What does it mean to say that we are body and soul both? Have the neurosciences done away with the soul? Are we little more than our physical stuff that is reducible to chemistry and physics? We’ll answer these questions and much more in our conversation with Stan Wallace around his new book, .


Stan Wallace is President and CEO of Global Scholars. He is a MA Phil graduate of Talbot School of Theology.



Episode Transcript

Scott: What does it mean to say that we are body and soul both? Have neurosciences done away with the soul? Are we little more than our physical stuff that's reducible to chemistry and physics? We'll answer these questions and more in our conversation with our friend, Stan Wallace, around his new book Have We Lost Our Minds?: Neuroscience, Neurotheology, the Soul, and Human Flourishing. I'm your host, Scott Rae.

Sean: And I'm your co-host, Sean McDowell.

Scott: This is Think Biblically from Talbot School of Theology at 51ÂÜŔň. Stan, one of the grads of our philosophy program from the early years. We won't say how early the years, for all of our sakes, but really glad to have you with us. Love your book. So glad to have you just write all this stuff down in one place that's accessible for people to see. I think some really interesting trends, and some things we ought to keep our eye on in the future. So, tell us, Stan, tell us a little bit about the backstory to this book that explains a little bit about why you're so passionate about this particular subject.

Stan: Sure. By the way, thanks for having me on. This is great, to be with you again. I began having these experiences about four or five years ago, where once I was sitting in church and the sermon was on Romans 12:2, "To Renew Your Mind," and the whole conversation turned out to be about brains. This is a very solid evangelical church, and I was taken aback and wasn't sure what was going on. I started to see these ideas pop up in other books and podcasts and other conversations. A lot of Christians are starting to say the things that historically we have said have been part of our soul are really just things that our brain does. And it started to worry me, because we were actually losing our minds, or losing our souls, in the process. And the implications are dire, but I wasn't sure everybody saw the implications of where this path leads, ultimately. So, I tried to point out some of the problems if we continue down the path we're on.

Sean: You point out in the book that the idea that we are body and soul has a long history in both the church and in Western culture and beyond. What is the appeal to many Christians today that we are fundamentally or most basically our bodies? And how prevalent do you think that might be in Christian circles?

Stan: Sure. Good question, Sean. In terms of the appeal, I think it's a number of things. One, we tend, at least as Protestants, not to be very—to be honest—thoughtful about philosophy of science issues. So, sometimes it's hard to figure out, how do I put together what science is saying with what I believe? And so, sometimes the tendency is to just kind of give up and say, well, if science says it, it's got to be true. And at least secular neuroscientists are saying that our thoughts are just these things happening in our brain, or our beliefs are just over in this part of the cranium. So, boy, that must be true. And so, I think we just sort of give up and say, it's got to be the case if scientists are saying this. But I think there are others who read the Scriptures and see that the Scriptures do have this emphasis on us being a unity, which it clearly does, and say, well, that unity must be a physical unity then. And actually, it's a unity of soul and body, what I call holistic dualism, but still two distinct things. But I think there's some exegetical confusion going on as well that I try to address in the book from some circles within the Christian community.

Scott: Yeah. Stan, let me press on that a little bit further. How much of this do you think is a reaction to what I would see as an overemphasis on the soul in the past to the neglect of the body? The idea that we're something like souls on a stick, without much consideration for how important the body is in the Scripture. Because, as you know, there's just as much hope for our bodies eternally as there is for our souls in the Scriptures. So, is some of this a reaction to that, or is it coming from somewhere else?

Stan: That's such a good thing to bring up. I think that's another huge part that I maybe should have mentioned. Yeah, we have tended to be all about this spiritual "realm" where the real activity is those "spiritual things" we do—prayer, and Bible study, and being in church and those things. And we've tended to downplay, if not outright just reject, the physical realm, going to work, as valuable to the kingdom of God—the nine to five and the value of just the gifts that we have in the here and now. We've tended to have this really radical bifurcation, and it really harkens back to a Gnosticism that even the early church dealt with where there was a sense that matter is inherently evil. So, anything material can't be good. And so, even the incarnation couldn't really have happened, because God can't take matter on. 1 John was written against this idea. 1 John begins with “Him who we have seen and touched,” and so on and so forth. Jesus actually had a body. But yeah, this whole idea that the body or matter is lesser has permeated throughout church history. And so, I do think that's a big factor playing in today, where we want to embrace the body, we want to embrace the physical. And so, this is sort of that counter reaction to the other extreme with, well, then maybe we're fundamentally physical or fundamentally a body. And I'm arguing for a middle ground that affirms both realities and the goodness of both realities, the material and immaterial in a union of sorts, whereas we function as one being.

