I close the blog posts taken from T. W. Hunt’s book with his discussion of the Kingdom of God within us:
“The individual with the kingdom within [indwelling] is blessed of God. The kingdom within blesses because it is the source of a deep and undisturbable happiness. The blessing has two main expressions.
“The first is peace. . . . the mind of Christ is an integrated mind, where every factor and facet work together instead of against each other. All parts of the mind are in harmony with one another. Because of that, outer conflict cannot penetrate the peace that makes up that harmony.
“This peace is both a gift and a discipline. The gift is the Holy Spirit’s blessing on the integrated mind. The discipline is that self-control that will not allow foreign thoughts to disquiet the processes of thought. . . . Peace is the birthright of the believer and the fruit of the Spirit.
“The second aspect of the blessing is joy. The highest joy that the redeemed individual can know is ‘the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit’ (2 Corinthians 13:14). Joy is also a gift and a discipline. This gift also is a fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22). The discipline is abiding in Christ. After talking about abiding, He said, ‘These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full’ (John 15:11). We are to abide in Him to have the joy.”
Yes, Satan can still tempt, as Hunt points out, but we can resist him with the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit manifested through our will, our choice. I highly recommend Hunt’s book, The Mind of Christ: The Transforming Power of Thinking His Thoughts.
Ryrie addresses the means of regeneration:
“The Scriptures clearly teach that regeneration is the act of God. Direct statements show this (John 1:13) as well as statements that link regeneration to spiritual resurrection - an act which God alone can accomplish (John 5:21-24; Romans 6:14; 2 Corinthians 5:17). . . . it is the work of the Holy Spirit of God (John 3:3-7; Titus 3:5). . . . the means of regeneration is the Spirit’s effecting the new birth in those who believe in Christ.”
As I have shared in my books and blogs the sin sacrifice of Jesus Christ provided for the restoration of a permanent indwelling of the human spirit by the Holy Spirit whom Jesus sent upon His resurrection. Recipients of this blessing are repentant believers. I have addressed the dualist interaction that characterizes this two-way communion through God’s created synaptic networks in our time. In this connection the Bible and neuroscience, properly interpreted, are in concordance. Ryrie states further, “. . . the actual event of being born again happens instantaneously. . . . people do not birth themselves, but that they are birthed by Someone Else, the Holy Spirit.”
Ryrie cites Romans 8:11:
“Romans 8:11 reads: ‘But if the Spirit of Him [God] who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.’ . . . The Holy Spirit’s indwelling of the believer is a guarantee of the believer’s future resurrection.”
Ryrie states that the Holy Spirit has the attributes of personality:
“If personality may be simply described as possessing intellect, emotions (or sensibility), and will [attributes of the human soul, italics mine], then it is easily demonstrated that the Holy Spirit has personality because He has intelligence, emotions, and a will. . . . Actions are attributed to the Holy Spirit that cannot be attributed to a mere thing or influence or personification or power or emanation. Such actions, then, must be those of a person, thus proving personality of the Spirit.”
Ryrie states that Christians agree that spiritual power relates to the work of the Holy Spirit.
“A Christian is one who has received Jesus Christ; a spiritual Christian is one who displays Christ living through his life, and this is accomplished by the work of the indwelling [Italics added] Holy Spirit. Spirituality, then, is Christlikeness that is produced by the fruit of the Spirit. What better portrait of Jesus Christ is there than ‘love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control’ (Galatians 5:22-23)? These characteristics describe the fruit of the Spirit, and they picture our Lord. Spiritual power is not necessarily or usually the miraculous or spectacular, but rather the consistent exhibition of the characteristics of the Lord Jesus in the believer’s life. And this is the activity of the Holy Spirit, of whom the Lord Jesus said, ‘He shall glorify Me.’”
I have endeavored in my books and blogs to give a compelling substantiation to the dual interaction between the Mind of God through His Holy Spirit and the mind of Man through His created synaptic networks of the human brain in our time. It is an immaterial interaction with the material, the immaterial being everlasting.
John C. Lennox refers to information as a fundamental entity. Information and intelligence are fundamental to the existence of the universe and life. Lennox states that “Word” in the 4th Gospel is Logos. It is a word used by Stoic philosophers for the rational principle behind the universe. It was given additional meaning by Christians, who used it to describe the second person of the Trinity, Jesus Christ. “Word” conveys notions of command, meaning, code and communication, thus it conveys information as well as the creative power needed to realize that which is specified by the information. The Word is therefore more fundamental than mass and energy. Mass and energy belong to the category of the created, but the Word does not. Lennox identifies a basic characteristic of information, that it is invisible and immaterial. Carriers of information may be material, but information itself is not material. Since information encodes on something physical the carriers of information are subject to the laws of physics, but information itself is not a physical entity.
John Polkinghorne has commented on divine action*. He acknowledges that contemporary science accepts a causally open view of nature and that top-down organizing causal principles must be at work to bring about the future. Active information brings about the formation of a structured pattern of future dynamical behavior. The notion of information input is necessary to resolve what actually occurs. It is the vehicle for top-down operating causality and a possibility to accommodate human and divine agency. He concludes that there should be a flow of information from God to the universe (and to mankind) by which God guides it providentially. As has also been stated by William Dembski in a previous blog the input of information involves no exchange of energy between God and the universe (and mankind) thus avoiding action that would violate the energy conservation laws. Polkinghorne sees it plausible that God’s providence acts within the open grain of nature, capable of receiving pattern-forming information (including linguistic neural codes which I have discussed). Polkinghorne is clear that God is not the active informational principle, and God is not information. God is the agent that generates active information and transfers it into the system He created. Polkinghorne gives no explanation for how this causality works and believes it imperative to continue the search for the causal joint where God’s action acts causally on nature’s (and on Man’s) actions, on how the divine and the creature interact. In my two books it has been the object of my research to inquire into this very question, to conduct this very search.
