cover image WHERE GOD LIVES IN THE HUMAN BRAIN

WHERE GOD LIVES IN THE HUMAN BRAIN

Carol Rausch Albright, . . Sourcebooks, $22.95 (233pp) ISBN 978-1-57071-741-3

Albright, who edits Zygon, the journal of the Institute on Religion in an Age of Science, and Ashbrook, long associated with the Chicago Center for Religion and Science, make a disappointingly garbled offering to the hardwired-for-God genre. Some of the authors' claims will be familiar to anyone who has recently watched 20/20 or picked up Time magazine: The human brain is not static and fixed, but morphs and changes throughout life, depending on environmental stimuli. Other findings, difficult to substantiate scientifically, will make intuitive sense to readers: Human beings are innately curious about how the world works and try to find meaning in it. Perhaps the most interesting and daring arguments of the book concern the relationship of the brain to sin and evil. When the brain doesn't work as it should, say the authors, human beings are led into the types of activities that members of Western religious traditions have traditionally called sin. Finally, the authors make clear that they assume a loving God created the universe and that the brain has something to do with our experience of that God, but the details of their argument are hard to follow. The brain is both a "metaphor" for God and "a lens with which to study" God. Humans are predisposed toward religious faith because faith reflects how they connect their environments with their brains. The authors offer a provocative marriage of theology and science; it is unfortunate that their writing is occasionally opaque and confusing. (Apr.)