Sean: So, we have a holistic union nature, so to speak. Body and soul. Some would say embodied souls. So, clearly, spiritual formation and just growing in our life is going to involve taking care of the body and also taking care of the soul. Now, let's flesh out, if we were just material, if we were just our bodies or our brains, what would spiritual growth look like?

Stan: Well, if one is consistent—and that's a key, because I think that often some of the folks who are taking this line within Christian circles aren't consistent—then spiritual formation is truly neural formation. And so, we've got to train pastors a lot more in neurology and a lot less in soul care by definition, because they're going to be caring for neurons in their congregation, not souls in their congregations. We've got to think about our own spiritual formation in terms of neuroscience and what we can learn. Which, again, is really good important information from neuroscience that's helpful to us, but the extreme is that spiritual formation becomes nothing but learning about neural activity so that we can actually grow our souls, which is identical to our brain. And that's what a group of people who call themselves “neurotheologians” are arguing for, that, yeah, there is a science to spiritual formation. And that science is learning more about the brain's functions, because that's the essence of our growth in Christ.

Scott: So Stan, let's spell that out a little bit further. What do you see as some of the actual positive contributions of the neurosciences to our understanding of spirituality?

Stan: Well, so first of all, again, it affirms our embodiedness, and affirms that we do, during this state, and in the resurrection of the body, use our bodies in such a way that we fully flourish. In fact, you know, without our bodies during that disembodied state, we have limitations. It's a good thing to be embodied, and that allows us to fully express what it is to be human. So, certainly, it values that. And you know, knowing about the neuroscience helps in things like biofeedback, or neurofeedback, where we can regulate certain brain activities by knowing what's going on in us—again, as ultimately an embodied soul—then leveraging that knowledge to shape our brain in certain ways. There's a term neuroplasticity, which is the idea that we can actually shape our brains in healthier ways. So, knowing some of what's going on in the brain might help in that. It actually does help in that. I'm just worried about the excess here.

Scott: Some spiritual practices, for example, some of the spiritual disciplines could actually have an impact in sort of, what, rewiring our brains?

Stan: Absolutely. And our good friend J.P. Moreland's written on this a lot of places, but very personally in his book Finding Quiet, of how this helped him in his growth in Christ in some areas of challenge, by understanding some of this. So, there's so many ways that this can be helpful.

Sean: Stan, let me flesh this out kind of practically, and tell me if this is how you see it. I give a talk to pastors, parents, students, and I ask the question, what's the big deal with pornography? And I make two points. I say, number one, it affects our minds—the way we think about the purpose of sex, the script that people have about how to treat somebody else and what to expect in sex—which is ideas and worldview and belief systems. But then I have a whole section where I talk about the brain, about how certain patterns are learned and they become formed into our brains. And then it's not just a matter of believing differently, it's actually engaging in different practices to rewire our brains. So it's not one or the other, it's both. Is that how your point fleshes itself out?

Stan: That's exactly right. And such a great example. Let me use the illustration that Dallas Willard uses. He says that our bodies are instruments that we have to live well in the world. And, of course, they can cause us to not live well in the world, either to flourish or not flourish. And he uses the illustration of an earth mover, that if you want to grade a piece of property to build a house, that's a very important implement to be able to use as the operator. But you aren't the same as that thing, that earth mover. You use that to accomplish your purposes, and it can break down. Or you can do things that cause it not to function well and, therefore, for you not to be able to build a house and flourish. So that's the relationship, in his analogy, to how the body is so important in our flourishing. And we can do things to our body, including to our brain, that impede that process. And this is a classic example in pornography.

