MIND OVER MATTER

Mind Over Matter

Today’s Darwinian Evolutionists, because they have taken Darwin’s Theory to its logical conclusion, have had to adopt an Atheist position. However, for Charles Darwin (1809-92), and his forerunner Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744-1829), the problem of the origin of mind, though irreconcilable to their respective theories of Evolution, was somewhat mitigated by their belief in God as the First Cause. Regarding Lamarck and Darwin, wrote Charles Hodge in 1872:

Maid of the Loch, Loch Lomond

God, says Lamarck, created matter; God, says Darwin, created the unintelligent living cell; both say that, after that first step, all else follows by natural law, without purpose and without design. No man can believe this, who cannot also believe that all the works of art, literature, and science in the world are the products of carbonic acid, water, and ammonia.[29]

In the penultimate sentence of his following summary Hodge makes the further point that Darwin’s theory assumes an impossibility. Says Hodge:

Mr. Charles Darwin... accounts for the origin of all the varieties of plants and animals by the gradual operation of natural causes. In his work on the Origin of Species, he says... all animals and plants are descended from some one prototype....

Darwin refers the origin of species mainly to the laws of nature operating ab extra – killing off the weak or less perfect, and preserving the stronger or more perfect.... Darwin holds that they [new species] arise by a slow process of very minute changes....

It shocks the common sense of unsophisticated men to be told that the whale and the hummingbird, man and the mosquito, are derived from the same source... The theory in question cannot be true, because it is founded on the assumption of an impossibility. It assumes that matter does the work of mind....[30]

Thus, it is the opinion of Hodge that the Materialist confuses mind with matter. But, what is mind? Where is it from? First off, mind and brain must not be confused as synonymous terms (e.g., as does the Materialist). For the mind is more than a series of random thought-producing sequential electro-chemical-impulses firing off in the grey matter! Properly understood, the brain with its electrical impulses or chemical-exchanges only accommodates thought. It does not originate thinking. This is because production is not the same as origination. Whereas production simply describes a process of replication, origination points to its creator – it points to its originator.

In the final analysis, to replicate anything there first needs be an original to copy. Thus biological life is able to accommodate biological functions – such as human thinking – only because there exists beforehand a thinking being able to originate and then sustain that biological life. We refer to the eternal Triune God of the Bible as that original thinking Being who is able to originate. Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) while doing scientific research said that he was ‘thinking God’s thoughts after Him.’ Simply put: as creatures of His creation we are to think God’s thoughts after Him.

Since God thinks, and is Spirit (without a body or parts), a mind doesn’t necessarily need matter (such as a brain) to think. E.g., created angelic beings have no bodies, but are able to think rationally. The disembodied spirits of men in the present intermediate states of Heaven and Hell are also able to think. Thus at the back of all thinking is the great originator of thinking, the Triune God of Christianity. Thus rational man – in thinking God’s thoughts after Him – is merely replicating or (re)producing that which originated in the very mind of God.

We see something of God’s general upkeep of His creation expressed by the Psalmist who, thinking God’s thoughts after Him, says of God: ‘He causes the grass to grow for the cattle, and vegetation for the service of man, that he may bring forth food from the earth’ Psalm 104:14. Also thinking God’s thoughts after Him, the Prophet Isaiah writes, ‘As a beast goes down into the valley, and the Spirit of God causes him to rest, so You lead Your people to make Yourself a glorious name’ Isaiah 63:14. Therefore, God (who is Spirit) by His Spirit acts upon matter – causing grass to grow and animals to rest. Thus we are reflecting God on a creaturely level when we too act upon matter (i.e., when our immaterial minds work with and through our material bodies).

