MA Thesis Proposal (Draft)

Figured I should just post it up…

Thesis Title (Draft): “Reformed Neurotheology: A Concise Biblical Theology of Cognition, Compared and Contrasted with Contemporary Neuroscience.”

The Current State of Affairs: Neurotech

The human brain is the most complex material structure in the known universe. For that reason, neuroscience is advancing and developing at a remarkable speed:

Animal Biotech

• A monkey ate a banana with a bionic arm just by thinking (2006-2009, video here)
• A monkey in Japan walked on a treadmill at Duke University in the United States with bionic legs controlled by its thoughts. (2008, video here)
• The electronic tongue and bionic tongue have been constructed and used on pigs in Germany.

Thoughts to Bionic Action and Artificial Sensory Organs

• A mute man spoke vowels from across the room (wirelessly) at Boston University CNS Speech Lab through a synthesizer, simply by thinking (2008-2009, video here and here)
• A paralyzed man uses Braingate (direct chip-to-brain interface) to use a bionic hand just by thinking (2008, video here).
• Deaf people can hear with bionic ears/cochlear implants (1972+, video here).
• Blind people can see with bionic eyes through cortical visual neuroprosthesis, retinal prosthesis, etc., (video here and here and here).

Brain Cognition and Cyber-Space

• A student from the University of Wisconsin changed his twitter status just by thinking (2009, video here).
• A disabled man used Braingate (direct chip-to-brain interface) to play pong on his computer by thinking (2008, video here).

General Robotics

• Consumer robots like Asimo and Nao can walk up stairs on two legs and even run with air-born strides (video here ).
• Scientists in Europe forged the Perception-on-Purpose Project, which combines visual and auditory sensory input into “purposeful perception.” (2009)

The Depth of the Subject Matter

As scientists continue to discover more about the brain, Christians – like the rest of society – are confronted with more challenging questions, some that are new and some that are old:

1. Identity (Cognitive Psychology): What does it mean to be a “human being”? What is a “person”? What is the “me”? If two people had the same physical brain structure, why and how could there be two persons or two conscious experiences? What is the nature of “first-person” experience? And, how does a human being’s mind relate with imago dei (image of God)? Is there a difference of degree or of quality between animals and image-bearers?

2. Composition (Theological Anthropology): What is the “me”? What is the nature of human beings – immaterial, material, and if so, how do they interact? What view is correct both in and outside Reformed circles: Cartesian substance dualism, Thomistic substance dualism, emergent dualism (mind is product of special organization of matter; like magnet), modified emergent dualism (consciousness but not mind is product of special organization of matter), substantival monism, etc. etc. Moreover, what do the Scriptures teach regarding man’s composition? What is the biblical teaching regarding nephesh, psyche, soma, cardia etc.?

3. Interactionism (Neuroscience and neuropsychology): What is the Scriptural and scientific evidence for interaction between a non-material mind and a material brain? And how do they interact? Do they impact each other, or should we just believe in unilateral parallelism, where one entity is just a mirror image of the other with no actual “interaction”? How is the health of the mind dependent on the health of the brain – and vice versa?

4. Thoughts (Cognition): What are “thoughts” and what is “thinking”? What is responsible for the origin and direction of each, what is the substance of them, and are they material or immaterial? How are “thoughts” really any different than generic “information”? What does the Scripture’s teach regarding thinking and thoughts, and what is held accountable for them? If angels, demons, God, or Satan can affect thoughts and thinking, is there any biological indication of that external/internal (?) influence? What role does language and memory play in cognition? And, (here’s one of my favorites), is there any neurological indication of regeneration? That is, is a spiritual change in the heart of man manifested/associated with a direct biological change in the sinner’s brain?

5. Freewill: What determines the outcome, origin, substance, and function of human thoughts and thinking? Are all thoughts causally determined, or is the “self” or “‘mind” purely volitional – to where we can make “arbitrary” (Moreland, Rae, etc.) decisions? That is, are we (or our minds/soul) a “first-mover”? What does the Scriptures say regarding our responsibility over thoughts – and what does that imply about what is responsible for thoughts? Are all human decisions the product of physical causal chains? Or, is God the only “first-mover,” and only regenerate Christians can make “free” choices?

