Neuroscience and Religion Brain, Mind, Self, and Soul

For religious persons, the notion of human being is tied inextricably to the notion of God (or the gods) and turns on this question: What is human being? How did we, with our almost infinite capacities for thought, change, and domination, come to be? Imbued with powers far beyond any other animal, humans are too faulty to be considered gods themselves. Yet the idea of God (or the gods) appears in all distinctive human cultures: it names the other pole of human-it designates a being who realizes perfectly our imperfectly realized nature.

Volney P. Gay is professor and chair of religious studies, director of the Center for the Study of Religion and Culture, professor of psychiatry, and professor of anthropology at Vanderbilt at University. He is also a faculty member of the St. Louis Psychoanalytic Institute.