| Published 2011 |
The Bible is not a book of neurology. It is, instead, the story of our salvation
through God’s interaction with mankind. We can, nevertheless, derive some
ideas about how our self (or soul) interacts with the brain and whether we are
mere matter or something more.
Christianity, as well as other religions like Buddhism and Theosophy,
proposes that there is a soul which can exist independent of the body — a
philosophy called mind/body or mind/brain substance dualism. The Bible at
times indicates this. For instance, at his transfiguration Jesus talked to
Moses and Elijah (Matthew 17). If Moses were only a material being, this
would not have been possible — except, of course, there was some
substance or being to Moses, a substance or being that survived death and
could physically speak. After the fifth seal is opened in Revelation 6:9, we
are told that under the altar were the souls of those who had been slain
because of the Word of God and their testimony, and they called out to God
asking how long before he judges the inhabitants of earth. This would be
impossible unless there were some immaterial aspect of them which survived
their deaths, which can still think and even speak. Atheistic materialism, on
the other hand, denies this.
Jeffrey Schwartz is a research professor of psychiatry at the UCLA school of
medicine. His interests include patients with obsessive compulsive disorder
(OCD) – to which I can relate, as I have occasionally suffered from this
malady. Its victims have the urge, however illogical, to indulge in time-
consuming repetitive behaviors or are preoccupied with thoughts they cannot
shut out or control (hence the obsessive nature).
Until the mid-1960s, it was believed that there was little help for people with
OCD. Treatments such as electroshock, psychosurgery, drugs, and talk
therapy were tried with little success, and the tide began to turn when
researchers discovered that certain antidepressant drugs gave sufferers
some relief. About that same time, Victor Meyer, a psychologist at Middlesex
hospital in London, stumbled upon the exposure and response approach to
OCD. As sufferers are exposed to what triggers their obsession the most,
and they come to realize that these triggers do not harm them as much as
they fear, they learn that they are able to control their obsessions. This was
the sole behavioral method of controlling OCD when Schwartz entered the
fray. 1
_____________________________________________________________
1. Jeffrey Schwartz and Sharon Begley, The Mind & the Brain: Neoplasticity and the
Power of Mental Force (New York: HarperCollins, 2002), 57-60.
______________________________________________________________________
Schwartz introduced a four-step approach in which the patients attribute their
obsessiveness to faulty brain circuitry and refocus their minds on something
other than their obsession. Such an approach created drastic improvements
in his patients and led him to conclusions that mimic the idea of mind/brain
dualism because it was the person’s own willful act which changed his brain,
not his brain changing itself. Schwartz does not, to my knowledge, ever use
the word “soul” in this book. Instead he chooses “direct mental force” to
suggest the nonmaterial force which causes brain changes. “The results
achieved with OCD,” he says, “supported the notion that the conscious and
willful mind differs from the brain and cannot be explained solely and
completely by the matter, by the material substance, of the brain.”
Schwartz anticipates and refutes possible materialist objections which might
assert that one part of the brain is changing the other. “To train people
suffering from OCD requires tapping into their natural belief in the efficacy of
their own willful actions. Explanations based exclusively on materialist
causation are both infeasible and inappropriate for conveying to OCD
patients the steps they must follow to change their own brain circuitry
systematically.” 2
___________________________________________________________
2. Schwartz and Begley, 93-94.
___________________________________________________________
This view of the reality of mind and brain matches normal common sense.
As I write this article, I am not some mere automaton responding to the
brain’s whims but a conscious agent whose choices are not preceded by a
prior biological state of matter.
However, some people admit to the existence of the mind but deny it has
any causative influence on the brain. Jeffrey Satinover has refuted this
idea by just asking a series of questions. The atheistic Darwinian idea is that
consciousness is not an external thing which can influence matter, but
consciousness may appear as a property of matter which appears during a
specific level of organization and has an adaptive benefit. However, how can
something which cannot influence matter be adaptive? Perhaps, they will
say, the illusion of having consciousness has adaptive benefit. However, how
can a machine (whether metal or human) without a mind have illusions? A
belief in consciousness is nothing more than a belief, and beliefs are
products of minds.3 So if there are no minds, then there must be no beliefs
that minds exist either. 4 However, there clearly are beliefs and so we must
suppose a mind exists that is independent of the brain.
