Just a thought…
I’m listening to an interesting lecture by Alvin Plantinga, Against Materialism (the idea that the material world is all there is.)
It’s got me thinking about the pressure put on us to believe that there is no such thing as a soul, that we are only material beings, that everything can be explained by neurons and things like that. Watch television sometime and just pay attention to “materialistic” arguments.
There’s so much pressure, it is getting to the point where this almost a ‘default’ belief. One of those beliefs people believe unless they consciously attempt to believe something else.
And that’s sad.
I personally think it’s degrading. I love animals and all that, but I find it a little offensive to be compared to a gorilla.
Plus it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.
Think about thinking.
Plantinga’s question is, if all we are is an assemblage of parts, where does thought come from? Where does belief come from? Where does conviction come from? And you know what’s more, why do we sit around and talk about where belief or conviction comes from?
You don’t throw a bunch of metal pieces together and get feeling. You get a machine.
You don’t find a whole bunch of ants sitting around talking about their purpose in life.
There’s something more going on, something that cannot be explained simply by looking at the physical or material make up of a human being .
October 2, 2006 at 5:23 pm
“There’s something more going on, something that cannot be explained simply by looking at the physical or material make up of a human being.”
I was having a discussion about cloning with some Christians the other day and trying to make this same point.
Consider this: If God permits scientists to succeed in their attempts to clone a human being, from where will it receive a soul?
This hasn’t been an issue yet, as they have only cloned animals, made after their own kind.
But isn’t man different? Isn’t our more substantial portion eternal and invisible? When God said “Let us make man in our image”, was he not clothing the immortal (soul) in mortal flesh (body), if only for the brief duration of our stay here?
If, in an effort to clone a human, at the moment that science brings together the “basic information” and an “empty shell” of a human, in a simulated act of conception, if the eternal, almighty God, who creates “ex nihilo” condescends to imbue that “creature” with a never dying soul, I, for one, will be amazed afresh at the seemingly endless patience and mercy with which God deals with a fallen world, whose best and brightest minds daily strive to eradicate his name from the face of that creation that sustains their very life.
In Deuteronomy 32:39, God seems to reserve for himself this soverign prerogative of giving life. I could be way off base, but when I read that passage, Moses doesn’t sound like he’s kidding.
October 6, 2006 at 5:42 pm
P.S. I hope that doesn’t sound like a ranting dogmatic diatribe against cloning and science, as such. It wasn’t meant to be. I’m not a scientist and don’t know all the details of cloning and stem cell research, but I do know that the process involves the death of fetuses. And I also know that science can’t satisfactorily resolve the moral issue of when those fetuses are “alive”. They can’t observe the invisible hand of God at work.
I will also grant that much good has been come as a result of scienctific observation. But it’s not the observations that are disturbing – it’s the conclusions and the world view that they propagate. (Or is it the presuppositions?)
It was science in the hands of proud men that led the full frontal assault on the inerrancy and authority of God’s word during the “Enlightenment” and it continues the attack today against the Lord’s character and wisdom in his most basic relationship with men, that of their Creator.
Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe the men who clone a human will step up to the podium to recieve their Nobel prize and give all the praise and glory to the Triune God, who blessed their labors abundantly above all that they could think to ask, and in the process revealed another sliver of his infinite glory in yet one more mind-boggling display of grace.
I guess we’ll have to wait and see.