspired words can be found; they believe that “the Bible’s very words, and all of its words, are inspired, and that those very words, and all of those words, are perfectly and providentially preserved (that is, verbal, plenary inspiration and verbal, plenary preservation) in the Hebrew Masoretic Text and the Greek Textus Receptus (Received Text) that underlies the Authorized or King James Version of the Bible”.^[34][35]

Other persons and churches in the U.S. and the U.K.

Among the many persons and organisations cited by Paul Ferguson as pro-KJV and VPP – i.e., they accept that the perfectly preserved words of God in the Holy Scripture are the Hebrew Masoretic Text and the Greek Textus Receptus underlying the KJV – are (a) Clarence Sexton, Founder and President of Crown College of the Bible and Pastor of Temple Baptist Church in Powell, TN; (b) Lloyd Streeter, co-pastor (until his resignation) of Campus Church (click The Bible) of Pensacola Christian College; (c) the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland; and (d) Ian Paisley, Founder of the Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster. In respect of (d), Ferguson says it is clear, from Paisley’s quoted words in pp. 102-3 and 106 of My Plea for the Old Sword: the English Authorised Version (KJV) (Belfast: Ambassador, 1997), that the “‘true Scriptures’ were only preserved in a ‘full, complete, perfect’ manner in the ‘true copies of the originals... at hand’”: Tyndale’s translation of God's Holy Word into English and the KJV were translated from the ‘Preserved Word of God’, not the ‘Perverted Word of God’, in the Hebrew Masoretic Text and the Greek Textus Receptus.^[36]

Trinitarian Bible Society ("TBS") England

The TBS in England “maintains that the providentially preserved true and authentic text is to be found in the Masoretic Hebrew and the Greek Received Texts” (bold and italic added) and in so doing, the society “follows the historic, orthodox Protestant position of acknowledging as Holy Scripture the Hebrew and Greek texts consistently accessible to and preserved among the people of God in all ages” (bold and italic added), these being the texts “in common use in different parts of the world for more than fifteen centuries” which “faithfully represent the texts used in New Testament times”. The society views that the doctrine of providential preservation teaches that the Church is - and always has been - in possession of the true text of Scripture; it rejects the Majority Text of Zane C. Hodges and Arthur L. Farstad (1982) which allows for the discovery of further manuscripts that could change minority readings to majority readings, or vice versa.^[15]

The International Council of Christian Churches ("ICCC")

The ICCC – a worldwide fellowship of fundamental churches opposed to liberalism, ecumenism, charismatism and neo-evangelicalism – passed a resolution at Jerusalem in 2000, when McIntire was President, affirming the council's belief that the King James Version in English has been faithfully translated from the God-preserved Masoretic text for the O.T. and the Textus Receptus for the N.T., which texts combined gave the complete Word of God, the Holy Scripture, the originals fully inspired and without errors preserved in all ages for all eternity as the Westminster Confession of Faith standard says – “the O.T. in Hebrew and the N.T. in Greek... being immediately inspired by God and by His singular care and providence kept pure in all ages are therefore authentical ....”^[37]

Neutral Arbiter of VPP

Although VPP is embraced in many countries in the world, the VPP issue was litigated for the first time before a neutral secular arbiter in Singapore.^[38][39]

FEBC on VPP

FEBC embraces the VPP doctrine based on WCF 1:8 (see Westminster Confession of Faith (1643-1648) above) and teaches that God has supernaturally preserved each and every one of His inspired Hebrew/Aramaic OT words and Greek NT words to the last jot and tittle so that God's people will always have in their possession His infallible and inerrant Word kept intact without the loss of any word, and that the infallible and inerrant words of Scripture are found in the faithfully preserved Traditional/Byzantine/Majority manuscripts and fully represented in the Printed and Received Text (or Textus Receptus) that underlie the Reformation Bibles best represented by the KJV, and NOT in the corrupted and rejected texts of Westcott and Hort that underlie the many modern versions of the English Bible like the NIV, NASV, ESV, RSV, TEV, CEV, TLB, etc.^[3]

Disagreement of Life Bible-Presbyterian Church (“Life BPC”) with FEBC on VPP

The Board of Elders (“BOE”) of Life BPC disagreed with FEBC and called VPP a “theory”.^[40] FEBC responded by asserting that VPP is a biblical doctrine.^[41]

The BOE of Life BPC issued in January 2008 their paper headed Mark Them Which Cause Divisions to declare the church’s non-VPP position and to require the FEBC to give a written unconditional undertaking that the college would not promote the VPP doctrine in its night classes or it would not be allowed to use the premises from that month onwards as the BOE viewed VPP to be a heresy because it is ‘new’, ‘infectious’ and ‘dangerous’.^[42] FEBC rebutted with Jeffrey Khoo’s response headed Making the Word of God of None Effect which argued that without a presently infallible and inerrant Word of God to the jot and tittle (Matt 5:18), the elders of Life BPC had no basis to condemn VPP as a heresy and VPP proponents as heretics.^[43]

Paul Ferguson^[44] chimed in with his paper entitled also Mark Them Which Cause Divisions to criticise Life BPC for misusing the word “heresy”, maligning godly men as “heretics”, displaying inconsistency and muddled up thinking on the VPP issue, totally misrepresenting the VPP position as a "new" concept, and showing poor scholarship and research in plagiarising the views of anti-KJV and anti-Preservation writers.^[36]

