Sabbath: Understanding Human Nature
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Sabbath Afternoon
Read for This Week’s Study: Genesis 1:24-27; Genesis 2:7, Genesis 2:19; Matthew 10:28; Ecclesiastes 12:1-7; 1 Kings 2:10; 1 Kings 22:40.
Memory Text: “And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul” (Genesis 2:7).
The tension between God’s word, “You shall die” (Genesis 2:16-17, , NRSV) and Satan’s counterfeit promise, “You certainly will not die!” (Genesis 3:4, NASB) was not restricted to the Garden of Eden. It has echoed throughout history.
Many people try to harmonize the words of Satan with the words of God. For them, the warning, “You shall die” refers only to the perishable physical body, while the promise, “You certainly will not die!” is an allusion to an immortal soul or spirit.
But this approach doesn’t work. For example, can contradictory words of God and of Satan be harmonized? Is there an immaterial soul or spirit that consciously survives physical death? There are many philosophical and even scientific attempts to answer these questions. But, as Bible-based Christians, we must recognize that only the Almighty God, the One who created us, also knows us perfectly (see Psalm 139:1-24). Thus, only in His Word to us, the Scriptures, can we find answers to these crucial questions.
This week we will consider how the Old Testament defines human nature and the condition of human beings at death.
Study this week’s lesson to prepare for Sabbath, October 15.
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I often spend relaxation time reading about DNA, Artificial Intelligence, humanoid robotics and so on. Having lived in the computer science zone for most of my life, these topics are both interesting and challenging, and they beat sitting and watching sitcoms and reality TV by a long shot. When I started in computer science, we punched holes in Hollerith cards and fed them into machines. The computer did one task at a time and providing the cards were read correctly and there were no bugs in the program you would get a printout with hopefully the solution or analysis of the problem you had submitted. Memory was small - typically 1K and machine cycles were slow. By comparison my Fitbit watch is much more powerful be several orders of magnitude than those early computers.
Even personal computers nowadays have staggering specifications. I bought a new computer recently - my 10-year-old computer bit the dust and so I had to replace it. The processor on my new computer contains 8 CPUs, has a multicore graphics processor and has a neural network. It contains 16 billion transistors. For a person who used to solder transistors into circuit boards one leg at a time, this number of transistors is incredible. The internal wiring is based on 5-nanometre technology (very small for those who don't know the terminology).
And just around the corner, they are talking about quantum computing where transistor-based switching is replaced by the quantum states of atoms.
In the face of these developments, there is a lot of discussion about what would happen if we could digitize a human being. We used to throw up our hands in horror and say that could never happen, but as we have learned during my lifetime, a lot of "never happen" has already happened.
The Bible says that God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed the breath of life into him. Are we reaching the stage when man has made his own "dust" and may be capable of breathing life into it?
The rapid change in technology forces us to rethink a lot about what we regard as "essentially human". And, the answers may not be as clearly cut was we once thought. Just something to challenge us to think outside the box for this week's lesson.
Maurice - your observation: “The rapid change in technology forces us to rethink a lot about what we regard as “essentially human” is indeed challenging if we do not know/recognize that we have true Life only in the Spirit of Christ Jesus. ‘To (re)think what we regard as ‘essentially human’ could receive a ‘clear cut’ answer if we reference what Scripture states in Gen.2:7.
Man is a living soul – part body, mind, and spirit. We know that the body is formed from the dust of the earth, but the mind's functions are part of the whole being; it reflects spirit. Man's spirit is given to him by his Creator. I do not see man ever able to make a complete and true copy of himself. The copy will always remain a robot – more and more sophisticated, but never the less a 'machine'; a 'machine thing' depending on input of men and machine to derive its functionality from.
“What is essentially human’ then? It is not our body. We have learned that we are dead in 'trespasses and sin' without the spirit of God providing Truth and Light – Rom.8:9-11.
His spirit within us communicates with the Creator who placed it into our body to reflect Himself in and through us. God’s spirit, His gift of man's awareness of and oneness with his Maker, shows that man is more than a body.
We are a living soul, formed to intimately, spiritually know our Creator; it is essentially human/intrinsic to human life to reflect the Glory of its Maker.
Hi, Maurice. I have heard that artificial intelligence has now been developed to the point where a robot has been asked whether it were conscious, and has answered in the affirmative. I find your suggestion that man may be reaching the stage of being able to create life both chilling and downright dangerous.
This week's lesson correctly points out that we do not even understand the nature of life or consciousness. They are a mystery to mankind.
The danger I see is that, by deceiving ourselves into thinking that we can create life, we are likely to further cheapen our concept of human life. The value and sanctity of human life already receive far too little regard. Let's not do or say anything to make the situation even worse.