Paul Garbett is helpful in the area of mind and brain where he says,

Whilst our brains process information received from the world, it is the mind that chooses what to do with that information. Whilst the mind uses the brain as a processing unit, the mind is more than just a brain. This is, in fact, a provable hypothesis: Scientists have discovered that it is possible to electrically stimulate part of the brain to cause the involuntary movement of an arm, for example. When the patient was asked to control the arm, they struggle to hold it still using their other arm. This demonstrates that whilst one arm was under the control of the electrically stimulated brain, the other was under the control of the mind. Thus, this experiment demonstrates that the mind is something in addition to the physical brain. The best explanation for this, and a host of other human functions already mentioned, is that a person is an immaterial being that inhabits a physical body (including the brain) – as the Bible suggests. The interaction between material brain and this immaterial soul is what we understand the ‘mind’ to be. It is where our true self engages with the world we perceive through the senses.[31]

Though the reflection of God can be seen in the Biblical revelation of angels and, to a lesser extent, can be seen in animals, man alone is the image of God. And, since that image became distorted by the fall of man, our thinking also replicates or produces the corruption that originated with Adam disobeying God by eating the fruit forbidden him by God. God cursed the ground when Adam sinned against Him. Man is subject to futility and frustration due to his bondage to corruption and decay. Thus things go wrong. And as our thinking has, through our sin, become disconnected from God (who is Creator, Sustainer, and Redeemer of man, and, by extension, creation), so too our minds have become somewhat out of sync with our bodies. We have to train hard to get our bodies to perform to the peak of their ability. The peak of fitness is invariably frustrated through disease, injury and/or old age. 

The disconnection of mind and body is fully realised at the point of physical death. Before that we may experience anything from full paralysis of the body to the less severe loss of one or more of our senses. In both of these physical conditions the mind fails to receive from the body data required to function properly and in turn the body with its senses fails to execute the tasks ordered by the mind.

Says Dutch Calvinist Herman Bavinck (1854-1921),

Though human persons are not merely physical beings, all their activities are bound to the body and dependent on it, not just the vegetative and animal functions, but also the intellectual ones of thinking and willing. Although our brains are not the cause of our higher faculties of knowing and desiring, they are nevertheless the bearer and organ of these faculties. Every malfunction in the brain results in the abnormal functioning of the rational mind.[32]

Arguably the greatest of American theologians, the Calvinist Jonathan Edwards in the 18^th century made the following comment about the union of the mind with the body,

The mind is so united to the body, that an alteration is caused in the body, it is probable, by every action of the mind. By those acts that are very vigorous, a great alteration is very sensible; at some times, when the vigour of the body is impaired by disease, especially in the head, almost every action causes a sensible alteration of the body.[33]

In his fallen state man is prone also to all sorts of mental disorders. However, just as God causes the grass to grow and the beasts to rest in the valley, so God also can cause madness in human beings for His own purpose – as the mighty king Nebuchadnezzar learnt: ‘This is the decree of the Most High, which has come upon my lord the king, they shall drive you from men, your dwelling shall be with the beasts of the field, and they shall make you eat grass like oxen. They shall wet you with the dew of heaven, and seven times shall pass over you, till you know that the Most High rules in the kingdom of men, and gives it to whoever He chooses’ Daniel 4:24&25.

We see that God, by His Spirit, is active in His creation, causing even the grass to grow, moving the beasts of the field, and directing the thoughts of fallen men – even in their madness. Of course, the Materialist would deny all of this! He would deny that the Most High, with His Supreme Mind, is behind all thought-processes of angel, man, and beast. Thus by denying the mind and by restricting his study only to matter the Materialist leaves himself unable to explain the origin of thought, whether that thought is rational or other.

Hodge again points at the heart of Materialism’s problem:

Materialism is that system which ignores the distinction between matter and mind, and refers all the phenomena of the world, whether physical, vital, or mental, to the functions of matter.[34]

              Materialism is extremist in that it denies spirit, and is the antithesis of Idealism. Says Francis Nigel Lee,

Materialistic philosophy presupposes that the universe is basically matter, and idealistic philosophy presupposes that the universe is basically spirit. Each of these philosophical isms or heresies precludes the other and attempts to give a complete account of the universe in terms of its own basic presuppositions.

                            It is obvious that the Bible is opposed to both materialism and idealism.[35]








Excerpted from my book The Nexus: The True Nature of Nature.
Available in eBook or paperback at Amazon:
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PRESIDENT LINCOLN

Excerpted from Jefferson's Tears: Liberia's Founding and Fall, One Man's Horror and Hope, Nordskog Publishing Inc.

President Lincoln

White House, Washington, D.C. Thursday, August 14, 1862.

Thinking it would be impolite, ex-President Roberts tried not to screw up his face whenever he sipped his coffee. The towering figure of President Abraham Lincoln stood with his back to him, looking out of the White House window, as if half-expecting to be invaded by Confederate troops coming across the lawn. They had been in conversation. Joseph Jenkins Roberts could see that his great hands were clasped behind his back. President Lincoln spoke, “It is my oft-expressed personal wish that all men everywhere could be free. However, as the duly elected President of the United States of America, my first duty is to my nation, now very much embroiled in the vagaries and degradation of a civil war.”

“Mr President, sir, it is almost common knowledge that you will soon issue an emancipation proclamation.”

President Lincoln now turned and faced ex-President Roberts. “Go on,” he said.

“As a member of the Committee of Free Black Men I would like to endorse any such intentions on your part towards emancipating the Black Man. Moreover, the Republic of Liberia would welcome all the negroes you should wish to send us, should they wish to come.”

Abraham Lincoln sat down again. He brought his cup to his lips. Roberts noted that the cup looked small in his hand.

“It is in our Declaration of Independence, put there by Thomas Jefferson, that ‘all men are created equal.’ Yet, there are many thousands of men held in slavery in our nation, simply because of the color of their skin. I find this to be morally repugnant. The Creator created us equal, but the white man esteemed the black man, not to mention the Indian, less than equal, indeed far less than equal.”

“Mister President, as you may well know, President Thomas Jefferson was a patron of the American Colonization Society which founded Liberia. He would weep were he to see that the nation he established with the other founding fathers had so descended into civil war.”

“We fight to preserve the Union. All thirty-four of them must remain as the United States. Therefore, those eleven Southern States, the Confederacy, must not be allowed to secede. It would leave the Union as tattered as a battlefield flag, indeed the stars would fall from the sky and the stripes would be blown away with the wind. Joseph, it would mean that the freedom George Washington and our Founding Fathers fought for in the War of Independence would become as manna at midday. Vanished! E Pluribus Unum.   The war is about restoring the Union. It is about keeping all of the stars on our glorious flag.”

“Where, then, does the emancipation of the slaves come in?” said J.J. Roberts as he politely sipped his cup.

“Joseph, like Gideon’s lamps within the pitchers, it is a question of timing for maximum effect. We must blow the trumpet of emancipation to win over the public, whilst we break the pitchers to illuminate to the watching world the evils of slavery. No other country will support or be seen to support slave states. Timing, Joseph, timing! More coffee?”

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McKINLAYS OF DRUMIKILL

McKINLAYS OF DRUMIKILL

According to Ian Grimble Ph.D., F.R. Hist. S., (and I’d take his word for it), “...the principal stock of this name [McKinlay] belongs to the Lennox. According to the earliest account of them, given in 1723 by Buchanan of Auchmar, they sprang from a son of Buchanan of Drumikill of the name of Finlay.”

Stuart McKinlay at Drumikill

Pictured is Stuart McKinlay casting a proprietorial eye over the Drumikill estate near Drymen.

(Rob Roy attempted unsuccessfully to capture the government garrison at Drumikill.)

I owe much to the McKinlay family -

Stuart Senior was a man I admired greatly. He influenced me spiritually and politically (and any man who has rung the bell of Jamestown Parish Kirk is highly esteemed in my regard).

Fergie (Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh, the Gaelic poet), the eldest son, nursed me with encouragement, page by page, through my novel “Mightier than the Sword”.

Billy Scobie a.k.a. Alexander Tait

Stuart, I once described as the nearest person I have to a brother.

Neil (pastor and prolific author) taught me how to ride a bicycle, encouraged and promoted my various writings, and provides me with pastoral care on a regular basis.

