Some of my best friends are brain scientists. Well, actually, there is only one, my dear friend John Medina, among the brightest, most affable, generous people I know. I have learned more about the brain from John than I deserve to know, given my bent of curiosity toward culture, text, literature, theology, the biblical imagination, and such.
But I’ve grown impatient with some brain scientists, or at least the popularizing of brain science, perhaps the popularizing of any science. My impatience is with those who feel the need to verify through science what theologians have grappled with for centuries. My problem is that science almost never consults theology.
The irritating part is that nothing these days is presumed true until we can trot out some kind of “empirical research.” Stick the brain under the fMRI, and voila, we now have the truth. Everything else is tossed into the wastebin of speculation, conjecture, imagination, even magic. Science always trumps, or dismisses, good theology.
There is a fascinating article in the Wall Street Journal’s Review section last Saturday morning called “Hard-Wired For Giving.” The article is written by Elizabeth Svoboda, apparently one of our interpreters of what she calls the “science of selflessness.”
This article represents what I have been chaffing at for years.
“A cursory read of evolutionary doctrine,” Ms. Svoboda begins, “suggests that the selfish individuals able to outcompete others for the best mates and the most resources are most likely to pass their genes on to the next generation.” This orthodoxy is, of course, buried deep into our social consciousness. We are all out for ourselves, engaged in a battle to get on top, making choices that are primarily self-focused. We rarely do anything genuinely generous. That’s the survival game Darwin revealed to the world a century and a half ago.
Well, “the latest science,” Svoboda goes on to say, “shows that, in fact, we are also hard-wired to be generous.” “Using tools like fMRI,” she says, “scientists are identifying the precise circuits within the brain that control these nurturing social impulses. Where once there was only speculation about the origins of the human desire to help others, a body of data is starting to fill the gap, revealing key workings of the biological hardware that makes altruism possible.”
I find this breathtakingly arrogant, to assume that only now we have found the real “origins of human desire to help others,” or that we only now know what “makes altruism possible.” Our only source for such knowledge?–“key workings of the biological hardware.” I bring a heavy dose of skepticism to this kind of speculation.
But wait. Let’s not get too optimistic about human nature. Apparently, from this research, generosity is still self-focused: “While we often tend to think of altruism as a kind of sophisticated moral capacity we use to squelch our urges to dominate others, this new evidence suggests that giving is actually inherently rewarding: The brain churns out a pleasurable response when we engage in it.” Even generosity is designed to provide our own pleasure. We are still out for ourselves.
All of this “represents a new scientific frontier, one that could eventually enable the development of therapies tailored for people who have particular problems generating empathy or who want to improve their existing capacity for generosity.” Oh my, this now gets a little scary. Using light, for example, for neurological manipulation, we can make mice nice: “Once the light in the mouse’s brain begins to glow, the mouse all but smothers his cagemate, practically jumping on top of him in an attempt to connect.”
This “might sound vaguely Orwellian,” Svoboda suggests, but the scientists plan to use the “light-activation system for benevolent ends.” Yes, of course.
What interests me here is that there is not one hint in this article recognizing the ancient Christian teaching on this enormously important topic. Right at the heart of the gospel sits the remarkable notion that we are naturally selfish but mysteriously transformed by God’s love to become generous. To become self-giving, self-sacrificing is exactly what Jesus models for us on the cross. We are reminded every time we see the cross to give ourselves away.
And then, once we are invaded by God’s gracious love, we set out to become better people. This is the discipline of character formation that is always part of Christian teaching. All of this is the paradoxical way of human flourishing. This is the Christian view of what it means to flourish.
My point is not to rag on science. That would be foolish. My point comes from my utter astonishment to read an article like this that has not a clue how to tap into the centuries-long biblical and theological teaching.
When it comes to wisdom on how to live well, our culture has become a little thin, frankly a little silly. What if, like my friend John Medina, our scientists joined our theologians instead of dismissing them. Something richer, more nuanced, more true might come from just this kind of collaboration.
Science and theology, nice. Both are continually changing since they represent man’s understanding. Scientifically, I am taking a little pill that may saving my life by dissolving some blood clots in my lungs. Theologically, I am trusting a Sovereign God who loves me and has already worked out every facet of my life. One day, both fields of knowledge will perfectly merge. In the meantime, I lean on theology with Scripture as it primary source and authority and continue to take the pill.
God bless you, Phil!
Interesting how we continue to work on faith/science issues. Long ago the issues were inclined to be in the physical sciences. Today it tends to be issues relating to biological sciences and faith. Over the years of reading history and philosophy of science it has struck me often how it seems to have been science that forced changes in theology and not the other way around. I wonder why it is this way and I wonder how Christ-followers could be more influential in impacting human thinking. I have opinions on this that would be fun to discuss sometime. In the meantime, I am convinced that human depravity is real (just look around) and desperately needs a Savior. In addition, there are some wonderful recent writings by people like Francis Collins and others who make some sense out of important issues.
Dave
I find these comments a bit confusing. As Christians, we believe that we know through the Scripture. We expect any of those things we know to be true in every sense. But science says we know through scientific investigation. When I see science confirm something I knew through my confidence in the Scripture, I rejoice rather than get frustrated. Sometimes that confirmation changes the way I see what I thought I knew. For example, when Scripture says the world was created in 6 days, some said that meant 6 literal 24-hour days. Through science we can see that my “knowing through Scripture” was distorted, and science helps me see this more clearly. I loved the scientific result from Daniel Khaneman’s book Thinking Fast, and Slow: a focus on money makes us selfish and isolated. As a Christian I already knew that: “the love of money is the root of all evil.” But it is fascinating to see the experiments he ran to demonstrate this. If science and theology were not “independent” in this way, a scientist who was also a Christian might be hesitant to explore some areas for fear she would create something that proves the faith to be false. So when I read the same scientific results that you read, I don’t see it as arrogance at all, but as joyous confirmation. At the same time, we recognize there are some scientific questions that we cannot answer through theology, just as there are some questions that cannot be answered through science. Francis Collins does a great job on this in his book The Language of God.