Nuggets from Seeking and Finding God—Of Bodies and Spirits

Physical bodies inhabit the physical universe—a universe designed specifically for physical life, as indicated by overwhelming scientific evidence. That the universe could have evolved by chance is preposterous, as we will shortly see. There is no theory that can explain the origin of energy, the stuff of which all matter is made, so it is absurd to speculate about the origin and presumed evolution of physical bodies when we cannot explain the origin of the matter those bodies comprise.

Certainly thoughts and ideas, which are demonstrably not physical, do not originate with matter and therefore could not be explained by any evolutionary theory pertaining to physical bodies. Each nonphysical idea (truth, justice, perfection, right, wrong, etc.)—for which there is no physical description—indisputably has an intelligent source that must likewise be nonphysical. Einstein spoke the obvious when he said that matter cannot organize itself into information.

Nor can intelligence be a mere abstraction. It is not a constant but has personal qualities, and it varies from person to person. Why some people are more intelligent than others is not known, but we do know that intelligence is a quality of personal beings. Therefore, intelligence does not originate with the physical matter in the brain, though the brains of some persons seem to be more suited for certain kinds of thought than those of others. The brain is like a computer that is apparently dependent upon the individual “hardware” inherited from ancestors. But the thoughts themselves, though they energize the brain in order to express themselves in words and actions through the body run by the brain, can only originate from the nonphysical thinker inside. And that thinker is mysteriously connected to its body until separated therefrom by what we call death.

We refer to nonphysical beings as souls or spirits. We would not have thoughts and ideas if we were only physical entities—certainly not thoughts of good and evil, of morals and ethics. The real person inside the body, the person who thinks, decides, chooses, and has a sense of its own separate identity and moral responsibility, must be nonphysical. According to the Bible, man has both a soul and spirit. The former recognizes itself as different from all other beings, and the latter recognizes and can commune with God—or choose not to do so.

Physical bodies are, of course, subject to the physical laws governing the universe. Our bodies are subject to the pull of gravity, can be damaged in many ways by impact or disease, and eventually die and deteriorate in the grave, according to the second law of thermodynamics. But the soul and spirit, being nonphysical, are clearly not subject to physical laws. They cannot be part of the physical universe and therefore obviously inhabit their physical bodies only temporarily.