Scott: He must have been thinking about me when he said it can be breaking down.

[laughter]

Stan: You and me both, brother.

Scott: So, Stan, let's be a little more specific, because I think some of our listeners may not be aware that there's this kind of thinking out there, especially in our churches. I think in the culture at large, it's been this way for a long time, where the soul is philosophically not really part of what's considered academically reasonable, or with the program. But in the church, I think it's been...I think most of our listeners would say, as a sort of just a matter of course, that they believe that they have souls. That's not really been threatened. But tell us a little bit about how the “neurotheologians” have explained away some of the functions of the soul in terms of brain activity.

Stan: Right. Yeah, I don't even think they would say…I wouldn't say they've explained away, they just assume that the brain is the fundamental reality when explaining certain things that historically have been functions of the soul. For instance, one author says, “It’s brain functions that determine our character.” That's a direct quote. Or, again, “Our brain creates and maintains human identity.” That's what the soul historically has done. Or, “It's the left hemisphere of the brain that sets me apart as me.” Or, “All of my character traits, such as truth and courage, are ultimately in our brain.” So it's just these assumptions that are stated like, well, it's the brain that is the cause of these things that, always, believers have said are properties of the soul, or actually what the soul is. In fact, a number of times they make claims—the folks that I'm writing to challenge—that say, well, “The terms brain and mind are closely enough related to seem interchangeable,” in one case. All of these statements just assume that really, the mind is nothing but the brain or the soul is nothing but the body at the end of the day. And that's the problem. That's the concern. Now let me point out that neurotheologians do a lot of great work pastorally. They have in their books so much helpful advice to believers. And so, a lot of people have benefited from their writings, and I am in no way disparaging their good work, their hearts, their desire to serve others in the kingdom. It's just that there's an underlying anthropology, underlying assumption of what we are as fundamentally, ultimately physical things that permeates the writings and is inconsistent, I think, with a lot of what they say pastorally, because their pastoral advice is to help care for souls. But then they always tie it back to, but yeah, we're really just brain. So, for instance, one gentleman talks a lot about attachment theory, this idea that we flourish as we're in proper relationship with God and others. Absolutely true. But then he goes on to say, and it's the brain that is attached. Well, no, it's the soul that's attached to God or others in proper ways, or improper ways. And so, that's where the subtle shift comes in and actually is a cancer in the church, where we start to reduce everything to physical reality.

Sean: Stan, let me push back a little bit and see if you would agree with me or disagree. I think you just said that one fellow argues that attachment theory…we’re attached by our brains.

Stan: Right.

Sean: And you said, no, we're attached through our souls. I think the way I would word it is, we are attached in our souls through our brains. It's not one or the other. There's something going on in our brains that enables us to attach on a soul level. Would you agree with me, or would you say, no, it's a soulish connection?

Stan: Right. I would agree and nuance just a bit. So, I would absolutely agree that during the embodied state now, and in the final resurrection, we will always use our body in achieving our ends, including attachment with God and others. So, absolutely agree with you on that, that it's through our body, or with our body or the two together. At the fundamental level, though, I always wouldn't leave room for these things to be true even in the disembodied state.

Sean: Gotcha.

Stan: Even after we die, we will have attachments to God and to others. So, it can't be essentially the combination, because we're able to have attachments via our soul even when disembodied. So, I'm just trying to make that distinction. Yes, they're always important when we're embodied, but they aren't essentially an embodied function, because we can do them when we're disembodied.

Sean: Fair enough. So, while we are embodied, that's essentially how we connect.

Stan: Yeah, yes.

Sean: Fair enough. Can I actually do this? Let me follow up with, one, I don't think we've defined this term yet. Your title says “Neuroscience, Neurotheology, and the Soul.” When I hear neurotheology, neuro, I think neurons, brains, physical. Theology, I think ideas in the realm of the mind. And yet, if I understand you correctly, neurotheology is a discipline solely analyzing through the brain, and leaves the soul out. So maybe define what it is, and if there's room within neurotheology for somebody to say, "I believe in neuroscience, but also the immaterial soul."

