From: Kostabi Mark
Sent: Tuesday, September 25, 2007 2:50 AM
To: Mark Kostabi
Subject: Mark meets the Pope

 Photo by L’Osservatore Romano

Mark Kostabi meets Pope Benedict XVI at the benediction of his sculpture of Pope John Paul II in Velletri, Italy, September 23, 2007

From: Kostabi Mark
Sent: Wednesday, July 11, 2007 1:34 PM
To: Cliff Leigh
Subject: Mark Kostabi and the Pope in the New York Post
NO LOSS OF FACE FOR POPE

NY Post, Page Six, July 10, 2007 -- PAINTER Mark Kostabi, the artist everyone loves to hate - especially the critics - seems to be redeeming himself, at least in the eyes of God. The Italian city of Velletri will soon unveil his larger-than-life bronze likeness of Pope John Paul II in a public square. "When the Italian government asked me to make this realistic sculpture of Pope John Paul II, I was obviously thrilled," Kostabi told Page Six, "but since I'm known for my faceless figures, I had to figure out a way to make it a recognizable Kostabi. So I decided to attach three of my faceless angels to the pope's back so that they look like they're carrying him towards heaven." The pope, thank heaven, has a face. Kostabi admits he was jealous of all the publicity Damien Hirst got recently with his $100 million diamond-encrusted skull. "There are no diamonds on my sculpture. The diamond is the pope."


From: Kostabi Mark
Sent: Thursday, September 27, 2007 10:47 AM
To: Cliff Leigh; Cliff Leigh
Subject: Pope Benedict XVI

Hi Cliff,
Can you make a masterpiece Kostabi drawing featuring Pope Benedict XVI in a Kostabi situation? Since I've already met him once, I thought I should commemorate the occasion and try to make him see a painting in his honor. I would like to meet him again and talk about many things. This is the goal with this image: to get another meeting with the Pope! It should be something that he and his advisers find appealing.
Thanks,
Mark

[Above drawing, as well as others, were executed and delivered to Mark]

From: Kostabi Mark
Sent: Sunday, October 14, 2007 10:29 AM
To: Cliff Leigh
Subject: Re: PopeBenedict et al

Hi Cliff,
These are all great. $XXX is fine. Can you explain some of the themes that you incorporated which relate to Pope Benedict's writings. (I noted the fact that Durer was also German.) For example, what does the writing say at top. And why NOVA RATIO?  The drawing is great and very interesting. I also love music trio and the umbrella drawing.
Thanks,
Mark

From: Cliff Leigh
Sent: Tuesday, October 16, 2007 8:38 AM
To: Kostabi Mark
Subject: BenedictPiece

Dear Mark,

This piece is a discussion of the nature of Reason, in Latin “ratio”. In Pope Benedict’s writings he accurately reflects the Roman Catholic theological stance on the nature of Reason espoused by Thomas Aquinas, most notably in his masterwork, “Summa Theologica”. A representation of this book can be seen in the lower left corner. In it, Thomas makes use of the Aristotilian understanding of “natural reason” (reason inherent in natural man, as opposed to reason that is a special revelation from God) to espouse “proofs” of the existence of God, or “theistic proofs”.

As you can see, this piece is an image within an image. Yet three elements are outside the bounds of the inner image. This refers to the Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The first are the Hebrew words from above, “Bereshiyt bara Elohim,” which are the first three words of the Bible, literally translated “Created, in the beginning, God…” or as we know it, “In the beginning God created…” This represents the “special” revelation of God’s word, as opposed to “reason” derived by “natural” means.

To the right is a vertical beam with a nail in it, a reference to Christ, God incarnate, his death burial, and resurrection as a once and for all atonement for sins. It stretches upward for he is the way to the Father.

To the left is the dove, the Holy Spirit, which brings us new reason (nova ratio) which illuminates and supplants our old natural, reason, which is corrupted by the Fall, that we may apprehend and embrace the truth of the revelation of God in his Word (again represented by the Hebrew text above, which illuminates the whole piece.

