My research continues to find current articles that provide support for interaction between the immaterial mind of humans and neural synaptic networks. I am posting an excerpt from the abstract of a very recent article published in March, 2021. It is a lengthy article, so as I study it I will post additional relevant comments. The article is by Srinivas Chivukula, Carey Y. Zhang, Tyson Aflalo et al, entitled “Neural Encoding of Actual and Imagined Touch within Human Posterior Parietal Cortex,” eLife 2021; 10:e61646.

“We recorded neurons within the PPC of a human clinical trial participant during actual touch presentation and during a tactile imagery task. Neurons encoded actual touch at short latency with bilateral receptive fields, organized by body part, and covered all tested regions. The tactile imagery task evoked body part-specific responses that shared a neural substrate with actual touch. Our results are the first neuron-level evidence of touch encoding in human PPC and its cognitive engagement during a tactile imagery task, which may reflect semantic processing, attention, sensory anticipation, or imagined touch.”

I have posted similar study results in previous blogs, but this is the most recent study I have come across in my search.

On this special day across the world people are giving thanks for the birth of God’s only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, the God-Man, sent to restore mankind to an intimate, personal communion with our Creator’s holy spirit through His sin sacrifice and resurrection, defeating death and offering everlasting life to all who have faith in repentance. Merry Christmas!

I am sharing several Scriptures from the Book of Galatians, referred to as “Luther’s Book.” The basic message of the book brought about the Protestant Reformation, and it is also referred to as the “Magna Carta of Christian liberty.” These Scriptures attest to the indwelling of repentant believers by the Holy Spirit with whom our personal communion has been restored by the grace of God through the sin sacrifice of His Son, Jesus Christ.

“But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons. Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts [souls], the Spirit who calls out, ‘Abba, Father.’ So you are no longer a slave, but a son; and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir.” (Gal 4:4-7)

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.” (Gal 5:22-25)

“The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit.” (Gal 6:18) [I include this benediction at the end of the book since it identifies the human spirit [s in lower case] which is indwelled by the Holy Spirit [S in upper case], by whose Counsel our souls [minds, wills and emotions] strive to live.

I conclude my posting of excerpts from Gordon Fee’s book, Paul, the Spirit, and the People of God, with this one from Chapter 15:

“The Spirit’s major role in Paul’s view lies with his being the essential element of the whole of Christian life, from beginning to end. The Spirit thus empowers ethical life in all its dimensions - individually, within the community, and to the world. Believers in Christ, who are Spirit people first and foremost, are variously described as living by the Spirit, walking in the Spirit, being led by the Spirit, bearing the fruit of the Spirit, and sowing to the Spirit. Ethics for Paul is likewise founded in the Trinity: the Spirit of God conforms the believer into the likeness of Christ to the glory of God. The Spirit is thus the empowering presence of God for living the life of God in the present. There is therefore no Christian life that is not at the same time a holy life, made so by the Holy Spirit whom God gives to his people (1 Thess 4:8). At the same time, life in the Spirit also includes every other imaginable dimension of the believer’s present end-time existence, including being empowered by the Spirit to abound in hope, to live in joy, to pray without ceasing, to exercise self-control, to experience a robust conscience, to have insight into God’s will and purposes, and to endure in every kind of present hardship and suffering. To be a believer means nothing less than being filled with and thus to live in and by the Spirit.”

I pray that the excerpts I have posted from the books by Ryrie and Fee are seen to be in concordance with what I have described as dualist interaction in my books and blogs. The Holy Spirit indwells believers who are in repentance and accept the truth of the Gospel in our time. This indwelling of the Holy Spirit by the grace and boundless love of God through his living, glorified Son, Jesus Christ, did not cease with the closure of the Canon, as believed by some. No, it is a reality now in our end-times existence as we await the final promised consummation upon the return of Jesus Christ.

I am continuing my search for current articles from neuroscience that lend further support to dualist interactionism between the immaterial Mind of God and mind of Man through God’s created neural synaptic networks. John 10:27

Gordon Fee discusses life in the Spirit, that it “is not passive; nor is obedience automatic. We continue to live in the real world; we are, after all, both already and not yet. Therefore, the imperative for the already is walk in/by the Spirit. That assumes that we live in a world very much controlled by the flesh; but it also assumes that we now live in that world as different people, led by the Spirit and empowered by the Spirit to produce the fruit of righteousness, rather than to continue in the works of the flesh.”

Fee defines “the new model [as] the cross: the power lies not in externals but in the Spirit, who indwells believers and by grace is renewing the ‘inner person’ (2 Cor 4:16), transforming us into God’s own likeness (ultimately portrayed in Christ through the cross.”

Fee points out that “righteousness as behavior is the product of the Spirit’s empowering. . . . The kingdom of God has [everything to do] with the righteousness, joy, and peace that the Holy Spirit empowers.”

Fee continues: “In saving us through Christ and the Spirit, God has created an eschatological people, who live the life of the future in the present, a life reflecting the character of the God who became present first in Christ and then by his Spirit. As the renewed [indwelling] presence of God, the Spirit, having given life to his people, now leads them in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.” [the process of dualist interaction addressed in my books and blogs]

Gordon Fee states that “there is no such thing as Christian conversion that does not have the coming of the Spirit into the believer’s life as the critical ingredient.”

Fee addresses what it means to receive the Holy Spirit:

“Believers have received the Spirit (1 Cor 2:12; 2 Cor 11:4), been saved through the sanctifying work of the Spirit (2 Thess 2:13; Rom 15:16), been circumcised in their hearts by the Spirit [their minds renewed] (Rom 2:29), and been joined to Christ so as to become one S/spirit with him (1 Cor 6:17).”