Our First Freedom

Everyone thinks. We can't help it. Our thoughts deeply shape the contours of our lives. But often we don't cultivate our minds and ultimately leave a resource God has given us untapped.

Dallas Willard shares a helpful insight in this regard from Renovation of the Heart: "The ultimate freedom we have as human beings is the power to select what we will allow or require our minds to dwell upon."

How is your thought life? What do you find your mind dwells on the most often? What do you want to dwell on? Today, take some time to read and reflect upon Romans 12:1-2.

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Christians are for Truth wherever it is found

All truth is God's truth. John Calvin provides us with a good reminder that engaging our minds matters because truth matters: "It is superstitious to refuse to make use of any secular authors. For since all truth is of God, if any ungodly man has said anything true, we should not reject it, for it has also come from God. Besides, since all things are from God, what could be wrong with employing to His glory everything that can be rightly used in that way?” Application: Think hard and think Christianly for the glory of God! (1 Cor. 14:20)

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Naturalistic evolution leaves no room for souls, free-will, and consciousness

"The important point about the standard evolutionary story is that the human species and all of its features are the wholly physical outcome of a purely physical process .... If this is the correct account of our origins, then there seems neither need, nor room, to fit any nonphysical substances or properties into our theoretical account of ourselves. We are creatures of matter. And we should learn to live with that fact." - Paul Churchland

"For the naturalist, there is in principle no scientific explanation as to how evolution, a strictly physical process operating on physical materials, could give rise to something utterly non-physical. How can unconscious, purposeless, mindless particles give rise to unified immaterial selves with internal mental states by simply rearranging according to strict physical laws? The naturalist simply has no answer to this question. By contrast, the Christian theist has an excellent answer as to how mind could arise in the course of events that constitute the history of the universe. For the Christian, personhood and, in fact, a Specific Person, is more fundamental to reality than matter. So it is no problem to conceive of a personal God creating finite personal selves by an act of His will. But no amount of study of matter will make it at all conceivable that physical stuff, all by itself, could give rise to mind." - J.P. Moreland



Naturalism, Christianity, and the Human Person by JP Moreland

Did Humans Invent God?

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Beyond Worldview Contradictions

Naturalism fails to explain even the most basic elements of our existence. And deep down everyone knows this. Theism is the only view of the world that really explains all that we experience. Here is a very clear exposition of this:

“The physical world provides no room for freedom of will….[yet] that concept is essential to our models of the mental realm. Too much of our psychology is based on it for us to ever give it up. [And so] We’re virtually forced to maintain that belief, even though we know it’s false.” - Marvin Minsky (MIT)

Or...we could give up the worldview of Scientific Naturalism? For it is far more obvious to me that I have free will than all of reality can be explained / reduced to "physics, chemistry, and biology."

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Thinking well is really important

“Your intellectual life is important…for the simple reason that your very character, the kind of person you are and are becoming, is at stake. Careful oversight of our intellectual lives is imperative if we are to think well, and thinking well is an indispensable ingredient to living well.”—Jay Wood

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In Intellectual Neutral

Here is an excerpt from an article on loving God with all of your mind by William Lane Craig

"A number of years ago, two books appeared that sent shock waves through the American educational community. The first of these, Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know, by E.D. Hirsch, documented the fact that large numbers of American college students do not have the basic background knowledge to understand the front page of a newspaper or to act responsibly as a citizen. For example, a quarter of the students in a recent survey thought Franklin D. Roosevelt was president during the Vietnam War. Two-thirds did not know when the Civil War occurred. One-third thought Columbus discovered the New World sometime after 1750. In a recent survey at California State University at Fullerton, over half the students could not identify Chaucer or Dante. Ninety percent did not know who Alexander Hamilton was, despite the fact that his picture is on every ten dollar bill.

These statistics would be funny if they weren't so alarming. What has happened to our schools that they should be producing such dreadfully ignorant people? Alan Bloom, who was an eminent educator at the University of Chicago and the author of the second book I referred to above, argued in his The Closing of the American Mind. that behind the current educational malaise lies the universal conviction of students that all truth is relative and, therefore, that truth is not worth pursuing....(MORE)

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Am I More Than My Brain?

Many today argue that physics and chemistry is all that exists (i.e., is real). That takes out minds, souls, free will, ethics, miracles, consciousness, joy, love etc.

But I want to draw your attention to the Mind / Brain issue. It is important for Christians to realize that humans are more than just a bag of chemical reactions (we are composed of body and soul / mind - material and immaterial). Take some time and read a fascinating article by Neurosurgeon Michael Egnor. It won't take too long, but this stuff is important to think about.

Click here for article

Let me know what you think...

"Freedom" and what we allow access to our minds

What we think about matters greatly. We cannot be too intentional about what we dwell upon. I came across a quote by Dallas Willard, in Renovation of the Heart, that is perceptive.

"Our present American culture boasts of complete freedom in what one sees, says, and hears. Many professing Christians are paralyzed or even destroyed by adopting "freedom" as a lifestyle. For they allow images into their that eventually overwhelm them. If we allow everything access to your mind, we are simply asking to be kept in a state of mental turmoil and bondage. For nothing enters the mind without having an effect for good or evil."

A good word...

By the way, thanks for the comments...i will interact with them soon...keep 'em coming.

Does Naturalism have a good explanation for rationality?

If physics and chemistry are all there is in the universe (i.e. materialism / naturalism) then why think rationality exists (i.e., our ability to think and form true beliefs)? JP Moreland gives some good insight in a recent article. It is worth a read.