Citizen Columns
Question
What do you think of recent claims that the brain has a ‘God spot’?
Answer
If you mean that the human brain is hardwired for perceiving God, then that makes sense. Plato, in the fifth century BC had a similar notion. He believed that our mystical and rational faculties worked together. This fits also with the Christian understanding that “the Kingdom of God is within you” and of the cultivation of inner life as a deepening encounter with God. But if you mean by “God spot” a centre in the brain that is the content and source of all human perceptions of God, that God does not exist as an objective reality outside the human brain, then that’s a picture which, to my mind, does not match the evidence of reality. The Spirit of God is everywhere present and fills all things. Wherever there is truth, wonder, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness God is present whether we name him or not. He is in the brain, but he is also in the furthest stars. He is present at our birth and he is there at our death. He is in the dust of the cosmos and he is in the DNA, as a priest-chemist from Princeton once told me. Your God is too small if you keep him locked up only in the brain.
But looking more carefully at the research, it is evident that as with any complex phenomenon involving the brain, whether it’s appreciation of music, reactions to people or perceptions of God, there is no single “spot”. Neuroscientists can track changes in the brain in response to meditation or reflection on past mystical experiences, but just as with responses to music, the patterns vary widely depending on many factors, most especially previous experience. Whether pleasure or fear centers are triggered obviously depends on how the word “God” has been heard and experienced. And it’s virtually impossible at this stage to distinguish between those parts of the brain that respond to God, beauty, awe, or any deeply held belief, including the atheist’s “non-God spot”.
With love in Christ,
Fr John
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