Human Soul: Created by the Physical Brain Thinking Spiritual Thoughts

Human Soul: Created by the Physical Brain Thinking Spiritual Thoughts

Human Soul: Created by the Physical Brain Thinking Spiritual Thoughts

The human soul is the only mind that can experience and know the wonders of dwelling in the place where God intended it to dwell.

Standing at the apex of the creative chain of events in the creation story is the human soul of man. This marvel of creation, a physical brain enabled to think spiritual thoughts, stands alone of its kind. No other creature in the world can experience a mind that can know the wonders of the specific place God gave it to dwell.

This freedom to know the wonders of Paradise by the human mind is why the story of creation is not complete without Genesis Chapter 2. Although some suggest[1] that Genesis 2 is a second creation account, it is in reality the record of the crowning moment of the creation of man. It reveals the spiritual realm of man’s creation, the living soul.

The human soul can exist because God made man a spiritual being.

Genesis 2 explicitly reveals that man is not only a physical being but also a spiritual being. The author of Genesis recorded in Genesis 1,

Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them (Gen. 1:26,27).

Being created in the image of God to have dominion, to co-exist in relationships, and to replenish the earth and subdue it does allude to the fact that man will process something unique from the rest of creation. As will be seen, Genesis 2 reveals the wonders of the only one of its kind, the human mind, to be the actual dwelling place of man.

This realm of life that only man can experience came about, as the author of Genesis recorded, “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” (Gen. 2:7). The original word that is translated living soul, means “breathing creature.” It is the same word used for the fish of the sea and for the beast of field (living creature) in Genesis 1. What separates the breathing creature of man from the breathing creatures of the fish of the sea and of the beast of the field is not the breath of God that gives life to all creatures, but the creature into which is breathed the breath of life. In other words, the author of Genesis recorded “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground . . . (emphasis added).” What separated the creature man from all other creatures is he was formed with an unique human brain (Phil. 3:19).

The human soul is the mystery of all mysteries.

The physical nature of the brain, that which is not spiritual, and the spiritual nature of the breath of life, that which is not physical, would require an unique creation that would allow the physical and the spiritual to be set together (Col. 1:15-17). This paradox of the dualism of the physical and the spiritual actually coming together would become known as the soul of man. This meeting place of the flesh and the spirit is, once again, the mystery of mysteries in the created world.

How man’s unique brain was to function after it was quickened by the breath of God is the story of Genesis 2. As will be seen, using the allegory of a garden with its trees and its rivers (Gen. 2:8-17) and the mystical union with another person (Gen. 2:18-25), the revelation of the soul of man would unfold in the intricacies of the matchless human brain.

The author of Genesis introduced the crucial moment of the creation of the first human soul by stating

These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens, And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground (Gen. 2:4,5).

With the word generations meaning, “descent, that is family” from its primitive root, “to bear young; causatively to beget,” the author of Genesis is revealing what happens when “the heavens” and “the earth” interact together. It is not the generations of the heavens nor is it the generations of the earth that is being emphasized. It is the generations of the heavens and of the earth. It is what happens when the heavens and the earth come together that introduces the mystery of the human soul.

The human soul is where the phenomenon of spiritual growth can occur in man.

In order for man to grasp the uniqueness of his brain with its exclusive ability to think as it thinks, the revelation of God reveals the phenomenon of natural growth in the plants and in the herbs. Although the specific days of creation that produced the earth and the heaven with every plant of the field and every herb of the field had occurred, growth was not happening according to Genesis 2. The reasons for this non-growth were “for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground” (emphasis added) (Gen. 2:5). There is something needed more than just the sovereignty of God creating the plants and the herbs. If man was going to know the splendor of the garden, the glory of Paradise, God needed to do a special work in his creation.

Immediately, after stating “For the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground,” the author of Genesis stated,

But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground. 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” (emphasis added) (Gen. 2:6,7).