___________________________________________________________
3. I am not using the term “belief“ in the sense of saving faith in Jesus Christ, which is
the working of the Holy Spirit in the human soul, not an activity of the human mind sui
generis.
4. Jeffrey Satinover, The Quantum Brain (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2001), 221.
___________________________________________________________
One of the objections to mind/brain dualism has been the fact that it is
difficult to explain how an immaterial mind or soul can impact material
matter such as a brain. Schwartz and Begley, however, lean on quantum
physics for the answer. Many of us learned in school that the atom is
composed of electrons, protons, and neutrons which all occupy distinct
ball-like shapes in the atom. At any one time you could peer into the atom to
discover their locations. According to these authors, that view is incorrect.
Rather, the atom is a collection of particles whose locations are not set until
one observes them. This is different than the macroscopic world we live in
where our observations do not change the nature of things.
Physicist Michio Kaku wrote that “It is often stated that of all the theories
proposed in this century, the silliest is quantum theory.” On the other hand
he adds that “some say that the only thing that quantum theory has going for
it is that it is unquestionably correct.” 5
___________________________________________________________
5. Schwartz and Begley, 263.
___________________________________________________________________
Supposedly, this fact leaves room for free will. We can describe anyone’s
brain as a system of neurons whose atoms are in various quantum states.
When we exert mental force we change the quantum state of these neurons
and this change filters down (or up) into changes in the brain which produce
the willed actions we witness every day.
Schwartz and Begley’s theories are farther along scientifically than anything
ever proposed before. I should caution, however, that while it is easy to
observe the effects of subatomic particles in some experiments, it is difficult
(perhaps impossible) to observe them in the brain. Until we do that, such a
theory may remain only a theory which explains what we observe in our
willed actions.
Years later Mario Beauregard and Denyse O’Leary wrote The Spiritual Brain
which also argues for the existence of an immaterial soul. They take up the
topic of OCD also, though not as in depth as Schwartz and Begley.
Beauregard’s and O’Leary’s arguments for its existence focus on other
experimental evidence. For example, ten men between the ages of twenty
and forty-two were asked to watch four portions of emotionally neutral films
and four portions from erotic films. At one point they were simply asked to
observe the erotic movies, and at another to force themselves to downplay
their feelings toward them. The participants were effective at suppressing
their arousal. Brain scans revealed differences in those who did or did not
suppress their reactions. Therefore, some agent or substance must be
causing the changes in the brain since the experiments were the same in
both instances. 6
__________________________________________________________
6. Mario Beauregard and Denyse O’Leary, The Spiritual Brain: A Neuroscientist’s Case
for the Existence of the Soul (New York: HarperCollins, 2007), 131-132.
__________________________________________________________
Beauregard and O’Leary do not let the issue rest there. They proceed to
discuss near-death experiences (NDEs) and PSI (the ability to influence
things from a distance with the mind) – both controversial topics. The truth of
the NDE rests primarily on the fact that some people who have had so-called
near death experiences seemed to have been able to view events and things
which they could not have viewed normally unless they were outside their
bodies. This is not a new phenomenon. In an article in The Humanist, John
Beloff argued that evidence for life after death was significant in such a
nature that humanists should admit to the existence of an afterlife and
attempt to interpret it in a naturalistic framework. Beloff declared that the
evidence indicates a “dualistic world where mind or spirit has an existence
separate from the world of material things” and contended that this evidence
challenges Humanism much as Darwinian evolution challenged Christianity.
After the publication of Beloff’s article in 1981, the American Psychological
Association held a meeting to discuss the nature and origin of near-death
experiences. Only one panelist contended that these experiences could be
explained by natural, physical means, but he was seriously challenged by
Michael Sabom and could not answer Sabom's challenge. 7
___________________________________________________________
7. Gary Haberman and J. P. Moreland, Immortality: The Other Side of Death (Nashville:
Thomas Nelson, 1992), 85.
