A Book Review . . . The Handiwork Of A Creator, Artist, And Storyteller

By MITCHELL KALPAKGIAN

God Is In the Details, by William J. Casey, Ph.D. (W&S Publishing, Lewisville, NC, 2016), 156 pages. Available by calling 336-945-5384.

A great work of art lifts the mind to a luminous vision of the whole, but also evokes wonder at the intricacy of the parts that order and create the harmony of unity and variety. As the whole abounds in the richness of its parts, the parts themselves radiate a splendor of their own as they add to the greater glory of the universal.
This book contemplates the perfect design of the Holy Bible, God’s great masterpiece, written by its inspired writers under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. It gives special attention to the smallest details easily overlooked by a cursory reading, seemingly minor facts that ultimately illuminate the larger story.
For example, Job’s suffering moved him to plead for an intercessor as he pondered the accusations of his friends and the knowledge of his innocence: “Would that there were an arbiter between us, who could lay his hand upon us both and withdraw his [God’s] rod from me.” This honest request and earnest plea, argues Dr. Casey, prophesies that “Jesus is the exact intermediary Job reasoned was mandated by justice” — a hint of things to come.
Job’s story also portrays the many injustices of the human condition inflicted upon the righteous who do good but suffer evil — a dilemma that makes Job speculate about the ideal of perfect justice in an afterlife where God’s reward takes into account all of a man’s good deeds and unjust punishments: “When a man has died, were he to live again, all the days of my drudgery I would wait, until my relief should come.”
Job’s intuition senses the reality of eternal life that Christ promised to all who believe and follow Him. Casey writes, “It was Jesus’ Resurrection which produced the proof Job reasoned was needed.”
Reflecting on Cain’s slaying of Abel, God’s permitting this violent murder, and Cain’s escaping the punishment of God, the author explains God’s mysterious ways with men: God does not superimpose His divine power to eliminate man’s free will; God does not exact instant justice or immediate punishment because He awaits the final judgment; God does not directly answer Cain’s question about whether he is his brother’s keeper because Christ provided the most universal answer to the meaning of “brother”: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
All of the revelations of the New Testament are anticipated in the writings of the Old Testament. As Casey remarks, “What might be called a coincidence is a clear example of God’s design.”
The author notes how the significance of the number seven in the Old Testament recurs in the New Testament. God created the world in seven days, Joshua marched seven times around Jericho and commanded seven priests to blow their horns seven times to cause the walls to collapse, and Naaman washed himself seven times in the Jordan River to cure his leprosy. Christ performed seven miracles on the Sabbath; seven letters, seals, signs, and plagues occur in the Book of Revelation; and the Catholic Church administers seven sacraments and refers to the work of charity as the seven corporal works of mercy and seven spiritual works of mercy.
God’s book shows all the telltale signs and all the marks of His signature from beginning to end: “This type of ‘matching of minutiae’ is not found in any other type of literature or history book, but it is present many times in the Bible.”
Dr. Casey observes many other striking details. Many events in the Old Testament foretell the miracles of Christ in the Gospels. The Prophet Elisha blessed several barley loaves and multiplied them to feed a large crowd — a forerunner of Christ’s miracle of feeding the multitude with the five barley loaves and two fish provided by a boy. At the time of Moses’ birth, the pharaoh decreed that every male child born to Israelite women perish in the river — an event that prefigures Herod’s command for the slaughtering of the innocents, the deaths of all male children under two years of age.
Just as Elijah ascended into Heaven with body and soul, Christ was lifted up into Heaven in the Ascension. The widow’s son that Elijah raised from the dead parallels Christ’s raising of the widow of Nain’s son: “Young man, I say to you, arise.” Joseph, Jacob’s son, and Joseph, the husband of Mary and foster father of Jesus, both led the Israelites into and out of the land of Egypt.
On the cross Jesus uttered the words of Psalm 21(22), “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Also He recited the lines from Psalm 30(31): “Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit.” Abraham’s sacrifice of his son Isaac acts as a prototype for God’s offer of His Beloved Son as a sacrifice for the redemption of the world. Both Isaac and Christ carried wood up a hill to the place of execution. Only “inspiration’s hand,” argues Casey, “could have accurately connected all these fantastically rich details from 1,000 years in the Old Testament with Jesus’ sufferings and passion of the New Testament.”
Citing passages from the Bible like God’s words to Job proclaiming His wisdom in ordering all of creation and nature (“Where were you when I founded the earth….Who determined its size; do you know?”), the author then compares these words to the discoveries of modern science verifying the words of Holy Scripture about God’s supreme intellect that governs the entire universe with a providential design. This complex order is reflected in the example of the human body and in the recently discovered wonders of DNA.
The Bible’s teaching about “God’s maintenance of orderliness” and St. Thomas’ teaching that “order in the universe is a prime element pointing to the necessary existence of God” receive validation from scientific knowledge that affirms the intricate complexity of intelligent design. Casey observes that “organization signals intelligence. Whose intelligence is on parade in the molecular world of every species’ DNA?”
God’s details lead to profound meanings, reveal great truths, and provide all the marks of His one true Church, the one that conforms to all the biblical statements uttered by Christ. His life and His teaching identified these signs of His universal Church: the Trinity; Baptism; the Real Presence in the Eucharist; the absolution of sins by a priest acting in persona Christi; healing miracles from the laying on of hands; the one final authority of the Magisterium, “the rock” upon which Christ founded the Church; the prophecy of Jesus’ return; a unified history based on the perpetuation of Tradition and the divine law that is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow; the saintly deeds of holy men and women; and a universal Church that transcends all nations, cultures, and races.
Casey concludes that “the Catholic Church incorporates all twelve requirements needed to be called ‘His Church’.”
In short, all these analogies, resemblances, parallels, and correlations cannot be random accidents, forged evidence, or clever manipulation. God, as the author of the Holy Bible who inspired the writers of Scripture, designed a masterpiece of beautiful, intricate, intelligent design to tell a story whose luminous meaning cannot be doubted by an open mind willing to notice, see, think, and weigh all the evidence that converges to reveal the handiwork of a Creator, Artist, and Storyteller. His signature appears everywhere in Scripture, history, and science with all the telltale signs of a God who is indeed the Word made Flesh and a God of wisdom and love.
Dr. Casey’s insightful book shows once again how living God’s Word is and how it never goes forth and then returns empty.