For the generations to experience growth “in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens [plural],” two things were necessary to enhance the growth “before it grew” (Gen. 2:5). First, the water from the mist of the earth was not sufficient to produce enough water for growth. There would have to be rain produced by the interaction of earth and heaven: the evaporation of the water of the earth into the earthly heaven and then returning as rain to the earth. Secondly, the human soul of man must be created. The inference is that the initial creation of the soul would not be sufficient to till the ground. The human soul would also need growth, as reveal in Genesis 3, “The School of Life.” This growth of the soul would also occur from the same interaction of the earthly realm and the heavenly realm.

The author of Genesis, using the growth of the plants and the herbs, introduced the mystery of the development of the human soul. There has to be not only the earthly brain experiencing the heavenly Spirit of God to produce the soul, but, as will be seen, there must be also the growth of the human soul through the same interaction of the earth and of the heaven. In other words, the baby of the human species is given at birth, just as Adam was given at his creation, the ability to comprehend but it initially has no comprehension. The human mind must be developed, must grow in comprehension, to become what God intended it to be, the place made especially for man to live in the wonders of the glory God.

The human soul must be cultivated and guarded.

Immediately, after God formed man out of the dust of the ground, breathed into his nostril the breath of life, and man became a living soul, it is recorded “And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed” (Gen. 2:8). After God revealed that in the garden the water was in bountiful supply, the trees were pleasant to the sight, and the herb of the grass and the fruit of the trees were good for food (Gen. 2:9-14), God told man, concerning the garden, to dress it and to keep it (Gen. 2:15). God had not only created a special man, placed him in a special place to dwell, but also charged him with a special responsibility for his life.

Amazingly, as illustrated in the Genesis story of the creation of the human soul, all of life will come down to cultivating the mind continually and guarding what it thinks incessantly. Man comes into the world with the ability to comprehend and God desires to bring that comprehension to completion by proper mental activity. One of the early followers of Jesus wrote, “Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1 Pet. 1:13). He would later admonished the same believers to “grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ” (2 Petr. 3:18). Peter is saying the same thing as the author of Genesis: grow in grace (dress the garden) and guard the mind (keep the garden). In other words, man was created not just to experience life but to be able to come to know he is experiencing the glorious good of the life that God is.

The human soul is comprehended by man in the revelation of God through metaphors and allegories.

In order for man to come to comprehend the things that are beyond the natural eye, beyond all of the natural senses, that truth will have to come to man in metaphors, allegories, symbols, and personification of things that are non-personal. The spiritual truth that is being revealed will always mean more or have a deeper meaning than the physical thing used to express the spiritual truth. For example, Jesus was and is the master teacher and his preferred method of teaching was the parable (Matt. 13:34): the use of a physical story to point to a spiritual truth. Jesus is truth and always speaks truth but he often spoke and speaks in metaphors and allegories.

The author of Genesis also made use of physical things to tell the story of the creation of the human soul. For example, when the author of Genesis recorded “and the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden and there he put the man whom he had formed” (Gen. 2:8) is he not stating that Eden is the home, the place where Adam would dwell. In fact, the definition of the word in the original language literally means “the region of Adam’s home.” The root of the original word means “pleasure” which is derived, figuratively, from “to live voluptuously.” Who has not enjoyed the imaginations of the mind that are “pleasant to the sight and good for food” (Gen. 2:9)?

Although the garden of Eden may very well be a physical garden, man does not dwell so much in a physical location as he does in the regions of his mind. Again, for example, where does the “the tree of life” and “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil enact their roles in life (Gen. 2:9)? It is in the working of the intricies of his brain that man lives and takes pleasure in living life, experiencing Paradise.

Like the plants and the herbs of the field man also has his beginning in the dust of the earth but he would be given something beyond every other created entity in the world. The physical brain, which would be able to think spiritual thoughts, would enable man to be raised beyond the physical into the realm of the heavenly. The garden of Eden was to be the place where Adam was to experience the pleasure of not only being a physical being but a spiritual being as well.

The human soul has a “river” to water its “garden.”

This is not to say that the Garden of Eden was not a physical place but rather to say that beyond the physical place there is a realm where man can experience the reality of heaven on earth. Jesus said, “If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink. He that believeth on me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water” (John 7:37-38). The statement of Jesus, “out of [man’s] belly shall flow rivers of living water” illustrates that it is not a coincidence that the garden of Eden had a river “to water the garden” (Gen. 2:10). Neither is it a coincidence that the river in the garden “was parted, and became into four heads” (Gen. 2:10). There are not only four major regions of the physical brain

but there are also four major activities of the mind.

