LaRose stated, What seems to be captured in . . . substance dualism is the relationship between the body and soul - a meshing that makes consciousness capable of abstraction and thinking through the perceptual organs and phenomenal experience associated with embodiment. But in what sense can I call myself a unified “self” if my body isn’t my whole being? . . . a unified self exists over and above each of these consciousness and bodily experiences. . . . Because there is an enduring soul melded intimately with the body, the stimulations of the body coalesce into various inputs that the soul or mind sits over and above to experience and make decisions over.

I am including another excerpt from LaRose’s article:

Substance dualism, under the Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy, can be understood as affirming “a substance is characterized by its properties, but . . . it is more than the collection of the properties it possesses; it is the thing which possesses them. So, the mind is not just a collection of thoughts but is that which thinks - an immaterial substance over and above its immaterial states.” The roots of substance dualism are seated in a metaphysic which argues for the existence of both a physical body and immaterial mind within humans. . . . At base, there are two substances (maybe more) in existence, and humans are constituted by both. Many philosophers point out this unification of body and soul can be understood as a marriage of substances to accomplish beauty and purpose. This union doesn’t downplay the intimacy and interaction of both substances, nor does it deny that both substances are distinct.

I have found an article that addresses substance dualism, essentially another term that can be applied to dualist interactionism. I share excerpts from this article that will be of value in clarifying what is meant by these terms, especially since the perspectives of monism, determinism, materialist reductionism and macroevolution still dominate much of the literature of neuroscience. The article is entitled “What Is Man, that You are Mindful of him? The Harmony of Substance Dualism and MBTI.” It is authored by Reilly LaRose from Taylor University, dated 2020, a student of Dr. Seeman, Philosophy of Mind. The article can be found at https://pillars.taylor.edu/philosophy/1. I will post a series of excerpts from this article. I will not address MBTI but focus on explanations presented by the author for substance dualism.

The author referred to Carl Jung who “saw particular functions of the mental life as being dichotomies of measurable personality traits. The four . . . he noticed were that of sensation, intuition, thinking, and feeling. Sensation is the capacity for perception of sense-datum, intuition the capacity for perception of conceptual datum, thinking the capacity for reason or rational judgment, and feeling as the capacity for emotive or irrational judgment.”

The author uses Jung’s four categories of mental life to discuss substance dualism and contrasts them with materialism, or the physical body. Please read on in the following blogs.

Pertinent to the preceding posts I wish to add verses from Romans 8: 5-14:

Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God. You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you [indwells you]. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your [human]spirit is alive because of righteousness. And it the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you. Therefore, brothers, we have an obligation - but it is not to the sinful nature, to live according to it. For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live, because those who are led by the Spirit of God are Sons of God. [We see dualist interactionism manifest in these verses.]

You read in the last blog post the following:

BUT THE HUMAN SPIRIT AND SOUL ARE ALSO VULNERABLE TO THE INFLUENCE OF EVIL SPIRITS, TO SATAN. YES, WE HUMANS HAVE FREE WON’T, BUT WE ALSO HAVE FREE WILL GIVEN TO MANKIND BY OUR CREATOR GOD. IT IS OUR IMMATERIAL COGNITIVE MIND THAT IS THE SOURCE OF WILLFUL INTENT, OF VOLITION.

I have selected a teaching of Jesus Christ that speaks to this reality. It is from the Book of John 8: 42-47:

Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I have come here from God. I have not come on my own; God sent me. Why is my language not clear to you? Because you are unable to hear what I say. You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. Yet because I tell the truth, you do not believe me! Can any of you prove me guilty of sin? If I am telling the truth, why don’t you believe me? Whoever belongs to God hears what God says. The reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God.”

When you view the talk by Dr. Egnor you will hear him discuss the very significant work of Benjamin Libet, an American neuroscientist who pioneered in the field of consciousness. His studies have been interpreted to show that all unconscious volitional processes can be traced to the material brain, that free will plays no part in their initiation. Eventually he concluded that humans have free won’t, a manifestation of free will to the extent that intentions that emanate from the brain can be cancelled by the human will. Libet’s work has profoundly influenced the studies and perceptions of many neuroscientists and philosophers who to this day reduce all human intentions and will to the workings of the brain. This is a perspective of monism that denies dualist interaction between an immaterial mind and the material synaptic networks of the human brain. Egnor shares that Libet concluded that the willful intents that emerge from the brain, that give expression to materialist reductionism, show a scientific validation for essentially the Fall, going back to Adam and Eve. The question that must be, and is being, asked is if evil intent or will emerges solely from the physiology of the brain? This view can work against assigning personal responsibility and accountability for illegal acts!