Brutus Balan (now retired from pastoring Faith Baptist Church in Hobart, Tasmania) wrote a letter dated 30 January 2008 addressed to Charles Seet and the BOE of Life BPC with a plea to them to avoid carrying out their legal threat to evict the college from the Gilstead Road premises and remarking that Seet and the elders had the most inconsistent and contradictory position over the matter – saying the original writings (autographs) were ‘inerrant, infallible’ in the past and the ‘providentially preserved’ copies (apographs) today have errors and then claiming to hold to an ‘inerrant and infallible Bible and the full preservation of God’s holy Word’ with the use of ‘full’ being questionable for ‘not full’ preservation – but yet accused the FEBC of heresy.^[45] Balan’s plea and admonition failed to stop Life BPC from commencing Suit 648 in the High Court less than eight months later.

Court of Appeal's Judgment on VPP

On 15 September 2008, the church sued the college's directors, including Timothy Tow (the church's founding pastor), over allegedly "deviant Bible teachings" to evict FEBC from the Gilstead Road premises shared by both parties.^[46][47] However, the church failed as the Court of Appeal, the apex court in Singapore's legal system (coram: Chao Hick Tin, Andrew Phang Boon Leong and V.K. Rajah JJ.A), ruled unanimously on 26 April 2011 – after examining WCF 1:8 – that:^[48]

1. "the VPP doctrine is actually closely related to the VPI doctrine which both parties [i.e., the College and the Church] adhere to,” (rejecting the Church's contention in [59] of the Court of Appeal Judgement that it is “an entirely different creature from the VPI doctrine)";”
2. "the College, in adopting the VPP doctrine, has not deviated from the fundamental principles which guide and inform the work of the College right from its inception, and as expressed in the Westminster Confession;"
3. "[i]t is not inconsistent for a Christian who believes fully in the principles contained within the Westminster Confession (and the VPI doctrine) to also subscribe to the VPP doctrine;" and
4. "[i]n the absence of anything in the Westminster Confession that deals with the status of the apographs, we [the Court] hesitate to find that the VPP doctrine is a deviation from the principles contained within the Westminster Confession."

The Court of Appeal at [94] of its judgment noted that adherents of the VPP doctrine believe that the KJV is the most accurate English translation of the Bible. Although Life BPC under Charles Seet as Pastor does not subscribe to the VPP doctrine, the Court of Appeal at [99] of its judgment noted that Seet had admitted during cross-examination (in the High Court) that Life BPC has always subscribed to the view that the KJV is the best English translation of the Bible because of its textual superiority [in the Hebrew Masoretic Text and the Greek Textus Receptus underlying the KJV].^[49] (Life BPC’s use of the KJV has been entrenched as when Life BPC started as the English service of Say Mia Tng in 1950 with Timothy Tow as its founding pastor, he wanted the service that he founded and pastored to be a distinct Bible-believing church and to also stick to the KJV.^[50])

See also

• Bible code
• Biblical inerrancy
• Biblical literalism
• Bible-Presbyterian churches (Singapore)
• Khoo Jeffrey and others v Life Bible-Presbyterian Church and others