I think that it is relatively easy to ask a computer whether it is conscious or not and elicit an affirmative answer. Getting one to demonstrate consciousness is a much more difficult task.
I already use artificial intelligence to process my photographs. Programs based on AI are used to remove noise and blur from photographs and they do a much better job than those based on conventional programs. The thing that marks AI is the capacity to learn based on its experience. However, that is a far cry from life itself.
The issue of artificial life forms is something that exercises the minds of scientists as well as us. Most of them are very much aware that we are much more than just a bit of complex chemistry and DNA encoded algorithms. The papers I have read on AI raise serious concerns about the importance of "humanness". They have given me the incentive to try and encapsulate a Christian perspective on life in modern terms.
One of the books that address the issue is "Morality and Machines", by Stacey Edgar. It is a little dated now but it raises a number of issues about living in a society where machines play a significant role. At the very least it helped me to understand the value of life as given to us by God and the wider implications of faith surviving in a techno-centric world.
Good morning everyone, I read and write to you with a translator.
Brother Maurice's first comment reminded me of a fictional story I once read. In short, it is a challenge from the doctors of the world to God, telling him that they no longer needed him, that they could already create human life and that it would be demonstrated in a contest by both parties to which God agreed.
When the day of the demonstration arrived with materials on the table and before the start of the demonstration, God presented an objection. He told them that they had to use and create their own powder, their own material.
Really how timely are the biblical lessons that the lesson raises, and that in the light of his Word and his Spirit we come to understand.
Hi Maurice, I like your post today, about technology. I used to be in the technical field but made the switch to taxation about 13 years ago; I like working with people than with things. But someone has to do my old job too, LOL.
In my opinion only, I feel like we, humans, are driving this need to create the "digitize human being" because the majority of the masses desire to "worship the creature, instead of the Creator". It always come down to worship.
I also like how Mr. Timm added Psalm 139:1-24 to his introduction for this week because man think that he is smarter than God (going all the way back to the origin sinner in Heaven), but God knows his every thought.
God's blessings to you all.
In understanding the human nature
1. Created in the image and likeness of God. What does it mean by "image & likeness?"
2. Dust + Breath = Living Soul. Is this breath same as spirit?
Hi, Vincent! Mankind being made in God's "image" or "likeness" means that -- at the time of creation at least -- we are like God in certain ways that the animals are not. What all is involved in this, I do not know, but I do know that man alone is amenable to moral law.
To answer your other question, yes, the "breath of life" and the "spirit of life" (or spirit) are the same thing. When God takes it back, we lapse into unconsciousness or "fall asleep." (See Job 34:14-15 and Psalm 146:4)
So what did Jesus mean when He said in Matthew 10:28 to not fear the one who cannot kill "the soul" but can kill "the body,"? I thought it was God's breath combined with the body that made "the soul."
Hi, Pete. I love your question! When the lesson and other SDA Bible teachers explain that, when the spirit leaves the body, the soul ceases to exist, I do believe that they are accurately describing the state of the dead -- during the time when they are in fact dead. Nevertheless, this always makes me squirm a bit.
Although redeemed individuals may be "sleeping," Jesus says that as far as God is concerned, they are all alive. (Luke 20:38) Again, Paul clearly implies that those who have fallen asleep in Christ have not perished. (I Corinthians 15:16-18) In both instances, the reality of the resurrection is said to be the key.
This is also how I understand Matthew 10:28. The soul, by definition, is the essence of the individual. The future resurrection of the martyrs (and of all true believers) is certain. They will be raised with different (though I believe recognizable) bodies, but they will still be the same souls -- the same individuals -- as before. By that reasoning, the soul has not been killed or destroyed. He or she has merely been sleeping -- just like Jairus' daughter before Jesus raised her back to life.
Thanks R.G. White. I beleive that there is also a verse in scripture that mentions God's "spirit" returning to Him after a persons body is left without life when it dies. Maybe this is something that those who like to cling to the idea of "the soul" as never dying to this very verse of scripture to support that idea too.
Yes, Pete, there is no doubt that they use that verse (Ecclesiastes 12:7). However, this verse says nothing about the spirit that returns to God being a conscious entity apart from the body. In fact, Psalm 146:4 adds that, when the spirit departs, the person's plans (or thoughts) perish. And, as the lesson points out, the spirit as a conscious entity returning to God, would have to include the wicked (the finally impenitent) going to heaven as well! Not to mention that it contradicts the Bible's clear testimony that the dead are asleep and don't know anything. Have a blessed day!
in 1965 when I was in the US Army, we had a hand to hand combat training where each service man made his opponent to actually stop the blood from flowing to their brain so that he became unconscious for a few seconds but it took about a few minutes to regain full consciousness after that. When it was my turn to become unconscious I had like a mind trip where I was looking for light as it was pitch dark and I was floating around in that darkness looking for light and then there in the distance was a small point of light and I went floating toward that light and then I started to see with my own eyes but could not understand what I was looking at as the other service men were staring down at me and as I looked to my side I could see barracks and thought that I was in a concentration camp and was one of the ones dying there on the ground. But when the serviceman in charge talked to me and called me by my name I snapped out of that stupor. Since then I have often wondered if that was not some entity within me that was also me but separate from my body. What do you think about this, R.C. White? Also, my older brother almost died about some years ago and he claims he died and was resurrected by God and that he had an out of body experience during that time that he was dead?!!!??? I tell my older brother that maybe he was not really dead like I was not really dead and that sometimes our brains are still functioning and just playing tricks on us.
