Harvey McMahon on Neuroscience and Free Will

The latest Cambridge Paper from the Jubilee Centre is available online, this one by Harvey McMahon:

Harvey McMahon, ‘How Free is Our Free-Will? Reflections from a Neuroscientist’, Cambridge Papers 25, 2 (June 2016).

Here is the summary:

‘Free-will is fundamental to our sense of wellbeing, and underwrites our sense of morality, our judicial system and the Judeo-Christian faith. However, science has provided evidence that free-will may be an illusion. In this paper I explore how the brain functions as the seat of our individual free-will and how we are also part of a collective-will expressed by cultural or religious groupings. In both cases free-will is an emergent property where decisions are expressed creatively rather than simply responsively. Yet we may not be as free as we like to think, but within boundaries shaped by our individual histories, our genetics and our environment we can make decisions that determine our character, relationships and future.’

Ethics in Brief Volume 19, Nos. 1 & 2 (2013)

Two issues from Volume 19 of Ethics in Brief, published by The Kirby Laing Institute for Christian Ethics, are now available online:

Claire Hordern, ‘Defining Death: New Pathways to Consider’, Ethics in Brief 19, 1 (2013).

By drawing on recent neurological research this article challenges some prevailing medical assumptions about the definition of death and explores some of the philosophical contours of the brain death debate.

Benjamin S. Wall, ‘Disability in the Christian Tradition: A Reader: Theological Contributions to Disability Discourse’, Ethics in Brief 19, 2 (2013).

Disability in the Christian Tradition: A Reader, edited by Brian Brock and John Swinton, is an indispensable contribution not only to the field of disability studies but also to any contemporary attempt at engaging in serious anthropological, theological, and ethical discourse. This article provides a summary sketch of the book tracing some of the issues it addresses.

Interpretation 67, 1 (2013) on Embodiment

The main essays in the January 2013 issue of Interpretation: A Journal of Bible and Theology, are devoted to the theme of ‘Embodiment: Reclaiming the Body for Faith’.

Silvia Schroer and Thomas Staubli

Bodily and Embodied: Being Human in the Tradition of the Hebrew Bible

A depiction of the ancient Hebrew understanding of the human being must take into account the fact that the Bible does not contain a systematic anthropology, but unfolds the multiplicity of human existence inductively, aspectively, and in narrative fashion. In comparison to Greek body/soul dualism, but also in the context of body-(de-)construction and gender debates, this circumstance makes it a treasure trove of interesting, often contrasting recollections and insights with liberating potential. This assertion will be illustrated concretely in terms of the nexus points of the human body (throat, heart, and womb), the relationship of humans to animals and angels, and the questions of the power and value of a human being.

Yung Suk Kim

Reclaiming Christ’s Body (soma christou): Embodiment of God’s Gospel in Paul’s Letters

Traditionally, “the body of Christ” has been read through an organism metaphor that emphasizes unity of the community in Christ. The weakness of this reading is that there is no clear articulation of how members of the community are united with Christ. The body language in Paul’s letters can be best understood when read through a metaphor for a way of living that emphasizes Christ’s embodiment of God’s gospel. The body of Christ in Paul’s letters is, first of all, his physical body that represents his life and death. Then, derivatively, it is also associated with Christian living – for example, “You are Christ-like body” (1 Cor 12:27).

Nancey Murphy

Do Humans Have Souls? Perspectives from Philosophy, Science, and Religion

This essay seeks to promote a concept of human nature that is usually called nonreductive physicalism, which is at least not ruled out by Scripture, and may in fact be closer to biblical thinking than dualism. The essay then looks to neuroscience to show that it provides useful insights into how and why we behave as we do.

Debra A. Reagan

Reclaiming the Body for Faith

This essay examines what it means to be embodied members of the Body of Christ, exploring the metaphor in 1 Corinthians 12:12–27 in terms of gender, race/ethnicity, variant embodiment, abused bodies, and sexual bodies

Ethics in Brief Volume 18, Nos. 1 and 2 (2012)

The first two issues from Volume 18 of Ethics in Brief, published by The Kirby Laing Institute for Christian Ethics, are now available online:

Tom Miller, ‘The Folly of Attributional Personhood’, Ethics in Brief 18, 1 (2012)

Following the Enlightenment and Empiricist movements, neuroscience has become increasingly harnessed by secular philosophers and ethicists in an attempt to determine scientifically who or what a person may be. However, such an approach is problematic given that the history of cognitive neuroscience is littered with patients who, after sustaining brain damage, lose focal cognitive abilities without apparently diminishing their value and worth as a person. This article explores the historical foundation of this materialistic approach to personhood and its scientific, philosophical and ethical consequences.

Jonathan Chaplin, ‘A Time to Marry – Twice’, Ethics in Brief 18, 2 (2012)

This article argues for a separation between the two stages of the solemnization of marriage: the civil and the religious. While this would be a good thing in itself, the possibility that same-sex marriage could soon be legalized adds greater urgency to the question and requires the church to reflect more urgently and boldly than it has done so far, both on the relation between church and government with respect to marriage and on its own distinctive theology of marriage.

Andy Crouch on David Brooks on The Social Animal

Andy Crouch, ‘Common Grace and Amazing Grace: A Review of David Brooks’s “The Social Animal”’, Christianity Today (11 July 2011).

I’m still in the early chapters, but am already enjoying the mix of narrative and neuroscience in David Brooks’ latest work, The Social Animal: A Story of How Success Happens (London: Short Books, 2011). It manages to be funny and informative at the same time.

So, I was interested to read this review in Christianity Today by Andy Crouch.

Crouch begins by noting how the centre of moral authority seems to have shifted from clergy to psychiatrists to neuroscientists, cognitive psychologists, and behavioural economists.

So far as Brooks is concerned, modernistic understandings of the good life have proven inadequate, and ‘the good human life is less about thinking than relating’ – not so much rational animal as social animal. We thrive when shaped by others, with emotion an essential ingredient in relationships, such that (as Crouch puts it) ‘a flourishing human being... is a relationally skilled, emotionally mature creature’.

All of which, of course, Christians ought happily to assent to: ‘It’s no surprise that image bearers of a relational God would be hardwired for deep connections, right down to the “mirror neurons” that allow us to experience viscerally and directly what we see others experiencing.’

And yet, Crouch says, while the narrative Brooks weaves with his fictional characters (Harold and Erica) tells a story of common grace – ‘of provisional, everyday blessings, the sun that rises on the just and the unjust... it is not a story of rescue. Indeed, the main characters, by dint of hard work and good luck, seem not to need any rescuing at all.’

The biblical vision of flourishing – of shalom – will not not be complete ‘without a broken cosmos rescued and redeemed’. As Crouch says, ‘we are no less than social animals, but to understand ourselves, let alone flourish, we must grasp that we were made to be far more’.

Joel B. Green on the Nature of Humanity

Joel B. Green, Body, Soul, and Human Life: The Nature of Humanity in the Bible, Studies in Theological Interpretation (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic/Bletchley: Paternoster, 2008), xviii + 219pp., ISBN 9781842275399.

This book forms one of the volumes in Baker’s ‘Studies in Theological Interpretation’ series, which seeks ‘to appreciate the constructive theological contribution made by Scripture when it is read in its canonical richness’, and which ‘is dedicated to the pursuit of constructive theological interpretation of the church’s inheritance of prophets and apostles in a manner that is open to reconnection with the long history of theological reading in the church’, where the ‘primary emphasis is on the constructive theological contribution of the biblical texts themselves’ (ix). [Phew!]

This particular volume has had a lengthy incubation period. Though a noted New Testament scholar, Joel Green has published numerous articles on personhood and the nature of humanity over the last ten years or so, and has undertaken graduate work in neuroscience to allow him to engage in the interdisciplinary study required for the book.

He begins by referring to an article from the New York Times declaring that neuroscientists have given up looking for the ‘soul’, suggesting that what makes us human is the wiring of the brain. Neuroscientists, he notes, are largely setting the agenda for discussions about our essential humanity, with very little being done to bring biblical perspectives to bear on the issues. His book seeks to redress that imbalance, providing, he says, ‘a progress report on where my thinking at the interface of these disciplines has led me’ (xvii).