References

1. ^ "Definition of apograph". Harper Collins Publishers Limited. Retrieved 7 January 2017.
2. ^ apograph, an exact copy Ian Brookes, Editor-in-chief (2006). Chambers Dictionary, 10th Edition, p. 65. Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd 2006. ISBN 978-0550-103116. {{cite book}}: |author= has generic name (help)
3. ^ Jump up to:^a b c "The Verbal Plenary Preservation (VPP) of the Sacred Scriptures". Far Eastern Bible College. Retrieved 4 September 2015.
4. ^ Jeffrey Khoo (July 2011). "Seven Biblical Axioms In Ascertaining The Authentic and Authoritative Texts of the Holy Scriptures" (PDF). The Burning Bush. Far Eastern Bible College. 17 (2): 75–76, Epangelical Axiom. Retrieved 2 September 2016.
5. ^ Carol Lee (July 2005). "A Child of God Looks at the Doctrine of Verbal Plenary Preservation" (PDF). The Burning Bush. Far Eastern Bible College. 11 (2): 69–81. Retrieved 3 September 2016.
6. ^ Rev (Dr) P.S. Ferguson. "The Historic Views of the Church Concerning Preservation" (PDF). confessionalbibliology.com. Retrieved 2 September 2016.
7. ^ Jeffrey Khoo (July 2011). "Seven Biblical Axioms In Ascertaining The Authentic and Authoritative Texts of the Holy Scriptures" (PDF). The Burning Bush. Far Eastern Bible College. 17 (2): 75, Epangelical Axiom. Retrieved 2 September 2016.
8. ^ Quek Suan Yew (July 2004). "Did God Promise To Preserve His Words? Interpreting Psalm 12:6-7" (PDF). The Burning Bush. Far Eastern Bible College. 10 (2): 96–98. Retrieved 2 September 2016.
9. ^ Dr Carl McIntire. Help, Lord! Psalm 12. sermonAudio.com. Event occurs at 11:58-12:34 mins.
10. ^ Jump up to:^a b Dr. Ian K.R. Paisley. "The history of the English Authorised Version (KJV) of the Holy Bible is unsurpassably pre-eminent, having preserved for centuries the Word of God for the English speaking peoples of the whole world, and those evangelised by them". European Institute of Protestant Studies. Archived from the original on 2016-09-14. Retrieved 7 August 2016.
11. ^ Jump up to:^a b c Carol Lee. "A Child of God Looks at the Doctrine of Verbal Plenary Preservation". Far Eastern Bible College. Retrieved 3 September 2016.
12. ^ Timothy Tow (July 2005). ""My Glory Will I Not Give To Another" (Isaiah 42:8)" (PDF). The Burning Bush. Far Eastern Bible College. 11 (2): 67–68. Retrieved 3 September 2016.
13. ^ Rev (Dr) P.S. Ferguson. "The Historic Views of the Church Concerning Preservation" (PDF). confessionalbibliology.com. Retrieved 2 September 2016.
14. ^ Jeffrey Khoo (July 2011). "Seven Biblical Axioms In Ascertaining The Authentic and Authoritative Texts of the Holy Scriptures" (PDF). The Burning Bush. Far Eastern Bible College. 17 (2): 76, Epangelical Axiom. Retrieved 2 September 2016.
15. ^ Jump up to:^a b "Statement of Doctrine of Holy Scripture". Trinitarian Bible Society. Retrieved 9 June 2021.
16. ^ "A Tabular Comparison of the 1646 Westminster Confession of Faith, the 1658 Savoy Declaration of Faith, the 1677/1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith and the 1742 Philadelphia Confession of Faith". www.proginosko.com. Retrieved 12 June 2021.
17. ^ "Westminster Confession of Faith (Adapted)" (PDF). Calvary Pandan Bible-Presbyterian Church. p. 246 (ref 17). Retrieved 13 June 2021.
18. ^ Jeffrey Khoo (July 2011). "Seven Biblical Axioms In Ascertaining The Authentic and Authoritative Texts of the Holy Scriptures" (PDF). The Burning Bush. Far Eastern Bible College. 17 (2): 75–76, Epangelical Axiom. Retrieved 2 September 2016.
19. ^ Dr Carl McIntire. Help, Lord! Psalm 12. sermonAudio.com. Event occurs at 12:35-13:46 mins.
20. ^ Timothy Tow and Jeffrey Khoo (1998). A Theology for Every Christian: Knowing God and His Word (PDF). Far Eastern Bible College Press, 1998, p. 47. ISBN 981-04-0076-4. Retrieved 7 August 2016.
21. ^ "Church elects new moderator". BBC News. 19 January 2008. Retrieved 2 September 2016.
22. ^ Edward F. Hills (1984). The King James Version Defended. Christian Research Press, p. 2 (from Introduction). ISBN 978-0915923007. Retrieved 7 August 2016.
23. ^ "Testimonies of KJV Defenders - William Aberhart (updated 28 July 2004)". www.wayoflife.org. 26 August 1999. Retrieved 16 December 2021.
24. ^ Rev (Dr) P.S. Ferguson. "The Historic Views of the Church Concerning Preservation" (PDF). confessionalbibliology.com. Retrieved 2 September 2016.
25. ^ Milne, Garnet Howard (December 2007). The Westminster Confession of Faith and the Cessation of Special Revelation. ISBN 978-1556358050.
26. ^ Garnet Howard Milne (7 August 2017). Has the Bible been kept pure? The Westminster Confession of Faith and the providential preservation of Scripture. pp. 91, 215, 221 & 223. ISBN 9781522039150.
27. ^ Garnet Howard Milne (7 August 2017). Has the Bible been kept pure? The Westminster Confession of Faith and the providential preservation of Scripture. pp. 89–92. ISBN 9781522039150.
28. ^ Garnet Howard Milne (7 August 2017). Has the Bible been kept pure? The Westminster Confession of Faith and the providential preservation of Scripture. pp. 299–302. ISBN 9781522039150.
29. ^ Samuel Joseph (July 2019). "The Preservation of God's Inspired Words in the Holy Scriptures" (PDF). The Burning Bush. Far Eastern Bible College. 25 (2): 82–86. Retrieved 9 June 2021.
30. ^ "What We Believe – A Summary". Bible Presbyterian Church of Collingswood. Retrieved 9 June 2021.
31. ^ "Statement of Faith". Faith Christian School of Collingswood, N.J. Retrieved 9 June 2021.
32. ^ "Thomas Ross: My Background". Retrieved 9 June 2021.
33. ^ "Meet the Pastors". Retrieved 9 June 2021.
34. ^ "The Biblical Doctrines of Inspiration and Preservation: A Video". Faith Saves. Retrieved 9 June 2021.
35. ^ "Verbal, Plenary Inspiration and Preservation of Scripture: A Video". Kent Brandenburg. Retrieved 11 June 2021.
36. ^ Jump up to:^a b Paul Ferguson. "Mark Them Which Cause Divisions". The Dean Burgon Society. Retrieved 9 June 2021.
37. ^ Paul Ferguson (January 2009). "The Resolutions of the ICCC and SCCC on Bible Versions" (PDF). The Burning Bush. 15 (1): 1-40 [34-38]. Retrieved 9 June 2021.
38. ^ "Singapore Court of Appeal explores issues concerning breach of charitable purpose trust". Legal Bulletin. Allen & Gledhill. pp. 31–34. Retrieved 12 June 2021.
39. ^ "FEBC IS SAFE! TO GOD BE THE GLORY GREAT THINGS HE HAS DONE" (PDF). The Burning Bush. Far Eastern Bible College. 17 (2): 66–67. July 2011. Retrieved 12 June 2021. Dr D A Waite (President, Dean Burgon Society, USA): Interesting that the three appeal judges could see that the Westminster Confession allowed for both VPI and VPP. Truth has prevailed in FEBC in Singapore in the vital doctrine of Bibliology. Would that God would permit this truth to prevail in the fundamentalist schools in our United States of America as it has in Singapore. Rev Michael Koech (Principal, Bomet Bible Institute, Kenya): I read all the 55 pages of the judgement. Their argument about VPP was particularly interesting because it came from an independent observer.
40. ^ "A Statement on the Theory of Verbal Plenary Preservation (VPP)" (PDF). Life Bible-Presbyterian Church. Retrieved 4 September 2015.
41. ^ Jeffrey Khoo. "Inspiration, Preservation, And Translations: in Search of the Biblical Identity of the Bible-Presbyterian Church". Far Eastern Bible College. Retrieved 9 June 2021.
42. ^ "Mark Them Which Cause Divisions" (PDF). Life Bible-Presbyterian Church. January 2008. Retrieved 22 December 2016.
43. ^ Jeffrey Khoo. "Making the Word of God of None Effect". Far Eastern Bible College. Retrieved 11 September 2016.
44. ^ "Our Leaders". Cornerstone Church. Retrieved 9 June 2021.
45. ^ "Clarification of Confession Re: Preservation of God's Word". Far Eastern Bible College. Retrieved 9 June 2021. Brutus Balan: Note your quote, “...we hold to an inerrant and infallible Bible and the full preservation of God’s holy Word.” What is “full preservation”? Does full means not full? Deceptive words are not of the Holy Spirit!
46. ^ Jeffrey Khoo, ed. (2012). To Magnify His Word: Golden Jubilee Yearbook of Far Eastern Bible College (1962–2012) (PDF). Far Eastern Bible College (2012), "Chronology of Events", p. 250. ISBN 978-981-07-3148-9. Retrieved 13 June 2021.
47. ^ John, Arul (18 December 2008). "Church sues Bible college directors". The New Paper. Retrieved 9 June 2021.
48. ^ "Khoo Jeffrey and others v Life Bible-Presbyterian Church and others". www.singaporelaw.sg, paras 91,94,95 and 98. Archived from the original on 10 January 2017. Retrieved 8 August 2016.
49. ^ "Khoo Jeffrey and others v Life Bible-Presbyterian Church and others [2011] SGCA 18" (PDF). Singapore Law Watch, para 99. Retrieved 6 June 2021.
50. ^ Chua Choon Lan (General Editor); Editors: Quek Swee Hwa, David Wong and Daniel Chua (2018). Heritage & Legacy of the Bible-Presbyterian Church in Singapore. Finishing Well Ministries. p. 172. ISBN 978-981-48-0725-8. {{cite book}}: |author1= has generic name (help)