Stan: Right. So, as one author puts it, neurotheology is “the scientific study of spiritual formation.” So, it's understanding everything about what we are and how we grow in Christ through what we know from neuroscience. It's trying to integrate the two. And I love attempts to integrate faith and science. So, I much applaud the effort. I just think it goes down the wrong track in embracing a fundamentally physical way to bring the two together. And I will note that there are some scholars at evangelical seminaries who take this line as well. It's not just some Christians who are writing books who really haven't engaged this at a deeper level. There's a philosopher at a leading seminary who says, "We just have no need anymore for ideas of the soul or any immaterial reality to explain everything we are." And so, I think this is an issue that's permeating the evangelical culture. And some of these professors have been in these positions 30, 40 years. There's a whole generation of pastors and Christian counselors who have been influenced by them, I think one of the authors being a case in point. So, it's really high time we stop and step back and say, wait a minute. What are we saying here? And what are the implications of this neurotheology that's becoming more and more prevalent?

Scott: I think our listeners probably need to know that this is not just a scientific thing, that the assumptions underneath that “who we are in our essence is nothing more than a physical thing” is not a scientific statement. It's a philosophical one. And, actually, to say that we're nothing more than physical things is actually somewhat self-defeating, because the statement itself cannot be reducible to chemistry or physics. So, Stan, let's do our listeners a service here. Where does the Scripture definitively tell us that we have a soul?

Stan: Well, all through Scripture, there's this assumption that we're more than material, that we have this immaterial dimension. You go all the way back to Genesis creation, where God formed man out of the dust to the ground and breathed the breath of life into his nostrils—this immaterial reality that made him become alive or animated, animus being the Greek word for soul. So, it was animated matter, it was enlivened or ensouled matter, that we're told Adam was. You follow this through, you see through the Old Testament cases where someone is passing away, there's this assumption that he will continue to live on even though his body is in the grave. You get in the New Testament, because it's much more clear, and Jesus even says to the thief upon the cross, "Today you'll be with Me in paradise." Your body won't, but you will. So, you are that thing that's going to be with Me in a few hours when your body is no longer functioning. So, ultimately, that's what we mean by a soul. The technical word is a substantial soul, a soul that stands under all the changes of our bodies, and is the thing that we are that lives through and endures all those changes, including the loss of the body, and continues in the intermediate state and awaits the final resurrection of the body again. But it's that thing that continues through all of those changes, that stands under all those things, that is a fundamental reality of what we are.

Scott: And just to be clear, too, when you mean an intermediate state, you mean that...what exactly do you mean by that? What—

Stan: I just mean the state...

Scott: Go ahead.

Stan: The state between this embodied life we're in right now and the embodied life we'll have in the final resurrection. There'll be that period where we are in the presence of God immediately upon death, but our bodies are no longer with us. And we await that final resurrection. We're in that intermediate waiting period of, yeah, this isn't quite how it should be. We don't have our bodies still, but we're still in the presence of God. And Paul does say he longs for that: "I long to be absent from the body and present with the Lord." But he also says that's not the end game. The end game is having the final resurrected body that we live in forever in the new heavens and in the new earth. So that intermediate state is between those two realities of embodiedness.

Scott: Okay. I just wanted to be clear about that, because there are some folks who don't hold that anything like an intermediate state exists and that we will always be embodied. But the Scripture…I don't know how else to understand Paul's statement that “to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.” And that being present with the Lord implies that we'll be conscious beings at that time—not in some sort of sleep—until the final resurrection.

Stan: Yeah. The assumption is that Jesus was saying to the thief, "You're going to be with Me in paradise,” and the thief understood that, and was actually going to experience that. Yeah, I'm with You now in paradise, even though my body's dead. There's an experience of this reality. I will mention that I did rely heavily—in the theological section of the book—on John Cooper's excellent work, Body, Soul, and Life Everlasting. I think it's the definitive biblical treatment of the issue of that we are a soul that is deeply united with our bodies.

Sean: Stan, you came to our MA Phil program a number of years ago, so you're well aware that we also have an Institute for Spiritual Formation. Are there certain truths from neuroscience that we can or should incorporate into that program and beyond without abandoning, obviously, the reality of the soul and kind of succumbing to the naturalistic anthropology that underlies so much of neuroscience and neurotheology?