It was through the McKinlay family that I first embraced a passion for Scottish Independence.

W. Scobie

William (Billy) Scobie writes under the pen name of Alexander Tait. His Mightier than the Sword paperback can be purchased at Neetah Books:

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A Dog, a Bird, and a Donkey

A Dog, a Bird, and a Donkey

Diamond

I’ll never forget the dog we had when I was growing up. His name was Diamond. He was about the size of a Labrador with a black-and-white, medium-length hair coat. I suppose he was a Labrador/Border collie cross. He was called Diamond on account of a big white diamond formation on the back of his neck. He loved chasing seagulls and would start barking in the air at the mere mention of the word “seagulls”!

In his younger days, he was swift enough to give the rabbits on the hill at the back of Tullichewan in the Vale of Leven a run for their money. I was not impressed with Diamond the time he caught a baby rabbit and had it half eaten by the time I arrived on the scene! Otherwise our regular hill-walking together was great. Every young boy needs a dog!

The strange thing about Diamond was that at one point he had at least three or four groups of people who thought they had some claim to him, viz., the Ewarts on whose farm on the east  side of Balloch Diamond had been born, Lynn’s Boatyard on the eastern shore of the River Leven at Balloch, a family at the front of Tullichewan, and my family who lived up the back of Tullichewan. Diamond would often go “walkabout” and could be found at various times lodging at any one of these places. Eventually we were accepted as the rightful “owners” of Diamond. However, this didn’t stop Diamond from wandering, eventually mostly between our place and Lynn’s Boatyard. “Bath time” for Diamond was a swim in the Leven. Like most, if not all dogs, Diamond had a penchant for rolling in smelly dead things. This made it hard sometimes to welcome him home from his travels!

Diamond got along famously with Jock, the young jackdaw I had found one summer’s day while going strawberry picking at Sir Patrick Telfer-Smollet’s orchard at his Cameron House estate. Jock was very friendly and all the kids in my class at Levenvale Primary School were suitably impressed by his antics when I was allowed to bring him in one day for Show and Tell.

Jock the jackdaw just loved bright shiny objects. This led to a problem. My youngest sister, Mhairi, was about to be born. The big fear was that Jock would peck Mhairi’s eyes as she lay in her pram. Taking a 10-year-old’s jackdaw from him is like removing one of his limbs! But Jock the jackdaw had to go.

There was a nice couple who lived in Caldarvan, a stop on the old and disused railway line to Stirling. Caldarvan is a fair few miles from Tullichewan. I was told I could visit whenever I wanted. I wanted to visit every day. I did manage the trip a few times, walking the many miles alone along the old line through the beautiful countryside. I can still hear the bees buzzing, and I can still taste the juicy rasp berries, goose-gogs, and the green ground leaves we called “sourocks” that I found and ate along the way. These all served to keep me filled and happy on the trip.

Neil as a 10 year-old

I can’t say I remember ever finding the couple at home whenever I arrived unannounced at their place. Jock was never anywhere in sight either. However, the couple did own a donkey, so my long walks weren’t a total waste of time. I fancied myself as a bit of a cowboy. The donkey was my trusty steed. Only once did the donkey ever do anything more than stand in one spot with me astride his back. One day he decided that he would make a bolt for his wooden stall. As he dashed into his stall, I raised my arms and was left dangling from the crossbeam above the entrance. For some reason, the donkey was most annoyed with me and let his displeasure be known with the usual donkey bronchial and asthmatic hee-hawing.

As the weeks and months went by, it was eventually communicated to me that Jock the jackdaw had gone missing and was presumed dead. I remember looking out my parents’ bedroom window toward Caldarvan and praying to God with tears - many tears! - for Him to send Jock back to me. Jock never returned. So I fell out with God, and, like a spoiled child holding his breath because he didn’t get his own way, remained in a huff with Him.

From Mason To Minister: Through the Lattice, Nordskog Publishing Inc., Ventura, California, 2011, pp. 73-75.