Further reading

• "A Course on: The Doctrine of Verbal Plenary Preservation" (PDF). Dean Burgon Society. Retrieved 7 August 2016.
• H.D. Williams, ed. (2008). VPP of the Bible -- A Course on the Doctrine of Verbal Plenary Preservation. The Old Paths Publications. ISBN 978-0981798547. Retrieved 17 August 2016.
• "Statement of Doctrine of Holy Scripture". Trinitarian Bible Society. Retrieved 12 June 2021.
• Forever Infallible and Inerrant (PDF). Far Eastern Bible College Press. 2011. ISBN 978-981-07-0109-3. Retrieved 10 August 2016.

FOUND: Interstellar Pre-Biotic, Pre-RNA Molecular Clouds Residing Throughout the Milky Way

FOUND: An Interstellar Pre-Biotic, Pre-RNA Molecular

Cloud Residing Throughout the Milky Way

by R.E. Slater

July 15, 2022

 

[ARTICLE EXCERPTS]

The heart of the Milky Way is apparently a hotspot for molecules that combine to form RNA...

A new survey of the thick, molecular clouds that shroud the galactic center has revealed the presence of a wide range of nitriles – organic molecules that are often toxic in isolation, but also constitute the building blocks of molecules essential for life...

The increase in prebiotic molecules (molecules involved in the emergence of life) identified in the galactic center, particularly those associated with RNA, has implications for our understanding of how life emerges in the Universe – and how it did so here on Earth...

"Here we show that the chemistry that takes place in the interstellar medium is able to efficiently form multiple nitriles, which are key molecular precursors of the 'RNA World' scenario," explained astrobiologist Víctor Rivilla of the Spanish National Research Council and the National Institute of Aerospace Technology in Spain....

