Neuroscience and the Person Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action

This collection of twenty-one essays explores the creative interaction among the cognitive neurosciences, philosophy, and theology. It is the result of the fourth of five international research conferences co-sponsored by the Vatican Observatory, Rome, and the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences, Berkeley. The overarching goal of these conferences is to support the engagement of constructive theology with the natural sciences and to investigate the philosophical and theological elements in ongoing theoretical research in the natural sciences.

This series of conferences builds on the initial Vatican Observatory conference and its resulting publication, Physics, Philosophy, and Theology: A Common Quest for Understanding (1988), and on previous jointly-sponsored conferences and their publications: Quantum Cosmology and the Laws of Nature (1993), Chaos and Complexity (1995); and Molecular and Evolutionary Biology (1998). A future conference will focus on quantum physics and quantum field theory.

In Section One, essays on biblical accounts of human nature (Joel B. Green) and on the role of philosophical theories of human nature in recent theology (Fergus Kerr) are paired with “snapshots” of neuroscientific research (Joseph E. LeDoux, Peter Hagoort, Marc Jeannerod, and Leslie A. Brothers) to set the poles between which the volume’s dialogue proceeds. In Section Two, essays of two types bridge the fields of cognitive neuroscience and philosophy of mind: the first begin with findings in science that raise philosophical issues (Michael A. Arbib, LeDoux, Jeannerod); the second type address current philosophical accounts of human nature, focusing especially on reductionism (William R. Stoeger, Nancey Murphy, Theo C. Meyering). Essays in Section Three proceed from neuroscientific or philosophical accounts of human nature to theological interpretations: three essays provide comprehensive accounts of human nature consistent with both theology and science (Philip Clayton, Arthur Peacocke, Ian G. Barbour); others relate findings and general trends in neuroscience to phenomenological and Thomistic accounts of human experience (Stephen Happel), to Christian teaching on life after death (Ted Peters), and to religious experience (Fraser Watts, Wesley J. Wildman, and Leslie Brothers). Section Four offers conflicting answers to the question whether or not a theistic account is needed to make sense of the various dimensions of human nature canvassed in this volume.

Robert John Russell is the Ian G. Barbour Professor of Theology and Science in Residence at the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley. He is the author or co-editor of seventeen books, including Cosmology From Alpha To Omega: Theology and Science in Creative Mutual Interaction and Resurrection: Theological And Scientific Assessments. He is also the founder and director of the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences.

Nancey Murphy is professor of Christian philosophy at Fuller Theological Seminary and co-editor of Neuroscience and the Person, also published by the University of Notre Dame Press.

Theo C. Meyering is Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy at Leiden University, The Netherlands. He is the author of Historical Roots of Cognitive Science: The Rise of a Cognitive Theory of Perception from Antiquity to the Nineteenth Century.

Michael A. Arbib is Director of the USC Brain Project, Professor and Chairman of Computer Science, and Professor of Neuroscience, Biomedical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, and Psychology at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles.