CAN GOD ORGANIZE MATTER TO THINK? by Dudley Marvin Canright

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Nov 22, 1877

CAN GOD ORGANIZE MATTER TO THINK?

By Dudley Marvin Canright

(Continued.)*

How different species of plants and animals are perpetuated. Inorganic matter has not the power of producing a living animal, or even a plant; but at creation God made the first specimen of all vegetables and animals, and gave each the power to reproduce its kind, some one way, some another. Plant a thousand different seeds in the same soil, and out of these same material elements each will construct a plant like itself; so each animal begets another after its own kind. How this can be we cannot possibly say, yet there is the fact.

I hold in my hand six little seeds. They do not seem to differ much in size, weight, or color. They are nothing but matter, at the best. I place them all side by side in the same soil. They are moistened by the same dew, warmed by the same sun, and they grow up together. But how marvelous! Each little seed has produced a plant every way different from all the rest. Then look at the various shapes and colors of the flowers as they open their leaves and blossoms. One is red, one is white, another is pink, another violet. Who can explain this mystery? Nobody. Yet this is all the work of mere matter vitalized by the power of God six thousand years ago. Look at that apple tree. It bears sour apples. I take a twig from a sweet apple tree, and graft it into one of the limbs. On that little twig grow sweet apples, while all around it on the same tree the apples are sour. The same sap rises up from the root, and feeds all the limbs alike; but when it comes to that limb, the same sap is made into sweet apples instead of sour. What does this? Is there a mysterious intelligence in that little limb? Oh! no. It is nothing but matter at work, and gross matter at that. The God who can make matter work such marvels as these, can make it think.

Our pleaders for immateriality see such a difference between matter in its higher forms, as when organized into an angel or the higher classes of men, and the grosser forms of matter as seen in the lower animals, plants, and minerals, that they conclude these cannot both be material. But we fully believe that the whole difference lies in the superior organization which the Creator has given one over the other.

Take another simple illustration. Here sits a skillful painter. Before him are his canvas, his brushes, and several kinds of paint,—all nothing but gross matter. They do not look very beautiful in that shape. But now he commences his work. He puts on a little of this paint, a little of that, and some of the other. In due time, lo and behold! there is the figure of an angel. The innocence and loveliness of Heaven sit upon it. We cannot admire it too much. Again he takes up the same brushes, with the same paint, and on the same canvas soon is represented the hideous form of a horrid devil. What a contrast in the two pictures! Can they be of the same material? Oh! yes: the only difference is in the way they are put together, or at most a little tinting of some other paint is added. With the same material he can paint a plant, a beast, or a man. Then cannot God do as much? Yes: we know he does, for we see it every day. Gather up promiscuously a hundred pounds of vegetable matter, a hundred pounds of brute flesh, and then take some human flesh, and analyze them all. They will be found to consist largely of the same materials.

Then, reader, it is the organization that makes the plant, the beast, or the man. Yes, sir; and it is the organization that makes the mind, which neither the stone nor the plant possesses.

God has organized matter in certain forms so that it does think. If a false theology had not utterly blinded our eyes to reason and the plainest facts of every-day observation, it would require no argument to prove this proposition. There sits a fly. Is he not material? Is he anything but matter? Will any be foolish enough to claim an immortal soul for him? No: all any one claims is that he has animal life, but no spiritual nature. Well, I carefully reach out my hand to put my finger on him. He sees the motion, and knows he will be killed if he remains there; so he flies away. Man in danger acts the same as that fly: we know that he reasons in doing so; so does the fly, or else it would not move. I raise my hand to strike that chair; but it does not try to move. Why not, as well as the fly? Because it knows nothing, while the fly sees its danger.

Here is my dog. He thinks. I know he thinks, for I see the evidence of it. I speak to him, and he moves his head, wags his tail, and comes to me. Could unthinking matter do that? No. I tell him to do this or that, and he obeys me. This shows that he knows, that he understands what I say. But our opponents say this is nothing but instinct: there is no thought, reason, or intelligence about it. This is only a dodge; but be it so, it only helps our case. For according to their own position they must admit that matter can be organized so as to hear, see, feel, and act. I run a pin into my dog, or I strike him. See how quickly and keenly he feels it. He cries out for pain. See his flesh quiver. There is feeling there: none can deny this. So our opponents must now admit that matter can be made to feel; but all matter cannot feel. Indeed, no matter can feel unless first properly organized.

But further. My dog can see. Look at his twinkling eyes. He has as good sight as man has. Doesn't he hear also? How acute his sense of smelling! You may deny him a mind and reason, but you cannot deny that he sees, hears, smells, and feels. Well, he is wholly material, as we both agree. Then here we have proof which cannot be evaded in any possible manner that matter can be organized so as to see, hear, smell, and feel. This gives us the whole question; for if God can organize matter to see, to hear, and to feel, he can as easily organize it to think. Unless they admit that the dog has an immortal soul, which they will by no means do, they cannot resort to the favorite dodge which is employed when we argue that the human eye does see. They reply that it is not the eye that sees, but the immaterial spirit behind it, which sees through the eye as we see through a telescope. But the dog has no such immaterial entity back of his eye; yet he sees; so it must be the material eye that sees after all.

