By Faith We Understand That Life Was Created By God

The writer to the Hebrews begins chapter 11 by defining faith. He then continues to encourage his readers by giving examples of how believers exercise their faith. Interestingly he begins with us, his readers.

By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible. - Hebrews 11:3 ESV

What is his point? Is there another way of understanding how the universe came to exist? Obviously. In our day modern science does not want to allow for this understanding at all. Lets look at what he says in more depth.

Use your mind, he says, and keep using your mind. Think about this over and over again and keep on thinking about it some more. It is what Jesus' disciples did not do after he had fed about 4,000 people with seven loaves and a few small fish and after they took up the leftovers they still had seven large baskets full. Then he and his disciples went across the sea to the other side. Now, for some reason they forgot to take any of those leftovers along. So when they got to the other side they tried to figure out what to do about food.

And Jesus, aware of this, said to them, "Why are you discussing the fact that you have no bread? Do you not yet perceive or understand? Are your hearts hardened? Having eyes do you not see, and having ears do you not hear? And do you not remember? When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up?" 

They said to him, "Twelve." 

"And the seven for the four thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up?" 

And they said to him, "Seven." 

And he said to them, "Do you not yet understand?" - Mar 8:17-21 ESV

In so many ways, we are quite naturally like those disciples when it comes to "the universe." We don't use our minds. We act as if it were not created by the word of God. By the way, the word translated here as "universe" is not what the original Greek has. The Greek word, aeon,  is much more comprehensive. It refers to life itself, all life. Originally it was related to the Greek word for breathing. Then it came to refer to the length of time that such life exists, an era or age. Then by substituting what is contained (life) for the container (universe), you end up calling aeon the universe.

And that's the whole point. How do you explain not just the physical universe, but the fact that there is life in this and other possible universes? We see this stuff we call atoms, molecules, protons, electrons, whatever. Our sciences have all sorts of names for it. But who can explain where life came from without faith?

Oh, there are many attempts. Some try to say chance. Life just somehow happened. It is the natural outcome of the evolution of cosmic matter —whatever such scientific babble means. Some confine the discussion to planet earth and say that some asteroid from somewhere else crashed into this planet and brought primitive life that evolved. Of course that only puts off the origin question. Where did that life come from? Marcelo Gleiser, in an NPR related blog, writes,

Molecular biologists like Gerald Joyce, from the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, and Nobel laureate Jack Szostak from Harvard University, among many others, are making spectacular advances toward understanding life. They can manipulate RNA and DNA and coax them into enacting the game of life, that is, respond and adapt to environmental pressure as the theory of evolution dictates; they can strip away cellular structures and genes from living cells to search for the minimum living system; Günter von Kiedrowski in Germany was able to construct auto-catalytic chemical sets that show self-replicating abilities. 

These experiments are not yet creating life in the laboratory. But they are certainly steps in the right direction. Even if we will not be able to explain exactly how life emerged on Earth, science still offers the only pathway toward understanding.

"The only pathway toward understanding"? Faith, based upon God's revealed Word, understands that life "was (and is) created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible." And what are those things that are invisible? What is at the bottom of all life is intelligent design. Life works. Life reproduces. Beneath the tiny world of the atom is information. That is what makes it all work together and beneath the information is intelligence, a mind, THE MIND!

I join the LORD Jesus to ask, "Do you not yet understand?"

The Re-discovery Of The Soul

A few days ago I began to read a brand new medical science study about death called Erasing Death: The Science That Is Rewriting the Boundaries Between Life and Death by Dr. Sam Parnia and Josh Young (February, 2013). They tell us some very interesting things about changing views of physical death . . . and human life. For instance, up to this point many scientists have concluded that human consciousness, the mind, subjective experience, the person or simply the soul, arises from the activity of the brain. However, all the brain-based theories "do not answer the fundamental question of how thoughts and consciousness or human experience may arise from the activity of neurons."

The authors go on to make a most important point about how thoughts, feelings, emotions and what makes us into who we are arises.

This limitation of all the theories has led to the suggestion that human consciousness or the soul may in fact be an irreducible scientific entity in its own right, similar to many of the concepts in physics such as mass and gravity, which are also irreducible entities. —Kindle location 2785 

They go on to speak about the views of Nobel Prize winner Sir John Eccles, considered by many to be one of the greatest neuroscientists in the world.  The whole of Eccles' philosophical thought has been brought together in a book entitled Facing Reality published by Springer in the Heidelberg Science Library (1970).

Eccles' "view was that the mind, consciousness, or soul itself played an active role in selecting and integrating brain cell activity and molded it into a unified whole. . . He thought of the brain as an "instrument that provides the conscious self or person with the lines of communication from and to the external world" and that "does this by receiving information through the immense sensory system of the millions of nerve fibre that fire impulses to the brain, where it is processed into coded patterns of information that we read out from moment to moment in deriving all our experiences—or perceptions, thoughts, ideas and memories. . . 

