The Parts of Man
Chapter Four
WHAT IS MAN?
What is man,
that thou art mindful of him?
(Psalms 8:4)
I. THE PARTS OF MAN
A.
A Physical Body
It
should be obvious to the reader that we all have physical bodies, which contain
our being and with which we contact the physical world that we live in. But
what about that which is not so obvious: the parts of our being that are
contained within our physical bodies? Many, many philosophies and schools of
thought have come and gone in continuing efforts by man to understand and describe
himself. Can man possibly be objective about himself? Obviously not! Would it
not be both more objective and useful
to find out what man's Creator has to say about man?
B. The Human Soul (See Appendix III.)
... and may your spirit and soul and body be
preserved entire ... (I Thess. 5:23)
Man is a three‑part being, having not only a physical
body but also a soul and a spirit. What does our soul encompass, and what is
our soul composed of?
My
soul continually thinks ... (Lam. 3:20 Revised Standard Version).
. . And that
my soul knoweth ... (Psalm 139:14)
As these
verses show, the mind is one of the
parts of the soul.
And my soul shall be joyful in Jehovah: It shall rejoice in his
salvation. (Psalm 35:9)
...
my soul shall weep ... (Jer . 13:17)
Tell
me, 0 thou whom my soul loveth ... (SS. 1:7)
And
if your soul abhor ... (Lev. 26:15)
The emotions are another part of the soul.
Our
soul hath waited ... (Ps. 33:201.
So
that my soul chooseth ... [Job 7:16).
All of the verbs in
these verses are actions resulting directly from decisions, which are the
expression of the will, the third
part of the soul. Our soul is composed of these three parts: the mind, the
emotion, and the will. The mind is the organ with which we reason and evaluate.
With our emotions we express in the physical world how we feel about things
that affect us. By the exercise of our will we decide, thus directing our
actions, which express our being.
Behold,
thou desirest truth in the inward
parts; and in the hidden
part thou wilt make me to know wisdom. (Ps 61:61
What are the inward parts?
I will put my law in their inward parts, and in their heart
will I write it ...(Jer.: 31:33).
I will put my laws into their mind, and on their heart also
will I write them.... (Heb 8:10).
By comparing these two
verses, we see that the mind is one of the inward parts. What are the other
ones? As we will see, the other parts
are the emotions and the will, the inward parts being a reference to
the soul. But what is the hidden part?
C. The Human Spirit
But there is a spirit in man …(Job 32:8)
... Thus
saith Jehovah, who stretcheth forth the heavens, and layeth the foundation of
the earth, and formeth the spirit
of man within him. (Zech. 12:1)
This verse in Zechariah not only places the importance of
the human spirit on the same level with the creation of the heavens and the
earth, but also indicates that the creation of the heavens and the earth is for
the purpose of the forming of the spirit in man. Why does God consider the
human spirit to be so important?
For the
word of God is living and active, and sharper than any two‑edged sword, and
piercing even to the dividing asunder of
soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and quick to discern the
thoughts and intents of the heart. (Heb 4:12)
It is clear from this verse that the "hidden
part" in our being must be our human spirit. Few people realize the
strategic importance of the human spirit. Most people simply are unaware that
they have a spirit, and too many of those who are aware fail to differentiate
it from the soul. Our soul surrounds and tightly masks our spirit, as the bones
(joints) contain and cover up the marrow; but these are absolutely two
distinctly different parts of our being, which we must distinguish between.
Why? It is with and through our physical body that we experience and live in
the physical world. It is with our soul that we live in and experience the
psychological world (The word 'psychology' is derived from the root of the
Greek, which is translated as 'soul' in the New Testament). Only with our human
spirit can we contact the spiritual world. You can no more contact and
experience spiritual reality with your mind, emotions, or will, than you can
with your physical body. With the importance of the human spirit in mind, let
us now examine what its functions are.
The Spirit
himself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God. (Rom.
8:16)
... my conscience bearing witness with me in the Holy Spirit.
(Rom. 9:1)
By comparing these two verses, it is apparent that one of
the functions of our spirit is our conscience. Our conscience is more than a
sense of morals or ethics. These vary from culture to culture whereas the
functioning of the conscience is the same in everyone.
To the
pure all things are pure: but to them that are defiled and unbelieving nothing
is pure; but both their mind and their conscience are defiled. (Titus 1:15)
There is, however, a direct relationship between our
conscience and our mind. Our mind is intended to express our conscience. Thus,
it is our mind that is affected by and aware of the functioning of our
conscience.
Herein I
also exercise myself to have a conscience void of offence toward God and man
always. (Acts 24:16)
To him
therefore that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin. (James
4:17)
In their
hearts, their conscience bearing witness therewith, and their thoughts one with
another accusing or else excusing them; (Rom 2:16).
The interrelationship of our mind and conscience is such
that, if we do something that is wrong according to our mind (in which is the
domain of ethics and morality), then our conscience will be defiled also.