Cliff

From: Kostabi Mark
Sent: Wednesday, October 17, 2007 4:13 AM
To: Cliff Leigh; Cliff Leigh
Subject: Mike Cockrill

Hi Cliff,
When you asked me to explain your Kostabi Pope drawing it was for my own education so I would know what I was talking about when asked about my own work. When Mike Cockrill saw the drawing at Kostabi world he was intensely fascinated, knowing that you were involved and told me that he was wondering  what you were up to because of conversations he's had with you on the subject years ago. I offered to forward your explanation to him. I assumed you wouldn't mind since there was nothing personal or private in the e-mail and it was all about work. He enjoyed reading your explanation very much and seems very engaged by the topic. He suggested that I forward his letter to me also to you. Here it is.
Mark

From: Mike Cockrill
Sent: Tuesday, October 16, 2007 10:43 PM
To: Mark Kostabi
Subject: Re: Cliff's explanation

Hi Mark,
 Nice talking to you, too.  You didn't rush off the phone.  I had to get going as well. As for Cliff's explanation.  It all sounds fascinating and like he knows what he's talking about.  But, very notably -- and just as I said -- he makes no mention of Durer, or of the borrowings from his masterpiece, "Melancholia." That is the part that intrigues me, because that is where I suspect Cliff is laying out his own feelings about the Catholic Church and/or the current Pope. Years ago during a discussion on Creationism, Cliff told me that he felt basically that the Catholic church was a satanic corruption of Christianity. He felt no member of the clergy should be called "Father."  In true Christianity there is only one Father, and He is in heaven.  According to Cliff.  So it is with fascination that I studied his drawing -- knowing he would not be a traitor to his own beliefs. (He would be like the Jewish printer forced to publish Nazi screeds and subtly working in hidden Stars of David for the world to later find.)  I'm having a smile about all of this. This is no criticism of Cliff. I see it all in good fun.  But I wonder. 
     Further, no one will be able to slip anything past the eyes of the Vatican.  There are no symbols or images that they do not understand more profoundly than anyone else around.  Catholicism is all about symbols. (Remember; For a thousand years the "fathers" of the church were the only ones around who could read.)
Forward this to Cliff if you like.  I'd love to hear his response. 

Yours,
Mike

From: Cliff Leigh
Sent: Thursday, October 25, 2007 11:16 AM
To: Mike Cockrill
Subject: Cliff's Explanation

Hi Mike,

As I was saying… Wow! Talk about a pregnant pause—a fifteen-year gap in the middle of a conversation! It’s a good thing that I didn’t have the chance to do this drawing fifteen years ago, because, if you are relaying accurately the tone of the conversation (I have no doubt you are) than it may have been a whole different picture.  Although, in substance, not much has changed of what I believed about current Roman Catholic theology but I hope how I approach Roman Catholic people (including the Pope) has changed.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 

We all have a tendency to categorize people, sometimes appropriately, sometimes not, then praise, or mock them accordingly (artists, as stone-throwing tricksters are especially good at this). This never does much except to harden hearts against what you have to say. After all, Pope Benedict, first and foremost is a person, not just an abstract, iconic figurehead. So when Mark proposed a drawing that the Pope would find interesting, I approached him as a thinking man, not as a censorious cardinal on the prowl for heresy. Of course, I do not know him as a man, but I believe I gained some insight into his way of thinking regarding the recent controversy over statements he made about jihad. (http://www.ewtn.com/vnews/getstory.asp?number=71125).
In these statements he made an appeal for Hellenistic Reason as a determinant of the appropriateness of the use of violence in religious persuasion. This is perfectly reasonable coming from him since it is one of the hallmarks of RC teaching since the time of Thomas Aquinas. He also went on to discuss what he believes was the “dehellinization” of Christian thought beginning with the Reformation and more recently with multi-culturalism.

