By Jim Mettenbrink
“If the Foundations are Destroyed….”
Restoring the Foundations begins with You
God vs Naturalism
We live in a world that increasingly believes in naturalism, i.e., everything must have a “natural” explanation vs a supernatural cause. In a discussion with a young person who claims to be an atheist, said he does not believe in anything he can not see (matter). He is a naturalist. To acknowledge God, would contradict his belief. Is his belief reasonable?
What is most unseeable to each of us? The mind! Each of us has it. The cranium can be opened to reveal the gray matter divided into lobes. Do they not look the same? Science has discovered much about the brain, but where is the mind? The brain is tangible but the mind…well who has ever grabbed hold of it?
Part of the mind involves intelligence. Why is it that one person’s intelligence is not the same as another. Yet the brains look the same. Why do some folks have a near perfect audio-memory or photographic memory and others do not. Yet the brain looks the same. Why are some folks mathematical whiz kids, yet some struggle to add or subtract the simplest arithmetic? Some might say that to some degree it depends on a person’s interest in the subject. But from where does ones “interest” originate?
The Bible reveals that we are not just body (visible matter) but also soul and spirit (1 Thessalonians 5:23). Regarding our existence, God told Adam, “In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread Till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; For dust you are, and to dust you shall return” (Genesis 3:19). So what about your soul and spirit?
The soul is the life force, yea the essence of life itself – “For the life of the flesh is in the blood….” (Leviticus 17:11, 14; Genesis 9:4). Drain all of your blood and you are dead. Put your blood back into the body and you are still dead. What happened? The life force is gone. We see the blood, but who has ever seen the life force “in the blood” – not visible. That points us to the mysterious invisible spirit realm of our existence. Regarding aging and finally death, Israel’s King Solomon poetically wrote “Then the dust will return to the earth as it was, and the spirit will return to God who gave it” (Ecclesiastes 12:1-7). The spirit? Who can see it? What is it?
The passage says it returns to God. At the moment of His death, “…Jesus had cried out with a loud voice, He said, ‘Father, ‘into Your hands I commit My spirit.’Having said this, He breathed His last.” (Luke 23:46). When Stephen, the evangelist was stoned to death, he uttered, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit” (Acts 7:59).
The Bible declares “God is spirit” (John 4:24). As God was about to create man, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness” (Gen 1:26). Since God is spirit, the part of us that is like Him is our spirit (not matter)? Who has seen the spirit? Where is your spirit in you?
What we do know is the mind is associated with the spirit and the brain…. somehow. But the mind is not seen. How does the “unseen” mind fit into the faith of “I believe only what I can see?