The human soul is where the freedom of man is encountered and also challenged.

The author of Genesis then added, “And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat” (Gen. 2:16). In God telling man that he can freely eat of every tree of the garden, he is, metaphorically, stating that the human mind has the freedom to think as it desires. Although all things that happen in the world are “of him, and through him, and to him” (Rom. 11:36), man still has the freedom to respond as he thinks, he feels, and he wills in his mind, in his imaginations. This freedom to eat of every tree in the garden reveals the freedom that man has in a world controlled by the sovereignty of God.

After recording that man could freely eat of every tree in the garden, God gave to man a stern warning. He stated “But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die” (Gen. 2:17). This proclamation of God is less a commandment of “thou shalt not eat” than it is a statement of what will happen when you eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. As will be seen in Genesis 3, “The School of Life,” the fruit of the tree is more about how man grows than it is about how man is punished.

For example, one of the early followers of Jesus said, “Therefore the law [the allegorical tree of the knowledge of good and evil] was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith” (Gal. 3:24). Then, he added, But after faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster” (Gal. 3:25). To the Romans, Paul, in his revelation of why the law was originally given, proclaimed that the law was not only to reveal the correct behavior that God expected of man but also to reveal that man within himself does not have the capability to keep the law (Rom. 7:1-25).

In much the same way, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is a schoolmaster. The fruit of the tree, when it is partaken of by man, will reveal that man ultimately does not have the wisdom to know exactly what is good and what is evil. For example, since man is not the standard of good and evil, good and evil will constantly change in the mind of man as he partakes of the fruit. Moreover, if man could know what was good and evil, the fruit will also reveal, like the law, that man will not be able to perform what he alleged to be good.

It can be said of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil exactly what Paul said of the law.

For I was alive without the law once [the tree]: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died. And the commandment, which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death. For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me. Wherefore the law [the tree] is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good. Was then that which is good made death unto me? God forbid. But sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good; that sin by the commandment [the tree] might become exceeding sinful (emphasis added) (Rom. 7:9-13)

It seems clear by the story of the creation of man’s physical brain that he was intended to fulfill a purpose of which no other entity in the entire universe can fulfill, coming to comprehend and to experience a heavenly realm on a physical earth. No other created mind can do what the mind of man has been given the privilege to conceive. For example, the apple of the apple tree does not know why it falls to the ground. The sun does not comprehend why it rises or sets in the eyes of man. The tides of the ocean cannot ascertain why they come and they go. The water does not understand why it seeks its lowest level. The universe does not discern how and why it exists. Not only can the apple, the sun, the tide, the water, and the universe not comprehend what they do in their existence, they cannot comprehend that they even exist. According to the Bible, there is only one species in the entire universe that has the capability to comprehend its existence. Man, and man alone, was created with a human soul, a thinking mind, that can come to comprehend and to experience the wonders of the garden of Eden.

The human soul was not only created to think but to interact as well.

In addition, the author of Genesis not only revealed that man was created a thinking creature but he was also created to interact with others beyond any other living creature[2]. One of the early followers of Jesus stated, “But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass [literal mirror] the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord” (brackets added) (2 Cor. 3:18). Mysteriously, man would not only be given the responsibility to cultivate and to guard his thinking (dress and keep the garden of Eden), his physical brain would also be given the capability to mirror and to interpret his actions in the face of others.

After God created the individual man and placed him in the beautiful, magnificent garden of Eden to live the days of his life, it is recorded that God said,

It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him. And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him (Gen. 2:18-20).

One of the greatest revelation ever received by man is emphasized by the novelist Ernest Hemingway in For Whom the Bell Tolls. Influenced from John Donne’s devotions, Upon Emergent Occasions, printed in 1624, he quoted from “Meditation XVII,”

No man is an Island, entire of itself . . . any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind . . . therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee (Wikipedia, “For whom the Bell Tolls”).

