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Preface

We view our past through a reverse telescope, making it seem like contemporary events are a much larger part of our history than they are. Hominids have been estimated to have evolved about 7 million years ago, with our species having evolved only within approximately the last 1% of that period. The human brain was sculpted by evolutionary forces over tens of thousands of years, whereas the human achievements we take for granted, such as civilizations, law, and art, have emerged only during the past few thousands of years. A mere 300 years ago, theology and philosophy were the principal disciplinary lenses through which the world was viewed, and from which explanations and instruction were sought. Advances in science over the past 300 years have transformed how we think, act, and live. Nearly every aspect of human existence, ranging from agriculture, commerce, and transportation to technology, communication, and medicine, has been transformed by contemporary science. We have no hesitation to accept scientific explanations of physical entities being influenced by invisible forces such as gravity, magnetism, and genes. But when human mentation and behavior are the objects to be explained, deterministic scientific accounts seem to many to be less satisfying.

For some, science and modernity are akin to the apple in the Garden of Eden, responsible for our fall from Grace. For others, theology and religion represent little more than the stuff of superstition with no place in an educated society.

About six years ago, we had the opportunity to create a most unusual group of scholars to examine questions about the invisible forces acting on, within, and between human bodies. Superb scholars who individually had made major contributions to their own disciplinary field – fields as divergent as neuroscience and medicine to philosophy and theology – were invited to form an interdisciplinary network of scholars to consider such questions. The development of these discussions even over the first few meetings truly astonished us all. We decided to share what we learned through the present book, which represents a different perspective, one in which our understanding of human nature is enriched by serious insights and scrutiny that each perspective has to offer. Theology and religion have always relied on unseen forces as the basis for explanations of human behavior and experience. Science has been able to explicate those forces even if along different lines than originally conceived. As we start to consider some of the more complex aspects of human nature, science and theology may be able to work together to shed light on some of these complexities.

We begin this preface and each chapter with a word cloud produced using Wordle at http://www.wordle.net. In the case of this preface, it illustrates key concepts that are found in this book. In the case of the chapters, the word cloud in each provides a visualization of

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