Stan: Well, sure. I mean, we need to be always finding that middle ground. I think in so many areas, we can identify extremes, and if we can shoot for the middle, we're probably in the neighborhood. And so, here, again, case in point, let's not totally discount the body, but let's not say that's all we are. Let's find that middle ground, and that middle ground includes, in spiritual formation, understanding, how does the brain have something to do with this? And that's where thoughtful people are doing good work. And as I read people, I'm just asking the question, are you denying one of two fundamental commitments? Are you denying in your work, A, that the body is important, valuable and involved? In other words, are you gnostic? That's a problem. Or B, are you on the other end of the continuum, and denying we have a substantial soul, saying either there is no soul, or saying the soul somehow emerges from the body and is dependent upon the body? Those are different forms of physicalism. But the point is that it's an extreme of, there's no substantial soul that's underlying, and the central actor in our growth and what we are. So I'm looking for that middle ground, and there are folks who are doing good work. I think Steve Porter there at the 51ÂÜŔň Center is really sharp, and thinking a lot about these issues, and others are as well. I just want to be careful of going too far. So here's what Dallas Willard said about this. And he was really trying to warn us that, hey, let's be careful, because ultimately when we talk about spiritual formation, the primary emphasis needs to be on spiritual formation, the formation of the spirit. He says, quote, "For all of our fine advances in scientific knowledge, they tell us nothing about the inner life of the human being. At most, the sciences can indicate some fascinating and important correlations." And so, I think, yeah, we look for those correlations, but let's not overplay that hand and say there's more going on there than is really going on.

Scott: Yeah. I think just because we can explain some things in the neurosciences, it doesn't follow from that that the soul has been dispensed with. It just means that the activity of the soul correlates with neural activity, and I think getting some more of those connections can actually be very helpful.

Stan: Absolutely.

Scott: Our colleague that you mentioned, J.P. Moreland, has found that very helpful in his own recovery from some of the mental health challenges that he's dealt with. And he's found this to be really helpful in terms of his own spiritual formation as well.

Stan: And that's that middle ground.

Scott: Yeah. And so, if we are genuinely body and soul, then our spiritual formation can't just be about our souls.

Stan: Right.

Scott: Right? It has to have a bodily, physical component to it. Yet most of the time, when I ask somebody, how's your spiritual life? What they really think I'm asking for is, what's the state of your soul? It has nothing to do with the body. And really what they wanna know is, what's the state of that 15 to 30 minutes of time alone you have with God every day, as opposed to all of the rest of life that all constitutes the spiritual? So, really, the answer to that question would be something like, well, I'm thriving in my work. My family's doing terrific. I'm getting good exercise and good sleep. All of those are spiritual things, but yet we seem to just identify that with the soul. So I think you're right, Stan. There's helpful correctives here on both sides of this.

Stan: Right, right.

Scott: What I would call that sort of old school pietism that says, we are just souls. Souls are the only thing that matter, and the body either gets in the way or is not a factor, is one extreme. But what we call physicalism, that we are nothing more than our bodies, I think, is an error in the other direction as well. And I so appreciate your wanting to land us squarely in the middle, which I think is where the Scripture takes us too.

Stan: Yeah. Hey, Scott, can I pick up on two things you said?

Scott: Yeah, please.

Stan: Very important observations you made that I wanna highlight. One is, and Dallas said the same thing this way, he said, "For any spiritual practice we are involved in, the body is there. The body's part of it." I mean, Scripture memory. We're engaged in using our brain to memorize Scripture. You name it, right? And that's why he puts such an emphasis on the spiritual disciplines being bodily practices, like fasting, that affect the soul, because there is this deep causal connection. So, very important. Second thing I wanna pick up on that you mentioned is the difference between correlation of a brain event and a mental event, and causation or identity. And I think that's the problem these neurotheologians are making. They're conflating the two. It's observing what we know now from neuroscience more and more, that there are these correlations. Something happens in our brain, and it's correlated to something that's happening in our mental life. A belief is triggered, or a desire, or a thought or whatever. And so then they say, well, then that correlation means that those are the same thing. That thing happening in the brain is what a thought is, or at least it is what causes the thought. It gives rise to the thought. And that just doesn't follow. And I spend a good part of a chapter explaining what identity is, and why correlation is not identity. And therefore why we ought not believe that this scientific data gives us reason to believe we're just a material thing. But still affirm that, yeah, there is a correlation there that we need to take seriously.

