Neurotheology and Evolutionary Theology: Reflections on the Mystical Mind

Eugene d'Aquili and Andrew B. Newberg in their book The Mystical Mind suggest that their neurotheology is both a metatheology and a megatheology. In this commentary I question whether neurotheology is comprehensive enough and suggest that it needs to and possibly can take into account the moral and social dimensions of religion. I then propose an alternative metatheology and megatheology: evolutionary theology grounded in the science of biocultural evolution and focusing on ultimate reality as creatively immanent in natural and human history. Neurotheology and evolutionary theology may complement one another. Evolutionary theology accounts for both the neurology of the brain and culturally evolved ideas and practices of particular religions and their theologies. Hence it seems more comprehensive than neurotheology. However, because ultimate reality in evolutionary theology is immanent in the world of space and time, of baseline experience, it cannot account for the mystic experience of absolute unitary being. In accounting for this transcendent experience and its reality, neurotheology is more comprehensive. However, neither theology can account for how transcendent ultimate reality, experienced by the mystic as absolute unitary being, gives rise to the changing world experienced as baseline reality.     

Putting the Mystical Mind Together

This article reviews and responds to various issues that have been raised in critical analysis of our work studying the relationship between religion and the brain. An adequate response necessitates a discussion about the origins of this research, the potential pitfalls of doing empirical research in this field, and the complex requirements of interpreting the implications of such an approach. Through inquiry such as this, the study of the brain and its relation to religion and religious experience will continue to advance and uncover the many fascinating questions that await.     

THE NEW SCIENCES OF RELIGION

In this essay I examine the new sciences of religion, spanning the traditional fields such as the psychology, sociology, and anthropology of religion to new fields such as the economics, neurosciences, epidemiology, and evolutionary psychology of religion. The purpose is to welcome these approaches but also delineate some of their philosophical and theological limitations. I argue for pluralistic methodologies in the scientific study of religious and spiritual phenomena. I argue that religious persons and institutions should welcome these investigations, because science affects only interpretative strategies and does not present a fundamental challenge to core religious commitments. Indeed, the new sciences of religion can help religions in becoming more effective and wholesome. I am critical of confusing the scientific study of religion with scientism and trace this ideological project back to August Comte. In the end I deconstruct the metaphoric boundary that places religion on the inside as the object and science as the subject on the outside looking in.     

Religion and Science Conversation: A Case Illustration

The March 1999 issue of Zygon provides a case illustration of a religion-and-science conversation. The three responses to the issues raised by The Humanizing Brain represent a spectrum ranging from skepticism to affirmation. Each is examined in turn. Next, we present a constructive set of guidelines beginning with the recognition that interdisciplinary talk requires stretching disciplinary language into metaphor and analogy. We conclude with a methodology emphasizing empiricism and wholism.     

Ten Principles for Interpreting Neuroscientific Pronouncements Regarding Human Nature

As the field of brain research continues to advance, much is being discovered about the various aspects of the brain that are associated with certain feelings, thoughts, and behaviors. However, certain studies, or popularized accounts thereof, overreach in their pronouncements, drawing unwarranted conclusions regarding human nature. There are ten principles that will assist the non‐specialist in critically assessing both now and future discoveries reported from the neurosciences, with a focus on helping theologians using neuroscientific data in multidisciplinary work regarding human nature.     

JAMES B. ASHBROOK AND HIS HOLISTIC WORLD: TOWARD A “UNIFIED FIELD THEORY” OF MIND,BRAIN, SELF,WORLD, AND GOD

James B. Ashbrook's “new natural theology in an empirical mode” pursued an integrated understanding of the spiritual, psychological, and neurological dimensions of spiritual life. Knowledge of neuroscience and personality theory was central to his quest, and his understandings were necessarily revised and amplified as scientific findings emerged. As a result, Ashbrook's legacy may serve as a case example of how to do religion‐and‐science in a milieu of scientific change. The constant in the quest was Ashbrook's core belief in the basic holism of brain, mind, personality, the nature of reality, and the underlying reality of God.