6. Consciousness: What is “consciousness”? Is it an interface, like a computer driver (software) that allows interactionism? Or is consciousness merely a byproduct of the brain’s composition that is itself the “mind”? Furthermore, how does focused attention within consciousness affect the physical (biological) structure of the brain? What gives rise to first-person experience?

7. Qualia: What is unified “conscious experience”? I can “feel” and “touch” and “taste,” but neuroscience suggests that these are purely subjective (and changeable) experiences in the brain – and yet, cannot be spatially located or identified in the brain. What is it that “smells” and “touches” if neuroscience gives no indication of something tangible?

8. Origin and Death: How is consciousness and the mind dependent upon the health of the brain? Studies (i.e. Parnia) have shown that conscious experience does in fact exist after clinical death – what does this say about the nature of the “soul” or “mind”? Does the Bible teach consciousness after the brain is no longer functional? And, where did consciousness/soul come from? How are curses or spiritual traits passed down from one person to the next (traducianism vs. creationism, etc.)?

9. Neurotheology proper: How does belief in God effect the physical structure of the brain? Is there really a “God-spot” or chemical that generates theism and spiritual beliefs?

10. Quantum Mechanics: Does the brain operate on the level of quantum physics, and if so, how does that radically alter the nature of A) thoughts and cognition, B) consciousness, focused attention, and neuroplasticity, and C) memory and self-identity.

11. Neurolaw and Neuroethics: If certain behaviors (i.e. sexual, physical abuse, etc.) are directly associated with neurological disorders (i.e. brain tumor), how should that affect the decree of justice (e.g. the sentencing of the criminal?) If behavior is directly associated with the unchangeable condition of a person’s brain, how should that effect society (and Christian’s) response towards crime, justice, and discipline?

12. Brain and Music: What is the effect of music on the brain, and how does the brain understand and produce music?

13. Neuroeconomics, the evolution of consciousness, the mind, the brain etc. etc. etc.

In short, something occurs in a person’s skull that doesn’t happen anywhere else in the universe. And because human experience itself is experienced in the brain, there is no endeavor of human knowledge that remains disconnected from neuroscience. That obviously explains the endless list of new words beginning with “neuro” (i.e. neurotheology, neurolaw, neuroethics, neurosociology, etc.), most of which have been invented within the past quarter century.

The Practical Importance of this Enterprise

Good bioethics can only come from a good (biblical) understanding of creation. That is, the details of a person’s worldview determines how capable a person (or a community, such as the church) is at dealing with technological advances and new discoveries in science. Congress is confronted with bills regarding bioethics, euthanasia, etc., all the time having to make up a framework (essentially an anthropology) in order to even be able to deal with these issues. Meanwhile, the mainstream media continues to pump out films that act as a commentary on this strange new age (i.e. Surrogates).

At the very least, the dignity of God’s image-bearers is at stake. When human beings (not merely the “human body,” we’re told) are, after biological breakthroughs, discovered to be nothing more than “machines,” society obviously starts treating human beings like machines.

The Current State of Affairs: Christianity and this Enterprise

Our problem is that there are virtually no publications adequately addressing this massive enterprise of neurophilosophy, neuroscience, cognitive psychology, philosophy of mind, and neuro-theological anthropology from a non-Darwinian, Reformed perspective. The introductory summaries, the scholarly journals, and everything in between are dominated by:

A) Christian philosophers who are pre-committed to libertarian freewill and or/evidentialism.

B) Christian scientists who are pre-committed to Darwinism, Neo-Darwinism, and/or theistic evolution.

Since it is my conviction that these extra-biblical presuppositions (theistic evolution, evidentialism, and libertarian freewill) cloud a person’s pursuit for the truth – especially in neurological fields of study – there is great need and an incredible opportunity for original and God-honoring scholarship in this field. A creationist, pro-God’s Sovereignty, presuppositionalist approach to the questions listed above is virtually non-existent, and it is needed. There is much work to be done.