Scott: That's really helpful. Stan, one final question here. As you talk with students and professors about some of these areas that have to do with the soul, what encourages you in the way they're responding to this?

Stan: Well, I've been very encouraged. Thanks for asking that. There have been so many who have said to me either after hearing me on a show like this or reading the book, well, since there's a problem in some of these writings of neurotheologians, which are very, very popular—so a lot of folks are reading them—I just didn't know what it was. I couldn't put my finger on it. And that just helped me bring some clarity. So, thanks be to God that that's the desire. We are to sharpen one another as iron sharpens iron. So, hopefully that's something I can contribute. And I'm hoping to get good feedback that can sharpen my thinking on these things. It’s a two-way street. But that's been encouraging. Others have just said, boy, I just didn't understand the nature of the soul at all. And so, this has helped me clarify not just that the soul exists, but what the soul is and how my understanding of the soul and the various parts of the soul can help me understand challenges I'm having and grow in new ways. So, I've been really encouraged by those kinds of comments that I started to receive back.

Sean: Stan, I think your book is excellent. And one of my biggest takeaways is, you talk about the balance that we are body and soul. So, we see in neurotheology a disregard for the soul, and moving towards physicalism. At the same time, with transhumanism and the transgender debate, the body becomes irrelevant, and however you feel in your soul trumps the body. That's a separate book. But just a reminder that we as Christians have to watch both sides of the reduction and keep both body and soul in mind, not only to be biblical, but to live out an anthropology in which we flourish.

Stan: That's so good. I'll comment on that briefly, and the book goes into a little more detail. But there are three broadly construed ideas of what we are. One is just, we're just a body. And then one is the other extreme, where we are this soul that's stuck or trapped in a body, which gives rise to some of these transhumanism issues and gender disparity issues, and whatnot. I'm arguing again for a third view where, no, our body is actually an expression of our soul. There's such a deep unity between the two that our body really is a mode—is a technical term—of our very being, of our soul. So, that has implications for all these issues, your view of what the soul is and how it relates to the body, which we haven't talked as much about, but that's a big part of the book too.

Scott: Well, Stan, thanks so much for writing the book and for coming on with us. I want to commend to our listeners your book, Stan Wallace, Have We Lost Our Minds? Neuroscience, Neurotheology, The Soul, and Human Flourishing. Great stuff. It's a deep dive. I wouldn't call it bedtime reading, but it's well worth the effort, I think, to dive into it. So, really appreciate the work you've done with this, and continued blessings in your work with faculty members and scholars from around the world.

Stan: Thanks, my friend. I appreciate the good work you're doing at Talbot, and I try to sing your praises every chance I get.

Scott: Well, let's just say you are doing us proud, brother.

Stan: Thanks, my friend.

Scott: Thanks. This has been an episode of the podcast Think Biblically: Conversations on Faith and Culture. It's brought to you by Talbot School of Theology at 51ÂÜŔň, offering programs in Southern California and online, including master's programs in Old Testament, New Testament, Theology, Bible Exposition, Apologetics, Philosophy, Spiritual Formation, Pastoral Ministry. I could go on and on and on. And undergraduate programs, particularly our undergrad program in Bible, Theology, and Apologetics, which has become a very popular program around the school. Visit biola.edu/talbot in order to learn more about those. If you'd like to submit comments or ask questions, make suggestions on issues you'd like us to cover or guests you'd like us to consider, please email us at thinkbiblically@biola.edu. If you enjoyed today's conversation with our friend, Stan Wallace, give us a rating on your podcast app, share it with a friend, and be sure and join us on Friday for our weekly Cultural Update. Thanks so much for listening, and remember, think biblically about everything.