Cyd Styron Szymanski (SBTS ’83) Why Seminaries Should Teach A Class In Neuroscience

As personal crises become less spiritual illnesses or dark nights of the soul and more physical illnesses of brain or body chemistry, pastors and theologians may run the risk of becoming irrelevant. Having a basic knowledge of the mechanics of brain function aids a pastor in knowing how to shepherd his or her flock.

A few neuroscientists are conducting research to find “the god-shaped hole” and the physical underpinnings of religious experience. Using the tools of modern medicine, such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and Positron Emission Tomography (PET), scientists are tracking how the cortical and sub-cortical areas of the brain are involved in meditation, prayer and the attribution of belief and values to God. At the heart of the challenge is the attempt to define and categorize the ineffable—that which is not capable of being expressed in words.

A debate rages about one of the core tenets of theology: free will. Using Electroencephalography (EEG) which records electrical charges in the brain, scientists have found that we make decisions on a pre-conscious level (in very primitive portions of our brains) which then sends feedback to our executive functioning conscious mind (prefrontal cortex) which, in turn, interprets or gives conscious meaning to the action we have just taken. Similar to many top executives in large corporations, we think we are using our conscious brain in making all the important decisions, but it is the actions below the corner office that are really running the show. When the action potential initiating a movement begins before the conscious decision to do so is registered, can we be said to possess free will?

While brain scans have not pinpointed the “God-spot,” they have lent a new perspective on the mechanics of religious experience and the search for meaning. Placing religious experiences within the framework of cognition, motivation and society gives researchers a way to further reduce and define these experiences, which, in turn, provides a new vocabulary and perspective with which to judge and describe these experiences. Psychologist, Nick Epley at the University of Chicago, has found in his research that how people attribute the beliefs and attitudes of their deities correlate quite nicely with their own beliefs. Manipulate people’s beliefs and, shazaam, their infinite and unchanging God’s beliefs actually change to match their own. Neuro-imaging shows that both deliberating on your own ideas and pondering God’s thoughts activate the same parts of our brains. These parts of the brain are different from the parts activated when considering or projecting thoughts of other people. Are we creating God in our own image?

Attributing the purpose of religion in the human population to the search for meaning and the need to know brings to mind the role of the brain’s left hemisphere in language and verbal explanation. In split-brain studies, where the communication hub between the left and right hemispheres (the corpus callosum) is severed in order to alleviate profound epileptic seizures, the left hemisphere will construct a verbal explanation for an action or perception that only the nonverbal right hemisphere has knowledge of. In other words, our verbal brain makes up stuff. I think that throughout history that “explanation” has been “God” when, given the appropriate quantifiable methods, it can be hypothesized to be something much more physical.

But does neuroscience do away with the concept of God altogether? A few books have been written by neuroscientists about our experience of God and spiritual matters. This is relevant because we cannot really experience anything outside of the functioning of our brains. One of the best is Andrew Newberg’s Why We Believe What We Believe, published by Free Press, which bridges science, psychology and religion and demonstrates how the brain builds values and meaning into our lives. Building values, meaning and belief into our lives has, in the past, been the purview of religion alone. Understanding the basic neurological processes will be beneficial to those in religious fields who must deal with personal crises, be they physical or spiritual. From the brain’s perspective, they are one and the same.