Poking Holes for the Soul to Live In

I was rather excited when I saw this book at Borders the other day. I'm not sure exactly what made me think it would be a good idea, being as it was in the Christian section. I should have learned by now that said section exists only to sell inferior material to people who have been religiously trained to prefer inferior material.

The reason I bought it is that recently I have been particularly intrigued at how neuroscience and theology interface. There don't seem to be very many on either side who are interested in bridging the gap there. So when I saw this book I thought for a second that maybe I had found such a rarity. Unfortunately the book did a pathetic job. Instead of looking for connections between the two fields, the book quickly becomes a cheap polemic against materialistic neuroscience. There is little desire in the book to give any credit or show any respect to those with differing views, rather it amounts to a sad effort to further the polarizing between traditional religious faith and atheistic materialism as it is manifest in neuroscience.

This book's method seems to borrow from what is all too often seen in Christian apologetics: poke holes in the opposite side and hope that God can comfortably find a home there. Only instead of God they hope the the soul will be salvaged. This method in my opinion fails pathetically in apologetics, and so the similar attempt for the soul follows suit. The 'God of the gaps' and the 'soul in the gaps' both fail, I think, from a horrible lack of creativity as well as blind partisanship. This blindness prevents them from any mature understanding of the opposing point of view, and fails to admit the shortcomings of its own.

To fit the soul or God within the available mental real estate left by apologetic hole poking, requires that they contort and dissociate to such an extent that they cease to resemble anything worth believing in. Both are concepts that demand more than being 'fit in' wherever we can find room for them. Yet, many in our world maintain allegiance to them as they would to deposed kings who refuse to concede they no longer reign supreme. Validity is not displayed by pointing to small cracks in scientific knowledge where it's possible that God or the soul might reside. Nor does a weak diatribe against science bring back the bygone age when God and the soul were assumed.

Briefly allow be to state that the "soul" is not an absolutely necessary concept to any theology, Christian or otherwise. The mileage it has achieved does not prove its truth or even its necessity. If we are proved to not have souls as has been tradition for much of Christian history, this does not prove our faith to be null and void. Similarly if God is proven to not resemble a grandfather with the body of a professional athelete who dwells beyond the clouds, this does not demand his inexistence. Instead, in both cases, we are required to reconsider what we really mean by either term. We are forced to either redefine the term, or perhaps even abandon the term in favor of something totally new.

Seeking something new is exactly what this book, like most apologetic accounts, seems to lack the courage to do. It is also what Christian faith and the scientific community most need to seek. I certainly do not feel that reductionistic materialism has nullified the validity of religious experience, only I am sure that polarizing against it gets nowhere. Instead of taking shots at a conversation that has deemed us irrelevant, we should join with legitimate fresh ideas.