I wrote an article less than a year ago about the about all the things in common which humanity shares with the Earth. It came about because I was listening to the traditional interpretation of biblical anthropology I had grown up with as to how mankind is uniquely unique to all of creation. Which, in one sense it is. And yet, in another sense it isn't. From a praying mantis' view of itself it can claim the same thing about its uniqueness which man cannot, but the poor thing can't write and so cannot place an addendum into the Genesis record of being made in God's image (sad face :/).

Typically then this very common viewpoint claims man is the epicenter of God's creativity so much so that we were given dominion over all of it and is backed up by the Genesis statement in 1:26-28.

As things go, it strokes the egos of Christians and separates us from the mindsets of the Native American Indians and Asian Buddhist communities (among others) which see mankind as part of the warp-and-woof of creation. That is, as part of the essential foundation of creation not as its center point or even the full meaning of creation.

Rather, mankind is a product of its environment... which from an evolutionary point of view is absolutely true. Man is no more, nor no less, from the Earth's resident potentialities. That is, man is pretty much the same as everything else. We come from the Earth and will return to the Earth.

And lest we forget, all creation is filled with God’s Imago Dei, not just man. This would be one of Process Theology’s fundamental cornerstones. It’s why process theology may be described as a process relational theology.

It emphasizes man’s relationship with all of creation even as creation is in relationship to itself, evolving, communicating, networking, “speaking” its language of relationality, of community, of affectation good and bad of panexperientialism, panrelationalism, and panpsychism. This is but one of the aspects of process theology (and philosophy) which marks it as uniquely different from the yesteryear world of mechanism, individualism, substance thinking, and so on.

Genesis 3:19 ESV

By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

Ecclesiastes 3:20 ESV

All go to one place. All are from the dust, and to dust all return.

Ecclesiastes 12:7 ESV

And the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.

1 Samuel 31:12 ESV

All the valiant men arose and went all night and took the body of Saul and the bodies of his sons from the wall of Beth-shan, and they came to Jabesh and burned them there.

John 3:16 ESV

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

Hebrews 8:7 ESV

For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion to look for a second.

Acts 1:3 ESV

He presented himself alive to them after his suffering by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God.

Joshua 7:25 ESV

And Joshua said, “Why did you bring trouble on us? The Lord brings trouble on you today.” And all Israel stoned him with stones. They burned them with fire and stoned them with stones.

Ezekiel 18:1-32 ESV

The word of the Lord came to me: “What do you mean by repeating this proverb concerning the land of Israel, ‘The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge’? As I live, declares the Lord God, this proverb shall no more be used by you in Israel. Behold, all souls are mine; the soul of the father as well as the soul of the son is mine: the soul who sins shall die. “If a man is righteous and does what is just and right...

Final thought, and the reason this post was created…

I find the discovery of interstellar molecular clouds astounding! To find pre-biotic, pre-RNA molecular clouds lying everywhere throughout the Milky Way goes beyond the imagination in explaining the origins of life. Though why we hadn’t imagined the universe’s RNA potentiality until now is truly a paradox. Especially as it’s clues lied everywhere around us – in plants, animals, bugs, the worlds of the small, and within our own bodily composition. But it took astrochemists to discover this wonderment beyond the mere Earth-centric evolutionists in all of us. Amazing!

Thus and thus, if there is no organic mix than there is no life. We claim to be born of star dust but it that molecular mixture cannot produce pre-RNA than these are but idle, poetic statements.

But if such initial conditions are present in our galactic universe than we should expect RNA-based organic lifeforms everywhere throughout the Milky Way's galactic regions. Consequently, these prebiotic organic molecular compounds seeded earth for life.

Which is another way of saying that when studying earth we are studying our galactic origins and may expect to find RNA based lifeforms throughout the galaxy of the Milky Way... If not beyond our galaxy and throughout the universe itself… assuming such preorganic molecular clouds are not unique to the Milky Way alone, but were a distribution of life from the Big Bang's very beginning – it’s chaotic birth of life into life.

R.E. Slater

July 16, 2022

Related References

Star Light, Star Bright - a poem by R.E. Slater

What Does It Mean to be Human? - Pachyderms, Podcasts & Process

Index - Process Sciences: Biology, Physics, Computing

Despite the generally hostile nature of the environments involved, chemistry does occur in space. Molecules are seen in environments that span a wide range of physical and chemical conditions and that clearly were created by a multitude of chemical processes, many of which differ substantially from those associated with traditional equilibrium chemistry.

The wide range of environmental conditions and processes involved with chemistry in space yields complex populations of materials, and because the elements H, C, O, and N are among the most abundant in the universe, many of these are organic in nature, including some of direct astrobiological interest.

Much of this chemistry occurs in “dense” interstellar clouds and protostellar disks surrounding forming stars because these environments have higher relative densities and more benign radiation fields than in stellar ejectae or the diffuse interstellar medium. Because these are the environments in which new planetary systems form, some of the chemical species made in these environments are expected to be delivered to the surfaces of planets where they can potentially play key roles in the origin of life.

Because these chemical processes are universal and should occur in these environments wherever they are found, this implies that some of the starting materials for life are likely to be widely distributed throughout the universe.

