In the Beginning was Information
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<strong>was</strong> accompanied by a biblical quotation. At that moment <strong>the</strong>landowner travelled past and saw <strong>the</strong> fight. He stopped and sent hisservant to investigate. The servant ran to <strong>the</strong> combatants, watched<strong>the</strong>m for a while, and <strong>the</strong>n walked back at a leisurely pace. Hereported that nothing much <strong>was</strong> <strong>the</strong> matter, <strong>the</strong>y were only explainingHoly Scriptures to each o<strong>the</strong>r.Example 2: A blind septuagenarian African woman had a FrenchBible which she loved very much. She took it to <strong>the</strong> local missionaryrequesting him to highlight John 3:16 in red. This he did, withoutknowing her purpose. The blind woman <strong>the</strong>n sat at <strong>the</strong> schoolgate and asked <strong>the</strong> emerging pupils whe<strong>the</strong>r any of <strong>the</strong>m knewFrench. Being proud of <strong>the</strong>ir knowledge of <strong>the</strong> language, <strong>the</strong>yanswered in <strong>the</strong> affirmative. The woman <strong>the</strong>n showed <strong>the</strong>m <strong>the</strong>underlined verse, requesting <strong>the</strong>m to read it for her. They compliedeagerly. But when she asked <strong>the</strong>m whe<strong>the</strong>r <strong>the</strong>y understood <strong>the</strong>sewords, <strong>the</strong> answer <strong>was</strong> “no”. The woman <strong>the</strong>n explained <strong>the</strong> meaningof this central biblical assertion: “For God so loved <strong>the</strong> worldthat He gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in Himshall not perish but have eternal life.” It is known that 24 menbecame evangelists through <strong>the</strong> ministry of this woman [J2].5. Apobetics: From <strong>the</strong> point of view of <strong>the</strong> sender a process ofinformation transfer has only been successful when <strong>the</strong> purposeintended for <strong>the</strong> recipient has been achieved. All aspects of informationare inextricably interlinked. It is thus insufficient wheneverything runs smoothly up to a certain level, but <strong>the</strong> final level –<strong>the</strong> purpose – is not attained. Strictly speaking, any informationlevel is only a stepping stone to <strong>the</strong> next higher level: Language issolely a means for achieving <strong>the</strong> semantics purpose. <strong>In</strong> its turn,semantics leads to <strong>the</strong> pragmatics level, and in <strong>the</strong> last instancepragmatics is only a preparatory stage for <strong>the</strong> apobetics. <strong>In</strong> Chapter4 this purposefulness of information is described as <strong>the</strong> mostimportant aspect. This is especially true of God’s message in <strong>the</strong>Bible. He has certain objectives with <strong>the</strong> Bible, of which we mentionsome special ones:a) Perception: Who is God? Without <strong>the</strong> Bible we would haveknown very little about God. We could deduce his existence andhis power from his works of creation (Romans 1:20), but nothing147