Therefore, in (Eccles') view, the brain is an instrument that relays information to and from both the internal and external worlds, but consciousness  or the soul is a separate and subtle scientific entity that interacts directly with it. Furthermore, as the human soul or consciousness is a separate yet entirely real entity that determines the true reality of a person, it continues to exist after death. Therefore, when one dies, one is left with the same level of knowledge, understanding and perception as on earth. This is why people with actual-death or near-death experiences may interpret what they see based on their own level of education and thought. Thus, the level of perception of reality that exists after death is directly proportional to that acquired on earth. —Kindle location 2811-12

The authors describe how modern medical  technology is able to restore human life many hours after brain and heart activity has ceased. These new discoveries suggest that medical doctors must be very cautious about declaring a person dead ! This information also has some far reaching implications for the so-called harvesting of organs from people who have died.

If this question interests you as much as it does me, I can only urge you to read the book. In my next posts I will explore further what the Bible says about the soul and suggest that theologians and medical scientists must carry on with an even more extensive dialog about human existence as both body and soul.

Man—A Bodied Spirit

The writings of Ray Kurzweil got me started into re-examining what the Bible has to say about mankind, that is Biblical anthropology. Of course I'm not about to tackle everything there is to say. Instead I continue to focus upon the issue of the soul and the body. Some like to suggest that the soul is immaterial—whatever that means—and the body is material. I want to point out that the Scriptures never approach man in those categories. The issue of matter vs. non-matter, etc. comes along a couple thousand years after the Bible was written.

Last time I addressed the matter of soul/body I pointed out that the Hebrew has three words to describe a living human being: Nephesh, Ruach, and Nashamah. English translators have used the words creature, life, soul, person, mind, heart, appetite and body to tell us what the Hebrew writers meant by Nephesh. In other words the word describes a living human person from the outside in or the inside out, depending on the context. He is alive because God has breathed into him the breath of life. There is never a separation of the body from the soul, as if they are two entities. A man is a whole, a unity. He is Nephesh. 

Ruach, on the other hand, is never translated as body or life. The word stands for what we call wind, breath or spirit. It is what man has when he is alive. He breathes the wind. God is Ruach and He breathes life into man, as well as the other creatures. Further, when the LORD wants to reveal Himself, He sends His Ruach upon a prophet. So even Saul, Israel's first king, temporarily received the Ruach of God and prophesied (1 Samuel 10:6-12). Ruach describes man's inner life. From the inside out he is spirit. Because he is spirit, he is capable of communicating with God, the almighty and eternal Ruach.  So Pharaoh's spirit (Ruach) was troubled by his dreams (Genesis 41:8). That's why he called for his wise men to tell him what he had dreamed and what those inner events meant. Animals also are Nephesh, but they never have God's Ruach poured out upon them. 

Nashamah is similar to Ruach. The word describes what a living man does, he breathes, he has breath. It is what the Almighty gives to animate a man.

The Old Testament was translated, as you know, into Greek. sometime between 300 and 100 years before Christ. It was necessary because many Jews were scattered in the Greek speaking world and could no longer understand the O.T. Hebrew. The Septuagint (LXX), as this translation was known, was the preferred Bible of the New Testament writers.

The LXX translates Nephesh with the Greek Psyche. So if you want to speak in English about a living human being, you might use the word soul. In that sense, animals are souls as well as humans (Genesis 1:20,24,30). You might say that the soul (Nephesh or Psyche) is the life of a person or animal. A soul is nothing more than a whole person. It can even refer to a dead person or body from which the life has gone (Numbers 6:6; Haggai 2:13).

Man as Nephesh or Psyche, has an inner life. He becomes sad, grieved, happy, troubled. He hates and loves. When looked at from within, a man longs for God's presence in his life. He needs God (Psalm 42:1; 63:1; 84:2, etc.). Thus a man seen from the inside out has needs, desires, feelings. He thinks, remembers, makes moral decisions and has consciousness. This soul does not exist without a body. The blood coursing through the person's vein carries his life (Nephesh or Psyche)—Deuteronomy 12:23.

When the LXX translated Ruach it used the Greek Pneuma. Once again, the Pneuma is a human viewed from the inside. In English we find the word spirit. It is in his Pneuma also that a person searches for communion with God (Isaiah 26:9).

OK. What do we have so far?

