Minds, Brains, Souls, and Gods: A Conversation of Faith, Psychology and Neuroscience – Part 5, Chapter 6: But Is It All in the Brain? – The Emergence of Social Neuroscience and Chapter 7: But What About the Soul?

• • •

We continue the series on the book, Minds, Brains, Souls and Gods: A Conversation on Faith, Psychology and Neuroscience .  Today Part 6, Chapter 6: But Is It All in the Brain? – The Emergence of Social Neuroscience and Chapter 7: But What About the Soul?

Malcolm’s student raises the question of whether or not there has been an overemphasis on brain processes, at the expense of considering our social interactions.  Malcolm points out that in science you sometimes have to begin by reducing the uncontrolled variables as much as possible, hence the seeming overconcentration on the single individual in neuropsychological research.  That is a fair point.  The study of very complex systems has to begin by breaking them down into their component parts and examining the components one at a time.  There really is no other way to do “science”.  This is part of the explanation of why science in the popular view seems so “reductionist”.  Imonk commenter Stephen noted in Part 2:

Yes but you could say the same thing about spider webs or the Taj Mahal. I am impatient with the charge of “reductionism”.  “…scientists are picking off the relatively easy tasks of working out how little bits of the brain work molecularly and hoping that knowing about these nuts and bolts will eventually tell us how the complex system works as a whole.”  Ok so how else would one suggest they go about it?

Stephen raises the cogent point, there is no other way to go about it.  The facts have to be laid out, one at a time, and we have to make sure they are the facts i.e. have they been empirically verified.  But that is not the end of the scientific process (and please note I’m not saying Stephen said it was).  In my business, the cleaning up of contaminated sites, we always require the applicant to formulate the Conceptual Site Model (CSM).  The CSM then guides the process of determining when all exposure pathways are incomplete, that is, when there is no longer any threat to human health and the environment.  So facts alone, even when empirically verified, don’t “speak for themselves”.  The facts have to be interpreted, the narrative has to be compiled, the story has to be told.

So Malcolm notes that one of the fastest developing areas in neuroscience today is social neuroscience.  Researchers have demonstrated how specific parts of the brain are involved in social perception and cognition and decision making.  Researchers do this by use of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).  FMRI works by measuring the oxygen consumed by active neurons in the brain.  When neurons are active they take oxygen from the bloodstream, and a magnetic property of the hemoglobin changes.  The powerful magnets in the machine line up the hemoglobin molecules and then cause them to spin and emit energy.  By measuring this energy the machine tells which areas are more active when, for example, we think or feel or plan specific actions.  But Malcolm notes that like phrenology in the past – when people felt the bumps on the outside of people’s heads to understand how their minds worked – there is a danger that the results of fMRI studies can be abused to the extent they become a sort of modern phrenology.  The facts are not being assembled into a coherent narrative.

In the book: Essays in Social Neuroscience there is an example of how social interaction depends, in part at least, on how we appraise other people from their faces, for example, whether we find them trustworthy.  Using fMRI, researchers studied the neural basis for making judgements of trustworthiness of faces.  They showed a part of the brain showed enhanced activity when judgements of trustworthiness were being made.  He quotes the authors in their essay titled, “Biological Does Not Mean Predetermined: Reciprocal Influences of Social and Biological Processes”:

In sum, all human behavior, at some level, is biological, but this is not to say that biological representation yields a simple, singular, or satisfactory explanation of complex behaviors, or that molecular forms of representation provide the only or best level of analysis for understanding human behavior.  Molar constructs such as those developed by social psychologist provide a means of understanding highly complex activity without needing to specify each individual action of the simplest components, thereby providing an efficient means of describing the behavior of a complex system.  Social and biological approaches to human behavior have traditionally been contrasted, as if the two were antagonistic or mutually exclusive.  The readings in this book demonstrate the fallacy of this reasoning and suggest that the mechanisms underlying mind and behavior may not be fully explainable by a biological or social approach alone, but, rather, that a multilevel integrative analysis may be required.

Malcolm’s student, in the next chapter, raises the question about the dominant biblical theme that we humans are unique because, according to Genesis, we alone possess an immortal soul.  Such a view Malcolm admits, has been a pervasive view in the history of the church.  Genesis 1:27 “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.”  Since God is a spiritual being, he endowed us also with spirituality, giving us an immortal soul; so the tradition says.

