Kim Gentes

“The Spiritual Brain” by Mario Beauregard, Denyse O'Leary is subtitled “A Neuroscientist’s Case for the Existence of the Soul”, but it represents as much a philosophical examination of modernity and materialism as it does a thoughtful examination of the brain and its abilities/limits explored by scientific methodological rigor.
 
Before the authors enter deeply into tests, hypothesis and results, they delve deeply into the conundrum of how the current scientific community predisposes itself to the modernist and materialist worldview, even (at times) in the face of scientific evidence that points elsewhere. The authors seek to expose some of these philosophical foundations to allow them to confront some of the underlying worldview issues.
 
But before going deep into reviewing “The Spiritual Brain” and its premise, let me examine the context of thought that is being dealt with here. How can we question and evaluate a framework (IE. modernity and materialism) that has served mankind for the last few hundred years with increasing absolution from critique? In this, post-modernity does us a service in opening the door for questioning long established assumptions. The most essential assumptions to be confronted are modernity and materialism (in the classic philosophical sense).

Modernity and materialism (both scientific and cultural) have played key roles in western thought for the last 300-400 years. The impact of these ideologies has been felt not only in secular life but the Christian community as well. The deep impact of modernity in the church, and even in its pastoral leadership, is echoed well by Thomas Oden, who says:

Modern chauvinism has assumed that all recent modes of knowing the truth are vastly superior to all older ways, a view that has recently presided over the precipitous deterioration of social structures and processes in the third quarter of the twentieth century. My frank goal has been to help free persons from feeling intimidated by modernity, which while it often seems awesome is rapidly losing its moral power, and to grasp the emerging vision of a postmodern classical Christianity.[1]

Oden’s statement scratches the surface of a festering boil within our faith community - we have lost our foundational trust in the classic wisdom of our tradition. We have replaced it with an underlying trust in society’s secular pillars of modernity and materialism, and those have influenced almost every pastoral and leadership discipline in Christianity. We have tried to nuance our statements and practices with faith language, but our underlying assumptions were still founded on the principles within modernity and materialist reductionism.

Challenges to the materialist worldview have not only come from pastoral and theological leaders such as Oden (above), but also from scientific experts themselves, such as Dr. Mario Beauregard. He and Denyse O’Leary are the authors of the recent book “The Spiritual Brain: A Neuroscientist’s Case for the Existence of the Soul.” Hence, we get to our promised review of this book.

In this work, Beauregard appropriately confronts the philosophical constructs of materialism before getting to the scientific theories, experiments and studies. He does this to explain how the scientific findings are being interpreted through the materialist mindset, and bent to reinforce the same. The following extensive quote gives an example of one such point where Beauregard deconstructs the materialist arrogance that has been injected into the scientific work of neuroscience.

American culture critic Tom Wolfe put the matter succinctly in an elegant little essay he published in 1996, “Sorry, but Your Soul Just Died,” which expounds the “neuroscientific view of life.” He wrote about the new imaging techniques that enable neuroscientists to see what is happening in your brain when you experience a thought or an emotion. The outcome, according to Wolfe, is:

Since consciousness and thought are entirely physical products of your brain and nervous system—and since your brain arrived fully imprinted at birth—what makes you think you have free will? Where is it going to come from? What “ghost,” what “mind,” what “self,” what “soul,” what anything that will not be immediately grabbed by those scornful quotation marks, is going to bubble up your brain stem to give it to you? I have heard neuroscientists theorize that, given computers of sufficient power and sophistication, it would be possible to predict the course of any human being’s life moment by moment, including the fact that the poor devil was about to shake his head over the very idea.

Wolfe doubts that any sixteenth-century Calvinist believed so completely in predestination as these hot young scientists. The whole materialist creed that Wolfe outlines hangs off one little word, “Since”—“Since consciousness and thought are entirely physical products of your brain and nervous system…” In other words, neuroscientists have not discovered that there is no you in you; they start their work with that assumption. Anything they find is interpreted on the basis of that view. The science does not require that. Rather, it is an obligation that materialists impose on themselves. But what if scientific evidence points in a different direction? As we will see, it does. But before we get to the neuroscience, it may be worthwhile to look at some other reasons for thinking that the twentieth-century materialist consensus isn’t true. Neuroscience is, after all, a rather new discipline, and it would be best to first establish that there are also good reasons for doubting materialism that arise from older disciplines.[2]

We don’t have to be neuroscientists to understand the implications of the materialist reductionism being presented by Wolfe and his contemporaries. Beauregard works with careful tension between scientific and philosophical arguments to bring his thesis to the forefront - that we have built both our worldview and our scientific methodologies on a foundation that has begun to crack. We cannot move forward with true exploration (scientific or otherwise) without resetting those foundations in a system that incorporates the possibility of something non-materialist. Like the labels of modernity and post-modernity, Beauregard has no nomenclature for the new worldview, other than calling it the antithesis of its predecessor- “non-materialist”.

Without giving a essay length review of Beauregard’s excellent book, we can summarize his efforts to

1. articulating the presumptions of materialist reductionism within scientific thought
2. presenting an alternative non-materialist philosophical viewpoint
3. detailing scientific studies and findings that support the non-materialist viewpoint
4. presenting the specific details and summary findings proving the existence of the mind outside of the brain.

This work has some excellent power points made along the way. Each one confronting a remnant of materialist thinking that is answered with thoughtful nuance. One such example is this:

A teleologically oriented (i.e., purposeful rather than random) biological evolution has enabled humans to consciously and voluntarily shape the functioning of our brains. As a result of this powerful capacity, we are not biological robots totally governed by “selfish” genes and neurons.[3]

This is in direct response to scientific claims that genes force not only our structure and biology, but our actions and choices. Beauregard's response here is supported with much detail, but I wanted to highlight just such a conclusion that he comes to so you can understand the scope of the work he is attempting to do- to provide both a scientific and philosophical reset on the materialist/reductionist worldview which he says is wrongly assumed and embedded in the modern scientific community and work.

The book ultimately provides extensive study and data related to Beauregard’s thesis, along with summation of the reasons that he attributes the human soul with existence beyond the brain. But you cannot get to that conclusion without first travelling long (and sometimes hard) through the depths of his philosophical deconstruction and reconstruction.  That said, it is a worthwhile journey and I highly encourage you to make it if you are interested in the topics brought up here.

Amazon Book Link:  http://amzn.to/OCjQhg

Review by Kim Gentes

[1]Thomas C. Oden, “Care of Souls in the Classic Tradition” (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1984), Pg 24
[2]Mario Beauregard, Denyse O'Leary, “The Spiritual Brain: A Neuroscientist’s Case for the Existence of the Soul”. (New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers Inc., 2007), Pg 4
[3] Ibid., Pg 45

Human history, and its constituent civilizations, has largely been driven and directed by its discovery of key technologies, the development of which are largely determined by advantages of geographic location and plentiful access to essential species of domesticable plants and animals. This is the overall premise of Jared Diamond's "Guns, Germs and Steel". The book is a lengthy (512 pages) but insightful review of the evolution of peoples from the beings who lived as hunter-gatherers to the societies that developed from the advantages of food producing farmers. While "Guns, Germs and Steel" encapsulate some of the topics Diamond covers in this book, it is a serious bit of salesmanship that placed that title on this volume. The vast majority of this book is related to topics of food production especially focusing on agriculture and animal domestication. A more representative title might have been "The Advantages of Agriculture on Human Civilizations", but I am guessing that using 'agriculture' in a book title doesn't win sexy awards from publishers.

While guns, germs and steel are discussed and do play important roles in later civilization history, it is the pre-history of city-states that Diamond is concerned with. He builds the case from biology, history and linguistics that the foundation of food production (agriculture and animal domestication) was the seminal discovery that advantaged one society over another. Food producing societies were the ones able to support people who didn't have to worry about subsistence living (as every member of a hunter-gatherer society must do). The result of larger scale food production (which fed more than the family who produced/harvested the food) allowed people to live collectively and develop into the clans, tribes, and eventually cultures we have come to know. This collective grouping of peoples and sedentary living permitted the development not only of additional technologies but the sharing of those technologies, trade, and even exposure to a broader array of diseases to which a society could become sufficiently resistant (it is this disease resistance that becomes the later pivotal weapon of European societies as they conquered other cultures and lands).

In short, food production became the lynch pinch of early success which skewed technology and natural disease resistance to favor the Eurasian super-continent (and, initially at least, the Fertile Crescent) to become the place from which world wide colonialism would spring. The impact and effect of Eurasia's multi-millenial (in most cases) head start in food production and technology advancement would mean that European/Asian societies (Europe and China as their eventual descendants) would be the center from which conquest and expansion would emanate.

Diamond is clear that he believes he can prove from this premise that it is the intrinsic benefits of climate, geography and environment (including the selection of domesticable mammals present in various continents) that allowed Eurasia to gain the head start in food production and allowed it to sustain its lead in a upwardly spiraling positive feedback loop of food production, technology, language (especially written language) and other factors that ensured the blossoming of modern "Western Society" as the dominant civilization across the earth.  Diamond is clearly taking aim (and he doesn't try to hide this) at racist claims that certain peoples flourished because of their genetically better mental accumen (which presumably would allow for faster discovery/invention of technology).

Overall, the book is an exceptional work of logic, science and history. Diamond does well to employ his extensive biological understanding of food, plants and genetics to help the reader understand how man and nature engaged with one another and forced the process of evolution along the road of plant and animal domestication.  He also is exceptional in gathering facts of multi-disciplines (history, linguistics, archeology and biology) and making the peices fit the narrative he is building.

But for most casual readers this book will seem long and extremely tedious. If you have the patience for it, however, it can prove to be a global tour of human history that "connects the dots" across many facets of human development that may be of interest.  Personally, I enjoyed the book immensely, though I have had no previous interest in agricultural science. What fascinated me most about this book was its cohesive narrative- by building on the major premise of food production, one sees the development of classical to modern societies in a wholely different light than simply one group conquering another out of sheer military might. While the book is full of arduous details, I found the writing style enjoyable.

Amazon Book Link: http://amzn.to/NrthLd

If you like detailed reading with high-order concepts, I highly recommend this book.

Review by Kim Gentes

In the last 150 years, since Darwin, science has advanced significantly in every field and discipline. On every level of natural science, the continued discoveries and study have led to a waterfall of on going re-interpretations of principles and exposure of new ones.  Whether Christians like it or not, science has become the leading voice of truth in the modern age. The Church, once the global bastion of truth to the world, bequeathed its preeminence as a guardian of moral, philosophical and practical understanding by arrogance and oppressive posture towards society in general.  While the Church was busy disconnecting itself from the humanity it once served, science was forwarding its framework of modernity and filling out its broad structure of the theory of evolution.  The theory of evolution has especially seemed to be a particularly “anti-Christian” concept, since it seemed to (on first blush) be directly contradicting the literal interpretation of the Genesis creation narrative found in the bible.  This is the arch-type of the modern scientific v.s. traditional Christian creationist conflict that has become a major issue not just for converting non-Christians to a belief in the Christian God, and savior Jesus, but also to retain a sense of truth and integrity within the well-thinking ranks of its own membership (Christians).  In the last 20 years, the study of genomics has become a particularly powerful field of advancement in the scientific and popular worlds.

Within this context of a great show down of scientific discovery and post-modern Christian change, Francis Collins, a noted scientist, writes the book “The Language of God”.  Collins convincingly argues for a more thoughtful interpretation of both science and the Bible, such that a faith-centered belief might not be incompatible with such a scientifically understood world.  Collins begins with the usual larger picture issues in developing his thesis towards a scientifically compatible faith, establishing a list of natural descriptors that make man unique in the natural world.

It is the awareness of right and wrong, along with the development of language, awareness of self, and the ability to imagine the future, to which scientists generally refer when trying to enumerate the special qualities of Homo sapiens.[1]

The Language of God walks judiciously through both arguments of the uniqueness of the humanity and arguments related to creation as a whole that some Christians try to use to make science compatible with faith.  The best thing this book does is to discount unprotectable positions made by Christians that are simply not reasonable or scientifically accurate.  What Collins is doing is both deconstructing false Christian/scientific theories and opening up the possibility to leave space to have the story of creation and human place in it become tellable in a post-modern, scientific world.  Without walking through many arguments, he uses CS Lewis, Augustine and other great thinkers to steer away from poor logic and reason, and keep the understanding of morality within the confines of generally accepted thought (although he largely discounts post-modernity as a methodology to achieve deeper understanding of the faith /science conflict). 

While deconstructing much falseness about the scientific provability of creation science, Collins introduces the importance of “the Anthropic Principle: the idea that our universe is uniquely tuned to give rise to humans.”[2]  He elucidates that so many parameters and probabilities exist in the physical universe that make the possibility of the existence of the physical universe, the development of the stars and planets, the flourishing of life on earth and the development of humans within that- all but an impossibility in a reality which contains no preeminent being (God) from whom such precision is possible.  He says,

There are good reasons to believe in God, including the existence of mathematical principles and order in creation. They are positive reasons, based on knowledge, rather than default assumptions based on (a temporary) lack of knowledge.[3]

In addition, he adds two other important points to the Anthropic Principle, both of which have no scientific solution either now or in the foreseeable future.

First, is the problem with actually having the universe at all.  Collins argues that no scientific work has even proposed a reasonable hypothesis from which the “singularity” (an initial state of mass/energy) can be explained.  That is- even if we attribute all things from having come from a Big Bang (from which develops all other things through evolution), how does the first point of the universe (before the Big Bang) come into being?  Simply put, science has no answer. Somehow, everything came from something, but no one can account for how that something came about.

Second is the actual origins of first life on earth. Collins carefully tracks understandings of origin of life theories but comes to this conclusion:

how did self-replicating organisms arise in the first place? It is fair to say that at the present time we simply do not know. No current hypothesis comes close to explaining how in the space of a mere 150 million years, the prebiotic environment that existed on planet Earth gave rise to life. That is not to say that reasonable hypotheses have not been put forward, but their statistical probability of accounting for the development of life still seems remote.[4]

After dismantling the scientific plausibility of life  and universe existence without some supreme being, Collins turns his mind to breaking up false concepts of creation put forth through groups like the YEC (Young Earth Creationists).   This is heartening, not because of an anti-Christian standpoint, but because of a need to keep credulity inside of a thoughtful Christian response to scientific /atheistic attacks.

What Collins gets to is the reality that neither Christian misinformation about science or atheistic pride based on science can lead to the real answers of the prime questions of our universe, life and the human place in it.  He eventually leads the discussion to the clear questioning of the atheistic/scientific modernist mindset, from which much criticism is leveled. Collins, after deconstructing their presumed positions of pride (by the 3 main points listed above), challenges scientists by saying this:

Are you simply uncomfortable accepting the idea that the tools of science are insufficient for answering any important question? This is particularly a problem for scientists, who have committed their lives to the experimental assessment of reality. From that perspective, admitting the inability of science to answer all questions can be a blow to our intellectual pride—but that blow needs to be recognized, internalized, and learned from.[5]

I found the book to be enjoyable and interesting. Collins ends with a profound call to both sides of the discussion:

Science is not threatened by God; it is enhanced. God is most certainly not threatened by science; He made it all possible. So let us together seek to reclaim the solid ground of an intellectually and spiritually satisfying synthesis of all great truths.[6]

Amazon Product Link : http://amzn.to/vJVN3Z

Review by Kim Gentes

[1]Collins, Francis S. “The Language of God”. Kindle Edition (New York, NY: Free Press 2006), Pg. 23

[2]Ibid., Pg. 74

[3]Ibid., Pg. 93

[4]Ibid., Pg. 90

[5]Ibid., Pg. 232

[6]Ibid., Pg. 233