___________________________________________________________
As recently as 2010 the evidence has become even bolder when Jerry
Long and Paul Perry detailed nine lines of evidence which render the
possibility of life after death irrefutable. Such evidence includes a woman
who was blind and never saw the rings she wore, but during her NDE should
could see them and give accurate information about them later. Another
woman had an NDE and observed a shoe on the ledge of the hospital in
which she was a patient — and she gave accurate information about the
shoe.8 Materialists have continued to insist the explanation for this
phenomenon lies in chemical imbalances in the brain.
___________________________________________________________
8. Jeffrey Long and Paul Perry, Evidence of the Afterlife: the Science of Near-Death
Experiences (New York: HarperCollins, 2010).
___________________________________________________________
Much has been written over the years about right and wrong, and Marc
Hauser’s Moral Minds is a recent contributor to this quest. The central idea
of the book, he says, is that “we evolved a moral instinct, a capacity that
naturally grows within each child, designed to generate rapid judgments
about what is morally right or wrong based on an unconscious grammar of
action.” Part of this ability was crafted by the blind hand of evolution, he
says, while other parts were added later. This “universal moral grammar,“ as
he calls it, underlies our moral judgments, lies beneath our awareness, and is
eerily reminiscent of the moral code the Bible claims is written on our hearts. 9
___________________________________________________________
9. For instance, see Romans 2: 12-16. St. Paul is talking about the Gentiles who have the
requirements of the law of God written on their hearts. Theologians call this the inscribed
law.
____________________________________________________________________
Thought experiments dominate his book. For instance, in one experiment,
Denise is a passenger on an out-of-control trolley, the conductor has fainted,
and the trolley is headed toward five people on the track who cannot get out
of its way. Denise can turn the trolley onto a side track and save the five
people but kill another person in the process (in essence, kill one to save
five). In a second experiment, Frank is on a footbridge overlooking an out-
of-control trolley on its way to kill five people and he can stop the trolley by
pushing a large person who is standing with him onto the track, thereby
stopping the trolley from killing the five. Which actions are morally
permissible?
Hauser’s opinion of the proper moral judgments is that it is proper for Denise
to divert the train onto the extra track in order to save the five, but not
allowable for Frank to push the man standing with him onto the track. His
reasoning gives us a hint of the moral struggles we deal with every day.
Regardless of what Denise does, at least one person will die and it is moral
to minimize the quantity of people being killed. The second instance seems
similar to the first except the large man next to Frank is a bystander and
killing him would lead to direct harm to an innocent person and there is
nothing that gives the people on the track more of a right to life than the
bystander.
Psychologist Lewis Petrinovich was the first to explore how people react
unconsciously to moral dilemmas such as these, with philosopher and legal
scholar John Mikhail following him with his own set of trolley problems.
Mikhail, as Petrinovich, found no evidence that gender, age, national
affiliation, or moral philosophies affected the moral judgments people
made. A word of caution should be given. In some instances most people
react imilarly to a moral dilemma while in other cases there is no unanimous
opinion, because people will respond differently to moral dilemmas based
on their cultural surroundings and prior moral judgments. However, Hauser
concludes there is a universal moral grammar that runs through humans
which we tap unconsciously.10 One could also say this moral grammar was
written on our hearts, as the Bible says.
___________________________________________________________
10. Marc Hauser, Moral Minds: The Nature of Right and Wrong (New York: HarperCollins,
2006), prologue and chapter three.
___________________________________________________________
The evidence seems to indicate the existence of free will and some kind of
nebulously conceived soul which can interact with the body yet be separated
from it and perceive moral codes we intuitively know while in the body. In
this sense, reality corresponds to the way we would expect, since the God of
the Bible made us — just as his book says. LSI
______________________________________________________________
Jeffrey Stueber is a member of the LSI Board of Directors and a free-lance writer
living in Watertown, Wisconsin. He is a member of St. John’s Ev. Lutheran Church,
Watertown.
through God’s interaction with mankind. We can, nevertheless, derive some
ideas about how our self (or soul) interacts with the brain and whether we are
mere matter or something more.