*Ignacio Silva, “John Polkinghorne on Divine Action: A Coherent Theological Evolution,” Science and Christian Belief, Vol 24, No. 1, 2012
I cite Dr. James Le Fanu’s discussion of the “self” in this post which reference is included in my book, Nerve Endings of the Soul: Interaction Between the Mind of God and the Mind of Man through Neural Synaptic Networks.
“…the Self is an autonomous agent with freedom to choose, … founded upon a rich autobiographical inner record of memory, an accumulated subjective experience extending back to childhood, and that it possesses powers of reason and imagination expressed through language extending beyond the boundaries of personal experience. The Self is nonmaterial with no substance, and it cannot be weighed or measured. Its non-material attributes collectively form the “inner core” that is each unique individual. Self is grounded in the human brain which facilitates its formation through cognition and memory, but it has a coherent, durable transcendent reality that cannot be explained by ever-changing, transient electrical activity of neuronal circuits.”
Sir Karl Popper and Sir John C. Eccles defined “self” in their work published in 1977, The Self and Its Brain (1).
“…the self is not a ‘pure ego,’ that is, a mere subject. Rather, it is incredibly rich. …it observes and takes action at the same time. It is acting and suffering, recalling the past and planning and programming the future, expecting and disposing. It contains…wishes, plans, hopes, decisions to act, and a vivid consciousness of being an acting self, a center of action. And it owes this selfhood largely to interaction with other persons….”
The highest mental experience is “knowing that one knows,” self-awareness or self-consciousness. (2) It is the most fundamental characteristic of the human species (3) and emerges from levels of linguistic communication not shared by non-human animals. (4) Mind and language are more than physical entities. Distinctively human language enables Man to bridge the gulf between mind and matter, the immaterial and the material. Human language reflects a spiritual component in humans that does not exist in other creatures and lifts them to a unique eminence in the cosmos, made in the triune image of God with spirit, soul and body. (5) Bruce M. Miller stated that “…it may be deflating to some people that the very essence of who they are – including their beliefs and values – is merely another anatomical process.” This statement reflects the common reduction made of the mind to the physical brain. The sense of self according to his studies could be localized to one area of the brain. (6)
William A. Dembski (7) points out that a full material account of mind needs to understand localized brain excitations in terms of other localized brain excitations. Anger, for example, has to be explained in terms of semantic contents, such as insults. The admixture of brain excitations and semantic contents hardly constitutes a materialist accounting of mind or intelligent agency. The human soul mediates between the spirit and body and correlates with the self, or self-consciousness, our “I.” The self remains in continuity with the past and into the future. No matter how extreme the circumstances of our experiences one remains the same self, durable through a lifetime. (8,9) The self makes Man distinctively human. We are spiritual beings with souls existing in a spiritual world as well as material beings with bodies and brains existing in a material world. (10)
Fundamental to the Gospel is the teaching from Jesus Christ that Christians need to die to self. What does this mean? The human self is durable and defines our unique human identity. Dying to self as a term can generate confusion and angst among Christians. Jan Johnson has addressed the issue of “dying to self” by explaining the term based on Scripture.
“Jesus described the dying-to-self process (to ‘deny self’ is the exact scriptural phrase) as part of following Him: ‘If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me’ (Matthew 16:24, NASB). Sometimes people mistake dying to self for death of self. But self-denial is not self-rejection. God treasures your divinely created self. He doesn’t want to obliterate the part of you that makes you uniquely you. God works within you and reshapes you into the person your renewed-in-Christ self is meant to be.” (11)
The following teachings of the Apostles Peter and Paul are representative “scriptural phrases” alluded to by Johnson:
1 Peter 2:24 …and He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed.
Galatians 5:24-25 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed the passions and desires of their sinful nature to his cross and crucified them there. Since we are living by the Spirit, let us follow the Spirit’s leading in every part of our lives.
1 Corinthians 6:19-20 Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price.
Ephesians 4:22-24 You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.
It is of unique importance that human beings can communicate with their Creator God through the human spirit and receive Counsel from the Holy Spirit restored to repentant mankind by the sin sacrifice of Jesus Christ. We remain distinct human selves in interactive harmony with God’s Spirit by His grace through the death and resurrection of Jesus, His Son.
References
1. Karl R. Popper and John C. Eccles. The Self and Its Brain (Berlin, Heidelberg, London, New York: Springer-Verlag International, 1977), 120.
2. John C. Eccles. Evolution of the Brain: Creation of the Soul (London and New York: Routledge, 1989), 224.
3. T. Dobzhansky. The Biology of Ultimate Concern (New York: The New American Library, 1967).
4. Eccles, Ibid, 71.
5. Joseph W. Poulshock, “Language-Wonder: Theory, Pedagogy, and Research,” Christ and the World, the Journal of Tokyo Christian University, 8 (1998).
6. Bruce L. Miller, “Finding One’s Self,” Presented at the American Academy of Neurology, 53rd Annual Meeting, Philadelphia, P/a, May 5-11, 2001.
7. William A. Dembski, “Are We Spiritual Machines?” First Things, 96 (1999), 25-31.
8. Henry Margenau, The Miracle of Existence. Woodbridge, Connecticutt: Ox Bow Press, 1984).
9. John C. Eccles, “Do Mental Events Cause Neural Events Analogously to the Probability Fields of Quantum Mechanics?” Proc. Royal Soc. London (Biol), 227 (1986), 411-428.
10. Eccles, Ibid, 241.
11. Jan Johnson, Dying to Self and Discovering So Much More, August 25, 2011 (https://decisionmagazine.com/dying-self-discovering-much-more/)
July 6, 2020