Neuroscience and the Non-Elimination of Theology

Neuroscientific findings have been claimed to challenge historic Christian teachings about human nature, particularly the existence of an immaterial soul or mind. In the late 20th century, eliminative materialism—the view that a mature neuroscience would eliminate folk-psychological concepts like beliefs and desires—prompted some Christian scholars to adopt non-reductive physicalism and theological monism, reinterpreting biblical teaching to align with neuroscience. This paper reviews neuroscientific, philosophical, and theological developments to assess the current state of theological anthropology. Contemporary neuroscience, including consciousness studies, has not fulfilled eliminative materialists' predictions, and methodological criticisms (e.g., reproducibility, participant selection) have emerged. This has revived interest in dualism, a traditional theological position, and highlighted the need to rebalance theological and neuroscientific perspectives in understanding the person.

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Abstract

The scientific activity and outputs of the neurosciences are fascinating and, for the most part, uncontroversial. However, there have been sustained claims that neuroscientific findings represent a powerful challenge to historic, orthodox Christian teaching concerning human ontology. While philosophers had long debated the “mind/brain” problem, the rise of “eliminative materialism” (in the specific form of “neurophilosophy”) in the last quarter of the 20th century evoked various responses to the proposition that a mature neuroscience would forever banish familiar “folk science” entities like beliefs and desires as well as immaterial souls or minds. These would all be shown to play no role in a thoroughly materialistic, mature, neuroscientific understanding of ourselves. One aspect of the response to such claims within Christian scholarship was a turn to non-reductive physicalism and theological monism prompting a reassessment of biblical teaching concerning human ontology, seeking a position that would be consistent both with neuroscience (or its alleged implications) and Christian teaching. The aim of this paper is to review neuroscientific, philosophical and theological developments in order to establish where theological anthropology currently stands. In part this requires an assessment of contemporary neuroscience (including the subfield of “consciousness studies”) because while the science continues to generate intriguing hypotheses and data, it has fallen some way short of the eliminative materialists’ hopes of forty years ago. Additionally, important methodological criticisms of the science have emerged concerning such issues as reproducibility and participant selection. This may have contributed to the twenty-first century resurgence of interest in the sort of dualism long a key component of theological orthodoxy, as well as highlighting the need for a reassertion of theological values, methods and perspectives. The apparent non-elimination of theology indicates a need to rebalance theological and neuroscientific perspectives in developing our understanding of the person.