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SOCIALISM: My Part in its Downfall

Now also out in paperback:

The river ran with red: Neil Cullan McKinlay was 16 when he began an apprenticeship as a marine plumber on Glasgow’s Red Clydeside. His father’s early Communism helped get the 16-year-old state schoolboy into a shipyard in a hotbed of political radicalism. 

The firebrand orator Jimmy Reid later sipped Glenfiddich malt whisky in comradeship with his father as they mourned the loss of these yards. The Red Clydeside built the greatest ocean liners in the world, the Queen Mary, the QE2, but it had a fatal flaw that led to its ultimate collapse: the false religion of Socialism.

SOCIALISM: My Part in its Downfall borrows the idea for its title from Spike Milligan. He counters Socialism with a plethora of quotes, antidotes, and anecdotes. His shipyard wit tips its welder’s helmet to the tin hat humour of Gunner Milligan for the sake of comedy relief from such a serious subject.

July, 2000, The Herald.
The article mentions my dad visiting Jimmy Reid

Neil has worked since in diverse vocations: Domestic Plumber, Railway Pipefitter, Presbyterian Minister, and Army Chaplain. He uses his vast experience from working in three countries, Scotland, Canada, and Australia, to fuel his blast furnace against Socialist creep in the West.

Socialism has sucked the guts out of the West by breaking God’s law: Thou shalt not steal. This book tells how free enterprise sets us free of its coils.


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REJECTION & ACCEPTANCE

Rejection & Acceptance

Most, if not all, of us like to be liked. Whether at home, school, or the workplace, we all like to be accepted, so much so, that some have trouble with rejection, and even to the point of plotting revenge! One may reject a suitor as unsuitable, while another may see the same as most acceptable. Society has its rejects, and it has ‘acceptables’. Down and outs are among the former, while pop stars and movies stars are among the latter. However, we cannot force people to accept us, just the same as we cannot stop people rejecting us. But, is this not all a bit superficial? Therefore, ‘to the law and to the testimony’! Let’s dive deeper.

Neil & Dot, Ammaretto Italian Restaurant, Bridge of Weir

In the beginning God created us and we were acceptable to Him (Gen. 1:31). However, in the Garden we rejected God as unsuitable to us (Gen. 3:6). But even then, He came seeking us (Gen. 3:8-19). But, in the fulness of the time, He became our suitor by becoming one of us (Gal. 4:4-5), ‘For the Son of man has come to seek and to save that which was lost’ Luke 19:10. Alas! Again, we rejected Him as unsuitable to us: ‘He is despised and rejected by men’ Isaiah 53:3a.

What is God going to do with us? He keeps on seeking us and we keep on rejecting Him! We even rejected Him all the way to the cross. Should He leave us all on the broad way that leads to destruction (Matt. 7:13)? How can a holy God ever accept us? ‘For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life’ John 3:16. Therefore, whoever believes in Jesus will be accepted by God.

If we write a letter to someone we love, we sometimes end it with a kiss symbolised by the letter X. Thus, our love is illustrated by a cross. X marks the spot where God showed His great love for us, i.e., Christ’s cross. God accepts those who believe in the message of Christ’s cross. Yet, many still reject God.

Be that as it may, there is another X in Scripture we can look at to see evidence of God’s love for those who love Him. It’s called a chiasm. You will find it in the KJV and the New King James Version of the Bible. Observe: ‘We love Him because He first loved us’ 1 John 4:19. Notice that the two lines of the cross intersect at the word ‘because’. The first line making the X is ‘we love Him’, which is then reflected back by the words ‘He first loved us’. Put it this way, if ‘we love Him’ were to look in the mirror it would be reflected back as ‘He first loved us’. Thus chiasm. And we see here that God as it were is the causative verb, in the ‘we love Him because He first loved us.’ We were created to be His mirror image.

