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June 27, 2007

Wicked Science Takes on the Soul

Cornelia Dean has a very interesting piece entitled, "Science, Religion and the battle for the human soul," that points out how modern science is throwing down the gauntlet at the feet of most religions by seriously challenging the very notion of a "soul." The result is that many religious believers are beginning to see science as "wicked."

[A]s evolutionary biologists and cognitive neuroscientists peer ever deeper into the brain, they are discovering more and more genes, brain structures and other physical correlates to feelings like empathy, disgust and joy. That is, they are discovering physical bases for the feelings from which moral sense emerges - not just in people but in other animals as well.

The result is perhaps the strongest scientific challenge yet to the worldview summed up by Descartes, the 17th-century French philosopher who divided the creatures of the world between humanity and everything else. As biologists turn up evidence that animals can exhibit emotions and patterns of cognition once thought of as strictly human, Descartes's dictum, "I think, therefore I am," loses its force.

For many scientists, the evidence that moral reasoning is a result of physical traits that evolve along with everything else is just more evidence against the existence of the soul, or of a God to imbue humans with souls. For many believers, particularly in the United States, the findings show the error, even wickedness, of viewing the world in strictly material terms. And they provide for theologians a growing impetus to reconcile the existence of the soul with the growing evidence that humans are not, physically or even mentally, in a class by themselves.

Some scientists aren't ready to give up entirely on the concept of a soul. For instance, V. S. Ramachandran, a brain scientist at the University of California, San Diego, voiced a very "New Age" concept that cuts to the heart of Christianity and many other religions:

[T]here may be soul in the sense of "the universal spirit of the cosmos," but the soul as it is usually spoken of, "an immaterial spirit that occupies individual brains and that only evolved in humans - all that is complete nonsense." Belief in that kind of soul "is basically superstition."

The "universal spirit of the cosmos" describes the belief by some that God is in everything and everyone. Some take the concept to the next step, believing that each individual is a manifestation of God and is, therefore, God. These concepts are, of course, heretical to Christianity and certainly have the potential for creating a lot of social problems.

Nancey Murphy, a philosopher at Fuller Theological Seminary and ordained minister in the Church of the Brethren, pushes even further against traditional Christian thought in her attempt to hold on to the notion of a soul:

Evolutionary biology shows the transition from animal to human to be too gradual to make sense of the idea that we humans have souls while animals do not. All the human capacities once attributed to the mind or soul are now being fruitfully studied as brain processes - or, more accurately, I should say, processes involving the brain, the rest of the nervous system and other bodily systems, all interacting with the socio-cultural world.

The catch here is that if animals also have souls, then do they go to Heaven when they die? Do they sin? Did Jesus die for them, too? What about insects? What about viruses? Traditional Christianity simply cannot, as I see it, comfortably accommodate the notion of the animal soul. It is fundamental to the Christian religion that each individual possesses a unique, distinct eternal soul or, in a slightly different interpretation, that each individual is an embodied, living soul with a spirit that returns to God and that will reside in Heaven with God eternally. But non-human animals do not enjoy that special favor.

Throughout society, we are all struggling with the question of whether we are something more than a lot of soulless animals with higher intelligence. The implications are too serious to not consider the question. I am fairly certain that despite valiant attempts at apologetics and rebuttals to scientific thought, eventually most fundamentalist Christians will find themselves pressed into a corner over this matter, forced to reject science outright as being a deceptive tool of the Devil, or to accept science and reject their Christian belief in the distinct, individual soul - or perhaps any soul at all.

Are we nothing more than highly evolved, soulless animals in a godless universe just hoping to survive? Or do our lives have a greater meaning? Do animals have souls and, therefore, great meaning and importance, or do only humans have souls, thereby affirming that we are the centerpiece of all God's creation? Are we all connected through one universal spirit, in which case we are really all one? Or do we each have unique eternal souls that live on and are accountable to God after we die?

If you could know the answer for certain, and knew that your own deeply held beliefs just might be dashed as a result, would you still want to know the truth?

Would you be more comfortable living in a country ruled by laws based on science, or laws based on the beliefs of a particular religion, but not necessarily your own religion?

Posted by Becky at June 27, 2007 11:52 AM