Information Related to "Mapping the Brain: The Missing Dimension"
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U.S. President Barack Obama recently announced plans to spend millions on mapping the human brain -- labeled "the next great American project" -- perhaps on a par with going to the moon. But is there a largely unrealized component residing in the brain itself that cannot be studied or mapped by neuroscientists? What does the Bible reveal about the mystery of the human mind?
In announcing government investment in continued research into mapping the human brain, U.S. President Barack Obama rightly stated: "You know, as humans, we can identify galaxies light years away, we can study particles smaller than an atom. But we still haven't unlocked the mystery of the three pounds of matter that sits between our ears" (introducing the BRAIN Initiative, April 2, 2013).
The neuron is the brain's basic building block. Billions of neurons joined together by trillions of complex neural connections compose the body's most intricate organ. But is a central aspect of the human mind and brain beyond the understanding of even neuroscientists?
One of the main purposes of this mapping project would be to better treat, cure and even prevent serious brain disorders like epilepsy and Alzheimer's disease.
Apparently new technologies will be employed such as the manipulation of brain activity with light. Scientists have speculated about the great hopes of even unexpected successes. As The Economist put it: "If the project's researchers get really lucky, they might stumble across the secret of consciousness and thus answer one of the biggest questions of all" ("America's Neuroscience Initiative: Mind-Expanding," April 2, 2013, emphasis added throughout).
So one ultimate aim has to remain the potential discovery of just how the brain itself generates our conscious human minds-if indeed it really does. Many scientists now believe that some 15 billion years of cosmic evolution transformed matter into consciousness. But is that how it truly happened?
Fifteen of America's most capable neuroscientists have been assembled to initiate the project. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) will lead several other respected scientific bodies to work out goals and milestones-indicating the importance of finding solutions to major health issues continually confronting the American public.
Although they don't realize it, many Americans, Canadians, Britons, Australians and Germans-peoples of many nations-already have a book of ultimate solutions in their homes. Even the Republic of China is not only publishing Bibles, but exporting them to other countries.
The very book that most members of the intelligentsia neglect to consult actually has workable solutions to mysteries and problems that have long puzzled and eluded mankind.
If we truly believe that God is our Creator, we accept that surely He knows just how we were put together and how to make our lives work well. King David of Israel said to God in Psalm 139:14-16: "I will praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made ... My frame was not hidden from You, when I was made in secret ... Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed."
Only our Creator can reveal lasting solutions to mysterious human problems that intrigue, puzzle and even frustrate us. (We offer several free Bible study aids to help you have more confidence in God as your Creator and the Bible as His authentic holy Word to mankind. Read Life's Ultimate Question: Does God Exist? , Creation or Evolution: Does It Really Matter What You Believe? and Is the Bible True? )
The word brain is not found in the Bible. Yet God's Word has plenty to say about the human mind and heart. Our brains and our minds are very closely related. Scripture also describes what will inevitably happen to us if we persist in neglecting to submit our minds and hearts to our loving Creator and His Word, following instead the evil imaginations and desires of our hearts (Jeremiah 17:9-10).
The Bible tells us in the early chapters of Genesis that we were created in the image of God (Genesis 1:26-27; Genesis 5:1-2; Genesis 9:6). So logically every human being has enormous potential if he or she would only seek our Creator in prayer and ask Him to redirect our paths into conformity with His righteous way of life.
The missing dimension in understanding the human brain can be summed up in just one word, and that word is spirit. The Bible tells us that a human spirit exists in every human being. It is this spirit essence that gives us human consciousness, self-awareness and understanding. As God tells us in Job 32:8, "There is a spirit in man, and the breath of the Almighty gives him understanding."
When God created the first man Adam, He "breathed into His nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being" (Genesis 2:7). Apparently this is the moment when the spirit in man first entered into the first human being. Zechariah 12:1 elaborates, "Thus says the Lord, who stretched out the heavens, lays the foundation of the earth, and forms the spirit of man within him."
How is it that human beings are conscious of their environment and can learn material knowledge of all kinds? The apostle Paul replies: "For what man knows the things of a man except [by] the spirit of the man which is in him?" (1 Corinthians 2:11).
Because of this spirit in human beings, we are fundamentally different from the animal world. Animals have brains-in some cases much larger than ours-but the gulf between human and animal capability is vast. This spirit in man combines with our brain to give us what we commonly call the mind- and with that the ability to think, plan, create, plan for the future, learn from the past and ponder the great questions about our existence.
The human spirit is not some independent consciousness to be equated with what many have come to term an immortal soul. The Bible teaches that there is no consciousness in death (see "The Spirit in Man Is Not an Immortal Soul ").
So what happens to the spirit in man when we die? King Solomon mused on this question in Ecclesiastes 3:21: "Who knows the spirit of the sons of men, which goes upward [at death]?" But he answers the mystery in the concluding chapter: "Then the dust will return to the earth as it was, and the spirit will return to God who gave it" (Ecclesiastes 12:7).