He notes James Barr has five ways in which this “image of God” has been traditionally interpreted:

1. First, we possess an immortal soul.
2. Second, we alone can reason (argued by Augustine, Aquinas, and accepted by Luther and the Reformers.
3. Third was based on our physical distinctiveness, bipedalism and so forth.
4. Fourth is what Barr labels “functionality”, or our calling to have dominion over the whole world. In this sense the image of God is not what we are but what we are called to do.
5. Fifth is our capacity for a relationship with God and with other creatures, an idea emphasized by Karl Barth, for whom the image of God becomes not just an ability for relationship, but the relationship itself: a relationship with God and with each other, most clearly exemplified in Jesus, who alone is fully the image of God.

Malcolm admits that in trying to answer such a question he faces the danger of falling into the trap of pretending there are simple answers to profound questions. He notes that it is an oversimplification that Hebrew thought was unitary and Greek though was dualistic – a separate soul and body.

He quotes Joel Green : “There was no singular conception of the soul among the Greeks, and the body-soul relationship was variously assessed among philosophers and physicians in the Hellenistic period.”

The relationship between Hellenism and Judaism in the centuries after Alexander the Great in the near East before Christ was a complex one.  The environment that the New Testament took shape in provided for a variety of views both within Roman Hellenism and Hellenistic Judaism.  For centuries the words soul and mind were used interchangeably.

He then notes various traditional interpretations of Genesis 2:7 “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.”  The word translated “soul” in the King James is nefesh, which occurs almost 800 times in the Old Testament.  He then quotes professor of Old Testament at Asbury seminary, Lawson Stone, who says:

1. Regarding what happened when “God breathed into Adam” we are not to imagine Adam’s reception of some intangible personal essence that makes him distinct from the animals, and eligible for everlasting life. The nefesh here is not a possession nor a component of Adam’s nature.  The pile of dust, upon being inspirited by divine breath actually became a living nefesh.  The term “living nefesh” then denotes the totality of Adam’s being.  Adam does not have a nefesh, he is a living nefesh.
2. The meaning of living nefesh is found in the immediate context. The term living soul appears four times in the preceding context and once shortly after.  This in Genesis 1:21,24,30 the term refers simply and clearly to animals.  In these passages the expression can be rendered “living creature”.  And later he goes on to say, referring to the animals, “that each one, like him, is a living nefesh and this clearly underscores the conclusion that a living nefesh is not a being separate from the rest of creation because possesses an intangible spiritual entity that determines its identity.
3. Stone continues, “The linking of nefesh to physical existence and not to transcendence, to an immortal inward essence of personhood, fits well with the Old Testament’s overall disinterest in the afterlife… To summarize: the term nefesh in Genesis 2:7 refers not to a part of Adam’s nature, nor to some possession such as a transcendent personal spiritual hypostasis termed a “soul” that lives forever and distinguishes humanity from animals. Rather nefesh hayyah denotes Adam as a living creature like the animals created in Genesis 1 and 2.  It underscores Adam’s linkage with the animal creation, not his differences from it.”

The classic passage in the New Testament is 1 Thessalonians 5:23 “And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”  Some people refer to it as the “troublesome trichotomy theory”, because close study shows the differences, if any, between soul and spirit are not easy to define.  Basically, the New Testament sees a person as consisting of a body (soma) and a soul (psyche).

The classic passage on the resurrection is 1 Corinthians 15:

35 But some man will say, How are the dead raised up? and with what body do they come?

36 Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die:

37 And that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall be, but bare grain, it may chance of wheat, or of some other grain:

38 But God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him, and to every seed his own body.

39 All flesh is not the same flesh: but there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, another of fishes, and another of birds.

40 There are also celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial: but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another.

41 There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars: for one star differeth from another star in glory.

42 So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption:

43 It is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power:

44 It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body.

45 And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.

46 Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual.

47 The first man is of the earth, earthy; the second man is the Lord from heaven.

48 As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy: and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly.

49 And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.

As many theologians now recognize, in particular N.T. Wright, the emphasis of the New Testament, in particular Paul, is resurrection of the body to a new life on an earth (and heavens) made new, not a dis-embodied existence in a “fluffy white cloud” heaven.  As Paul says in verse 44, “It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual BODY”.

