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BY BRIAN THOMAS, PH.D.
God Set Eternity
in the Heart of Man
11 He has made
everything beautiful and appropriate in its time. He has also planted
eternity [a sense of divine purpose] in the human heart [a mysterious longing
which nothing under the sun can satisfy, except God] — yet man cannot find out
(comprehend, grasp) what God has done (His overall plan) from the beginning to
the end. - Ecclesiastes 3:11 Amplified
Bible
We tend to think
that some core in each person will somehow, somewhere live forever.
Sociologists have
been attempting to track down the source of this belief but so far have not
been able to separate it from exposure to religious teaching.
Now, a new research
tactic reveals that belief in an eternal life apart from our bodies is
hardwired into each of us, inadvertently confirming the Bible’s message.
Natalie Emmons and
Deborah Kelemen of Boston University conducted two studies on 283 children from
Ecuador.
They reasoned that
survey participants from the jungle lived closer to life and death events and
would have biologically based ideas about pre-conception existence, while the
Catholic student participants from the city had more exposure to religious
teaching that life begins at conception and therefore would “reject the idea
of life before birth.”
Surprisingly, both
groups of students maintained that a core aspect in each person lives even
without the body.
Children from
different backgrounds believe that everyone has pre-life emotion and desires.
Essentially, then,
our tendency to believe in an immortal soul does not explicitly arise from
religion — it’s just a part of us.
But what does
“religion” mean to researchers who would themselves likely ascribe to a form of
religious secularism?
Buddhism and
Hinduism do not teach that a person exists after death, but instead hold that
one’s soul loses personal identity when it eventually merges with the universal
“all,” which some call god.
Though secularism
is a popular religion among scientists, it is materialistic so its adherents
believe that when the material body ceases, so do all of its immaterial aspects
like volition, intellect, emotions, and desires.
Lead author Natalie
Emmons said in a Boston University news release, “I study these things for a
living but even find myself defaulting to them. I know that my mind is a
product of my brain but I still like to think of myself as something
independent of my body.”
Since Hindus,
Buddhists, and secularists don’t teach this, what major religions are left that
hold to a belief in an everlasting soul or spirit?
Clearly, the
theistic options remain, including Christianity.
And according to
Solomon’s ancient book Ecclesiastes, when God made humans, “He [had] put
eternity in their hearts.”
The Complete
Jewish Bible translation renders that passage, “Also, he has given
human beings an awareness of eternity.”
If God clearly says
He put eternity in our hearts, it’s no wonder that sociologists find it there.
Near that same
passage, Solomon asked, “Who knows the spirit of the sons of men, which goes
upward, and the spirit of the animal, which goes down to the earth?”
- indicating that,
unlike animals, our human souls last after bodily breakdown and rise to meet
our Maker.
It appears that
scientists are just now confirming what Scripture has said all along about our
knowledge of eternity.
* Mr. Thomas is Science Writer at the
Institute for Creation Research.
The
Institute for Creation Research (ICR) wants people to know that God’s Word
can be trusted in everything it speaks about—from how and why we were made, to
how the universe was formed, to how we can know God and receive all He has
planned for us.
After
50 years of ministry, ICR remains a leader in scientific research within the
context of biblical creation. Founded by Dr. Henry Morris in 1970, ICR exists
to conduct scientific research within the realms of origins and Earth history,
and then to educate the public both formally and informally through
professional training programs, through conferences and seminars around the
country, and through books, magazines, and media presentations.
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