However, just because something that we do is right according to our mind does not
at all mean that our conscience will approve.
For our glory is this, the testimony of our conscience, that in
holiness and sincerity of God, not in fleshly wisdom but in the grace of God,
we behaved ourselves in the world, and more abundantly to you‑ward. (2 Cor.
1:12)
I must strongly reiterate; our conscience is more than
merely a sense of right and wrong; it is the very expression of divine approval
or disapproval.
With my
soul have I desired thee in the night; yea, with my spirit within me will I
seek thee earnestly ... (Isa. 26:9)
For we are
the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus,
and have no confidence in the flesh. (Phil. 3:3 KJV)
God is
spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth. (John 4:24
New American Standard Bible)
What is true worship and why
must it be done in and with our human spirit?
... yea,
and our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ: (1 John
1:3)
The grace
of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy
Spirit be with you all. (2 Cor. 13:14)
Another function of our spirit is to enable us to have
fellowship (communion) with God (whose essence is spirit). It is because our
spirit also has this function that man is able to contact and come into the
very presence of God. What part of the soul is this function expressed through?
And Mary
said, my soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my
Savior. (Luke 1:46‑47)
Because her soul was
expressing (magnifying) the Lord (and not herself), Mary's fellowship with God
in her spirit was expressed by her soul. With regards to this, notice the verb
tenses: doth (present) and hath (past). Firstly,
Mary was in contact (fellowship) with God in her spirit, and this
fellowship was then expressed through
her soul. But what part of her soul: what part of our soul rejoices? Our
emotion is the part of our soul that expresses our fellowship (or lack of) with
God. Just as the soul has three parts, so we should expect the spirit to have
three functions. What is the third function of our spirit?
For who
among men knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of the man, which is in
him? (1 Cor. 2‑11)
... that
ye maybe filled with the knowledge of his
will in all spiritual wisdom and
understanding. (Col. 1:9)
The other function of
our spirit is the intuition, by means
of which we may know directly what God's will is at all times
and in any given situation. The intuition of our Spirit is expressed through our
will.
After they
were come to Mysia, they assayed to go to Bithynia: but the Spirit suffered
them not. (Acts 16:7 KJV)
Notice here that the
disciples decided (assayed with their will) to go into Bithynia, but this
decision on their part was contrary to the Spirit's will. How did they know that
this was so? Did the Spirit send some outward signs to let them know? No! The
disciples contacted their human spirit and by the intuitive function of their
spirit knew what God's will was.
In illustrating the
parts and functions of our being, I have thus far confined my documentation to
Scriptural references. I will try not to
ask the reader to accept anything
at face value in this book.
Therefore, let us now see what relevant evidence concerning the soul and spirit
may be found in the scientific evaluations of our physical universe.
As
he studied thousands of patients, experimenting with electrical stimulation of
the brain, he finally concluded that the mind was totally independent of the
brain. 33
A purely mechanistic
(and therefore anti‑spiritual) view of the universe requires that the mind be
equal to and contained by the brain. The mechanistic view holds and requires
that the mind be nothing more than the electrochemical equivalent of a
computer, with all of its manifestations limited to and explainable by purely
physical laws. Such is not the case. An excellent book documenting relevant
scientific evidence in this area of discussion and that of Section Three of
this chapter is Man in Adam and in Christ, by Arthur Custance. I do not
have the space to quote the findings documented in Mr. Custance's book.
However, I shall give a summary of current scientific thought on this subject.
Anyone with any doubts about this or about what I have to say in Section Three
should read this book.
SUMMARY OF THE RESULTS OF EXPERIMENTA-TION IN
THE FIELD OF NEUROPHYSIOLOGY:
The mind,
although expressed through the brain, is not limited to or contained by the
brain. Although specific memories can be activated by stimulation of specific
tissue sites, removal of these areas sequentially does not affect the
corresponding memory, whereas removal in one radical operation does produce a
degree of impairment. The neuronic capacity of the brain is woefully inadequate
to contain the memory of the mind, on a mechanistic basis. The brain would have
to be approximately 1,500 times larger than it is in order to accommodate the
mind by mechanistic means. Further, total removal (sequentially) of the
cerebral cortex in laboratory animals up to and including animals us complex as
dogs has not affected the memory of the animals. 34
What, then, is the soul, if it is not a physical existence?
He
(W. Whately Smith) contended that there is a fourth dimension that our
self‑awareness goes into that is not a part of our three‑dimensional world, and
that dreams were the best example of it.35
In
his special theory of relativity, published in 1905, Einstein put forth a
strange but inescapable conclusion: Space and time cannot always be treated as
separate and distinct entities. Rather, in their more general manifestations,
they are thoroughly mixed together in an "apples and oranges" fashion
to form a space‑time continuum that can only be described with a fully
interwoven complement of four equivalent dimensions- three of space and one of
time.
