The discovery of a dedicated brain circuit for spirituality in every human being has broad implications for all of society
A recent neurological discovery relating to our ability to think about spiritual things that has been widely reported in the media1 has wide-ranging implications for ministry and for our culture in general.
Through a process called “lesion network mapping”2 involving 88 neurosurgical patients who were undergoing surgery to remove a brain tumor and more than 100 patients with lesions caused by penetrating head trauma suffered in combat zones3 researchers discovered that “Spirituality and religiosity map to a common brain circuit centered on the periaqueductal gray,4 a brainstem region previously implicated in fear conditioning, pain modulation, and altruistic behavior.”5
This dedicated brain circuit for spirituality is “deaply woven” into the core of our brain
Quoting Michael Ferguson, PhD, a principal investigator in the Brigham’s Center for Brain Circuit Therapeutics, Harvard Medical School, and co-author of the study, “Our results suggest that spirituality and religiosity are rooted in fundamental, neurobiological dynamics and deeply woven into our neuro-fabric. We were astonished to find that this brain circuit for spirituality is centered in one of the most evolutionarily preserved structures in the brain.”6
Notice the emphasis Dr. Ferguson makes in this statement, and it should make anyone involved in ministry sit up and take notice: spirituality and religiosity are “rooted,” “fundamental,” and “deeply woven” into the human brain (“neuro-fabric,”). He is “astonished,”7 that it is “centered in one of the most evolutionary preserved structures in the brain” (his description).
A dedicated brain circuit for spirituality proves our spiritual capability is innate, not culturally acquired
What Dr. Ferguson is saying this study reveals is that spirituality and religion are not simply information that the brain acquires and stores throughout life – that is, our awareness of our spirituality is not just culturally acquired after the brain has been formed prior to birth. Rather, our ability to think about and express our spirituality is enabled by this neural circuit and it is innate because it forms prior to birth even before it has any spiritual information to process.
For example, online gamers often purchase computers that have processors with circuits specifically dedicated to processing video graphics, which, when put to use, more efficiently process and display the video data they receive while gamers play their games.
In the same way, we have brain circuits that are specifically dedicated for certain functions, such as seeing, hearing, tasting, etc. This study proves that one of our brain circuits is dedicated to processing spiritual input.
Thus, when we pray to God, when we think about God, when we listen to a sermon about God, and when we worship God, this is the circuit our spirit uses to communicate God-related thoughts with the rest of our brain and to God himself. And, presumably, this is also the circuit the Holy Spirit uses when communicating with our brain as well. Think of it as a kind of USB port for spirituality.
A dedicated brain circuit for spirituality explains many things about our spirituality that we already know
Not only does the existence of this neural circuit prove physically that spirituality in all humans is innate and not acquired, it also explains many interesting facts about human spirituality. For example:
- It explains why very young children so readily understand complex concepts about God.8
- It explains why religious activity like attending church once a week and praying everyday result in positive outcomes for teens.9
- It explains why religious adults who attend church regularly are physically and emotionally healthier than those who do not.10
- It explains why 80% of the world’s population is religious.11
Our brain circuit for spirituality is not the source of our spirituality, but the source of our ability to think and communicate about it
Note that this study is not saying that this brain circuit makes us spiritual, but that it enables us to think about our spirituality and communicate those thoughts about our spiritual state to God, to ourselves, and to others.
To be sure, simply having a brain circuit that is dedicated to processing spiritual information does not guarantee that the information we processes is accurate. The spiritual world contains both good and evil, God and Satan, angels and demons, orthodoxy and heterodoxy, truth and falsehoods.
Like all of our brain circuits, our brain circuit for spirituality has no filter
Our spiritual brain circuit is the same as all our other sensory circuits: it has no filter. With our hearing circuits and seeing circuits we hear wonderful music and see beautiful works of art. But with them we also hear gun shots and look at pornography. In the same way, with our spiritual brain circuit we comprehend wonderful sermons, but also misleading heresy. We understand what people mean when they praise God, but also when they curse God, what they are doing when they seek God, but also when they hide from him. This amazing door to the transcendent doesn’t distinguish between treasure or trash.
Fortunately, just as we can eventually learn to ascertain what is beautiful and true and good in the physical world, using our spiritual brain circuit we can also discern what is beautiful and true and good in the spiritual world as God helps us understand his love for us, our need for him, and how we can know him through faith in his son, Jesus Christ.
Atheist are repressing their dedicated brain circuit for spirituality…and everyone else’s too
Furthermore, this fact that spirituality in humans is innate should give atheists pause. Is it healthy for humanity when atheists insist that all references to God be removed from public discourse because they have trained themselves to repress their own dedicated spiritual circuit? (Yes, even atheists have a dedicated spiritual circuit.)
