The Supernatural Mind

When it comes to studying the mind, we live in interesting times. While people have been reflecting on what it means to be people since the very beginning, the academic study of the internal world is much more recent. Psychology is about a century old, and science of human neurology worth mentioning is even more recent.

The story goes a little like this. Our brain is made up of about 100 billion neurons. These little guys transmit electric impulses back and forth. These neuro-pathways are what allow us to perceive, interpret, remember, react, reflect, and decide. While they are certainly still working out the details, a complete understanding of biology, chemistry, and electricity seems to offer a complete explanation of the function of the human brain.

First off, great job! The work that has been done so far promises of great work to be done in the future, and what a blessing to have such insight into our inner workings. Consider the advances in medicine alone!

But there is something lurking in the midst of my joy about repairing brain damage. A dull feeling of dread, a nagging worry, a sulking sullenness. Its as though the last mysterious place on earth is getting a cell phone tower and a Starbucks. The inside of my head... the one place that was always private... the one place that was mine.

A physical account of the mind. It threatens to tear down that last shroud of mystic humanity that made me different than the rock or the lightning storm. And the worst thing about this scientific explanation? Its good, and getting better every day. Founded on collaborative investigation, total honesty concerning successes and failures, and systematic observation.

Damn.


What recourse do we, the mystical, mythical, mystery seeking people of the world have? All our dreams, desires, beliefs, and convictions... all laid bare on the laboratory table... all being explained by strangers in white, sterile coats. Is there any hope in the face of this explanation? Actually, there is.

The physical explanation is, after all, only an explanation. It may even be a true explanation. But what it is not is the actual phenomena of our minds. The experience of being human is undeniably immune to capture by webs of words (and it is poets, not scientists, that come closest). No matter how excellent the picture of our inner world gets, it is still only a picture. And it isn't the only one.

In the thousands of years discernment and commitment to what is holy, many other pictures of the inner experience have been painted. Within these splendorous halls of religious renderings of the human mind I find breathtaking insight into the nature of my own existence.

The religious accounts of the mind are no less broad, and no less detailed. Perception, intuition, belief formation, action, reasoning, and emotions are all accounted for. While the methodology is less outwardly empirical, any religion worth its salt and light is founded on collaborative investigation, total honesty concerning successes and failures, and systematic observation also.

Isn't two explanations a bad thing? If there are two different accounts of the same mental event, doesn't one of them have to be right?

No.

How many times have you been engaged in the debate about creation? Perhaps the origin of the universe... perhaps the origin of humankind. In this debate we usually face of two competing explanations. One is a divine story about an immensely powerful creator (or creatrix) that built (or birthed) all things. The other is a scientific story about the physics and biology that contributed to the development of life on earth.

Some people subscribe to one, some the other, but a remarkable number of people believe both. Children, philosophers, doctors, students, and farmers... all with wildly disparate educations and backgrounds... have all told me that both of these stories are true. That God, working with wisdom, created a world that moved within God's rules, but also moved with God's graces. God uses physical laws to make the universe, they say. God uses natural selection to create humanity.

Grace is the key. God moves sublimely through the events of the world, disrupting nothing in God's wake, but permeating every event with the Eternal Will.

I didn't want my mind explained by the scientists because I wanted it to be more than the rock or the lightning storm. What pride. I am no more than a slab of granite or a crack of thunder... and by that I am no more than something that is cupped in the ever-present and loving hands of God. No event, be it a bonding of atoms or salty drop of tears, is outside the pervasive presence and directive intention of the Divine.

So which is true? Do I have a brain, triggered by and triggering chemical and electrical responses for the sake of its own survival? Or do I have a mind, authored and sanctified by a righteous creator so that I may seek perfection through holiness?

Say it with me. Be you children, philosophers, doctors, students, or farmers, say it with me.

We have both.