E. Stan Lennard, M.D., Sc.D.

Sir Karl Popper and Sir John C. Eccles defined “self” in their work published in 1977, The Self and Its Brain (1). 

“…the self is not a ‘pure ego,’ that is, a mere subject.  Rather, it is incredibly rich. …it observes and takes action at the same time.  It is acting and suffering, recalling the past and planning and programming the future, expecting and disposing.  It contains…wishes, plans, hopes, decisions to act, and a vivid consciousness of being an acting self, a center of action.  And it owes this selfhood largely to interaction with other persons….”

The highest mental experience is “knowing that one knows,” self-awareness or self-consciousness. (2)  It is the most fundamental characteristic of the human species (3) and emerges from levels of linguistic communication not shared by non-human animals. (4)  Mind and language are more than physical entities.  Distinctively human language enables Man to bridge the gulf between mind and matter, the immaterial and the material.  Human language reflects a spiritual component in humans that does not exist in other creatures and lifts them to a unique eminence in the cosmos, made in the triune image of God with spirit, soul and body. (5)  Bruce M. Miller stated that “…it may be deflating to some people that the very essence of who they are – including their beliefs and values – is merely another anatomical process.”  This statement reflects the common reduction made of the mind to the physical brain.  The sense of self according to his studies could be localized to one area of the brain. (6) 

            William A. Dembski (7) points out that a full material account of mind needs to understand localized brain excitations in terms of other localized brain excitations.  Anger, for example, has to be explained in terms of semantic contents, such as insults.  The admixture of brain excitations and semantic contents hardly constitutes a materialist accounting of mind or intelligent agency.  The human soul mediates between the spirit and body and correlates with the self, or self-consciousness, our “I.”  The self remains in continuity with the past and into the future.  No matter how extreme the circumstances of our experiences one remains the same self, durable through a lifetime. (8,9) The self makes Man distinctively human.  We are spiritual beings with souls existing in a spiritual world as well as material beings with bodies and brains existing in a material world. (10)

            Fundamental to the Gospel is the teaching from Jesus Christ that Christians need to die to self.  What does this mean?  The human self is durable and defines our unique human identity.  Dying to self as a term can generate confusion and angst among Christians.  Jan Johnson has addressed the issue of “dying to self” by explaining the term based on Scripture. 

“Jesus described the dying-to-self process (to ‘deny self’ is the exact scriptural phrase) as part of following Him: ‘If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me’ (Matthew 16:24, NASB). Sometimes people mistake dying to self for death of self. But self-denial is not self-rejection. God treasures your divinely created self. He doesn’t want to obliterate the part of you that makes you uniquely you. God works within you and reshapes you into the person your renewed-in-Christ self is meant to be.” (11)

The following teachings of the Apostles Peter and Paul are representative “scriptural phrases” alluded to by Johnson:

1 Peter 2:24 …and He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed.

Galatians 5:24-25 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed the passions and desires of their sinful nature to his cross and crucified them there. Since we are living by the Spirit, let us follow the Spirit’s leading in every part of our lives.

1 Corinthians 6:19-20 Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. 

Ephesians 4:22-24 You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.

            It is of unique importance that human beings can communicate with their Creator God through the human spirit and receive Counsel from the Holy Spirit restored to repentant mankind by the sin sacrifice of Jesus Christ.  We remain distinct human selves in interactive harmony with God’s Spirit by His grace through the death and resurrection of Jesus, His Son.

References

1.      Karl R. Popper and John C. Eccles. The Self and Its Brain (Berlin, Heidelberg, London, New York: Springer-Verlag International, 1977), 120.

2.      John C. Eccles. Evolution of the Brain: Creation of the Soul (London and New York: Routledge, 1989), 224.

3.      T. Dobzhansky. The Biology of Ultimate Concern (New York: The New American Library, 1967).

4.      Eccles, Ibid, 71.

5.      Joseph W. Poulshock, “Language-Wonder: Theory, Pedagogy, and Research,” Christ and the World, the Journal of Tokyo Christian University, 8 (1998).

6.      Bruce L. Miller, “Finding One’s Self,” Presented at the American Academy of Neurology, 53rd Annual Meeting, Philadelphia, P/a, May 5-11, 2001.

7.      William A. Dembski, “Are We Spiritual Machines?” First Things, 96 (1999), 25-31.

8.      Henry Margenau, The Miracle of Existence. Woodbridge, Connecticutt: Ox Bow Press, 1984).

9.      John C. Eccles, “Do Mental Events Cause Neural Events Analogously to the Probability Fields of Quantum Mechanics?” Proc. Royal Soc. London (Biol), 227 (1986), 411-428.

10.  Eccles, Ibid, 241.

11.  Jan Johnson, Dying to Self and Discovering So Much More, August 25, 2011       (https://decisionmagazine.com/dying-self-discovering-much-more/)