• Man does not have two separate entities, soul and body
• Man does not have something that is eternal, a soul that comes to occupy a body and departs when the body dies. Man's soul certainly does not migrate from some lower form of bodily life to something higher, as suggested by Hindu teaching. 
• Rather man is a created being, given life by God. He is completely dependent upon God for his life.
• This man, is the highest of all God's created beings. He bears God's Image and is intended by His Creator to be in communion with Him. When man disobeys his Creator and breaks the communion, when he worships other gods, he dies.
• Man may be viewed from the outside in or from the inside out. He has a bodily existence and an inner life or spiritual existence. However, the two sides of his life are integrated and inseparable. He is a whole person, a unity. 
• When his breath, his life, leaves he continues to exist, but in a weakened condition. He was not created to die. He was created to live and breathe the breath or life God grants. And to live means that he must be a body, a child of Adam who was made from the dust of the earth. Man is created to be a bodied spirit if you will. 

Next time I shall take these concepts along with us as we move into the writings of the New Testament where the Greek words for body (Sarx and Soma) and soul (Psyche) and spirit (Pneuma) are used in ways that reflect their true source, the LXX or Greek Old Testament. Stay tuned. 

The Search for Life

It was because of my third novel, now completed and needing a publisher. What was? My new interest in mysticism.

In that third novel, "Freya's Child," my protagonist, Albert Freitag, has some experiences of the presence of the ancient Nordic gods, particularly the goddess Freya ,that scare him greatly and cause him to question his own Christian faith. 

In a sequel to that novel, the proposed fourth in the Albert and Tillie series set in the days leading up to WW II, I plan to follow this young couple into even more frightening experiences of the mystical. I'll keep you informed. Write me if you're interested. 

Ever once in awhile in Lutheran circles someone calls this person or that a mystic. It is quite common for us to speak about the mystical body of Christ. But all in all, we Lutherans don't trust the mystics, unless you speak, of course, of St. Paul and St. John as mystics. Even then we prefer not to discuss in any depth such experiences as being caught up to the third heaven or encountering angels that take you into the future or the gates of heaven. 

Pardon me, I forget. You're wondering what I mean by mystic or mysticism. Good question. Not easy to answer, because there seems to be no common understanding. One dictionary puts it this way: A mystic is "a person who seeks by contemplation and self-surrender to obtain unity with or absorption into the Deity or the absolute, or who believes in the spiritual apprehension of truths that are beyond the intellect." 

As to what we Lutherans mean by the mystical body of Christ, I'm afraid that's a phrase begging for clarity. I'll pursue it with you another day. 

Speaking about mysticism in the Christian tradition James Harpur (Love Burning in the Soul) writes that "it is extremely difficult to pin down mysticism in a way that does justice to all the experiences of those traditionally considered to be Christian mystics. . . the experience of mystics has usually revolved around a direct apprehension or awareness of God--and experience that goes beyond the rational faculty of the mind and self-willed activity. It can also be said that it is an experience that has often required devoted and disciplined preparation (for example, through prayer and ascetic practices) and that it admits of degrees of profundity, from relatively mild spiritual illumination to union with God, a conjoining in which the will of the mystic is obliterated, and which is often described as a spiritual marriage" (introduction, pp.2-3). 

Now you know why Lutherans are very leery of the mystics. Here are a few of our problems: 

1. What are "experiences" ? When are experiences not "experiences" of God? 

2. When can you trust that "experiences" are from or of God? 

3. We believe and teach that God makes Himself known through His Word; how is a "direct apprehension or awareness of God" different from God speaking in His Word? 

4. When you speak about "required devoted and disciplined preparation" that sounds very dangerously like what the ancient gnostics talked about. The old Greeks and Romans had their forms of mysticism and spoke about the "initiated," the ones in the know, those in direct contact with the gods. In fact, if you saw that recent movie "The 300," about the Spartans at the battle of Thermopylae, you have a taste of what I mean, because Leonidas climbed the mountain to hear what the gods had to say about the future. In that case, what happens to the classical Reformation teaching about Grace Alone? 

5. What does it mean to go "beyond the rational faculty of the mind"? Must one stop thinking in order to be a mystic?

6. How is Christian mysticism different from Buddhism, etc. or is it? It sounds like one has to lose his/her identity in order to become absorbed into the Reality that is God.

7. How is spiritual illumination different from being in God's Word and walking humbly before Christ? 

This does not mean that I intend to abandon my study. It just means that I will be approaching it with the above questions in mind, as well as things implied by them. Like many believers, I suppose, I have had experiences of God's presence and guiding in my life, but I remain cautious about anything that suggests that I can find God through my own disciplined life or that He is the One I must search out. He has found us. We are the rebels by nature. He came to this fallen world. The world did not rise to Him. That's what the Christian faith is all about. 

Yet. . . 

Jesus did say "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it. What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?" (Matthew 16:24-26). 

Is this what the Christian mystics are all about? Stay tuned.