36
It is my contention
that the soul is a nonphysical fourth‑dimensional existence, existing in and
through the dimension of time. Just as the fourth dimension of time is
inextricably linked to the three dimensions of space, so our soul is
inextricably linked to our physical body. All living things have souls. This is
a Scriptural, as well as scientific (by the definition of soul), fact. The
level of complexity of the soul of a particular organism can be evaluated by
the level of complexity of its brain, which expresses the mind, the leading
part of the soul. The more complex the soul, the less its entrophy, and the
longer it will exist through time. If my supposition concerning the soul is correct,
then we should expect that the more complex the brain of an organism, the
longer would be its life span. This is generally the case. Why are there
exceptions, such as turtles? Again, just as time is inextricably linked to the
three dimensions of space, so is our soul linked to our physical bodies. The
exceptions to the rule, therefore, should all be organisms with significantly
lower metabolic rates ‑ lower than the average rate for organisms with their
brain/body ratio. Why should this be the case? The faster the metabolic rate
the higher the entrophic rate. An organism with a high metabolic rate may have
a complex brain yet be relatively short‑lived since it will die when its body
wears out. Conversely, an organism with a slow metabolic rate may have a simple
brain yet have a relatively long life span. If I am correct, and, of two
different types of organisms whose metabolic rates are roughly equal, the one
whose brain is more complex will have the longer life span. Also, of two
different organisms whose brains are of roughly equal complexity the one with
the lower metabolic rate will have the longer life span. As far as my knowledge
of the field of physiology goes, this is always the case. Lastly, the soul's
being an existence in the fourth dimension of time would explain many (and
probably all) currently inexplicable animal behavior phenomena; for example:
the instantaneous changes of
direction by all of the members of a flock of birds.
I fully
subscribe to the judgement of those writers who maintain that of all the
differences between man and the lower animals, the moral sense or conscience is
by far the most important.39
What, then, is the
human spirit? Before I knew anything about the Bible and before I had had any
actual experiential awareness of my spirit, I had concluded (on the basis of
investigation in several different fields) that I had a spirit. My knowledge of
it was purely theoretical; all that I knew was that it was eternal, not
temporal. The only thread of evidence I had to follow was that, mathematically,
there seemed to me to be a connection between infinity and eternity. It seemed
logical to me that something actually (not theoretically) infinite would have
to be eternal and that something eternal must also be infinite. At this point I
stumbled across an assertion of the nineteenth century Christian mystic and
philosopher William Blake. His assertion was that infinity extended inward (within
man) and finity extended outward (from man). At the time that
Blake made this assertion, the telescope had opened the field of astronomy and
it was then the prevailing opinion of the astronomers of his time that the
universe was infinite.
Perhaps the
first clear statement of the modern view was that of Nicholas of Cusa (1401‑1464),
a cardinal of the Church, who had particularly striking ideas for his time. He
thought that space was infinite and that there was no center to the
universe.... The English mathematician Thomas Digges (1543‑1595) did espouse
views like those of Nicholas of Cuss, and in 1575 maintained not only infinite
space, but also an infinite number of stars spread evenly throughout it.
Italian philosopher Giordano Bruno (1548‑1600) also argued the same view, and
did so in so undiplomatic and contentious a manner that he was finally burned
at the stake in Rome for his heresies. 38
Since that time,
however, science has shown that the universe is “unbounded" (a
mathematical term), but finite. Thus,
one‑half of William Blake's assertion was shown to be true. I doubted that the
other half, involving infinity, could be proven by the objective verification
that finity had been. Therefore, I expected instead to find indications of its
truth without any contraindications. This is indeed the case. It is pretty
common knowledge that, mathematically, between any two distinct points on a
line, there will always be another distinct point, down to an infinitely small
size, producing an infinite number of points. In the field of particle physics,
the smallness of particles is limited only by the powers of observation
possible and infinitely small size is not precluded by any theory. So the
existence of the human spirit seems to have its correlations in, and is
indicated by, the laws of our four‑dimensional universe. But what was it? I was
forced to assume that it must be a fifth‑dimensional existence. In the process
of researching material for the documentation of this book, I came across
substantiation of this, quite unexpectedly.
One can take
"immortality" to mean a "right‑angled turn," away from the
axis of time, and a subsequent progression orthogonal to it along the vaguely
time like, fifth‑dimensional axis. This would be a kind of "spirit''
existence: time, and maybe matter and space, would be meaningless.... That is,
"heaven" might be a fuller, five‑dimensional universe in which our
ordinary four‑dimensional one is embedded.39
It should be pointed out that the idea of a
fifth dimension is not in any way a new one to the field of physics. In
attempts at a better formulation of general relativity, physicist Kaluza, as
far back as 1921, assumed an extra dimension. But Kaluza's fifth dimension had
no direct physical significance.40
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