Can God Organize Matter To Think? by Dudley Marvin Canright

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Jun 26, 1879

Can God Organize Matter To Think?

By Dudley Marvin Canright

(Continued.)

HERE is what one of the believers in immaterialism says: "Now we are frank to confess that we do not know precisely what a spiritual body is. Some of its characteristics may be, perhaps, pretty well defined, and that is about as far as we can go."—N. V. Hull, Editor Sabbath Recorder, Aug. 30, 1877.

Another, a doctor of divinity says, "It must not be thought amiss, nor awaken surprise, if we confess that we know not in what the essence of soul, or spirit, consists."—Man All Immortal, p. 29.

They can neither tell what matter is nor what spirit is, so they are all compelled to confess. Then how do they know that spirit is not one form of matter? And Newham writes: "We do not consider the question of the materiality of the soul as being very important, because what we call spiritual may, in fact, be an infinitely fine modification of matter, far too subtile to be apprehended by our present powers."—Body and Mind, p. 97.

Dr. Knapp says: "This doctrine respecting the immateriality of the soul, in the strict philosophical sense of the term, is of far less consequence to their religion than is commonly supposed. The reason why so much importance has been supposed to attach to this doctrine is, that it was considered as essential to the metaphysical proof of the immortality of the soul. But since the immateriality of the soul, in the strictest sense, can never be made fully and obviously certain, whatever philosophical arguments may be urged in its favor, the proof of immortality should not be built upon it."—Christian Theology, vol. ii., p. 372.

To these pertinent testimonies we add one more, that of the renowned John Locke, who says: "We have the ideas of matter and thinking, but possibly shall never be able to know whether any mere material being thinks or not; it being impossible for us, by the contemplation of our own ideas, without revelation, to discover whether Omnipotence has not given to some systems of matter, fitly disposed, a power to perceive and think, or else joined and fixed to matter so disposed, a thinking, immaterial substance; it being, in respect of our notions, not much more remote from our comprehension to conceive that God can, if he pleases, superadd to matter a faculty of thinking, than that he should superadd to it another substance, with a faculty of thinking; since we know not wherein thinking consists, nor to what sort of substance the Almighty has been pleased to give that power which cannot be in any created being but merely by the good pleasure of the Creator. For I see no contradiction in it, that the first eternal thinking Being should, if he pleased, give to certain systems of created, senseless matter, put together as he thinks fit, some degrees of sense, perception, and thought."—Essay, Book iv., chap. 3.

Then, for all that the wisest men can tell, it may be matter after all which thinks.

Who can tell what light is? You are in a dark room. You hold in your hand a match. It is nothing but a bit of wood and a little brimstone,—both gross matter, and no light in either of them. You scratch the match, and lo! the whole room is full of light. What is that light? It is not a living thing, an immaterial intelligence, is it? No: it must be matter in some form. But why does it give light? We see that it does, but none can tell why. Is not the production of light out of these dark materials in the above case as wonderful as the production of thought by the human material brain. The one is as unexplainable as the other. Light travels with the velocity of 200,000 miles a second, that is, eight times around the earth while you are winking your eye once! Yet this same light is a material; for it can be analyzed. Pass a ray of light through a prism, and it is separated into seven distinct parts; viz., red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet.—Wells' Natural Philosophy, p. 326.

This shows conclusively that light is material, though of a very subtile nature. Can the body of an angel be of a purer or higher substance than this? It may be; for perhaps God has matter in his great laboratory far more refined than any with which we have to do.

"As there are forces in the universe unknown and even inconceivable to man, so there may also be celestial bodies called spirits totally unlike what he sees about him, real and substantial each in its kind, but too subtile for human understanding. Science asserts there is no such thing as pure space. The air is displaced by our walking through it, and the ether may be cut in twain by an angel's winged form, our eyes perceiving neither ether, nor angel. Man's ignorance of the essence of things is too patent. Spirits, good and bad, belong to the realm of the supernatural, are of the order of the celestial material, but not gross. I think God may have some other substances besides 'oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon' out of which to make them. Science, very probably, could neither 'weigh, analyze, nor measure' Gabriel. Nevertheless this royal being is somebody, and immateriality as referred to him and his heavenly fellows is a misnomer, a theological blunder."—D. T. Taylor, in Bible Banner.

