It is my hope that dualist interaction between the immaterial and material has been compellingly defended both in my books and blogs by showing concordance between Scripture and neuroscience. Jesus sent as He promised the Holy Spirit to indwell those in repentance, to provide Counsel and Help to believers by faith to this present day. God is Spirit, as is His Holy Spirit, which indwells people via the immaterial human spirit, created in Man at his creation. We have seen that there is now evidence that the immaterial Spirit is causal through the human spirit on the immaterial human mind, with actions manifested in and through the material brain and body. This reality provides understanding of Ephesians 2:19-22:

Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rise to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.

I now turn to the work of Jeffrey M. Schwartz, Henry P. Stapp and Mario Beauregard entitled “Quantum Physics in Neuroscience and Psychology: A Neurophysical Model of Mind-Brain Interaction,” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, 2005, 360: 1309-1327. In the abstract to their article they stated, Neuropsychological research on the neural basis of behavior generally posits that brain mechanisms will ultimately suffice to explain all psychologically described phenomena. This assumption stems from the idea that the brain is made up entirely of material particles and fields, and that all causal mechanisms relevant to neuroscience can therefore be formulated solely in terms of properties of these elements. Thus, terms having intrinsic mentalistic and/or experiential content (e.g. “feeling,” “knowing” and “effort”) are not included as primary causal factors. This theoretical restriction is motivated primarily by ideas about the natural world that have been known to be fundamentally incorrect for more than three-quarters of a century.

I conclude this series of posts from the article by Reilly LaRose with the following comments drawing from Riccardo Manzotti and Paolo Moderato:

The conclusion they arrive at is that neuroscience, while peddling a materialist explanation of mind in most cases, tacitly or implicitly holds a dualistic philosophy of mind: “nothing in literature explains why a certain neural phenomenon should produce a certain phenomenal experience. . . . Neuroscience faces an impossible mission . . . showing how a physical world which had been a priori defined as devoid of those properties that are essential of mind may contain or produce those properties.” What Manzotti and Moderato call this situation is an “ontological promissory note” of explanation, meaning that neuroscientists who hold materialist views can only promise that someday the cashing out of explanation for mind in physical terms and causes will be realized. All the while, a dualistic conception of mind and body is guiding the language and practice of neuroscience, for what a materialist calls “mental properties” doesn’t elude the problems associated with materialism and mind. As Manzotti and Moderato put it, these “mental properties” function the same as a dualist’s “mental qualities” in philosophical terms. Both are treated as things in themselves and inexplicable from the perspective of pure physicalism.

In continuing this particular blog series addressing substance dualism and its compatibility with dualist interactionism, I am posting comments by LaRose citing Ralph C. S. Walker:

Walker states that on the basis of reason, the mental cannot solely be the physical. . . . reason provides sufficient justification to believe the mind is not physical since the process of reason interrupts the chain of physical determinism. . . . what reason does is “moves minds” towards certain ideas and behavior. In this way, no matter our physical being, should reason exist ontologically, then no conception of mind remains within the bounds of physical determinism solely: there must be a mental outside the physical to be moved by reason. . . . Further, having a separate, mental existence sets one up to subscribe to an enduring self beyond the physical. . . . Substance dualism holds a simple and profound answer for these observations of conscious life: the soul, the mind, the self is that which feels. We are more than the collection of qualitative phenomenal experiences, but that which experiences them.

I am working to present compelling evidence for dualist interactionism between the immaterial mind, including the Mind of God, and the material synaptic networks of the human brain. Cognition by the mind is a causal force that generates action. I will continue to post more recent data from the neurosciences and neuropsychology to substantiate this perspective going forward.

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.