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

What is music to Man? It is a manifold beauty that richly communicates information that has structure, meaning, purpose and plan as elaborate as any advanced science, technology or philosophy. (1) Its purpose is given action through creative expression (2) and has rules of order that assign specificity to complexity. (3) In Man music stimulates special interactive networks through synaptic transmission of neural codes. The codes ascribe patterns of melody and theme to assemblies of frequencies, tempos, rhythms and harmonies. This is by a process of creative choice of human intelligence. (4) It is a language expressed only by Man and links Man’s physical being with the soul and spirit. (5)

Music expresses the character of God with the precision of science. (6) God has given us music with the aim to glorify Him, encourage counsel, warns, corrects, comforts and teaches truth. It describes His preeminence as the only true God and His eternal reign as Sovereign Lord and King. Music flows from a life that is filled with and controlled by the Holy Spirit. It gives expression to the Gospel and is identified with Jesus Christ. It is the only art that has a place in heaven and will endure for eternity. (7)

William A. Dembski relates that certain Church Fathers as Gregory of Nazianzus have compared God’s created universe to a musical instrument. “But what if the universe is like a musical instrument?…Then it is entirely appropriate for God to interact with the universe by introducing design (or in his analogy, by skillfully playing a musical instrument). So long as there are consummate pianists and composers, player-pianos will always remain inferior to real pianos. The incompleteness of the real piano taken by itself is therefore irrelevant here. Musical instruments require a musician to complete them. Thus, if the universe is more like a musical instrument, it is appropriate for a designer to interact with it in ways that affect its physical state. On this view, for the designer to refuse to interact with the world is to withhold gifts.” (8)

When we sing or play music on instruments we are giving witness to our Creator and Savior and King who indwells us and has given us reasons to believe in Him through music.

References

1.        Fred I. Dretske, Knowledge and the Flow of Information (Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications, 1999), 1-82; Werner Gitt, “Information, Science and Biology,” Technical Journal 10, no. 2 (August 1996), 181-187; John R. Pierce, An Introduction to Information Theory, 2nd revised ed. (New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1980), 107-124.

2.       Gitt, Ibid, 181-187.

3.       William A. Dembski, The Design Revolution: Answering the Toughest Questions about Intelligent Design (Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press, 2004), 134-138.

4.       W. Maxwell Cowan and Eric R. Kandel Synapses (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001), 1-87; Rodney Douglas and Kwan Martin, The Synaptic Organization of the Brain, ed. Gordon M. Shepherd (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 459-509; Idan Segev and Michael London, Dendrites, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 205-230; Spikes: Exploring the Neural Code, eds. Fred Rieke, David Warland, Rob de Ruyter van Steveninck, and William Bialek (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1999), 103-187; Nelson Spruston, Greg Stuart, and Michael Hausser, Dendrites, eds. Greg Stuart, Nelson Spruston, and Michael Hausser, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 231-270.

5.       Watchman Nee, The Spiritual Man (New York: Christian Fellowship Publishers, Inc., 1977), 21-68.

6.       Steve Camp, “The Character of Christian Music,” Part Three, http://www.bargenquast.com/steph/theses/theses.html.

7.       Ibid,

8.       William A. Dembski, No Free Lunch: Why Specified Complexity Cannot Be Purchased without Intelligence Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2002), 328.

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

To those of you who are visiting my website I wish to provide a background for my twenty years of apologetics research that has resulted in this website and blogs.  I was born in Central Texas to Christian parents and was raised in the church with a Christian extended family.  I was taught the basics of Christianity but without an understanding of the Holy Spirit.  Though the Apostle's Creed was recited at each church service I received no specific instruction about Him. (This is a shared experience with many church goers, as I have learned!)  I progressed through my formal education focusing on the sciences as I prepared for my medical career which spanned for just over 30 years.  During this time I still thirsted to know about the Holy Spirit.  I came to know much about the medical and natural sciences but had no depth of knowledge of theology, why and what I believed. 

In 1987 I heard a presentation by Dr. Hugh Ross.  The ministry he founded in 1986 has a profound message giving people reasons to believe in the truth of Christianity and in Jesus Christ.  The ministry’s mission is to show that science and faith are allies, integrating science and faith respectfully and with integrity.  The name of the ministry is appropriately Reasons To Believe.  I maintained an association with the ministry for 25 years, working in a number of capacities.  Through its vast resources I deepened my knowledge of Christianity and have come to know what and why I believe as a Christian. 

In 1986 I met the woman who is my wife, a woman with a Christian heritage and experience with teaching about the Holy Spirit.  I loved my conversations with her, and I began to quench my thirst for knowledge of the Holy Spirit.  Through RTB I became a certified apologist, taught for eleven years in the online educational program of the ministry and began research into the dual interaction between the Holy Spirit and the human spirit, soul and the neural synaptic networks of the brain.  My research required me to obtain a working knowledge of quantum mechanics and information theory that apply to the means of interaction between the immaterial Mind of God and mind of Man and the material human brain.  My research has resulted in four articles and two books.  I am eager to share what I have learned about the Holy Spirit with readers, friends and family.  I know I am saved by the grace and love of God through His Son, Jesus Christ who restored the direct, personal, loving communion between the Holy Spirit and the human spirit and soul. I now have a personal relationship with the Holy Spirit and desire the same for you.

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/)