But it is not necessary to suppose any other substances than those with which we are already acquainted. A being created out of light, electricity, and heat would be sufficiently elevated to meet our highest conceptions of even a seraph. What is heat? I enter a cold room. The stove is cold, the wood is cold, the match is cold. I light the match, ignite the wood, and shortly the room is filled with heat. What is that? From whence did it come? It is made from gross matter, and hence is material. We can feel it, we can see the effects of it; but here our knowledge stops. Neither heat nor light have any weight. Take the most powerful burning-glass, and pour ten thousand rays of light upon the most delicate balance, and it does not affect it in the slightest degree. So an iron rod as cold as ice or white hot does not vary a particle in weight. (Wells' Philosophy, pp. 207, 293.) What are they then? Not immaterial, immaterial spirits certainly. They are either a subtile kind of matter, or the action of matter in certain conditions.

Brand's Encyclopedia of Science says, "The cause of the phenomena of heat is unknown; but they are supposed to depend upon the presence of a highly attenuated, imponderable, and subtile form of matter, the particles of which repel each other, but are attracted by other bodies."—Article Heat.

That wonder of all wonders,—electricity, what is it? All nature is running-over full of it,—the earth, the clouds, the metals, our own bodies; yet who can explain it? It is easily produced by rubbing two pieces of matter together, as glass and silk, or a child's hand and a cat's back. See the electric sparks fly! Take this simple fact, now of every-day occurrence. A man stands in New York. He touches the end of a wire, and a man across the ocean in London immediately perceives the fact. He cannot explain how this is done. We say it is done by electricity. Ah! what is electricity? Is it an immaterial, intangible, conscious spirit from the other world? Three centuries ago it probably would have been explained as such, but now we know it is simply an action upon matter, wonderful as it is. It is produced from matter; hence it must be either a subtile kind of matter or the product of matter. Any way, its whole origin is material. It is not an immaterial intelligence. Says Mr. Wells, "Neither do we know whether electricity is a material substance, a property of matter, or the vibration of an ether."—Wells' Natural Philosophy, p. 369.

The nature and action of electricity is just as marvelous as that of thought itself. It is no more so unreasonable or unreasonable that the natural brain should produce thought than that a piece of glass should produce electricity. Every year scientific investigation is revealing new wonders of matter. A man only exposes his ignorance when he says that matter cannot do this and that do that. He is simply asserting that of which he knows nothing. It is our humble opinion, well founded, we think, too, both in revelation and science, that angels and the celestial beings are as material as men, only that they are more highly organized,—more refined,—matter on a higher plane. Who that has carefully observed the wonderful and infinite diversity of matter, even as seen in this earth, will deny the reasonableness of this position? It cannot be disproved, to say the least. When we have found out God to perfection, when we have explored earth, Heaven, and hell, and have fathomed all the infinite diversities and capabilities of matter, then, and not till then, will it do for us to say what God can do with matter and what it will do with matter.

Attraction of gravitation, what is it? It is that power which holds all bodies down to the earth. It pulls the apple off the tree, and causes it to fall to the ground. I hold a stone in my hand. I let it go, and it falls to the ground. Why is this? Because attraction pulls it there. Attraction operates upon all bodies in the universe, however distant. The sun attracts the earth, and holds it in its orbit. Says Wells, "Every portion of matter in the universe attracts every other portion."—Nat. Phil., p. 30.