Paul, author of Romans in the New Testament, wrote,

Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God (Rom. 7:4).

The original word that was translated married means, “to cause to be (generate), that is, (reflexively) to become (come into being).” In the context, Paul is stating that Christ is the ultimate cause to be for mankind and is implying that the “cause to be” is always reflected in the relationship of at least two people. For example, Paul would also say that man being transformed to the image of Christ as a true spiritual being would manifest “. . . the fruit of the Spirit . . . love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance . . . [notice, all characteristics of spirituality  are relational terms] (Gal. 5:22-23).

After the author of Genesis stated that a “help meet” for man could not be found among the cattle, the foul of the air, or the beast of the field, he proclaimed,

And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man (Gen. 2:21-23).

A “help meet” for man could not be found in the cattle, the foul of the air, and the beast of the field because it would require someone that was equal to man in thinking ability. It would require someone that could exactly mirror his actions. If man could never see his actions reflected back to him, he would never be able to come to see, to know, the glory of the garden of Eden. Likewise, he would also never ultimately know the agony of being driven from the garden (Gen. 3:22-24). It is significant to point out that God does not say of the individual man that he is created in the image of God. Nor, does God say that the individual man was created in the likeness of God. He simply stated that the individual man is not good.

It is only after the second person is created that it could be said that the pair, male and female, was created in the image of God and in the likeness of God. With the creation of the second person and the coming together of the two, it created a third entity of creation, the relationship between the two individual persons. It is only in this relationship between the two that the image of God and the likeness of God can be seen (Gal. 5:22-23). Since God is a spirit, it would take the non-corporeal relationship between them to reflect his character.

Finally, the author of Genesis declared

Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed (Gen. 2:24-25).

The survival of man from the moment of creation requires him, as with the birth of a child, to enter into relationships with others or he dies. The therefore in “therefore shall a man leave father and mother and cleave unto his [woman, the actual word that gets translated wife], implies that it is a divine imperative, intrinsic in what it means to be human, that man enters into relationships. Entering into a relationship with another is not only necessary for continual human existence, but the interaction between the two participants (necessary for growth as revealed in Genesis 3) is the only realm by which the fullness of life can be experienced, the image and likeness of God. Again, the early follower of Jesus described that the ultimate experience of life is the relational “. . . fruit of the Spirit . . . love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance . . .” (Gal. 5:22-23). The final revelation of the creation of the human soul reveals the wonder of love (“naked . . . and not ashamed”) when at least two individuals come together in singleness of soul.

The human soul is the crowing moment of the creation of man as revealed in Genesis 2.

This is the story of Genesis 2, the mysterious creation of the human soul. It is where every tree is pleasant to the sight and good for food. It is where the river of life flows watering the whole garden. It is where the tilling of the ground (the cultivation of the mind) and the keeping of the garden (the guarding of the thoughts) transpire. It is where every tree of the garden can be freely eaten to bring the natural consequences of its fruit. It is where the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil interact together to bring man to where he is intended to be. It is where others are met to be the cause-to-be of the individual’s life. It is in the garden of Eden, the human soul, where man ultimately dwells. Genesis 2 is the record of the crowning moment of the creation of man.

[1] “The Second Creation Story,” Gary A. Rendsburg, The Book of Genesis, Course Outline, The Great Courses, Chantilly, Virginia, page 13.

[2] Sam Wang, Associate Professor of Molecular Biology and Neuroscience, Princeton University, states that “in our species a major part of our identity depends on the fact that we are social animals . . . a major part of our identity, are thinking . . . is a function generated by the brain.” Neuroscience of Everyday Life, “The Social Brain, Empathy, and Autism,” The Great Courses, Chantilly, Virginia, Lecture 29.

 

 

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Dr. James Stone is the founder and President of Christian Ministries, Inc., a ministry for personal, family, and church growth. He travels extensively across America and several foreign countries sharing his experiences with Jesus. His over 40 year career in ministry has included individual counseling, family counseling, church pastor, Bible college/seminary professorships, leader of revivals, Christian growth seminars & church growth specialist.

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