In essence this Hellinism is the system of logic or reason observed most notably by the Greeks. When stripped down to its bare bones it is the notion that there is an autonomous entity known as “Reason”, or “Logic”, or “Logos”, which must be satisfied for the proof and therefore belief, of a given subject (Aquinas applied this Hellenism to church teaching to develop his theistic “proofs” in his masterwork “Summa Theologica”). I say this is something “observed” by the Greeks not created by them because it is something that every human being in every culture, not just the Greeks, uses to some extent almost every moment of a given day (e.g. two objects can’t occupy the same space at the same time in non-western India or Hellenized Athens, therefore, all do not stand in front of oncoming traffic, etc.). This system of logic functions on every level—from babies first step to quantum mechanics. It is inherent in each one of us. It is used and articulated in varying degrees in all cultures. It is sometimes called “Natural Reason”. Again it is important to state that this “Reason” is not a system created by the Greeks but observed by them and used by all philosophers. This functions fairly well when dealing with inferior objects. All functional technology has been developed by the accurate application of this Reason. The fact that the wheel works or the atom bomb goes off is a testament that Reason is real. But a problem begins to arise when we start to contemplate superior things. For example, one might observe the cycle of the seasons and using this Reason conclude that all reality functions in an eternal circle, without beginning or end. However, if the observer’s life began and ended on a corkscrew or a spiral staircase, he might observe the circular motion of reality but his conclusion would be flawed. So therefore, we know by Reason that our Natural Reason is limited by our inability to get “outside” and see the whole of all things. Many a philosopher and theologian has proclaimed that they have gotten “outside” and are here to illuminate the world to what they have seen. Plato describes this in his allegory of the Cave, that we are all in a cave only seeing shadows of what is real. But for him to describe this situation he would have to be able to stand outside the cave and come back and tell everyone they were still in it. The pride of this declaration assumes that he can see exhaustively above and through all things, or else how would he know from outside the cave that he was not standing in another greater cave, and if he were to get outside that one that he was not standing in another, etc., etc.? So you see our use of Reason itself is, at very best, fallible by our limitations. Not only is our Reason fallible by our positional limitations (i.e. where we stand in relation to things), but it also suffers from other defects. It is limited by our ability; we, as finite, physical beings cannot see infinitely through all things. Therefore, we can only judge according to what we are able to apprehend. But, perhaps more seriously, our interpretation of what we are able to apprehend is corrupted by a pride that believes we are actually able to infinitely see through all things. We might not outwardly declare this, but in practice we act as if it were true. Pride seeks to claim that our Reason is positionally superior to all things and, therefore, all things must submit their evidence to us that we may judge its correctness. Again, this may work when applied to inferior things, but this singular perverseness will automatically “disprove”, or put into question the existence of a superior being, or, at very best, create a being we call “superior” but in practice make him inferior to our Reason, since the very act of judging this superior has made ourselves the superior and corrupted the ability to submit to him.

And so our Reason, as is, has an essential flaw, a blind spot that, try-as-we-might, will not and, therefore, cannot see superior things, or will pervert them to an inferior position to us. On top of all this, we have made Reason subject to our desires and emotions, so that we will abandon Reason all together when it gets in the way of what we want or what we feel. Again this may function in the short term, but we soon find our emotions and feelings need to be reigned in by some use of Reason. And so we are in a jumbled reality that we all know is not quite “right”. However, the very sense of things being not quite “right” testifies itself that there is a “rightness” that we can’t quite fully attain. Some seek to develop philosophies to explain this situation; some ignore it all together in favor of transient pleasures and concerns. But all fail because they are still on the “inside” looking at things through flawed and inadequate Reason. This is where Revelation literally comes in. It is the “outside” revealing itself to the “inside” and thus explaining the “inside’s” situation.

As I stated before, there are many men who claim to be messengers of this Revelation, but the very fact that they themselves are finite, fallible beings even at best would make their statements interpretations of what they had seen or experienced on their supposed trip to the “outside.” If one were to contemplate what an adequate Revelation must be like, it would require messengers who only relayed what they were told from one of an infinite character, who is able to see through all things, in order to relay without error the truth of reality, not an interpretation of his experience of it. But the fullest Revelation come directly from the one of infinite character communicating himself (the Word, or “Logos,” made flesh). And once this information was passed to finite, flawed, and interpretive beings it would require a clearing away of the obfuscation of our flaws. For if our flaws are not taken fully into account we will mishandle this Revelation by making our Reason superior to it. This does not mean that Revelation is in opposition to Reason. On the contrary, true Revelation clears away the flaws of our old Reason and provides a new Reason (“nova ratio”) or, more accurately, a “right” Reason (“recta ratio”), which is not different than our Natural Reason but fully illuminates and satisfies it.

Therefore, Faith and Reason are not mutually exclusive, but instead Faith frees a corrupted Reason to function more fully and accurately. Reason is a flawed, faint witness of a reasonable God, not an entity or a process to which God must appeal. This is different than Islam’s view of a transcendent God who does not have to operate in the bounds of Reason and the RC view that our current Reason functions more autonomously and better than it does, and is a sufficient tool to apprehend God. All Christian denominations operate according to the way they approach Revelation.

So armed with this little bit of info into Pope Benedict’s thoughts, I saw an entryway for a discussion of topics that I also find of great interest and import.  These issues are displayed in this drawing to Pope Benedict, hopefully, not in a confrontational manner, but in a conversational one, from one “insider” brother to another, speaking of how we may better understand that which has entered in from the “outside”.

