Can Matter be Organized to Think? | Early SDA D.M. Canright
Sabbath School with Branch Davidians
Release Date: 06/16/2024
You Can't Make Sense of an Immaterial Soul | Early SDA D.M. Canright
Sabbath School with Branch Davidians
Are humans dualistic beings – two part beings, composed of a material body plus an immaterial soul? The reason some have this idea is the belief that matter cannot be organized to think, and therefore, the thinking ability of humans must be attributed to something immaterial. This is then used as a basis for the belief in the soul's naturally immortality. If it's immaterial, it has no parts, so it can't be destroyed and must endure forever. While that might *seem* to make sense, it depends on the idea that the mind is immaterial. And the apparent necessity for that vanishes if matter can...
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Can Matter be Organized to Think? | Early SDA D.M. Canright
Sabbath School with Branch Davidians
Can matter be organized so that it can think? Or is there an immaterial part of humans that is responsible for thought, reason, and emotion? The SDA doctrine of the non-immortality of the soul is very well known among SDAs today, but what is less well known is the core reason behind this doctrine. This core reason is really the foundation on which the non-immortality of the soul rests, and it was plainly understood and explained by the SDA pioneers. If we don't understand this foundation, we're prone holding other beliefs that are actually in conflict with it, without even realizing it. One...
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Who Is Benefitted by Jesus' Priesthood?
Sabbath School with Branch Davidians
Who is benefited by Jesus' priesthood in the Heavenly Sanctuary? Many are under the impression that people are benefited by just professing Him as their lord and savior, or accepting that He is the savior of the world. But is this the case? In this study we are going to take a look at a book which has Jesus' priesthood as the central theme – the book of Hebrews. For further study, see: "What Jesus Taught About Doing Right and Wrong," by Trent Wilde, “What Are The Streams of Water In Psalm 1?" 2024 Sabbath School, Quarter 2: The Great Controversy – Week 8, "Light From...
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How Knowing the Great Controversy Can Help In Practical Life
Sabbath School with Branch Davidians
As SDAs, we all know about the Great Controversy. We all have this idea in mind that there is this controversy between Christ and Satan going on in the background. At least Satan wants us to think it's just that—a background scenario that's mainly independent from our every day lives. In light of the Great Controversy between Christ and Satan, our controversies could be called small controversies in the scheme of things. But, as I'm sure we all would admit, we tend to think of our personal controversies as though they're great controversies, and sometimes THE Great Controversy between...
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Revival and Reformation Must Be Blended for Complete Success
Sabbath School with Branch Davidians
Today we are going to look at a key aspect of what brings about successful reformation, because one thing we all know about the Protestant Reformation was that although many great truths were restored, it didn't finish the gospel work. And in fact, as Adventists, we know that while the Protestant Reformation was a good thing, the churches it produced are actually Babylon. As Seventh-day Adventists we should all know that the second angel's message was directed primarily at the Protestant Churches and declared that they were the Babylon that fell. Note, it's not that these churches *became*...
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Private Interpretation vs. Inspired Interpretation
Sabbath School with Branch Davidians
You know the bible verse that says no prophecy of scripture is of private interpretation, (2 Peter 1:19-21)? Well, it's the subject of one of Friday's discussion questions in the SDA Sabbath School Quarterly this week, and it's also the subject of *our* study today. We'll find out what the deal is with private interpretation, and we'll also learn how we're supposed to approach the task of interpreting scripture. The pillars of the SDA movement were founded on the revelations given to Ellen White, not on private interpretations of the pioneers. She says that all the brethren at that...
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You Can Only Be on One Side of the Great Controversy
Sabbath School with Branch Davidians
As you might know, the full title of the first edition of Ellen White's book, "The Great Controversy" was "The Great Controversy, Between Christ and His Angels, and Satan and His Angels." By this longer title, we can see that the angels have taken either one side or the other. These two sides operate by two completely different sets of principles. Christ's angels are wholly and consistently devoted to His principles;—they don't live by His principles some of the time and by Satan's principles some of the time. And likewise, Satan's angels are entirely on Satan's side—they don't have...