Christianity, as well as other religions like Buddhism and Theosophy,
proposes that there is a soul which can exist independent of the body — a
philosophy called mind/body or mind/brain substance dualism. The Bible at
times indicates this. For instance, at his transfiguration Jesus talked to
Moses and Elijah (Matthew 17). If Moses were only a material being, this
would not have been possible — except, of course, there was some
substance or being to Moses, a substance or being that survived death and
could physically speak. After the fifth seal is opened in Revelation 6:9, we
are told that under the altar were the souls of those who had been slain
because of the Word of God and their testimony, and they called out to God
asking how long before he judges the inhabitants of earth. This would be
impossible unless there were some immaterial aspect of them which survived
their deaths, which can still think and even speak. Atheistic materialism, on
the other hand, denies this.
Jeffrey Schwartz is a research professor of psychiatry at the UCLA school of
medicine. His interests include patients with obsessive compulsive disorder
(OCD) – to which I can relate, as I have occasionally suffered from this
malady. Its victims have the urge, however illogical, to indulge in time-
consuming repetitive behaviors or are preoccupied with thoughts they cannot
shut out or control (hence the obsessive nature).
Until the mid-1960s, it was believed that there was little help for people with
OCD. Treatments such as electroshock, psychosurgery, drugs, and talk
therapy were tried with little success, and the tide began to turn when
researchers discovered that certain antidepressant drugs gave sufferers
some relief. About that same time, Victor Meyer, a psychologist at Middlesex
hospital in London, stumbled upon the exposure and response approach to
OCD. As sufferers are exposed to what triggers their obsession the most,
and they come to realize that these triggers do not harm them as much as
they fear, they learn that they are able to control their obsessions. This was
the sole behavioral method of controlling OCD when Schwartz entered the
fray. 1
_____________________________________________________________
1. Jeffrey Schwartz and Sharon Begley, The Mind & the Brain: Neoplasticity and the
Power of Mental Force (New York: HarperCollins, 2002), 57-60.
______________________________________________________________________
Schwartz introduced a four-step approach in which the patients attribute their
obsessiveness to faulty brain circuitry and refocus their minds on something
other than their obsession. Such an approach created drastic improvements
in his patients and led him to conclusions that mimic the idea of mind/brain
dualism because it was the person’s own willful act which changed his brain,
not his brain changing itself. Schwartz does not, to my knowledge, ever use
the word “soul” in this book. Instead he chooses “direct mental force” to
suggest the nonmaterial force which causes brain changes. “The results
achieved with OCD,” he says, “supported the notion that the conscious and
willful mind differs from the brain and cannot be explained solely and
completely by the matter, by the material substance, of the brain.”
Schwartz anticipates and refutes possible materialist objections which might
assert that one part of the brain is changing the other. “To train people
suffering from OCD requires tapping into their natural belief in the efficacy of
their own willful actions. Explanations based exclusively on materialist
causation are both infeasible and inappropriate for conveying to OCD
patients the steps they must follow to change their own brain circuitry
systematically.” 2
___________________________________________________________
2. Schwartz and Begley, 93-94.
___________________________________________________________
This view of the reality of mind and brain matches normal common sense.
As I write this article, I am not some mere automaton responding to the
brain’s whims but a conscious agent whose choices are not preceded by a
prior biological state of matter.
However, some people admit to the existence of the mind but deny it has
any causative influence on the brain. Jeffrey Satinover has refuted this
idea by just asking a series of questions. The atheistic Darwinian idea is that
consciousness is not an external thing which can influence matter, but
consciousness may appear as a property of matter which appears during a
specific level of organization and has an adaptive benefit. However, how can
something which cannot influence matter be adaptive? Perhaps, they will
say, the illusion of having consciousness has adaptive benefit. However, how
can a machine (whether metal or human) without a mind have illusions? A
belief in consciousness is nothing more than a belief, and beliefs are
products of minds.3 So if there are no minds, then there must be no beliefs
that minds exist either. 4 However, there clearly are beliefs and so we must
suppose a mind exists that is independent of the brain.