Take another familiar illustration: Here are a dozen hen's eggs. I open one, and find nothing but common matter, largely water with a little phosphorus, lime, &c. I can see no signs of thought or even animal life here, nothing which can see, or hear, or move itself. I put the remainder of the eggs under a sitting hen. In a few days I behold a living animal breaking out of those shells. It now has eyes, ears, and can run around, and feed itself. It can see, hear, and feel. What has wrought this great difference in the matter which was in that egg? Has God sent an immortal soul down to animate it? Oh! no. Simply the latent animal life in that egg has been developed. It is just the same matter that it was before, only it is differently organized. Now that matter can see and feel.

Let us carry this further. A man is asleep. Prick his foot with a pin. His foot feels it, and the nerve immediately carries the impression to the mind, and the man awakes. In this case it is the material flesh which feels the pin and informs the mind of it. Is it claimed that the immaterial soul is of the same size and shape as the body, and hence it is present in all parts of

the body; and that it is after all the soul that feels, and not the flesh? But this theory won't work well for our opponents. According to this view, the immaterial soul of a child can only be the size of a child. Hence it must grow larger as the child grows to man's size. But how can an immaterial thing grow? That which can grow larger must be composed of parts. Hence it can be divided, separated, and thus destroyed, and hence is not immortal any more than the material body. But to return to that foot. We can positively demonstrate, beyond any contradiction, that in this case it is the material flesh, not the soul at all, which feels the prick of the pin. Here is the proof: Cut off that material leg. Have you cut off the leg of the spirit body which they claim is inside of the material body? Of course they dare not admit that; for if you can cut off the leg of the immaterial body, you could also cut off its head and cut it all up! No, that won't do; so the leg of the spirit body must be there still, hanging out after the material leg of flesh has been amputated! What a predicament that must be for the unfortunate spirit leg!

But the point is, Which feels, the material fleshy leg, or the immaterial spirit leg? We will try it. When the flesh was there, the prick of a pin, the blow of a cane, could be felt. But now that the flesh is gone, thrust in the pin, strike at it and through it with a cane; is there any feeling? Not a particle, as any man will tell you who has lost a limb. So one told me yesterday, when I asked him, and tried the experiment. Then it is not the immaterial body, but the fleshy body, which feels. Take another case. A man's limb is paralyzed. The nerves no longer act. The leg or arm is still alive, but it has no feeling. You may prick it, freeze it, or burn it; but the man feels nothing. I know a brother in just this condition. He has frozen all his fingers off because he could not feel when they were cold. What is the difficulty in this case? The material nerve of flesh, the one which feels, is paralyzed and inactive; hence there is no feeling in that limb, though the limb is alive. Now if it were the spirit which feels, and this is present in all the body, why does it not feel, as well as before? What can our opponents say to this? Nothing; for it utterly demolishes their immaterial-spirit theory.

But further: we positively know that their pretended spirit-man inside can neither see, hear, smell, taste, nor feel. How do we know this? Put out a man's material eyes, and can he see anything now? No, nothing at all, as any blind man will tell you. So of all the five senses. Destroy the material, physical organs of seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, or feeling, and the soul can neither see, hear, smell, taste, nor feel. This demonstrates that it is the material man which sees, hears, &c. If the spirit can see, why does it not do so? Why does not the soul of the blind man see? Why does not the soul of the deaf man hear? Oh! you say, it is encumbered with the flesh. Then it cannot see through matter, can it? But it has been always asserted that the immaterial spirit is so superior to matter that it can go through the most solid matter, as through a wall, through a board, through glass or iron. But now this has to be given up, and it is admitted that it cannot even see, nor hear, nor smell through so thin a material substance as the human skull! Poor, weak thing! the material ear can do better than that. Reader, that boasted immaterial spirit-man inside is all a fable. There is no such useless tenant there. God has organized the material physical man to see, hear and think; and we see him in the exercise of this power every day.

It is a favorite argument with our opponents that matter cannot possibly be organized so as to think, feel, &c. Take as a specimen of all this reasoning the following from Rev. D. W. Clark, D. D., Bishop of the M. E. Church, in his book, “Man All Immortal.” He has here stated their side as forcibly as it can be done. He says: “We are accustomed to say the eye sees, the ear hears, the finger feels, and so forth; but such language is used only in accommodation to our ignorance, or from the force of habit. It is incorrect. The eye itself no more sees than the telescope which we hold before it to assist our vision; the ear hears not any more than the trumpet of tin which the deaf man directs toward the speaker to convey the sound of his voice; and so with regard to all the organs of sense. They are but instruments which become the media of intelligence to the absolute mind, which uses them whenever it is inclined or obliged to do so.”—P. 75.

This is the doctrine of the immaterialist. It will do very well for them to reason that way in the case of men; but they cannot do it in the case of the dumb beast, because, as does Bishop Clark in this very book, they claim that brutes have no mind, no soul; hence in these cases they are compelled to admit that the eye does see, and the ear does hear. They have never answered this argument: they never will. They must either admit that every flea, every mosquito, every little gnat, has an immortal soul, or else they must admit that a material eye does see. But if the Almighty can organize matter so as to see, hear, feel, then he can organize it to reason. But they squarely deny that it is possible for the Almighty to do this.

D. M. CANRIGHT.

(To be Continued.)*