All About Mormons

I recently came across the research of Andrew Newberg, M.D., an Associate Professor of Radiology and Psychiatry in the School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. He has used neural imaging to study the brain function of Franciscan nuns and Buddhist monks during religious meditation. His research demonstrates that during religious meditation multiple brain pathways are activated to produce a profoundly spiritual experience. Neural pathways in the limbic system, autonomic nervous system, and neocortical area all light up. The system that activates during a spiritual experience is very complex and not likely to be an evolutionary accident.

Newberg concedes that religious experience is much more complex than the spiritual meditation he studied. He is also quick to point out that his research only describes how the brain reacts to spiritual meditation, not whether or not a Supreme Being in fact exists. As he explains,

“The realness of Absolute Unitary Being is not conclusive proof that a higher God exists, but it makes a strong case that there is more to human existence than sheer material existence…As long as our brains are arranged the way they are…God, however we define that majestic, mysterious concept, will not go away.”

I’d like to take Dr. Newberg’s idea a step further. Not only do recently discovered “spiritual” neural pathways not disprove the existence of God, they are actually strong evidence of His existence. God made the human brain so that His children could respond to His promptings. He “hard-wired” us to seek after Him.

As a Mormon scientist, I tend to believe in biological evolution while recognizing that our understanding of evolutionary processes is still limited. Different than many of my secular colleagues, however, I believe that a Supreme Being may have on rare occasions nudged evolution, especially human evolution, in certain directions according to His divine will.

What evidence is there for divine intervention in the evolutionary process? In evolution, a trait is only selected for if it provides some sort of survival advantage. Those organisms that can outrun their predators survive, so evolution encourages increased speed. Those organisms that can out smart their predators likewise survive, and so evolution encourages at least limited intelligence. However, there is one species, mankind, with characteristics that cannot be explained by evolution alone. The simple fact is that we human beings are far more intelligent than needed to outsmart any predator on the planet; we could be half as smart as we are and still be far more intelligent than any would-be animal attacker. There is no survival advantage bestowed by the ability to write poetry, the ability to perform advanced and abstract mathematics, or the ability to compose symphonies, and yet human beings are skilled at all of these activities. Evolution alone could not have given us these remarkable skills because they do not enhance our chances of survival and are far too complex to have arisen by chance. A force outside of evolution must have intervened.  I believe that force was God.

The neural pathways involved in spiritual experiences are likewise too complex to have arisen by chance. These singular experiences involve integrated activation of limbic, autonomic, and neocortical neural pathways. And yet, there is no survival advantage to spirituality, no reason why evolution alone would have selected for such a trait. If, however, God wanted to create a species that could appreciate and love Him-a species that would be “hard wired” to seek Him out-how else would He do it? Neural pathways govern all that we perceive, from touch to smell to hearing. Why wouldn’t a Creator also include neural pathways capable of detecting His transcendent existence?

As Newberg himself put it, “If God does exist, for example, and if He appeared to you in some incarnation, you would have no way of experiencing His presence, except as part of a neurologically generated rendition of reality…Even if He spoke to you mystically, without words, you would need cognitive functions to comprehend His meaning, and input from the brain’s emotional centers to fill you with rapture and awe.  Neurology makes it clear: There’s no other way for God to get into your head except through the brain’s neural pathways.”

Much to even my surprise, Newberg’s research suggests that we’re all walking around with a 6th sense hard wired into our brains just as touch, smell, and hearing are hard wired: the ability to perceive the spiritual. Unless developed, however, it seems that these pathways are not casually activated. Ironically, some who have never taken the time to develop these pathways have the audacity to criticize those who know how to use them, just as a blind man with a lesion in the visual cortex might foolishly criticize a healthy man admiring the sunset.