I am posting an excerpt from readings by Dietrich Bonhoeffer:

All suffering must lead the Christian to the strengthening of his faith and not to defection. While the flesh shuns suffering and rejects it, the Christian sees his suffering as the suffering of Christ in him, For he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. He bore God’s wrath on sin. He died in the flesh, and so we also die in the flesh, because he lives in us….So for the Christian suffering becomes a protest against the devil, a recognition of his own sin, the righteous judgement of God, the death of his old man, and communion with Jesus Christ.

That the process of sanctification is deemed a “mystery” is addressed in both of my books. I hope that the neurophysiological process of sanctification created and guided by our Savior is clarified. God wants mankind to increase in knowledge and understanding by applying advances in scientific knowledge coupled with proper Scriptural exegesis to such a “mystery.” I am posting on my blog this last excerpt taken from my second book, a quotation from Colossians 1: 21-27:

Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation - if you continue in your faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope held out in the gospel. This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant….I have become its servant by the commission God gave me to present to you the word of God in its fullness - the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the saints. To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

In an interview of Roger F. Olson, Ph.D. by Lee Strobel, Dr. Olson commented on the reality of miracles in our time. I included his quote in my second book:

No question…I continue to believe that God speaks to his people today, although I concede that sometimes I find myself feeling pretty alone on this….Often Christians object to the legitimacy of these ‘God things’ because they say people don’t need God to speak anymore. After all, they insist, the canon of Scripture is complete, and today God chooses to speak through preachers to communicate messages based on those biblical teachings. Personally, I find that absurd…If God was gracious enough to give personal guidance, comfort, and correction to individuals and groups ‘back then,’ why would he stop?

Alvin Plantinga was cited in my book, The Boundless Love of God: A Holy Spirit Story, stating that classical science does not claim that the universe is causally closed. His statement is entirely consistent with special divine action in the world. Just as God, who is immaterial and Spirit, can act in the physical universe, so too can the immaterial minds of human beings. There is no objection to special divine action or for human free action, dualistically conceived.

Mind-brain interaction occurs and is dualistic. Interaction involves a nonmaterial mind with the capacity to cause a probabilistic, directed transmission of action potentials through coherent synaptic networks of the physical brain (see “Waves in Our Brains, Part Two”). It occurs by quantum tunneling which induces conformational changes in the protein scaffolds, vesicles, vesicular pores and ionic channels of synapses. By this process neural transmitters are released from vesicular pores into synaptic clefts. The transmitters stimulate encoded spike trains of action potentials conducted through a network of postsynaptic downstream neurons. Synaptic transmission of specified information occurs by this process and is interpreted by a mind. When the intention, attention or will of one’s cognitive mind generates encoded neural impulses the mind interprets the codes as “percepts” in real time so that one knows what one is thinking and intending. The linguistic code generated is likely by an immaterial energy of the mind.

I cite Danko Georgiev in my book, The Boundless Love of God: A Holy Spirit Story, who said:

“Indeed if one considers the wave function of a quantum particle as a non-observable mental state of pre-probabilities and the actualized position in space and time as an observable material state, then the dualistic interactionism proposed by Sir John Eccles is consistent with the modern vision of what the physical world is.”

In John 1:1-3 it reads, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through Him all things were made; without Him nothing was made that has been made.”

William Dembski has stated that Information is required for the start of any controlled process. Information itself is preceded by the prime source of all information, a mind. By the Word the Apostle John was referring to the person who is the Prime Cause, the Mind of God who is the Sender of information actualized in all creations by the Son, Jesus Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit.

John Newton, who wrote Amazing Grace, expressed these wondering words that apply to the boundless love of God:

Alas! I knew not what I did, but now my tears are vain; Where shall my trembling soul be hid? For I my Lord have slain.

A second look He gave, which said: “I freely all forgive; This blood is for thy ransom shed; I die, that thou mayest live.”

Thus, while His death my sin displays in all its blackest hue; Such is the mystery of grace, it seals my pardon too.

With pleasing grief and mournful joy my spirit now is filled, that I should such a life destroy, yet live through Him I killed.

Mental events cause neural events, and the mind is differentiated from the material components of the brain. Eccles and his associates postulated that by quantum tunneling molecular conformations of synaptic proteins in ion channels and neural synaptic vesicles and pores are probabilistically altered by a nonmaterial energy as a wave function of the mind’s mental cognitive events. As a result nerve impulses as action potentials are generated and transmitted coherently across series of synaptic clefts in neural networks (see “Waves in Our Brains, Part Two”). The impulses transmitted consist of neural codes within the spike trains of action potentials, giving specification to the information transmitted.

Jesus gave assurance that death does not end human existence or personal identity, the “I” or the Self. Human beings have a divine destiny by God’s plan, a royal dignity that overtakes their finite status during their lifetime on Earth. Humans are offered a share in God’s immortality, a gift by God’s grace through the living Jesus Christ. [Ronald Nash, “After Death I.D. - Will I Still Be Me?” Facts for Faith, Quarter 4 (2001) 36-42]