Question:

Discussing Christianity with a friend, we both agreed that what makes Christianity hard to believe for non-believers, and believers, is the supernatural aspects. As children we are told not to believe in ghosts or spirits. But yet as Christians our belief is based on the unseen. And for us humans, we like to see,smell and touch something in order to prove it’s existence. Would our thought process also be considered supernatural? We can actually have conversations with ourselves without uttering a word. But we can’t physically touch our thoughts. Are thoughts an example of the supernatural and does this ability come from God?

Mark:

First of all, we did an entire conference in Los Angeles in 2011 on the question of the supernatural and how it relates to the Christian doctrine of miracles and spiritual realities. I want to encourage you to get a copy of the CD from that conference. It includes about 12 hours of material, including testimonies from church leaders and several classes on the question of the supernatural and how scientific skepticism should be used to approach both the idea of miracles and of things like ghosts, UFOs demons and so forth. The CD set is available at www.ipibooks.com The title is Christianity and the Paranormal. You will also find an outline and power point at my web site titled Science and Skepticism. You can find it in the power point section of the web site. I think these will help you to see how hyperskepticism which denies even the posibility of miracles is unwarranted, but reasonable skepticism will lead to the conclusion that UFOs and most or maybe even all claims of ghosts are not supported by the evidence.

You ask whether our thoughts are supernatural as well. This is an interesting question. The answer is no, thoughts are not supernatural. A “natural” event is one which is in accordance with the known (or perhaps even the not-yet-known) laws of nature. There are plenty of things which are real which we cannot touch. We cannot touch light. We cannot touch electric or magnetic fields. On the other hand, we can detect thoughts, at least indirectly through techniques such as MRI brain studies. We cannot see magnetic fields, but we can detect them indirectly. We cannot see thoughts, but we can detect brain waves and detect chemical emitted by our brain cells produced when we think. We can detect the mental process that happen when we dream as well, at least indirectly.

A closely related question to whether human thought is supernatural is whether human self-consciousness is real or supernatural. This is both a scientific and a philosophical question. What does it mean to be conscious? Who am I, for that matter? Am I merely chemicals and electrical signals, or do I exist as a reality apart from my body? DesCartes, the 17th century philosopher was a dualist, proposing that our consciousness/mind has a separate reality from our body. Is there a God-created soul and spirit and consciousness which exists apart from the body? This is a scientific a philosophical and a religious question. If there is a non-physical soul and spirit, then it might not be detectable by any direct physical measurement, and therefore, it might be, by definition, supernatural. Is there a supernatural soul which can live on even when our bodies die? I believe so. Does science prove that there is no soul? Another good question. There is a power point titled “Neuroscience: Room for the Soul” at the web site and a lesson taught at our first apologetics conference by Dr. John Beggs on this topic. Dr. Beggs is a physicist who studies neuroscience and he is an expert on this topic. The CD containing this lesson is also at www.ipibooks.com The title is ICEC 2007 Science and God.

John Oakes