God therefore is mankind’s ‘suitor’. Though all human beings have rejected Him and are therefore fleeing from Him, God will keep on pursuing us till the Last Day. How does He propose to win us over? By the Good News. ‘For what is the essence of the Gospel if it is not the seeking love of God?’[1] However, He will accept us only if we will accept His Good News! And why would anyone not accept the Good News? Unbelief! But, be as the one who had brought his son to Jesus to be healed and said, ‘Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!’ Mark 9:24b.

Hear the Gospel and believe it. ‘But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us’ Romans 5:8. What’s it to be? Rejection or Acceptance?

---

[1] BB Warfield, The Saviour of the World, Banner of Truth Trust, Reprint 1991, p. 11. 

WHO ARE THE MOB?

Who Are the “Mob”?

In America law abiding citizens had a perfect and legitimate reason to peacefully protest the tragic death of an arrested suspect at the hands of police. Those supposed to maintain and uphold law and order, those four policemen, by their clearly callous brutality, especially of one policeman who ignored the pleas of a man begging for his life as he kneeled on the man’s neck, initiated the rapid descent into the chaotic inferno. Now America burns.

Citizens peacefully protested this massive injustice for different reasons. However, all are agreed that, according to the rule of law, George Floyd should not have died in the way he did while in police custody. The policeman clearly broke the law and will be tried in accordance with that law. “You shall not murder” Exodus 20:13, i.e., the 6^th Commandment.

During the day, some held prayer vigils. Some held placards. Some did both. However, when darkness descended, others rioted. They smashed and burned property, including police cars. The American dream, the “unalienable rights” of “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness” was denied to George Floyd and to those hard workers whose businesses literally went up in flames at the hands of the mob. In many cities the police stood by and watched the chaos.

My old professor’s car bumper sticker proclaimed, “God’s Law or Chaos!” Socialism in all its forms is the breaking of God’s Law. “You shall not steal” Exodus 20:15, i.e., the 8^th Commandment. At its heart, Socialism is about the redistribution of wealth by the government interfering with your lawful pursuit of happiness. Socialism, by this definition, is unlawful, i.e., against God’s Law.

The mob rages against everything America symbolizes, i.e., Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. Not only does the mob burn police cars and local business facilities, it also burns the American flag, the very symbol of law and order. This is anarchy. This is chaos.

The mob hates the Free Market, i.e., what Socialist Karl Marx called “Capitalism”. “You shall not steal” applies to the Free Market as much as it does to kids stealing apples. Kids, corporations, and governments all break the 8^th Commandment if they steal. Socialism teaches stealing. The mob physically exemplifies this teaching by destroying private property and looting stores. Some of the mob may be what someone has termed “useful idiots”, whereby perhaps even unintentionally, some simply go along with the mob’s greater goal of collapsing the “Capitalist” system with its attendant rule of law. Revolution is another name for this.

Who or what is behind this ominous subversion? Satan, the “father of lies” immediately springs to mind. He was a murderer and a thief from the beginning. “Fake News” is the breaking of the 9^th Commandment, i.e., “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour” Exodus 20:16. However, Socialism sums up where we are at today. By definition, the mob is Socialist. It is anti-private property. It is anti-America. It is anti-God and anti-Christ. Otherwise it would police itself and maintain law and order.

We thank God that all wrongs (including Socialism) have been righted by Jesus Christ. And we look forward to His return.

ARE ALL WHO DIE IN INFANCY SAVED?

My Are All Who Die in Infancy? is now out in paperback.

Are All Who Die in Infancy Saved? will be of some comfort to parents who have lost

infants. However, its primary purpose is to help advance a doctrine that is still in a state of flux and in need of further development, testing, and refining.

Paedobaptism figures prominently in this issue. For what happens to a believer’s infant should it die before baptism? Is the unbaptized infant damned to Hell? What does baptism mean in terms of God’s Covenant of Grace? If infants of believing parents receive baptism because they are included in the covenant with their parents, then are dying infants of believers saved according to the promises of the Covenant of Grace? What about infants who die outside of the Covenant?

These are the sorts of questions that led to the development of the Calvinist doctrine that all who die in infancy are probably saved.

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