As far as the use of Durer’s “Melencolia I” having a subversive meaning, it was only used because it directly addresses the topic of Reason and its use in creativity.

I know this is all complicated but I hope it explains how this drawing emerged.

Cliff

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ANNOUNCING A VANTILLIAN FANTASY NOVEL: THE WORDSMITH, THE KID, AND THE ELECTROLUX by Forrest Schultz

Article by Linda Mancusco, first published in Smithtown News, June 2008

Workin’ on the Railroad

Dad uses 3.5 hour LIRR commute into Manhattan to Pen First Novel, "The Wordsmith, the Kid, and the Electrolux"

Most Long Island Railroad commuters spend their train time catching up on emails, speaking too loudly on their cell phones, reading the latest bestseller or, more often than not, napping. But St. James resident Clifford Leigh, 47, spent his 3 ½ daily commute a little more productively – working on his first novel.

Now, nearly nine years later and countless hours on the train commuting to New York City, his novel, The Wordsmith, The Kid and The Electrolux, which he also illustrated, was recently published by Capstone Fiction. And Mr. Leigh, still riding the commuter train, is hard at work on its sequel, Islandship River.

Mr. Leigh, who is married with three sons, is an artist who has had his work exhibited in major galleries and museums around the world as well as a designer for Evergreene Painting Studios, an art and historical restoration firm in Manhattan. When he was first married, Mr. Leigh and his family lived in Syosset, and he only had a 40 minute commute. “But then the family got larger and we moved out to St. James,” said Mr. Leigh. Although his family loved St. James, Mr. Leigh said he didn’t realize how much longer the commute into the city would be and how much it would affect his lifestyle.

At first a little depressed about the amount of time spent on the train, Mr. Leigh decided to use the time more industriously. After receiving a hand-me-down laptop from his brother-in-law, he thought he would use his commuting time doing what he does best, illustrating. But the artist found that too difficult to do on the old LIRR diesel trains he rode when he first started commuting from St. James.

“Then one day, when I transferred at Huntington, they rolled out the big, new double decker train,” recalled Mr. Leigh. “I had more room and I didn’t have to change at Huntington, so I had more [uninterrupted] time.  When he first set out to work on his book, a story about a boy and his magical vacuum cleaner, he thought it would be for younger children with more illustrations than words, but  “as I started to write, it ballooned into a novel. “ Mr. Leigh said his book was inspired by his oldest son, who was about six at the time and the family’s old Electorlux vacuum cleaner. “I think it was made in the ‘60s, but it still worked,” said Mr. Leigh. “My kids used to play on it and sit on it.” 

After three years of working in his locomotive office, The Wordsmith, The Kid and The Electrolux, which by then hadevolved into a fantasy tale targeted more to teens than toddlers, was complete.  But, as the new author soon learned, getting the book published would not be easy. “I had no idea how to get a book published,” said Mr. Leigh. So, he researched and read up on it (during his commuting time, of course), and followed the conventional route and hired a literary agent. But after two years, he still hadn’t heard from any interested publishers. “Then one day I was surfing the web and found a website that would look at some chapters of my book and if they liked it they would advertise in their newsletter,” said Mr. Leigh.

Finally, after another year and a half, Mr. Leigh heard from Capstone Fiction. After checking out the publishing company, which was founded by two publishing veterans, one of whom was a former communications director at the White House, Mr. Leigh signed on. Now, one year later, the book, which is described in the publisher’s press release as a “Fantasy. Adventure. Surprise. A tale of growing up and growing wise,”   is published and the author said it is doing very well. So well, in fact, that Capstone Fiction is very interested in its sequel. The author is hard at work on his second novel, still enduring his long LIRR commute “but it’s all tolerable when you’re 240 pages into your sequel and the publisher already wants to see it.

