What is shocking for me to see in this forum is how divided we are concerning whether each person has a living spirit with a mind. If we believe that we are embodied spiritual being, then isn’t it a logical deduction that the spirit inside of us must have a mind as well. While the body will die someday, the spirit with the mind will live on. If we follow the example of Christ as the first fruit, then someday our spirit with our mind will be clothed with spiritual body that is immortal and immune to destruction for eternity.
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I do not believe in this teaching of the Gnostics.
The spiritual body has a mind. But this is not inside us or any part of the space-time continuum. The only mind we see and experience in our life is one which is 100% dependent upon our material existence. That is what all the objective evidence shows.
When the physical/natural body dies our mind dies as well. But I certainly believe that we will experience an continuation of our existence in a spiritual body with a mind outside space-time structure of the physical universe the same as God.
But the spiritual body and mind is dead until it is resurrected, given new life by God as we are rescued from the self-destructive habits of our sin.
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you don’t think that the bible is teaching this?
As I quote before
Romans 8:16
The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God,
This understanding is based on the bible.
Not sure what kind of objective evidence you are referring to. If this mind is not part of space-time continuum, then it must reside in another dimension unobservable to us. How you come to the conclusion must have come not by objective evidence, but from what you assume as is.
Are you saying that if our material bodies got destroyed, and then the mind was destroyed as well?
Since I am assuming that you are a christian who believe in future resurrection spiritual body, then it should be interesting to know what kind of mind we will have? Is that the same mind that we have? Will that mind start anew like a new baby born?
1 Corinthians 15:51
Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,
I believe what Paul said in the verse above that when our physical bodies died, our spirit and mind would be asleep, waiting for the second coming of Jesus.
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Luke 8:26-33
Then they sailed to the country of the Gerasenes, which is opposite Galilee. When Jesus had stepped out on land, there met him a man from the city who had demons. For a long time he had worn no clothes, and he had not lived in a house but among the tombs. When he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell down before him and said with a loud voice, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me.” For he had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. (For many a time it had seized him. He was kept under guard and bound with chains and shackles, but he would break the bonds and be driven by the demon into the desert.) Jesus then asked him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Legion,” for many demons had entered him. And they begged him not to command them to depart into the abyss. Now a large herd of pigs was feeding there on the hillside, and they begged him to let them enter these. So he gave them permission. Then the demons came out of the man and entered the pigs, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and drowned.
The encounter of Jesus with a man possessed with evil spirits Legion was interesting story about the mind.
The demon possessed man never met Jesus before, so surely he did not have any knowledge about who Jesus was or how even he looked like. But when Jesus met this man possessed with legion spirits, They called out to him “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me.”
How did the demon possessed man recognize Jesus? Surely the knowledge of Jesus couldn’t be recalled from the man’s brain since that man never met Jesus before. Surely it was the demonic spirit who recognised the spirit of Jesus which implied that the demonic spirit had knowledge about Jesus and His special relationship with the Father and His power over them. This meant that the demonic spirit had a mind as well without utilising any material brain.
If a demonic spirit could have a mind, why is it so hard to accept that a human spirit also has a mind?
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This doesn’t distinguish between our beliefs. It only shows that the spirit exists and certainly doesn’t support your belief that we are embodied spirits or that a spirit resides inside us.
The evidence shows that the operation of the mind depends entirely on the operation of the body and can be altered by chemicals and disease which effect the body.
Yes. The mind we have now is just as material as the body. It is not the same as the brain but that doesn’t mean it isn’t just as material. It is just like that analogy I made with Frodo and the book.
It is the same as the situation with the body. The spiritual mind and body are a product of our choices and thus would not have the problems which have nothing to do with the choices we make.
why not? Paul clearly stated that The Holy Spirit who resides in each one of the believers will bear witness with our spirit. If the Holy Spirit resides in us, then where would our own spirit reside?
I believe so far the evidence is limited to the function of the brain. How much does the brain function affect the mind might be beyond the scope of science? While our spirit with our mind is presently locked in with our physical material body, it would not be so once we are freed from the body.
Not sure how you can support this.
What I mean is this. While we will have a spiritual body that totally unlike our physical body, will our resurrected mind retain the memory of our life, what we had done and all the persons that we knew from our life on earth?
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Whoa! Jesus asked “What is your name?” Gee, others have said asking the demon(s) name(s) is unimportant. Now I’m confused, if asking their name(s) is unimportant, why did Jesus ask? The Pentecostals today must know something Jesus didn’t know.
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Excuse me. My memory isn’t as good as it used to be. Aren’t you Catholic, or weren’t you Catholic?
So you think the Holy Spirit is confined to our body??? Otherwise your logic doesn’t follow.
Nope. Not unless you are adding imaginary unmeasurable things to what you are calling the mind.
Not sure how you can support anything else. Every function of the mind is affected by material alterations like chemicals, diseases, and physical contact with the brain.
Like I said… everything that is a product of our own choices is the substance of our spiritual existence. So, what we have done as a product of our choices is a part of the mind of the spirit. As for people… it is all a matter of how much we have made them a part of ourselves and our life. Memory does not work like a video recording – how much significance we choose to give to things matters a great deal. If we do not choose to make other people a part of our lives then when the space-time connections given to us by God are gone in death, we will lose all connection to them.
Of course. Don’t you believe this?
I am sorry Mitch because I don’t really get what you are saying because I thought memory is not something you can choose to remember or not. It is there in our memory because it happened to us. Persons we will remember not because we choose to remember them, but because we had contacts with them. We will remember all the good and all the bad. That is what I think our mind will be.
Isn’t forgetfullness happened because the death of brain cells that contain that memory?
That is one narrative (sample size = 1). You cannot conclude anything general about that, except that there is at least one case where Jesus asked the name.
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If you think so, you clearly couldn’t be a Catholic.
No. The Holy Spirit is God, and God is omnipresent. So, clearly the Holy Spirit is not confined anywhere let alone to our physical body. And not being so confined your logic does not follow. The Holy Spirit being everywhere means it can communicate with our spirit no matter where our spirit is.
Your way of thinking sounds like great news for rapists and murderers who want their victims to remember them for all eternity. But I don’t think they are as powerful as they would like to be.
I am not trying to define what the Holy Spirit can do or not. I am just believing what the Bible tell us about the Holy Spirit.
1 John 4:4
Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.
There are many other verses in the Bible concerning the Holy Spirit. What the Holy Spirit can do is clearly beyond our logic, but not against our logic.
Perhaps you can enlighten me where you got your understanding concerning the Holy Spirit.
I am just basing my understanding of the future mind on the current function of the mind. Whether it is great news or bad news for rapists and murderers remains to be seen. I am sure Paul the apostle would like to forget all the sins he did in the past, but he could not. The memory however served him as a reminder how great the love of God for him, a murderer. Will Paul remember who he was in the earthly life when he is resurrected in the Kingdom of God? I believe he will and will give glory to God even more.
I am curious however where you got your understanding about the mind in the resurrected body from.
I actually heard an argument for age 27+/- 2, since that is apparently the peak of intellectual capacity and creativity.
Ah, reading into the text. In the context it clearly was Samuel.
Indeed the instance of the witch calling up Samuel is helpful: the witch freaks out because what appears isn’t what she usually contacts but is an actual “elohim” that turns out to be Samuel. This indicates that when dead we belong to the “elohim realm”, the realm of beings that are immaterial spirit.
I talked with a Lutheran missionary who didn’t believe in demons when he first set out for Africa, but became convinced after a couple of encounters. One involved a man who seemed mentally ill who was finally brought to worship one day but the moment the Eucharist was consecrated he fled in terror screaming about the blood of God.
Interesting question. The different personalities can have different language skills, different mental/emotional ages, different skills, and in one case we looked at in Abnormal Psych class, different handedness – the primary personality was left-handed while a second personality was right-handed.
I remember reading of a case where there were three alternate personalities, each due to a different trauma event, while the second and third trauma events happened only because of the effects of the first. The therapist had to address the personalities’ issues from most recent to least, and had to engage all three alternates to deal with the third traumatic event, after which the original personality could remember the event and come to terms with it, after which the third alternate was gone. As I recall the third alternate had to get permission from the other two to “let go” of the trauma!
I have immense respect for anyone who can deal with that sort of thing.
There have been multiple views in the church almost from the start. Most held that the soul/spirit connected to the physical at either conception or implantation; a second view held that the soul/spirit arrived at “quickening” (when the unborn begins to move noticeably in the womb), and a very few have held that the spirit enters with the first breath of the newborn. The first argued from the Incarnation, the third from Adam; I forget the scriptural backing for the second.
Then of course there was a debate about what the spirit/soul would be doing all the time between conception and quickening or birth!
And the issue of the brain only arose once medical science figured out that it was the gray stuff in our skulls where thoughts happen.
That connects right to the book of Enoch, where the Watchers are told they will be bound in darkness until judgment, but the spirits of the Nephilim, their children, were doomed to wander the earth until that same time. Apparently the deal was that they wouldn’t experience punishment before the, thus “Do not torment me”.
Good point!
From Christianity, where the doctrine of the Trinity is basic to the definition of Christianity by the earliest ecumenical councils, sufficient to distinguish Christianity as a religion from other religions like Islam.
I can explain the reason I like the doctrine of the Trinitarian if you like.
That came from determining whether I could find any value in Christianity starting from a scientific worldview. If it was all nothing but a bunch of magical nonsense contrary to the objective evidence then the answer would be no – no value in it at all. But I could find a meaning in the teachings in the Bible and Christianity which was not magical or contrary to the objective evidence, and so I could see some value in Christianity. And thus I am Christian despite not being raised Christian but rather with nothing but criticism of Christianity and its organizations.
I studied the doctrine of the Trinity and I could not find your description of the Holy Spirit fit with the doctrine or the biblical support that the doctrine based on. All teaching of the Holy Spirit always refer to as indwelling, filled with the Holy Spirit. Then yes, I really would like to know your version of Trinity and especially concerning the work of the Holy Spirit.
However, you are not answering my question. How did you come up with such description of our future mind in the resurrected body. What is your source if you might share?
Im not sure what you mean by ‘embodied spiritual being’. But if youre saying we are essentially a spirit housed in a physical body, then I disagree. We are fundamentally physical beings, as well as being spiritual, however you understand the latter. That is why although we die physically (and possibly die wholly, in all aspects - open to debate), the future resurrection will also be physical in nature, with life on earth.