To bring it back to neuroscience, Malcolm mentions the InterVarsity Press book, “In Search of the Soul: Four Views of the Mind-Body Problem” and says this:

Personally, I find the most convincing approach in this volume, in the sense of doing most justice both to the science and to Scripture, to be the one written by Nancey Murphy.  She labels her view “Nonreductive Physicalism”.  If we must have labels put on us, I prefer to call my view dual-aspect monism, as I’ve mentioned before.  By this I mean that there is only one reality to be understood and explained – this is what I would call the “mind-brain unity”, hence the word monism.  By saying “dual-aspect”, I am affirming that in order to do full justice to the nature of this reality we need to give at least two accounts of it an account in terms of its physical makeup and an account in terms of our mental or cognitive abilities.  You cannot reduce the one to the other.  This may seem like a linguistic quibble, but my concern is that the term physicalism as Nancey Murphy uses it, could be taken by some as giving precedence to the physical aspect of our makeup over the mental.  I think that would be to ignore that, as I said earlier, we can only know and talk about the mind-body problem by using language and the mental categories it employs.  So in this sense at least, not selecting out either the mental or the physical would avoid giving precedence to either.  If pressed, I would say that referring only to the physical, as in Nonreductive Physicalism, runs the risk of seeming to endorse a materialistic view which, in turn, implies that the mind is “nothing but” the chattering of the cells of the brain.

I’d like to repeat something I said last time in a reply to Robert F in the comments.  Flowing water, in a river or channel may exhibit subcritical or supercritical flow. Subcritical occurs when the actual water depth is greater than critical depth. Subcritical flow is dominated by gravitational forces and behaves in a slow or stable way. It is defined as having a Froude number less than one (The Froude number is a ratio of inertial and gravitational forces. · Gravity (numerator) – moves water downhill. · Inertia (denominator) – reflects its willingness to do so). Supercritical flow is dominated by inertial forces and behaves as rapid, turbulent, or unstable flow. Subcritical flow is laminar and is defined by relatively simple mathematical formulas. The relation between subcritical and supercritical flow is not a continuum. When the Froude number reaches 1, a nick point occurs where the flow jumps to supercritical. The flow is now chaotic and indeterminate. As commenter Klasie said, “Dynamical systems are deterministic. But they are non-linear in their determinism, i.e., they appear to be indeterminate because of their complexity, especially within certain parameters – at that point where the parameters of the system causes it to go chaotic.”

My point here is that our evolutionary brain development reached a “nick point” with regard to reason, self-awareness, ability to think about the past and the future, conceive of God, and so on. It’s not that our fellow animal kin have no ability to do these things, but that their development is of a rudimentary kind that is below the “Brain-Froude” number of 1. As Robert F said, “…a large enough magnitude of material cause-and-effect cascades into a qualitative change.” [Pure speculation here: at some point in human evolution, some group of hominins reached the “nick point” and suddenly (relatively speaking) their eyes were open and they knew as God knew; the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, but I digress.]

So I am with Jeeves here, a soul is something we are, not an immaterial something we have.  We are embodied beings.  That is why the New Testament emphasis was on resurrection of the body, not dying and going to fluffy white cloud heaven as a disembodied “soul”.

As Chaplain Mike said in Tuesday’s post:

As Moltmann says, “This means that we shall be redeemed with the world, not from it” (Location 1277, Kindle Edition). We look for the redemption of the body, not release from it. Our hope is not in the immortality of the soul, but the resurrection of the body. Our hope, our home is not in heaven “up there” or “out there.” We look for all creation to be set free from its bondage so that we may all share together in the freedom of a new heavens and earth.

But what about Paul and Philippians 1: 23 For I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better: 24 Nevertheless to abide in the flesh is more needful for you.

What is it of us that survives death?  The empiricist would say nothing, and I have no empirical data to dispute that.  All I have is, like Paul, a trust in Christ, that where He is there I will be until the end when I am given the resurrection body.

To quote Chaplain Mike from Monday’s post:

For example, I find in the whole concept of quantum physics (of which I actually know very little, but I’m trying to learn) a useful metaphor for grasping the fact that there is much in this universe that exists and operates without me being aware of it and in ways that seem to contradict what we observe in the visible world. Perhaps one day I’ll have to find another metaphor as our knowledge grows, but for now I still believe in Mystery, even in a scientific and technological age.