___________________________________________________________
3. I am not using the term “belief“ in the sense of saving faith in Jesus Christ, which is
the working of the Holy Spirit in the human soul, not an activity of the human mind sui
generis.
4. Jeffrey Satinover, The Quantum Brain (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2001), 221.
___________________________________________________________
One of the objections to mind/brain dualism has been the fact that it is
difficult to explain how an immaterial mind or soul can impact material
matter such as a brain. Schwartz and Begley, however, lean on quantum
physics for the answer. Many of us learned in school that the atom is
composed of electrons, protons, and neutrons which all occupy distinct
ball-like shapes in the atom. At any one time you could peer into the atom to
discover their locations. According to these authors, that view is incorrect.
Rather, the atom is a collection of particles whose locations are not set until
one observes them. This is different than the macroscopic world we live in
where our observations do not change the nature of things.
Physicist Michio Kaku wrote that “It is often stated that of all the theories
proposed in this century, the silliest is quantum theory.” On the other hand
he adds that “some say that the only thing that quantum theory has going for
it is that it is unquestionably correct.” 5
___________________________________________________________
5. Schwartz and Begley, 263.
___________________________________________________________________
Supposedly, this fact leaves room for free will. We can describe anyone’s
brain as a system of neurons whose atoms are in various quantum states.
When we exert mental force we change the quantum state of these neurons
and this change filters down (or up) into changes in the brain which produce
the willed actions we witness every day.
Schwartz and Begley’s theories are farther along scientifically than anything
ever proposed before. I should caution, however, that while it is easy to
observe the effects of subatomic particles in some experiments, it is difficult
(perhaps impossible) to observe them in the brain. Until we do that, such a
theory may remain only a theory which explains what we observe in our
willed actions.
Years later Mario Beauregard and Denyse O’Leary wrote The Spiritual Brain
which also argues for the existence of an immaterial soul. They take up the
topic of OCD also, though not as in depth as Schwartz and Begley.
Beauregard’s and O’Leary’s arguments for its existence focus on other
experimental evidence. For example, ten men between the ages of twenty
and forty-two were asked to watch four portions of emotionally neutral films
and four portions from erotic films. At one point they were simply asked to
observe the erotic movies, and at another to force themselves to downplay
their feelings toward them. The participants were effective at suppressing
their arousal. Brain scans revealed differences in those who did or did not
suppress their reactions. Therefore, some agent or substance must be
causing the changes in the brain since the experiments were the same in
both instances. 6
__________________________________________________________
6. Mario Beauregard and Denyse O’Leary, The Spiritual Brain: A Neuroscientist’s Case
for the Existence of the Soul (New York: HarperCollins, 2007), 131-132.
__________________________________________________________
Beauregard and O’Leary do not let the issue rest there. They proceed to
discuss near-death experiences (NDEs) and PSI (the ability to influence
things from a distance with the mind) – both controversial topics. The truth of
the NDE rests primarily on the fact that some people who have had so-called
near death experiences seemed to have been able to view events and things
which they could not have viewed normally unless they were outside their
bodies. This is not a new phenomenon. In an article in The Humanist, John
Beloff argued that evidence for life after death was significant in such a
nature that humanists should admit to the existence of an afterlife and
attempt to interpret it in a naturalistic framework. Beloff declared that the
evidence indicates a “dualistic world where mind or spirit has an existence
separate from the world of material things” and contended that this evidence
challenges Humanism much as Darwinian evolution challenged Christianity.
After the publication of Beloff’s article in 1981, the American Psychological
Association held a meeting to discuss the nature and origin of near-death
experiences. Only one panelist contended that these experiences could be
explained by natural, physical means, but he was seriously challenged by
Michael Sabom and could not answer Sabom's challenge. 7
___________________________________________________________
7. Gary Haberman and J. P. Moreland, Immortality: The Other Side of Death (Nashville:
Thomas Nelson, 1992), 85.