From the information I have shared in my books and blogs, it is my hope that the reader will accept that the mind, the will, of humans (the soul) is an immaterial reality that interacts with the human spirit. In turn the human spirit is open to personal interaction with the Holy Spirit. This interaction was restored to fallen mankind by the grace of God through the sin sacrifice of his resurrected Son, Jesus Christ, who sent as he promised the Holy Spirit to once again indwell repentant mankind, serving as Counselor and Helper. But the human spirit and soul are also vulnerable to the influence of evil spirits, to Satan. Yes, we humans have free won’t, but we also have free will given to mankind by our Creator God. It is our immaterial cognitive mind that is the source of willful intent, of volition. We are justified by faith, not works, yet are accountable for our volitional actions, righteously to be judged ultimately by Jesus Christ. I pray that my writings are presenting compelling evidence for dualist interaction with God through his Holy Spirit, restored by the sin sacrifice in our behalf of Jesus Christ. The scientific validation of this reality is a formidable challenge, to be sure, but tiny positive steps are being taken toward this end.

I am posting a powerful talk by Dr. Michael Egnor that provides three proofs for the immateriality of the mind. You can open his talk at the following link:

https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/three-knockdown-proofs-of-the-immateriality-of-mind-and-why-computers-compute-not-think/

I have been posting excerpts from Scripture to demonstrate the concordance that exists between it and neuroscience when both are properly interpreted in context. We see that the resurrected Jesus Christ sent, as He promised, the Holy Spirit to indwell repentant people to provide counsel and direction. My books and blog posts have provided evidence from the neurosciences of how, at least in part, communion could be accomplished between the Holy Spirit and the spirit and soul of mankind through neural synaptic networks. I continue to search the neuroscience literature to provide compelling evidence for the truth of this interaction, but reductive materialism still claims the day in most articles I review. I will continue to do my best to post additional evidence for dualist interactionism between the immaterial Mind of God and the mind of Man through the material synaptic networks of the human brain. I do this to offer evidence to grow faith in the reality of the love of God for His creation, Man, with whom He desires to have a personal bidirectional communion.

In my writings I have shared how Jesus promised to the disciples before his crucifixion that he would send another Counselor, the Spirit of Truth, to be with them forever. This he would do when he returned to the Father after his resurrection. I wish to share some verses from the Book of John 14 that address this promise and indicate its application to each of our lives in our time.

I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.

The NIV from which this is taken includes an explanation: “These [things] depended on Jesus’ going to the Father, because they are works done in the strength of the Holy Spirit, whom Jesus would send from the Father.” Jesus goes on to say, I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.

The biblical verses most applicable to my research and writing are at the beginning of the Book of John, 1: 1-4:

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. In him was life, and that life was the light of men.

What does “Word” refer to, or to whom? It is more than a word that is spoken in a given language. It refers to a power by which all that has been created was created by God through Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit. I am including a discussion taken from the Zondervan NIV Study Bible, 2002, Grand Rapids, Michigan:

Word, Greek logos, a term Greeks used not only of the spoken word but also of the unspoken word, the word still in the mind - the reason. [I offer that the Mind of God was the Source of ALL information that has been actualized in his creations, since information only comes from a mind as I have related in my blogs.] When they applied it to the universe, they meant the rational principle that governs all things [by specified information]. The Jews, however, used it to refer to the “word” of God by which he created the world and governs it [actualized information in his creations of energy and matter] and to refer to the law of God that he gave Israel to be the “way” for them to receive the inheritance of life. Of the law the rabbis said that it was “created before the world,” that it “lay on God’s bosom while God sat on the throne of glory,” that it was divine, that it was God’s “firstborn” [the begotten Jesus] through whom he “created the heaven and the earth,” that it is “light” and “life” for the world and that it “is truth.” . . . The Word was distinct from the Father, was God. Jesus was God in the fullest sense. life One of the great concepts of this Gospel. LIfe is Christ’s gift, and he, in fact, is “the life,” light of men. This Gospel also links light with Christ, from whom comes all spiritual illumination [by the power of the Holy Spirit]. He is the “light of the world,” who holds out wonderful hope for humanity and for the creation.

And we are blessed that God created mankind with the plan for a personal, intimate communion, a plan that has been addressed in my books and blogs that we might receive the truth of eternal life and light in Jesus Christ.