Yes, Pete, I think that you have hit the nail on the head. An oxygen-starved brain can indeed play tricks on us. But I think there might also be something more to those NDEs (near-death experiences) that the world loves to cite as evidence that we don't really die.
There is ample evidence in the Scriptures that death is a sleep, an unconscious state, in which we "go down into silence." Many have been taught otherwise, and have not found opportunity to learn the truth of the matter. On the other hand, there must be others (whom we should never judge by trying to identify) who have had that opportunity, but who have chosen not to love or accept the truth. The Bible says that God will "send" them (or allow to come upon them?) strong delusion, that they should believe a lie.
From this, I might not find it implausible that Satan and his cohorts should be allowed to practise a deception on such people, when they come near death and their brain is starved for oxygen, by causing them to see such things as will serve to deceive the whole world when they tell of their experiences. Again, I would not attempt to assert that this is always the case with NDEs, nor try to identify who may have deliberately rejected the truth.
But if it happens at all, that deception could go a long way.
Yes man has gained great intellect, but if we could put each person's intelligence into one vast body, we could never equal what our God has done, but I believe we would never give up trying. But only God can create and give us life. He is amazing. But just a question, don't you think man trying to do so is comparable to what satan said...I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High. Read full chapter · Isaiah 13 · Isaiah 15. That will never happen!
This artificial intelligence info reminds me of what happened at the tower of Babel with Nimrod and his followers. God eventually had to come down to confuse their language. Satan used Nimrod to defy God, and Satan has continued using those who are willing to be used to try to stop or alter God's plan of salvation. The same God who stepped in to avert Satan's plan, is still able to assure his plans for his people are fulfilled.
Interesting discussion!
"Are we reaching the stage when man has made his own "dust" and may be capable of breathing life into it?
The rapid change in technology forces us to rethink a lot about what we regard as 'essentially human'."
The subject of transhumanism is surfacing in the media indicating it is being studied and contemplated. And yes, it is alarming.
In my understanding, mankind can take matter and animate and program it into increasingly life like "beings". But it is still animated and programed, no matter how sophisticated that programing becomes, it is not "free will" emotional, reasoning beings that can love and worship in the way God created humans.
The whole process of transhumanism seems to follow the logic that was described in a book (and later films) called the "stepford wives" where real human wives were replaced by "perfect" life like, robotic women that had basically lost their free will and were well programed to fulfil their role.
That comes to the question of "soul". What is "soul". As mentioned earlier, it seems to be the sum of what makes a person the personality and uniqueness of the personhood which they are, with emotion, character, free will, conscience, personality. But a "being" that appears to have all the abilities of life, but is programed, does not have a soul, it is still robotic, not spontaneous, with free will.
Yet, it is our free will which God endowed us with, that is at the center of the whole issue -- choose ye this day whom you will serve. God could have created us robotic, but that is exactly what He did not want, He wants freely given, heartfelt worship.
Hi Mr. Unruh, I enjoyed your post today as well.
I just wanted to say something about the "stepford wives" theory. They thought that they were creating a "perfect" model wife, that would not complain (nag), and would know her place (or role) in the family dynamic. Well, God "created the perfect wife for Adam, Eve"; Eve was a fellow human being, a person that was given freewill by her Creator, God. Whether her decisions were right or wrong, whether she complained (or nagged), Adam thought she was the perfect companion for him; he loved every part of her. This is not an objection to your post. It's a comment about women, or how much God values women, which is why we can read about all kinds of different women in the Bible.
I want to remind all of us, man and woman, to "appreciate and value your spouse", for their good parts, and to pray for their bad parts. I would rather have all the parts of my husband, than to live and talk with a robot that cannot feel or respond to me with sincerity.
But seriously, if any of us are having problems with our marriage or family relationships, then we should turn to God for the solution. Unfortunately, many times we may be surprised with God's solution, because oftentimes it is not them that have the problem, but ourselves. No one want the mirror to look back at them and say, "It's you that's the problem." That's why we need to turn to God with all of our desires and problems. Let us pray that we will continue to desire to love each other in the fullness of our humanity.
And as the scientific world says, "Godspeed".