___________________________________________________________
As recently as 2010 the evidence has become even bolder when Jerry
Long and Paul Perry detailed nine lines of evidence which render the
possibility of life after death irrefutable. Such evidence includes a woman
who was blind and never saw the rings she wore, but during her NDE should
could see them and give accurate information about them later. Another
woman had an NDE and observed a shoe on the ledge of the hospital in
which she was a patient — and she gave accurate information about the
shoe.8 Materialists have continued to insist the explanation for this
phenomenon lies in chemical imbalances in the brain.
___________________________________________________________
8. Jeffrey Long and Paul Perry, Evidence of the Afterlife: the Science of Near-Death
Experiences (New York: HarperCollins, 2010).
___________________________________________________________
Much has been written over the years about right and wrong, and Marc
Hauser’s Moral Minds is a recent contributor to this quest. The central idea
of the book, he says, is that “we evolved a moral instinct, a capacity that
naturally grows within each child, designed to generate rapid judgments
about what is morally right or wrong based on an unconscious grammar of
action.” Part of this ability was crafted by the blind hand of evolution, he
says, while other parts were added later. This “universal moral grammar,“ as
he calls it, underlies our moral judgments, lies beneath our awareness, and is
eerily reminiscent of the moral code the Bible claims is written on our hearts. 9
___________________________________________________________
9. For instance, see Romans 2: 12-16. St. Paul is talking about the Gentiles who have the
requirements of the law of God written on their hearts. Theologians call this the inscribed
law.
____________________________________________________________________
Thought experiments dominate his book. For instance, in one experiment,
Denise is a passenger on an out-of-control trolley, the conductor has fainted,
and the trolley is headed toward five people on the track who cannot get out
of its way. Denise can turn the trolley onto a side track and save the five
people but kill another person in the process (in essence, kill one to save
five). In a second experiment, Frank is on a footbridge overlooking an out-
of-control trolley on its way to kill five people and he can stop the trolley by
pushing a large person who is standing with him onto the track, thereby
stopping the trolley from killing the five. Which actions are morally
permissible?
Hauser’s opinion of the proper moral judgments is that it is proper for Denise
to divert the train onto the extra track in order to save the five, but not
allowable for Frank to push the man standing with him onto the track. His
reasoning gives us a hint of the moral struggles we deal with every day.
Regardless of what Denise does, at least one person will die and it is moral
to minimize the quantity of people being killed. The second instance seems
similar to the first except the large man next to Frank is a bystander and
killing him would lead to direct harm to an innocent person and there is
nothing that gives the people on the track more of a right to life than the
bystander.
Psychologist Lewis Petrinovich was the first to explore how people react
unconsciously to moral dilemmas such as these, with philosopher and legal
scholar John Mikhail following him with his own set of trolley problems.
Mikhail, as Petrinovich, found no evidence that gender, age, national
affiliation, or moral philosophies affected the moral judgments people
made. A word of caution should be given. In some instances most people
react imilarly to a moral dilemma while in other cases there is no unanimous
opinion, because people will respond differently to moral dilemmas based
on their cultural surroundings and prior moral judgments. However, Hauser
concludes there is a universal moral grammar that runs through humans
which we tap unconsciously.10 One could also say this moral grammar was
written on our hearts, as the Bible says.
___________________________________________________________
10. Marc Hauser, Moral Minds: The Nature of Right and Wrong (New York: HarperCollins,
2006), prologue and chapter three.
___________________________________________________________
The evidence seems to indicate the existence of free will and some kind of
nebulously conceived soul which can interact with the body yet be separated
from it and perceive moral codes we intuitively know while in the body. In
this sense, reality corresponds to the way we would expect, since the God of
the Bible made us — just as his book says. LSI
______________________________________________________________
Jeffrey Stueber is a member of the LSI Board of Directors and a free-lance writer
living in Watertown, Wisconsin. He is a member of St. John’s Ev. Lutheran Church,
Watertown.
