08 Mar Free Miracle #4: Consciousness Came from Non-consciousness Part 2 of 2
Blog Series
Why Believe in God? ~ If You Reject God, You’ve Only Done Half the Job.
Last week we saw that the naturalistic explanation for how humans became conscious and started thinking has no scientific basis and has profound logical flaws.
Because naturalists (those who believe that everything can be explained by the Big Bang plus evolution) think there is nothing in the universe but whirling molecules, and molecules can’t think, this prompted physicist John Hagelin to say, “there is a deep philosophical problem surrounding how you get consciousness from a hunk of meat (the brain).”
However, faced with the stark reality that we do think, and we are conscious, naturalists have to come up with some explanation. They often assert that when, in the process of evolution, the brain reached a certain level of structure and complexity, people spontaneously became “conscious.” That is, they spontaneously developed thoughts, subjectivity, feelings, hopes, etc.*
The problem is, there is absolutely no scientific evidence to suggest that that is true, or even could be true. As a result, some scientists go so far as to deny consciousness. Others go so far as to embrace “promissory materialism,” the belief that we will someday find an explanation for consciousness, in spite of the fact that there is no evidence or reasonable hypothesis to suggest it.
So, modern science tends to ask for free miracle #4, consciousness coming from non-consciousness.
So now this week, we turn our attention to evidence in support of consciousness as a mark of the image of God in humans.
Medical science suggests that consciousness exists apart from the brain.
Wilder Penfield, the father of modern neurosurgery, stimulated the brains of epilepsy patients to cause one hand to move, and challenged them to keep it from moving. The patients used their other hand to keep the hand from moving. One hand was under the control of the electrical current and the other hand under the control of the patient’s mind, and those two actions fought against each other.
Penfield concluded that the patient not only had a physical brain that was electrically stimulated to move one hand, but also a nonphysical “reality” that caused the other hand to move. Electrical stimulation may cause a hand to move, but does not cause a patient to “decide” to control that hand with their other hand. That’s because “deciding” originates in the conscious self, not the brain. *
Near-death experiences (NDE) suggest that consciousness exists apart from the brain
A near-death experience is an occurrence in which a person dies or appears to die and has memories of experiences during the time when they were dead or appeared to be dead.
These experiences were universally dismissed by naturalists for years, asserting that while they appeared to be dead, there was actually brain activity going on.
This perspective has fallen on hard times lately. Stories now abound of people who have had memories of events they experience while flatlined, meaning the brain is not functioning, but they are having experiences that they recall when revived.
In Proof of Heaven, neurosurgeon Dr. Eben Alexander tells of his experience in which a serious brain infection attacked the part of his brain that controls thought and emotion. In a coma for seven days, Alexander had extensive experiences that he recalled after he recovered from his coma, leading him to conclude that consciousness is apart from the brain because his brain was non-functioning during that time.
Another significant obstacle to the naturalistic explanation of NDEs is “veridical” experiences (verifiable). One woman died and in her NDE, she saw a tennis shoe that was on the roof of the hospital, which was later verified.*
An elderly woman had been blind since childhood. But, during her NDE, she regained her sight and was able to accurately describe the instruments and techniques used during the resuscitation of her body. After the woman was revived, she was blind (again), but was able to accurately tell her doctor who came in and out, what they said, what they wore, what they did.**
Something cannot come from nothing.
Philosopher Geoffrey Medell said, “The emergence of consciousness… is a mystery, and one to which materialism fails to provide an answer.”
Atheist Colin McGinn agrees, asking “how can mere matter originate consciousness? How did evolution convert the water of biological tissue into the wine of consciousness? Consciousness seems like a radical novelty in the universe, not prefigured by the aftereffects of the Big Bang. So how did it contrive to spring into being from what preceded?”
In an interview with Lee Strobel, in his book The Case for a Creator, J.P. Moreland said, “here’s the point: you can’t get something from nothing. If there were no God, there would be no thoughts, beliefs, feelings, sensations, free actions, choices, or purposes. There would be simply one physical event after another physical event, behaving according to the laws of physics and chemistry.
“How then, do you get something totally different – conscious, living, thinking, feeling, believing creatures – from materials that don’t have that? That’s getting something from nothing! And that’s the main problem.”
Conclusion
Anthropologist Marilyn Schlitz wrote, “I am driven by data not theory. And the data… refutes the physicalist position that the mind is the brain and nothing more. There are solid concrete data that suggest that our consciousness, our mind, may surpass the boundaries of the brain.”*
Oxford University Prof. of physiology Sir Charles Sharrington, a Nobel Prize winner described as “a genius who laid the foundation of our knowledge of the functioning of the brain and spinal cord,” declared five days before his death: “for me now, the only reality is the human soul.”*
Neurophysiologist and Nobel laureate John C Eccles has come to the same conclusion. “I am constrained to believe that there is what we might call a supernatural origin of my unique self-conscious mind or my unique selfhood or soul.”*
The more medical and scientific knowledge we gain, the more it verifies the biblical teaching that we are created in the image of God, that we are a spirit, but we have a body, and that consciousness comes from our creator. Therefore, we cannot give modern science their fourth free miracle.
Next week we will look at the fifth free miracle modern science asks for, transcendence coming from consciousness.
*Summarized from The Case for a Creator, by Lee Strobel, chapter 10
**https://near-death.com/people-see-verified-events-while-obe/
Helpful books on near death experiences:
Imagine Heaven, John Burke
To Heaven and Back, Mary C. Neal, MD
7 Lessons from Heaven, Mary C. Neal, MD
In case you’re new here
This blog post is part of a series titled “Why Believe in God? If You Reject God, You’ve Only Done Half the Job.”, introduced on January 5, 2022. As the series continues, each succeeding post will be added to and available in the blog archives at www.maxanders.com.
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