The Wordsmith, The Kid and The Electorlux is available on line at www.barnesand noble.com; www.amazon.com, www.target.com and other national retail outlets. For more information about the book and the author, visit www.oaktara.com

Review of "The Wordsmith, the Kid & the Electrolux" byDiane L Olinger, New Horizons, News, Views, Reviews, March, 2009

Who are the Wordsmith, the Kid, and the Electrolux? This is the question that a boy named Corian Griffin encounters in his strange journey through the “world beneath the tree.” It’s not another world so much as the same world seen in a different way.
In this novel, Clifford Leigh, a deacon at the Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Bohemia, New York, uses recognizable objects in allegorical forms to express the basic concepts of the Trinity, creation, the Fall, human depravity, election, and the Gospel, as well as faith and reason. As readers, we accompany Corey as he steps into a series of living pictures that serve to enlighten him regarding the true meaning of life beneath the tree and above it. Corey is guided on these adventures by another boy, Benjamin Endben, traveling with his “twin,” Ben. Benjamin carries with him a lambskin packet of pictures bound with a red cord. The pictures have “come down from the mountain” and testify to their own truth.
Like John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, Leigh uses clever naming to help us decipher the meaning of the story. For example, Corey meets Kosmo Kreecher and Fern Kreecher, who admire the creative work of the Wordsmith, the tree-machine, but refuse to attribute it to him. Kosmo is absorbed in the technical aspects of the tree-machine, which he interprets only through reason. His wife, Fern, a lover of nature, refers to the tree-machine as “Bealla” (the be all and end all). She approaches the tree from her own deep spirituality and concludes that Bealla is the mother of the living force within us.
Leigh is an artist, designer, and painter by trade, as well as an author. His artistry comes through in this book. He uses words to create convincing images in scenes that sometimes are as colorful, and also as strange, as those in Alice in Wonderland. Some of the chapters are so well designed that they could stand alone as powerful short stories.
As people of the Word, we live by faith, not by sight. There were times when I felt that this difference between faith and sight was obscured by the book’s emphasis on pictures. For instance, Corey and his companions are eyewitnesses to the Wordsmith’s creation of the tree-machine. This seems to put them in a fundamentally different position than we are in when we observe our Creator’s handiwork, thus severing, or at least weakening, the intended allegorical connection.
Extended allegory can be wearying after a while. But upon arriving at the end of  The Wordsmith, the Kid and the Electrolux, when all the shadowy pictures had given way to what is real, I was glad I had persevered.
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A Response:

“Except a man be born again he cannot see the kingdom of God”