* * * * * * *

ORIGINAL RESEARCH article Front. Astron. Space Sci., 08 July 2022

Sec.Astrochemistry

https://doi.org/10.3389/fspas.2022.876870

This article is part of the Research Topic RNA World Hypothesis and the Origin of Life: Astrochemistry Perspective

View all 13 Articles - RNA World Hypothesis and the Origin of Life: Astrochemistry Perspective

Molecular Precursors of the RNA-World in Space: New Nitriles in the G+0.693−0.027 Molecular Cloud

The galactic center, imaged in infared. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/S. Stolovy, Spitzer Science Center/Caltech)

Loads of Precursors For RNA Have Been

Detected in The Center of Our Galaxy

article link

by Michelle Starr

July 8, 2022

The heart of the Milky Way is apparently a hotspot for molecules that combine to form RNA.

A new survey of the thick, molecular clouds that shroud the galactic center has revealed the presence of a wide range of nitriles – organic molecules that are often toxic in isolation, but also constitute the building blocks of molecules essential for life.

The increase in prebiotic molecules (molecules involved in the emergence of life) identified in the galactic center, particularly those associated with RNA, has implications for our understanding of how life emerges in the Universe – and how it did so here on Earth.

"Here we show that the chemistry that takes place in the interstellar medium is able to efficiently form multiple nitriles, which are key molecular precursors of the 'RNA World' scenario," explained astrobiologist Víctor Rivilla of the Spanish National Research Council and the National Institute of Aerospace Technology in Spain.

Precisely how life emerged on Earth is a mystery whose bottom scientists are extremely keen to reach. That information will yield important clues to discovering exoplanets likely to harbor living organisms.

One version is that RNA emerged first from the metaphorical ooze, self-replicating and diversifying all on its own; this is what's called the RNA World Hypothesis.

We're not likely to ever get direct evidence from Earth, but we can put together more and more clues to figure out how plausible and likely this scenario is. One of the questions raised by this hypothesis is about the source of RNA prebiotic molecules such as nitriles. Were they here on Earth from the start, or could they have been carried in from space on meteorites and asteroids?

We know the inner Solar System, including Earth, was subject to a period of intense asteroid bombardment very early in its history. We've also found prebiotic molecules on meteors, comets, and asteroids hanging around the Solar System today. And where do meteors, comets and asteroids get them [as they fly through the galaxy]?

Well, probably the clouds they were born in: cold molecular clouds that give birth to stars. Once a star finishes forming from a section of cloud, the cloud leftovers go on to form everything else in a planetary system – planets, comets, asteroids, dwarf planets, and whatever else might be lurking about.

The Solar System's birth cloud is long gone, but the center of the galaxy is thick with molecular clouds. It's called the Central Molecular Zone, and scientists have found a bunch of prebiotic molecules hanging around there.

One particular cloud, named G+0.693-0.027, is especially interesting. There's no evidence of star formation there yet, but scientists believe that a star or stars will form there in the future.

"The chemical content of G+0.693-0.027 is similar to those of other star-forming regions in our galaxy, and also to that of Solar System objects like comets," Rivilla said.

"This means that its study can give us important insights about the chemical ingredients that were available in the nebula that give rise to our planetary system."

The researchers used two telescopes to study the spectrum of light coming from the cloud. When certain elements or molecules absorb and re-emit light, this can be seen on the spectrum as a darker or lighter line. Interpreting these absorption and emission lines can be tricky, but it can also be used to identify which molecules are present: each one has its own spectral signature.

By carefully studying and analyzing emission features from G+0.693-0.027, Rivilla and his colleagues identified a range of nitriles, including cyanic acid, cyanoallene, propargyl cyanide, and cyanopropyne. They also made tentative detections of cyanoformaldehyde, and glycolonitrile.

Previous observations of G+0.693-0.027 revealed the presence of cyanoformaldehyde, and glycolonitrile. This suggests that nitriles are among the most abundant chemical families in the Milky Way, and that the most basic building blocks for RNA can be found in the clouds that give birth to stars and planets.

But there is – of course, as there always is – more work to be done.

"We have detected so far several simple precursors of ribonucleotides, the building blocks of RNA," explained astrobiologist Izaskun Jiménez-Serra, also of the Spanish National Research Council and the National Institute of Aerospace Technology.

"But there are still key missing molecules that are hard to detect. For example, we know that the origin of life on Earth probably also required other molecules such as lipids, responsible for the formation of the first cells. Therefore we should also focus on understanding how lipids could be formed from simpler precursors available in the interstellar medium."

The research has been published in Frontiers in Astronomy and Space Sciences.

* * * * * * *

What Is Astrochemistry?

https://owlcation.com/stem/What-Is-Astrochemistry

by 

LEONARD KELLEY,

MAY 6, 2022

Leonard Kelley holds a bachelor's in physics with a minor in mathematics. He loves the academic world and strives to constantly explore it.

It’s What’s on the Inside…of a Galaxy

As it turns out, stars make very little of the mass of a galaxy, which end up being mainly unbonded gas and dust in a baryonic sense, for the rest is the mysterious dark matter. Stars that are born do interact with these regions in different ways, mainly depending on the size of the star and the density of material around it. But in general, the bigger the star then the more radiation it outputs into space. Ultraviolet  [radiation] is amongst the largest energy output photons that big stars release, and are absorbed by the gas surrounding it (Shields 9-10).

