The God Part of the Brain

Got coffee? Then let's get started. A third stream of similarity for religious ideas is related to the popular inquiry in several new books reflecting in-depth studies of the brain that ask the question: "Is there a physical location in our bodies that serves as a connecting point to God?" The newest medical techniques, that weren't available even ten years ago, allow us to study specific brain activity and provide research opportunity in mapping the brain during spiritual activity. This research brings us to the brink of possibly determining if there is a part of the our anatomy that is responsible for our God awareness.

For those who are purely scientist, the location of this brain activity gives credence to the discussion that religion, and therefore God, is no more than a natural function of our bodies, thus, there is nothing beyond our humanness. For those persons at the other end of the debate the location of brain activity during spiritual experiences gives rise to the affirmation there is a physical explanation for how and where our bodies are able to connect to that which is beyond our existence.

The idea that a part of our body serve as a connection for the Eternal is, of course, not new. In the oldest religious traditions—for example the Indian Aryans who understood that the Brahman, being itself, was also the ground of the human psyche (Armstrong, The Case for God)—we find religious practices, rituals, and initiations where directed toward discovering the human connection to this transcendence.

In the Indian Aryan writings, called the Upanishads, we can trace the earliest development not only of a human connection but the idea that all things share this essence of the eternal. Being itself is an integral part of creation and the two cannot be separated. We can know and experience this essence but not by intellectual “belief” or knowledge. Rather, it is through tedious perfection of spiritual exercises and rituals aimed at emptying our individual self.

Totally the opposite of western religious thinking is this idea that the Ultimate Reality cannot be known through logical discourse and that all attempts to explain or rationalize one's way to finding God are useless. (I should point out here that what we in the Western tradition of monotheism call “God” is not necessarily thought of in the same way in Eastern religious traditions but rather as something beyond being or anthropological existence. The similarity that I’m addressing is not about our concepts of God being similar but about our understanding of the human ability to make a connection with that existence). These ancient traditions highlighted self emptying, doing rather than thinking, silence, meditation, yoga, and a host of other means to find internally a connection to ultimate being.

There are expressions of this similarity in Judaism and in the Christian tradition where we see mysticism and later monasticism as a style of ritual life and self-emptying. For these various expressions that cut across many religious traditions, including variants in Christianity, the means of spiritual access to awareness is held in higher esteem than that of intellectual pursuit.

The importance of identifying these three similarities comes at a time in human history when the speed of communication and travel is pushing us in theological circles toward finding a reconciling medium within the divergent religious traditions. The goal is not one of assimilating, combining, or unification but rather finding a path toward acceptance and tolerance. Be assured these differences are not insignificant and most theological discourse admits that finding a single religious path is impossible because of these differences. However, what these similarities offer is a basic understanding of what drives humanity in our search toward the ultimate goal of knowing the source of our existence—if in fact that is something that can be known. Gotta warm my coffee.

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