Dear Diane,

Thank you so much for reviewing The Wordsmith, the Kid and the Electrolux. I especially appreciated the parts critical of its emphasis on “pictures.” It is precisely this kind of discussion I was hoping to provoke. No one has questioned this emphasis and I’m glad to perhaps give an explanation of what was intended by the use of “pictures” in this book. As you wrote, truly, believers are “people of the Word.” By the work of the Holy Spirit we hear the “Word” and believe. The truths of the Scriptures have become so real and concrete that we, as it were, “see” through the eyes of faith. No, we do not literally “see” in order to believe, but biblical faith is overwhelmingly expressed in language descriptive of seeing. Christ himself says “He hath blinded their eyes, and hardened their heart; that they should not see with their eyes, nor understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them.” Although “we walk by faith and not by sight” the Lord uses the language of “seeing,” “blindness,” “darkness rather than light” all denoting spiritual sight. Therefore, seeing in this book, as is also often used in the Scriptures, is an allegory of biblical faith. Pictures in this book (although they are actually not pictures but words describing pictures) are an allegory of the Word of God, or more precisely, discerning the world through the prism of the Word.
One of the reasons this book was written was to present an allegory to those who are so hostile to the Gospel that they will not entertain even a rudimentary presentation of its primary doctrines, not to mention the deeper things. One of the methodologies employed, consciously or subconsciously, by the adversaries of the faith is to ghettoize any Christian talk or media so that it can be instantly dismissed as unpalatable for their sampling. It is marginalized and categorized to be outside their interests. Christian-speak is instantly dismissed, even though, in my experience, many unbelievers are very interested in a backdoor hearing of the principles of the faith. So how does one present the faith when the listener edits out anything to do with it? It can be allegorized, as Nathan did with David, to allow him to hear the principle of the message he was sent to bring without shutting it down before he knew it was speaking of him.
Another reason I wrote the book in this form was to hopefully provoke this kind of discussion among believers about the deeper things of the Scriptures. Allegory forces the reader to ask what is being represented rather than simply allowing a narrative story to flow over them without question. Why does the protagonist “see” the Creator (Wordsmith) and the antagonists do not? If I had simply written that Benjamin believes in the Creator and has to convince the Kreechers that he has created, is this precisely the position we as believers are in? If this is the case then the Gospel presentation is simply an argument between two parties on equal footing, each capable of judging observed evidence. I believe that this is not the case and that the Scriptures declare it so. What does it mean to “believe” or have “faith?” Is it simply being presented convincing evidence of the veracity of the Scriptures, weighing it, deciding it is true, and then living according to this belief?  Truly, the overwhelming physical evidence is in favor of the truth of the Scriptures, however, as the Westminster Confession states: “[Our] full persuasion and assurance of the infallible truth and divine authority [of the Word of God], is from the inward work of the Holy Spirit bearing witness by and with the Word in our hearts.” Or as the Scriptures say, “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God.” Biblical faith is a work and gift of the Holy Spirit of God. Even the verse you quoted “we walk by faith and not by sight” immediately follows “Now he that hath wrought us for the selfsame thing is God, who also hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit.” The Lord is the primary and continuous actor in our redemption and sanctification. Therefore, the characters representing believers in this book are acted upon by the Spirit of God (the Electrolux), working faith in them, so they see substantially, as if it is evidence truly before them, the “things hoped for” and that “the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.”  Because of this action of God, believers are in a fundamentally different position than unbelievers when viewing the Creator’s handiwork and declaring it to them. Not for their own righteousness, but for grace, they have become receivers and declarers of the biblical revelation of God in Christ. They use reason because God is true reason and anything coming from him is reasonable, but fallen man will not receive it in the same way he accepts other logical principles. Although all true rationality points to the God of the Scriptures as the Creator of all things, the problem in proving this to fallen man lies not in the weakness of evidence or poor argumentation but in the perversity of the human heart. Fallen man does not possess, as Luther puts it, “recta ratio” or right reason. He possesses a massive, staggering reason capable of perceiving and harnessing the forces of nature but has the ultimate blind spot about the true God. When man seeks to have the true God proven to him by using fallen reason he will fail because the methodology of this reason presupposes himself as the judge of the veracity of God and from this prideful position is incapable of submission to God who needs not prove himself to anyone. And though God need not prove himself, he, by common grace, condescends to allow man a limited approach to him through a semblance of reason. Therefore, the believers can muster evidential arguments to appeal to the flawed reason of fallen man as an entry into the proclamation of the Gospel, but these arguments taken to their fullest extent will not convert the soul but only at best reveal that unregenerate man does not want the true God. In the process of presenting these arguments believers are in fact declaring the word of God “and as many as were ordained to eternal life believe.” The Spirit of God gives them the “hearing of faith” and they believe. They might ascribe their new found belief to the thoroughness of the appeal, or to the rationality of it, but the Scriptures are clear that belief is a “gift of God.” We must preach the Gospel because it is the God ordained means by which men are exposed to the truth. It is best preached with the clarity of knowledge and reason, but, as Paul writes “whether in pretence, or in truth, Christ is preached; and I therein do rejoice.”  It has been my experience that most believers I have met did not come to faith through an exhaustive exercise in rational argumentation. Rather, at some point in hearing the Gospel proclaimed rationally, they simply believed. Again, let me be clear, the Gospel is best proclaimed with the clarity of knowledge and reason because God is Truth, but I believe it is helpful to understand our position as ambassadors lest we become entangled in faulty premises that may actually undermine the Gospel declaration. If one enters the arena representing God and believes he is on “equal footing” with the unbeliever, appealing to an autonomous judge called “Reason,” the very fact of ceding to this premise undermines the Gospel. For, accepting this premise assumes that God, or his representative is bringing logic to bear to appeal to the third party judge, Reason. This puts God and his representative in the position of submission to the judge. If this judge is in actuality a thinly veiled disguise of the reason of the participants in the arena then, like the Fall, man is again setting himself up as the judge of God’s word.
The Fall itself can be described as man choosing to set himself up as the judge of God. God’s word was declared without explanation to Adam and Eve. They entered an arena with the Devil where the premise was that they could or should judge the veracity of God’s declaration. If God is Truth itself, and in him there is no lie, is it not truly rational to believe him at his word? But in the Fall we accepted Satan’s premise that we can be the judge of God. In stark contrast, the Lord Jesus Christ, when tempted to accept Satan’s premise, rested firmly on the declared word of God, saying, we live “by each word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” This is true reason within the Godhead. God the Son, in full knowledge of God the Father will not rationally set himself below a lesser creature; he will not “fall down and worship” Satan. It is also notable that when Satan uses the Scriptures to draw Christ into proving his Sonship, Christ does not engage him in argumentation, which would cede to his premise, but again rests on the clear declaration, “Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.” Christ, being fully man, demonstrates how Adam and Eve should have responded to the temptation in the arena of the garden.
God is Reason himself, in the same way he is “Wisdom,” “Truth,” “Love,” and “Life.” His very nature and character is these things. True Reason, Wisdom, Love and Life can only be found in their purest state in the relationship between the three persons of the eternal Godhead. All that has been created by them bears emblems of this character but not in the completeness that can only be known within the great “I AM.” He is the fountainhead of Reason and it descends from him to permeate all things. Therefore, man is able to describe the creation in reasonable terms. Being made in the image of God, man possesses a reason that was only limited by the fact that he was a created being and he continues to use it to judge many things. Because of the Fall, this reason is even more limited and faulty by depravity. This depravity continues to set man’s reason up as a thinly veiled autonomous judge to be appealed to. Man has used this methodology as an effective tool in taming the world, as can be seen in the ascendancy of the West through this so-called Hellenistic reason. Recently, Pope Benedict described the rift between the Roman Catholic Church and the Reformation as being the fact that the Reformers did not believe that this Hellenistic philosophy was amenable to the Gospel and the Catholic theologians did. The Catholic Schoolmen believed, and Benedict continues this belief, that the “Logos” of the Scriptures is this autonomous Reason. And consequently all their theology diverges from the Reformation at this point. We believe that the “Logos” or “Word” is Christ, and therefore God Himself. This deviation has allowed Roman Catholic theology to have an intellectual basis for giving the tradition of men final authority over the revelation of the Scriptures. For if the word of God and the word of man compete on equal footing beneath an autonomous “Logos” then God is beneath something and this cannot logically be. But if the “Logos” is Christ, then there is perfect rationality within the Godhead, and only man must submit to it. But now, corrupted by the Fall, man is in a self-destructive, impossible situation. He is presented with the command to believe God, and act perfectly according to this belief. However, man cannot even arrive at the first step of believing God, because the methodology that fallen man uses to judge the fact of a matter is the very thing that has severed his relations with God in the first place. He seeks to use a corrupted reason to prove a God which he has dethroned by the very fact of entering an arena which sets himself up as the judge of God in a thinly veiled disguise called “Reason.” It is reasonable that man be judged for this rebellion against the word of God.  “But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved”. To accomplish this, the loving God enters in to this hopeless situation of man’s self-destructive circular reasoning from the outside through the Revelation of Jesus Christ. Therefore, Revelation is not opposed to true Reason but is the only truly reasonable solution to man’s deadly dilemma. If man is caught in a self-destructive circular argument without the possibility of exit, or even perceiving his condition, one from the outside must enter in to declare the truth. The Incarnation and Revelation of the eternal God in Christ is the truly reasonable entrance and redemption of man’s cursed state. He first signaled this event through the delivery of the Scriptures to Israel. Then he literally entered the world in the Incarnation, where he performed the judicial work of becoming our atonement. But more was reasonably necessary since man still possessed this blind spot to his revelation. He must not only enter into the world but also the hearts of men. This is the effectual work of the Spirit of God within the believers.  There is complete unity and true rationality within the Trinity.
Now Christ has ascended and given us the commission to be his ambassadors “to preach   the Gospel: not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect.  For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God. For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this world? Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For, after that in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.” God “confounds” the circular, deadly “wisdom” or reasoning of the world by the “foolishness of preaching.” He simply proclaims his truth and by the power of the Holy Spirit men believe. Yes, use all the reason you possess, yes, use articulate, intelligent speech in your preaching but always from the position that you are the declarer of the Word of God that alone goes forth with power.
We as believers do not know in whom the Spirit of God abides and therefore must bring the Gospel in all its fullness, but we should be aware of the trap of worldly reason and be armed with the recta ratio of the revelation of the Scriptures. Of course, all I have stated above should be recognizable as “Presuppositionalist” or “Van Tillian” apologetics.

Just one more thing on the use of pictures: It is said, “A picture is worth a thousand words” but which words?
As a professional artist I have learned the limitation of pictures and the absolute supremacy of the Word over images. I have exhibited pictures that I labored to express a particular meaning only to have viewers decipher wholly different interpretations from them. Words are a more specific tool to convey meaning. There fore, I opted to write a book of words describing things that no one is viewing, instead of filling a gallery with paintings of these things.
Words in general are allegories of the real. They are so interchangeable with what they denote that when you read the word “bread” for instance, you don’t think of black ink on a white paper shaped in a particular way, you think of all the sensations that are produced by the actual article—the smell, the texture, the taste. Some bakers may think of its preparation, some who are scientists its chemical properties, a child might think of a particularly nice bologna sandwich his mother made him that morning, anything but ink on paper. Even the fact that you noted an “emphasis on pictures” eliminates the fact that this emphasis is all created by words, not pictures. Words are signs of what they denote. They are so intimate with their object that God himself equates the Word with His precious Son, so much so that by faith when we read or hear his word in the Scriptures we are sacramentally in His presence with Him speaking to us.
In a similar way, the picture or “sensible sign” of bread and wine in Communion is only given specificity of meaning through its institution by the Word of God. An uninitiated person might see many things in bread and wine but is guided into its sacramental meaning through the words “this is my body which is broken for you…” and “this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.”  These words guide us towards the true meaning displayed in the picture of the bread and wine and away from alternate meanings which may be conjured up by the viewer. Therefore, in The Wordsmith, the Kid and the Electrolux, the character Benjamin Endben, seeing by faith the fact of the Creation, labors to explain the truth through the use of words to direct the unbelievers away from their misinterpretation of the material evidence displayed before their eyes. The unbelievers will not see, as it were, a Creator in the evidence displayed before them. Believers, on the other hand, by the work of the Holy Spirit, read the description of the creation in Genesis 1 and believe God’s word and behave accordingly as if they have seen it. No, they have not seen it literally, but the indwelling of the Spirit of God illuminates (again, allegorical language denoting vision) them to its truth. And with this illumination they are better able to make sense of the physical evidence of creation. And with this seeing by faith they act on it as if it has appeared to them.