This causes electrons to be released and so it has become ionized. We call these regions H II, namely for the double spectral lines of hydrogen that are characteristic of them. Because of the ionizing effect, other wavelengths are released in the visible, radio, and IR along with the UV from the stars themselves and so we can also call these objects emission nebula (Ibid).

By looking at the spectral lines of these H II regions we can gather information on the temperature of the region as well as the density of each element that is present. We are interested in seeing the chemical evolution of the Universe, and these regions can assist with that. It all goes back to when the Universe was 1 minute old. At that time, only loose protons, neutrons, and electrons were flying about and no atoms were possible. But a few minutes later, the Universe cooled to the point where nuclei could be formed, specifically lots of deuterium and helium (10).

Ironically, a few more minutes later the Universe was too cool to create anymore nuclei and so synthesis stopped at a roughly 100 hydrogen to 7 helium ratio. Most of this original helium still exists in the Universe to this day with hydrogen being the preferred starting route for star formation and the vast distances between space objects preserving many elements (Ibid).

The Orion Nebula, a fous H II region. | Sciences in the Mural of Life

Flash forward a few 100 million years after the Big Bang and we get some of the first galaxies cropping up. Under the appropriate density and gravimetric conditions, some of the gas inside the galaxies collapsed and you have stars forming. These are the sites of heavy element formation, and for most stars the end of the line is iron. It simply takes too much energy to fuse beyond that and so eventually a star can no longer support itself against gravity and a supernova occurs. These events can create even heavier elements than iron and release them to the Universe. Now, our gaseous regions have tons of contaminants that can become incorporated into new stars forming (15).

In fact, each new batch of stars should become dirtier and dirtier. But not all stars end in a supernova. In fact, smaller ones have a long lifespan and so we can use the small stars much like insects trapped in amber, preserving some clues as to the timeframe (and chemistry) of its host galaxy. We have a “partial recycling program” here, where some stars trap material and others create new ones. This means heavier elements should be on the rise and smaller ones on the decrease. This is known as the simple model of elemental history for galaxies (Ibid).

Using the simple model, we can get a feel for the age of a galaxy. If you have older stars with less heavy elements then the host galaxy is young while if many newer stars have many heavy elements in them that implies an older galaxy (basically, it’s all about the timeframe needed to produce the amount of heavy elements seen in the most recent generation of stars). Using spectroscopy, we can gather data about the chemical elements in the stars themselves (15-6).

Now, let’s go back to that helium from the formation of the Universe. We care so much about the helium because certain models call for certain amounts of the material to be present. Therefore, if we can get a feel for the amount that is out there we can eliminate some models of universal growth. This is where irregular galaxies come in handy. Because of their lumpiness and high-gas concentration, not as many stars have formed there. These galaxies could be time capsules for how much stars make helium in the universe and so we can remove that amount from what is present and estimate the original values (16).

The Space Between Us and Them

Unlike the relatively dense conditions of a galaxy, the average density of the interstellar space (or the spans between stars) is about 1-2 atoms per cubic centimeter. On Earth, the best vacuum achievable is 1 million times denser than that, so it may seem space is pretty empty. But, if you rather all that nearly emptiness together and it’s not so insignificant anymore. And some places are denser than other, creating beautiful clouds of debris that are dispersed throughout space. If such a cloud of material happens to be around a star, it’s very easy to spot as radiation impacts it, generating many H II or ionized regions (Marschall 9-10).

H I regions, also known as reflection nebula, “are composed predominately of electrically neutral hydrogen atoms and molecules,” tend to be dark as well as cold and not very luminous. This makes spotting them challenging but not impossible. If you look at a patch of stars and notice an unusually empty space, its likely one of these H I regions blocking out the stars behind it. The dust in these clouds would be needed in great quantities to absorb the solar rays and also to preserve the fragile molecules contained in them (Ibid).

Interestingly, about 7% of interstellar clouds are H I regions and another 7% are H II regions, making the rest invisible to us…usually. It depends on what part of the spectrum you are looking at, and visible light isn’t the only piece of data we have. We can look at IR, UV, radio, gamma, and so on for further clues. The big key here is to look for absorption spectrums, a result of col gas being hit by hot rays and absorbing some of their spectrum. But the immediate conditions around a star can also absorb photons, so how can we tell what’s absorbing what? What’s local interference from the star and what’s the interstellar medium’s clouds? (10).

Well, overall the absorption lines from interstellar material “are generally weaker, narrower, and sharper” than those from stellar lines. Also, temperatures around a star are anywhere from 2,500 K to 30,000 K while the interstellar medium cloud averages about 100 K, so different portions of the spectrum will be impacted (Ibid).

IRAS 05437+2502, a little known reflection nebula. | Pinterest

These spectral clues were how scientists spotted some surprising molecules in space. In April 2019, Rolf Gusten (Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Germany) and team used data from the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy to spot helium hydride, one of the first molecules created in the universe, in NGC 7027. The telescope that collected the data flew above the water vapor in our atmosphere, allowing infrared clues to be collected, specifically at the wavelength of 149 micrometers. This helium hydride wasn’t created from the early universe but when a red giant star cast off its outer layers, resulting in high energy UV rays stripping helium of an electron and making it conducive to bonding with neutral hydrogen (Croswell).