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Ellen White Misinterpreted: How the SDA Pioneers Can Help
Sabbath School with Branch Davidians
Satan has long been keen on misconstruing the words of God's messengers, and Ellen White is no exception. Ellen wrote that Kellogg was misconstruing the meaning of her words to mean something almost opposite of their intended meaning, and as we know by the state of confusion about her writings today, this problem has only worsened since her death. So, today we're going to address this issue and point out least one thing we can do to guard against misunderstanding Ellen's writings. For more study, see: “The Personality of God: An SDA Pillar Doctrine, Did Ellen White Teach...
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Did Ellen White Teach Jesus Had a Beginning?
Sabbath School with Branch Davidians
There seems to be a lot of confusion over what Ellen White taught about the duration of Jesus' existence. Did she teach that Jesus had a beginning at some point in eternity past? Or did she teach He has always existed with the Father as a co-eternal member of the Godhead? Is there anything Ellen White said that let's us know what she taught on this issue? In this study we look at statements by the SDA pioneers and statements by Ellen White and discover if she agreed with the then-prevailing among the pioneers that Jesus did indeed have a beginning – at the point He was begotten of the...
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Did Ellen White say Jesus is Co-eternal with the Father?
Sabbath School with Branch Davidians
There seems to be a lot of confusion over what Ellen White taught about Jesus. Did she teach he had a beginning at some point, or that he always existed with the Father as a co-eternal member of the Godhead? So, for the next two episodes we'll be going off topic from the Sabbath School Quarterly to address this issue. In this study we focus on one particular statement she made. Here's the statement: In Signs of the Times, August 29,1900, Ellen wrote, "Christ is the pre-existent, self-existent Son of God…. In speaking of his pre-existence, Christ carries the mind back through...
info_outlineCan matter be organized so that it can think? Or is there an immaterial part of humans that is responsible for thought, reason, and emotion?
The SDA doctrine of the non-immortality of the soul is very well known among SDAs today, but what is less well known is the core reason behind this doctrine. This core reason is really the foundation on which the non-immortality of the soul rests, and it was plainly understood and explained by the SDA pioneers. If we don't understand this foundation, we're prone holding other beliefs that are actually in conflict with it, without even realizing it.
One such conflicting belief is that although the soul is not immortal - although the soul cannot live on after death separate from the body, there is an immaterial part of humans that is responsible for thought, reason, intellect and emotion that resides inside the body. In other words, it is thought that there is a conscious immaterial something inside of humans that just becomes unconscious upon death. It's the idea that humans are dualistic beings – two part beings, composed of a material body plus an immaterial soul. Not all SDAs conceive of human nature in this way, but some do.
The pioneers, though, did not believe that humans are dualistic beings. They often wrote that humans are unit beings, or unitary beings – singular beings made of matter, with no immaterial part. They believed that it is the body, and in particular the brain, that is conscious during life and that becomes unconscious upon death, not that there's an immaterial part of us that is conscious during life and that becomes unconscious upon death.
And a great publication on this subject is a pamphlet entitled "Matter and Spirit" by D.M. Canright. He argues in favor of the unitary materiality of human nature from a philosophical perspective, using logical argumentation and empirical facts. Join us as we go through Canright's reasons for believing that matter can be organized to think.
For further study see:
"MATTER AND SPIRIT, OR, THE PROBLEM OF HUMAN THOUGHT" A PHILOSOPHICAL ARGUMENT. BY ELDER D. M. CANRIGHT. https://www.bdsda.com/matter-and-spirit-the-problem-of-human-thought/
"The Early SDA View of the Nature of Man | Are We Dual Beings or Unitary Beings?" https://youtu.be/dVp_VPkjYxw?si=6fEb5S7N-3ueF2HE
"What is Materialism? The Seventh-day Adventist Foundation" https://youtu.be/iIEoLnNr71g?si=ruDQlazn6vqLHEKn
2024 Sabbath School, Quarter 2: The Great Controversy – Week 10
A Branch Davidian Seventh-Day Adventist perspective on the Sabbath School lesson.
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