Much heart felt thanks for your thoughtfulness.
Sincerely, in Christ,

Cliff Leigh
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Odd circumstances led Cliff Leigh to be born in New York City of Chinese and Swedish descent in 1960. His father, Edward, was the son of Samuel Kau Yan Lee, the Anglican Archdeacon of Hong Kong and founder of the St. Mark’s School, retreated to Calcutta after the fall of Hong Kong to the Japanese. After a bank strike in New York, a call for Chinese English- speaking students plucked him from obscurity, placing him on a “war bride” tanker ship bound for America. Cliff’s American mother was raised in Shanghai during the Japanese invasion, and although a U.S. citizen, a special act of Congress allowed her to return with Cliff’s eldest brother who had been born in China.

Cliff showed early artistic promise receiving a First Place award from the New York School Press Association in 1978, and a B. A. in Art History and Criticism from Stony Brook University in 1982. In 1985 he began exhibiting paintings in galleries in Soho, culminating in a one-man exhibition in 1986. While working on a Master’s Degree he was enlisted by the Pop Art phenomenon, Mark Kostabi as his “Chief Idea Person” to design his artwork. As a result, his work has been exhibited in major galleries and museums throughout the world. As a professing Christian, he injected Biblical references into Kostabi’s work to subliminally express the faith. He continues to collaborate with Kostabi, most recently on an illustrated version of the Book of Genesis, and artwork to be presented to Pope Benedict in 2008.

Cliff is also a designer with Evergreene Architectural Arts, the world’s largest art and historical restoration firm. His work can be seen in a variety of notable buildings such as the White House complex Executive Office Building in Washington DC, St. Peter’s Church in San Francisco, the Miami City Hall, Grey Towers Historic Preservation, the Allen County Courthouse, and the Meridien Grand Opera House. He is instrumental in developing never-before-used architectural arts merging traditional and digital techniques.

Personally, his youth was marked by rebellious behavior. But at the age of twenty-two, after a failed romance with a woman (who seven years later he would marry) he began reading a Bible left on his shelf by his itinerant missionary uncle, M.O. Lee, who had visited years earlier from Hawaii. Largely isolated for the next few years in his studies, he began to seek a biblical church fellowship, which led him through a variety of denominations, where he was asked to teach, speak, and serve. While serving as a deacon in an independent church, one of his sermons was recorded and unwittingly broadcast worldwide via a Christian radio network, causing him to reassess the serious nature of Bible teaching. Eventually, the leadership of this church began to show cultic characteristics, which he confronted. Denounced from the pulpit he left, which caused him to reexamine and embrace Christian orthodoxy and desire a more biblical model of church government. He currently serves as a Deacon in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.

Cliff and his wife celebrated their 20th wedding anniversary in 2008, have three sons, and live in New York.