Mandating latent atheism as the default world view in public schools and colleges is the same as mandating that teachers stop verbal teaching and use only sign language to teach even hearing enabled students because some children can’t hear. Ignoring students’ innate spirituality in education has turned our public schools and colleges into spiritual wastelands and moral cesspools.
Seventy years ago, as someone has observed, it was normal to talk about God in public discourse and taboo to talk about sex in public discourse. But in the latter half of the twentieth century, it became clear that embarrassment about sex led to sexual repression with many negative emotional and social repercussions.
As a result, an overreaction occurred in our culture. Now it is normal to talk about sex in public discourse and taboo to talk about God in public discourse. We have traded sexual inhibition for spiritual inhibition. The consequence of this societal flip flop is that now we commonly and automatically repress our innate spiritual nature when in polite society while zealous atheists, like Taliban Mullah’s, go around with their intellectual switches, whipping into submission anyone who dares express their spirituality in a serious way in the public square.
Current research has not found any difference between men’s and women’s dedicated brain circuit for spirituality
One final observation. The authors of this study make no distinction between men and women when discussing their discovery of a human brain circuit for spirituality. While there is still much research that needs to be done, as it stands now it appears that both men and women have the exact same brain circuit for spirituality. This means that both men and women are hard wired in the same way for spirituality and that the differences we see in their rates of church attendance and other expressions of religiosity are cultural and not the result of one sex being “more spiritual” than another.
David Murrow should be pleased.12
This post first appeared in NewCommandment.org.
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- “A Neural Circuit for Spirituality and Religiosity Derived From Patients With Brain Lesions,” National Institute of Health; “Brain circuit for spirituality?” Science Daily; “Scientists Think They Just Found the Brain’s Spirituality Network,” Forbes; “Scientists Track Spirituality in the Human Brain,” USNews; “Mapping the Brain Circuitry of Spirituality,” NeuroscienceNews.com
- Lesions in the brain are areas of damage caused by injury or disease.
- For a detailed description of how the study was performed, see “Brain circuit for spirituality?” cited above.
- ”Past studies on the brain’s role in spirituality have largely used functional MRI scans — showing that certain brain areas “light up” when people envision a previous spiritual experience, for instance. But it’s not clear whether those brain regions actually help cultivate spirituality, or are simply correlated with such experiences. “We want to look for more than correlations,” Ferguson said. “We’re looking for causes.” So his team took a different approach, focusing on patients with brain lesions (areas of tissue damage). If the specific location of a lesion correlates to either increased or decreased feelings of spirituality, that suggests that brain area may play a causal role.” “Scientists Track Spirituality in the Human Brain,” U.S.News, July 8, 2021.
- Biological Psychiatry Journal, biologicalpsychiatryjournal.com.
- Quoted in “Brain circuit for spirituality?” ScienceDaily.com, July 1, 2021
- ” Dr. Ferguson and his colleagues were surprised to find the spirituality circuitry centered on the PAG, rather than “higher” brain regions such as the cortex, which is usually associated with cognitive function and abstract thoughts.” “Mapping the Brain Circuitry of Spirituality,” NeuroscienceNews.com, August 31, 2021.
- ”Anthropomorphism or Preparedness? Exploring Children’s God Concepts,” Justin L. Barrett, Rebekah A. Richert, University of Virginia, Review of Religious Research, 2003, Volume 44:3, Pages 300-312. Abstract: “Historically, the development of God concepts in human cognition has been explained anthropomorphically. In other words, for children especially, God is a big, superhuman who lives in the sky. Recent empirical research on the development of these concepts may suggest an alternative hypothesis. In this paper, we review this research and outline the “preparedness hypothesis,” which suggests that children may be cognitively equipped to understand some properties of God in a non-anthropomorphic way.” (Emphasis added)
- ”Religious upbringing linked to better health and well-being during early adulthood,” Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, September 18, 2018. “Researchers found that people who attended weekly religious services or practiced daily prayer or meditation in their youth reported greater life satisfaction and positivity in their 20s—and were less likely to subsequently have depressive symptoms, smoke, use illicit drugs, or have a sexually transmitted infection—than people raised with less regular spiritual habits.”
- “We know with certainty that religion has strong, positive effects on mental health. Religious people are far less prone to depression and neurosis. We also know with certainty that religious people are physically healthier than the irreligious since frequent attenders have an average of 7.6 years of longer life expectancy at age 20,” Rodney Stark, America’s Blessings: How Religion Benefits Everyone, Including Atheists, Templeton Press.
- ”The Global Religious Landscape,” Pew Research Center, December 18, 2012. “Worldwide, more than eight-in-ten people identify with a religious group. A comprehensive demographic study of more than 230 countries and territories conducted by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life estimates that there are 5.8 billion religiously affiliated adults and children around the globe, representing 84% of the 2010 world population of 6.9 billion.”
- David Murrow is the author of Why Men Hate Going to Church, a book I reviewed in my last post.