Another molecular find was argonium, or an argon and hydrogen. Peter Schilke (University of Cologne in Germany) and David Neufeld (John Hopkins University) used data from the Herschell Space Observatory, which uses liquid helium to cool the craft and thus make extreme infrared readings possible, to spot the molecule at a wavelength of about 240 microns. It was created in the remains of the Crab Nebula when a cosmic ray removes an electron from argon which then can take a hydrogen from its natural H2 form due to the greater charge disparity. As it turns out, argonium can have its hydrogen ripped if enough H2 is present, so it’s a delicate balancing act and can in fact inform scientists as to what regions are more likely to spot potential new star factories, since hydrogen is the easiest material to fuse (Ibid).

But interestingly another clue to help us understand space material can tip us to what is what: Doppler shifts. If the thing that is absorbing photons is moving towards us, the spectrum becomes blue-shifted, but if it is moving away then it is red-shifted. In fact, Doppler shifts can reveal if many clouds are between us and a host star. And of course, spectrums can reveal chemical compositions, so knowing what is commonly in stars can help us determine cloud material. Hydrogen, helium carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen are frequently found in stars. This then reveals that clouds contain lots of calcium, sodium, potassium, and titanium (Marshall 10, 15).

Once you average out all the data we can collect on interstellar clouds, you find that they typically are 25 light years in size, have an average density of 1 to 10 atoms per cubic centimeter, and have an average mass of 100 Suns. But…averaging out the cloud properties is like trying to average out the properties of the planets. Commonalities exist, but much more specialized things do, too. Interstellar clouds can be as small as a few solar systems but can be as large as 100s of light years. Smaller clouds may be missed by stars and elude detection while large clouds can widely variable in their distribution and so be mistaken for several, smaller objects (15, 18).

Conflicting Data

With all of this in mind, astronomers can get a feel for Universal makeup and therefore behavior at different times of its life. Some data points to the simple model of elemental history for galaxies into question. One such issue with the simple model is known as the G-dwarf problem (of which our Sun happens to be a member of). These stars seems to have a lover heavy element count than the simple model predicts they should. It could be that gas from outside the galaxy falls into it, causing the ratios to be thrown off as more untainted material is present (Shields 16).

But an even bigger problem is the star production rate seen in the early Universe. All around us we see galactic clusters with elliptical galaxies, which are dead or dying in the stellar sense. In fact, these are what is left of the largest galaxies from the early Universe. If you look at their content and play things in reverse, then it points to clusters being firmly established in the Universe about half its current age ago (Long 28).

The progenitors of these clusters, aptly named protoclusters, have been spotted within the first 3 billion years of the Universe’s existence, and so have required recent developments in telescope technology to be able to resolve them, and we now think they grew quicker than our models allow for (Ibid).

What a protocluster may have looked like. | AAS Nova

Normally, an average galaxy with a lifespan of roughly 10 billion years makes 1-10 sun-like stars per year, depending on the interstellar medium and current age of the galaxy. A starburst galaxy is much busier, making 100s to 1000s of sun-like stars a year. Because of elemental resources, they usually hit their peak at 300 million years old, and eventually depleted material until becoming the elliptical of today (29-31).

But finding them in protoclusters was hard because of their high red star content and much hot interstellar gas blocking out light. You would have better luck spotting them in their starburst phase, but dust becomes an issue ironically from the high production of stars releasing heavy elements to their surroundings. Also, protoclusters were much more spread out than the clusters of today (for they were on their way to becoming the close companions they are now) (Ibid).

With the rise of new telescopes like ALMA, the Submillimeter Common User Bolometer Array, the Hershel Space Observatory, the South Pole Telescope, and the Spitzer Space Telescope, the required resolution was finally achievable. In 2018, ALMA looked at two different protoclusters: SPT12349-56 (14 galaxies) and the Distant Red Core (DRC) (10 galaxies), from different places in the Universe when it was 1.3 to 1.4 billion years old. These clusters showed tons of stars forming, at almost 10,000 times the rate of our galaxy! If this rate was sustained, then those early galaxies would have run out of fuel in only a few 100 million years and become elliptical - but way before they should have (31-2).

Science is all about adjusting the theories it produces, and galactic behavior will be no different. So stay tuned, for I am sure this field is only going to heat up….

Works Cited

Croswell, Ken. “Space is the Place for impossible molecules.” Astronomy.com. Kalmbach Publishing Co., 31 Mar. 2021. Web. 22 Jun. 2021.

Lng, Arianna S. “Too Big For The Universe.” Scientific American. Jan. 2021. Print. 28-33.

Marschall, Lawrence. “Secrets of Interstellar Clouds.” Astronomy Mar. 1982. Print. 9-10, 15, 18.

Shields, Gregory. “The Chemistry of Galaxies.” Astronomy June 1981. Print. 9-10, 16-7.

This content is accurate and true to the best of the author’s knowledge and is not meant to substitute for formal and individualized advice from a qualified professional.

@ 2022 Leonard Kelley