During Jesus Christ's last moments of human consciousness, just before taking His final breath, He said, "Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit" (Luke 23:46). The spirit leaves a human being when he or she dies, and it goes back to God who gave it.
But again, it is by no means then a disembodied consciousness. Rather, it is a record of our makeup and thoughts that God will use to enliven us anew in the future resurrection from the dead. (Imagine a running computer program that is shut down when the computer is turned off-and then transferring that program to another machine with a new operating system and reactivating the program with the data intact.)
But this is very far from the whole story. We return to 1 Corinthians 2 to connect the dots and fill in more of this marvelous picture. The spirit of man impacts conversion and salvation, the overall purpose of life and the whole plan of God for humanity.
In the verse previously quoted from Paul about the spirit in man, 1 Corinthians 2:11, he continues, "Even so no one knows the things of God except [by] the spirit of God." Without the Holy Spirit, people's understanding of spiritual truths remains very limited. Capable men have written whole commentaries about the Bible and yet still lacked real comprehension of spiritual truths obvious to converted people who possess the Holy Spirit.
In the next verse, Paul goes on to say, "Now we [Christians] have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God" (1 Corinthians 2:12, King James Version). The precious spiritual knowledge of our Creator cannot come to us unless He reveals it by His Holy Spirit.
Continuing in the same context: "These [spiritual] things we also speak, not in words which man's wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual" (1 Corinthians 2:13). Material knowledge emerges from the possession of the spirit in man. But spiritual knowledge that ultimately results in salvation and everlasting life can only come during this age of man if God the Father chooses to call us (John 6:44, John 6:65).
Why are there so many atheists, agnostics and unbelieving secularists ignorant of God and His purpose and plan for human existence? Paul next states in 1 Corinthians 2, " But the natural man does not receive the things of the spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned" (1 Corinthians 2:14).
Paul expresses this basic principle in another way elsewhere in Romans 8:6-7: "For to be carnally [fleshly or naturally] minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be."
The expected result: "If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His" (Romans 8:9). All truly converted Christians have the Holy Spirit. But how do we receive it?
Normally several things must happen before we can receive the Holy Spirit. First God the Father must select us for salvation as one of His firstfruits (James 1:18)-God's converted people over the entire span of human history until Christ's return. As part of calling us (John 6:44), God reveals saving spiritual knowledge and leads us to repentance and even to having faith (Romans 2:4; Hebrews 11:6). After that we must be baptized, and then we will receive the Holy Spirit through the laying on of hands of Christ's ministry (Acts 2:37-39; Acts 3:19; Acts 8:12, Acts 8:15-17).
But how does the spirit in man fit into this overall scenario? Paul tells us in Romans 8:16: "The [Holy] Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit [the spirit in man], that we are the children of God" (KJV). Apparently at the moment when we are first converted, the Holy Spirit merges with the spirit in man within us.
By physical analogy, this occurrence is not unlike what happens at human conception. A male sperm merges with a female egg to form a new human being. As one science book put it: "Human life begins in ... cooperation of the most intimate sort. The two cells wholly merge. They combine their genetic material. Two very different beings become one. The act of making a human being involves ... cooperation so perfect that the partners' separate identities vanish" (Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan, Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors, 1992, p. 199).
How wonderful are the ways of God!
For many decades neuroscientists have diligently studied the complex wiring of the human brain. This cumulative knowledge has grown many times over and been documented by many books and research papers on the subject.
Man was made in the image of God, and there seems to be no material knowledge that can be withheld from him. Our Creator remarked on man's knowledge potential at the ancient Tower of Babel: "This is what they begin to do; now nothing that they propose [or imagine ] to do will be withheld from them" (Genesis 11:6).
Our examination here is in no way intended to denigrate mankind's true scientific knowledge about the human brain, nor his further research into its marvelous workings. The book of Daniel foretold that one of the characteristics of the time of the end, the period leading up to Christ's return, would be that knowledge would markedly increase (Daniel 12:4), and this is certainly true of our age.
But what about God's awesome plan and purpose for human beings? Should we not also study and research into the subject of salvation and our future as a worthy project during our entire lives as Christians?
Does God have a way of continuing life after death into a glorious paradise? Jesus Christ and His apostles guarantee that everlasting life in the Kingdom of God will definitely happen (John 5:24-29; 1 Corinthians 15:22-23)-but only if we individually choose to meet the spiritual conditions God sets for us.
Returning to 1 Corinthians 2, we find Paul speaking in 1 Corinthians 2:9-10 of the glimpse God gives us through His Holy Spirit of the awesome future He has planned for us: "But as it is written: 'Eye has not seen, or ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him. But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the spirit searches all things, yes, thedeep things of God."
[Read the corresponding article: The Spirit in Man Is Not an Immortal Soul ]
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Keywords: brain spirit in man God the creator holy spirit human spirit spirit of God mapping the brain
Holy spirit and the spirit in man: