I am including further statements by Swinburne concerning the differentiation between the human body and soul:

“. . . mere knowledge of what happens to bodies does not tell you what happens to persons. hence there must be more to persons than bodies. i shall therefore be arguing that a man living on earth is a substance which consists of two substances, his body and his soul. the body is a material body, but the soul is not a material object or anything like it. . . . body and soul are connected at present, in that events in the body affect events in the soul, and conversely. but the essential part of the man is his soul; a man consists of his soul together with whatever, if any, body is connected to it. mentAL EVENTS WHICH HAPPEN TO THE HUMAN BEING DO SO IN VIRTUE OF HAPPENING TO HIS SOUL; BODILY EVENTS WHICH HAPPEN TO THE HUMAN BEING DO SO IN VIRTUE OF HAppening to his body. this is duALISM, THE POSITION WHICH I SHALL DEFEND. . . . THE SOUL HAS A NATURAL IMMORTALITY, I.E. THAT THE SOUL HAS A NATURE SUCH THAT IT WILL CONTINUE TO SURVIVE ‘UNDER ITS OWN STEAM’ WHATEVER HAPPENS TO THE BODY.”

IN MY WRITING I HAVE DEFINED THE HUMAN SOUL AS CONSISTING OF MIND, WILL AND EMOTION, AND THE HUMAN CONSCIENCE CAN BE INCLUDED. THE SOUL IS TO BE DISTINGUISHED FROM THE HUMAN SPIRIT WHICH, I HAVE arguED, SERVES AS A “CONDUIT,” or portal, IF YOU WILL, FOR THE HOLY SPIRIT TO COMMUNE WITH THE HUMAN MIND AND TO INFLUENCE AND DIRECT THE WILL. THE HOLY SPIRIT has been sent to indwell repentant humans as a counselor and helper, and we have had an intimate, personal communion restored by the love and grace of god through the sin sacrifice of his son, jesus christ, who in resurrection sent as he promised his disciples his holy spirit RECEIVED FROM THE FATHER. this revelation speaks compellingly for the dual INTERACTIVE relationship between the immATERIAL MIND OF MAN AND OF GOD AND THE MATERIAL SYNAPTIC NETWORKS OF THE HUMAN BRAIN.

swinburne further states, “a person continues to exist if that person has mental states; but . . . the mere continued existence of the person’s body is neither necessary nor sufficient for the continued existence of the person. yet the continuing existence of a person is the continuing existence of a substance, in the sense of a thing capable of causal interactions [Bold type ADDED]. so mental states must pertain to an immaterial substance [SWINBURNE IS REFERRING TO SUBSTANCE DUALISM, DISTINCT FROM PROPERTY DUALISM.] . . . . MENTAL EVENTS ARE NOT IDENTICal with brain events.”

swinburne commented in his prolegomenon that “one of the strongest arguments against dualism - that the dualist has never been able to provide an explanation of how mind (i.e. soul) and body interact. . . .” I include this quote since this is the very question i have addressed in over 20 years of research, and it is ongoing, learning how the immaterial mind (and mind of god) interacts with the synaptic networks of the brain. swinburne continues with the comment, “if that leaves us with god as the agent who sustains the mind/body connection in humans, so be it. . . mind-body interaction forms part of a strong cumulative case for the existence of god.”

swinburne continues in his prolegomenon:

“to my mind by far the most interesting scientific work relevant to our topic has been the work, not of neurophysicists, but of physicists considering how Quantum theory might be held to provide an explanation of mind-brain interaction - and give rise to free choice. . . . quantum theory allows room for human free choice.”

i address this interactive relationship in considerable detail in my books and selected blog posts, referencing in particular the work of john eccles and friedrich beck.

I continue my blogs with excerpts from the book by richard swinburne, the evolution of the soul, REVISED EDITION. Swinburne makes a number of excellent comments regarding the immateriality of the human soul, though he accepTs the premise of darwin that “men evolved from apes, and apes from more primitive animals evolved from a soup of inanimate atoms. . . .” the issue that is our concern is how the mind and soul relate to the material body, and it is this issue that will be my focus IN THE FOLLOWING BLOGS.

in the prolegomenon to his book swinburne states that “humans (and the higher animals) consist of two separate parts - soul and body - while physical events are goings-on in the body. soul and body interact.” (how this interaction occurs has been a major focus of my writing in my books and blog posts.) swinburne describes in detail “what the human soul is like . . . these include freedom of will - to choose between alternatives without our choices being predetermined by prior states of affairs. [his] central theme . . . was the theme of substance dualism - that humanS consist of two separate substANCES, BODY AND SOUL.”

my research into the mechanism of interaction between the immaterial mind, including the mind of god, and the synaptic networks of the human braIN WILL CONTINUE. IN THE NEAR FUTURE I SHALL BE MAKING A COURSE MODIFICATION, THE DETAILS OF WHICH WILL BE MADE CLEAR WHEN THE COURSE DIRECTION IS FINALIZED. MY ACTIVITY WILL BE MORE FOCUSED ON GROWING THE KINGDOM OF GOD ON A GLOBAL SCALE, SHARING INFORMATION DERIVED NOT ONLY FROM MY PERSONAL RESEARCH BUT ALSO FROM RESOURCES OF THE REASONS TO BELIEVE MINISTRY AND FROM THAT OF WITNESSING CHRISTIANS ALSO COMMITTED TO THIS GOAL.

i conclude my citations from the book by foster with his comments about freedom of will:

“traditionally . . . cartesian dualists have taken human subjects to enjoy a freedom of the will. . . . thus they have held that, at least in normal circumstances, the non-physical subject has a genuine power of choice, whose operation is not constrained by prior physical or psychological conditions, and which enables him to exercise an ultimate control over the movements of his body. and they have seen this power of choice, in combination with his knowledge of right and wrong, as the basis of the subject’s moral accountability. all this, moreover, is thought of as contributing to man’s distinctive glory.”

when god created homo sapiens sapiens (Man/Adam/human beings) he gave man freedom of will, so that our love of god is not by force or in our intrinsic nature. god created man with the desire for a personal bidirectional communion with him. by the sin sacrifice of jesus christ, communion is restored by the indwelling by his holy spirit of the human spirit and repentant soul. it is a dualist interaction made possible by the grace and love of our creator, and it is eternal.

Foster states the following:

“although the basic subjects involved in human mentality are wholly non-physical, each subject is, at least for a certain phase of its history, intimately linked with a particular biological organism. it is this link which makes it appropriate to speak of the subject as having a body, or as embodied. . . . but what, then, is the nature of this link? what is the connection between the non-physical subject and the biological organism which embodies it? . . . anything approaching an adequate answer to this question . . . would become the business of the neuroscientist. . . . to begin with, it is clear that the connection between the non-physical subject and the biological organism is, fundamentally, a functional one: it is a matter of there being a psychophysical arrangement whereby each partner is equipped to have the right sorts of direct causal influence on the other. this arrangement will be secured by the respective natures of the two entities concerned, together with some framework of physical and psychophysical laws.”

my research has dealt with Foster’s last two sentences in this excerpt. the immaterial mind and the material synaptic networks of the human brain possess specific “natures” and functions which I endeavor to identify and explain, including waveforms, quantum tunneling, action potentials, neural codes and the like!

I cite foster who stated, “whether we are dualists or materialists. . . we presumably have to accept the existence of psychophysical causation.” he asks, “why should the fact that mind and body are so different in nature make it difficult to understand how there could be causal relations between them? . . . typically, when one physical event causes another, the two events are either spatially contiguous (or coincident) or are connected by a spatiotemporally continuous series of events through which the causal process passes. this feature of physical causation may make it seem that causation has to operate by means of spatial contact - that spatial contact is the essential mechanism for causal contact. and, of course, once this is accepted, causation between physical and non-physical events is automatically excluded, simply because the non-physical events have no spatial location. . . . but if there is no conceptual difficulty in envisaging causation-at-a-distance in the physicAL REALM, THEN DUALISTIC CAUSATION SHOULD NOT BE EXCLUDED, OR REGARDED AS CONCEPTUALLY PROBLEMATIC, PURELY ON THE GROUNDS THAT THERE IS NO SPATIAL CONTACT BETWEEN THE NON-PHYSICAL MIND AND THE BODY. . . . ON THE DUALIST VIEW, WE CANNOT UNDERSTAND HOW PSYCHOPHYSICAL CAUSATION OPERATES; WE SIMPLY HAVE TO ACCEPT IT AS A BRUTE FACT, WITH NO FURTHER EXPLANATION, THAT CERTAIN TYPES OF NEURAL EVENT DIRECTLY CAUSE CERTAIN TYPES OF MENTAL EVENT, AND VICE VERSA.”

AND IT IS THIS VERY “BRUTE FACT” THAT HAS BEEN AND IS THE OBJECT OF MY RESEARCH, USING THE NEURAL SYNAPSE AS THE MODEL FOR INVESTIGATION OF DUALIST INTERACTION BETWEEN THE IMMATERIAL MIND AND THE MATERIAL SYNAPTIC NETWORKS OF THE human BRain. and ”mind” includes the mind of god!

Foster identifies the five claims of dualism:

there is a mental realm

the mental realm is fundamental

there is a physical realm

the physical realm is fundamental

the two realms are ontologically separate

foster states that “human beings of sufficient maturity have minds. . . . and some will accept the existence of non-embodied minds, such as those of God, angels, and departed spirits. . . . mentality is not reducible to something else. . . . the mental and the physical realms are ontologically separate. roughly, what this means is that the entities which feature in the one realm are entirely different from those which feature in the other - that the class of mental-realm entities and the class of physical-realm entities do not overlap.”