Attraction, then, is either a very subtile kind of matter, or else the product of matter. Its source is wholly material. Imagine the tremendous power with which the sun attracts this huge earth. Hitch ten thousand monster ropes and chains to Jupiter, fasten the other ends to the earth, and then let the earth drop. How quickly all would be snapped in twain! Yet the sun, by the simple power of attraction, holds this same earth as easily as a boy holds his kite. But can you dissect attraction? Can you cut and carve it? Can you see it and handle it? Can you hear, or smell, or taste it? Can you say, It is so long, so wide, and so high? It is black or white, sweet or sour? No; it is just as indefinable and inscrutable as thought itself. Yet no one claims that it is a living being. Its root and source is in matter and of matter. Till our theologians can explain some of these wonders of matter, they need not come to us with their assumptions that matter cannot think, because they cannot tell how it thinks.

Who can explain so simple a thing as vegetable life, that force by which all vegetables grow? I have in my hand a seed. It is round, and hard, and apparently lifeless. I can weigh it, measure it, open and dissect it. I now take a handful of common earth, mere particles of dust. There is no life here that I can see. 'This dust I can weigh, measure, divide, and analyze. I put the seed into it, and add a few drops of water. The water I can handle, measure, and analyze. It is composed of oxygen and hydrogen,—common matter in its crudest form. All these elements are nothing but matter. Now can matter do anything? Can it stir itself? Can it move? Can it arrange itself in a different manner from that in which you place it? Our immaterialist friends say, No, never; but we say, Yes, when vitalized.

Now look. Shortly that seed swells out, becomes larger. A little sprout begins to put forth, and tiny roots are thrown out. Particles of that water are taken up, and atoms of matter are appropriated. Day by day a stock grows up inch by inch, until it stands six feet high and two inches through. Is not all this matter from beginning to end? Is it not all done by matter? Yes. None would be so foolish as to claim that that stock inclosed an immaterial, intelligent entity, to which this action is due. It is done by the power of vegetable life which the Creator has stored in that little seed, a particle of matter. Ah! there is the secret of it. The principle of life, vegetable life, has been placed there by God. Then inanimate matter can be so endowed by the Creator as to move, and act, and live. Open that green corn stalk, and you will see that the sap is constantly running up through all its pores. There is life and action there; yet it is nothing but matter after all—matter vitalized. But can that stone, that piece of iron grow? No; God has never bestowed that power upon these, but he has upon other matter, or rather matter in other forms. Is it, then, any harder for God so to organize and endow matter that it will think and reason, than it is to give it vegetable life so that it will grow?

But going a step higher than vegetable life, we have animal life. First, we have matter in its crudest form, a mere lifeless mineral, though even here there is evidently a very low kind of life. The next step higher, as we have seen, is matter in the vegetable form, with vegetable life. The next and third step in matter is where it is endowed with animal life. This the dumb brutes have in common with man. The highest order of vegetable life and the lowest order of animal life are so nearly alike, that it is sometimes difficult to mark the dividing line.

But what is animal life? Take that little flea, that fly, that musquito. Each has animal life, is possessed of sensation, of power to do, to move, and to propagate its species. Yet these are nothing but matter organized. No one claims that they have immortal souls. Indeed, believers in the immortality of man's spirit generally agree in denying even intelligence to the higher brutes, much more to the lower.

Now we ask them to tell us what animal life is. It is not reason, it is not intelligence, it is not an immaterial person, an intelligent, thinking being, dwelling in all these fleas, flies, and gnats. No; they say it is simply animal life. Well, then, gross matter can be endowed with life so as to move, eat, drink, propagate, etc. Can these wise spiritualizers put their finger on that animal life and tell us what it is? How long, how wide, how deep is it? How much does it weigh? Can they open and dissect it, can they analyze it chemically? No; yet they are compelled to acknowledge that it is an attribute which God has bestowed upon certain organizations of matter. Simple matter has been endowed by the Creator with this wonderful faculty.

Now we appeal to any candid man to say if this attribute of matter is not just as mysterious, just as incomprehensible, and just as difficult to concieve of, as that God should also organize matter in certain forms so as to be able to think, reason, and be intelligent. We cannot tell how matter can think, neither can they tell us how matter can live, and yet it does both.

(To be Continued.)

D. M. CANRIGHT.