Thesis Proposal: Long Definition

Obviously, a fully-orbbed systematic Reformed neurophilosophy cannot be undertaken in a thesis project, certainly not one limited to around 60 pages. But, individual problems may be dealt with at a preliminary level, such as what the Bible teaches about the nature of thought and how that compares with recent discoveries in neuroscience/neuropsychology.

For that reason, I have entitled my draft thesis “Reformed Neurotheology: A Concise Biblical Theology of Cognition Compared and Contrasted with Contemporary Neuroscience.” By “Reformed” I mean from a Calvinist, 5-solas, compatibilist-freewill perspective. This obviously contrasts with an Arminian/Open-Theist, Catholic, or libertarian freewillist perspective.

The word “neurotheology” is not as easy to define. Labels can be deceiving. For example, to the ordinary mind, the title “Reformed Epistemology” would probably be thought of as a Reformed (e.g. Calvinistic, 5 solas, etc.) approach to epistemology (theory of knowledge/knowing). It’s not. The title “Reformed Epistemology” has virtually nothing to do with an epistemology that’s Reformed (if that were the case, Van Til’s work wins the title, hands-down.); instead it’s just a label rashly used to identify the thought of Alvin Plantinga. Such a label is misleading and inappropriately used – especially given that Plantinga holds to libertarian freewill – which is historically not at all a part of Reformed thought.

The same is true for the word “neurotheology.” The word, since its inception by Huxley in 1962, essentially means “spiritual neuroscience.” That is, when a person studies the effects of prayer, meditation, and religious experience on the brain, that person is doing neurotheology.

This is as misleading as “Reformed Epistemology.” “Theology” is the study of God and his works in creation. Spiritual experience in this context – which is apparently all that is meant by “theology” in the word – requires no reference to God or any deity at all. The word “neurotheology,” then, has been quickly and wrongly hi-jacked to suite a contemporary need. It is my contention that this word needs to be re-acquired by the true discipline for which it stands.

Neurotheology must be neurological theology, that is, theology that has its primary focus on the functions and unique aspects of the brain. Brain science (neuroscience) raises questions of anthropology (what does it mean to be human?), psychological identity (what does it mean to be “me”?), volition (what does it mean to “choose” or “make a decision”?), “interactionism” (is there a difference between me and my brain – and if so, which controls which?), and cognition (what does it mean to “think” – and what are “thoughts”?). Neurotheology, then, must ask: what do the Scriptures teach about what it means to be a human being? What it means to “think”? What it means for “me” to control my thoughts? What it means to “choose”? Just as there is no true theology without a biblical worldview, so there is no true neurotheology without a biblical worldview.

This is not in any way to assert that the Bible is a scientific textbook (I hold to Bavinck’s organic view, The Chicago Statement of Inerrancy, and the Westminster standards regarding the doctrine of Scripture and hermeneutics), and even as such, few texts are specifically dedicated to many of these concerns. However, there are some. Just like the subject of theological anthropology is sometimes specifically addressed in Scripture (i.e. I Corinthians 15:35-58), so, too, in neurotheology (according to its true definition) there are texts that specifically deal with some of its sub-disciplines, such as cognition. We must not read too much into/out of these texts, but we must not ignore them either.

Thus, “A Concise Biblical Theology of Cognition” simply means a 30 or so page exposition of what the entire canon of Scripture teaches about thought and thoughts. What do the Scriptures teach about thinking? About the content of thoughts? etc. The answers to these questions will then – in the second half of the thesis – be “Compared and Contrasted with Contemporary Neuroscience.”

Thesis Proposal: Paragraph Description

The title of my thesis, as of now, is “Reformed Neurotheology: A Concise Biblical Theology of Cognition Compared and Contrasted with Contemporary Neuroscience.” This essay will address one of the sub-disciplines of neurophilosophy and cognitive psychology: cognition. The entire essay will be written from a Reformed, compatibilist, presuppositionalist perspective, and as such, will make an original contribution to the field. The first half will contain a concise exposition of the Scripture’s teaching regarding thoughts and thinking, while the second half will compare the conclusions from the first half to recent discoveries in cognition from contemporary neuropsychology and neuroscience.