Biology 202 [3]
2006 Book Commentaries [4]
On Serendip [5]
Why God Won't Go Away? And Why Should We Care?
Mariya Simakova
"Why God Won't Go Away: Brain Science and the Biology of Belief" is an achievement that is rare both in the history of theology and in the history of science. On the one hand, it is a collaborative realization of an interdisciplinary team of the neurobiologist and radiologist Andrew Newberg, his late colleague at the University of Pennsylvania, psychologist Eugene D'Auili, and journalist Vince Rause. Such an effort to bridge the gap between humanities and science is admirable in its own right, especially because it is successful. Moreover, this book is a testimony to the possibility of a respectful and productive dialogue between science and religion. Written from a neurobiological perspective, it does not attempt to dismiss spiritual experiences on the grounds of their material manifestation. On the contrary, the writers, while maintaining an agnostic stance, point to the fact that the neural reality of the feeling of oneness achieved in meditation or prayer is not less than the neural reality of our relishing the taste of an apple pie.
At the core of the book lie the authors' experiments with eight Tibetan
Buddhist monks during meditation and several Franciscan nuns during
prayer. All subjects, skilled in their respective modes of achieving a
state of transcendence, were allowed to create an atmosphere conducive
to it in the lab. At the self-reported height of the mystical
experience, the subjects were injected with a radioactive tracer.
Immediately, they were placed into a SPECT (Single Photon-Emission
Computed Tomography) machine, similar to PET and CAT devices, in order
to take "a photograph of God" (Newberg 1). The images of the blood-flow
patterns showed an increase of activity in the prefrontal cortex. That
was predictable, since that area is associated with controlling
attention. The more interesting discovery was the decreased activity in
the "orientation association area" or OAA. This region of the brain
orients the self in physical space and also generates a distinction
between the "I" and the "not-I", the individual and the rest of the
world. It is known that the patients with physical damage to this area
cannot successfully maneuver themselves. But in their case, the
condition is irreparable. What Newberg and D'Aquili found was not a
complete shutdown of the OAA but a period of its temporary inactivity,
corresponding to the subjective experiences of oneness with the
Universe and the presence of God reported by monks and nuns. The
researchers postulate that during meditation and prayer we somehow cut
off the incoming sensory information to the area, which results in our
temporary loss of boundaries between ourselves and the world. The brain
"has no choice but to perceive that the self is endless and intimately
interwoven with everyone and everything the mind senses" (Newberg 6).
And this perception feels unquestionably real.
Building on their research, the authors discuss the nature of this
experience. They point out that what "we think of as reality is only a
rendition of reality that is created by the brain" (Newberg 35). The
simplest things – apples, chairs, other people – actually exist in
relation to us only through our neurobiological perceptions of them.
Therefore, the mere fact of the spiritual experiences being based in
the brain cannot prove or disprove the existence of God. On the one
hand, our brains are perfectly capable of creating illusions. On the
other, if God exists, we have no way of experiencing Him but via our
neural machinery. "Both spiritual experiences and experiences of a more
ordinary material nature are made real to the mind in the very same way
– through the processing powers of the brain" (Newberg 37).
In the rest of the book, the authors discuss the possible evolutionary
meaning of the brain's mystical capabilities, the relationship between
spiritual and sexual arousal and pleasure, the human propensity for
myth-making (and the similarity of those myths) in light of
neurobiological necessities, and the significance of religion as the
answer to human existential anxiety. They also consider the
neurobiological basis of ritual and the connection between ritual as a
communal activity and meditation/prayer as the individual expression of
spirituality. Although they acknowledge that the neurobiological states
corresponding to the feeling of transcendence can be purposefully
sublimated by ritual or induced by illness, the authors insist that
spiritual experiences can proceed from sound, healthy minds reacting
coherently to "perceptions that in neurobiological terms are absolutely
real" (Newberg 111). They work through the neural mechanisms that
correspond to the mystical journey, from its beginning within the human
will to its consummation in the feeling of communion.
Overall, they conclude that "the deepest origins of religion are based
in mystical experience, and that religions exist because the wiring of
the human brain continues to provide believers with a range of unitary
experiences" (Newberg 129). A neurological approach suggests that
religion is not the result of faulty logic or cognitive processes, but
the product of a holistic mind-body event (with or without the presence
of the Other). As such, religion could never be explained away. God,
the researchers argue, is here to stay, and it is time for science and
religion to explore the meaning of this presence together.
"Why God Won't Go Away," in its discussion of nature of reality and of
the fact that all experience is grounded in the workings of the brain,
extends and confirms the thoughts that have fascinated us as a class
throughout the semester. It insists that all "reality" is, in a
fundamental way, a product of our brain, whether or not anything
actually exists outside of it. Moreover, the spirit of the
neurotheological respectful cooperation and co-investigation into the
mysteries of the human mind that is present in this book corresponds to
the course's aspirations to combine scientific and non-scientific
perspectives. Another common theme is the question of what constitutes
the human self and the acknowledgment that, rather than being a unitary
"thing" somewhere in the brain, the self arises from the interactions
both within the nervous system and between the NS and the body.
The perspective that this book offers and that I wish our course
considered more in-depth is the deep connection between religion and
science, the spiritual and the material proper. Although we have
touched on these subjects throughout the semester, a fuller integration
of these matters into our discussion would have informed our
understanding of the neurobiology of the self. The questions of
religion and spirituality are not confined to the believers and the
skeptics. They are present at the very foundation of the brain as the
organ physically disposed to "mystical" experiences.
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