Warren Brown, a psychology professor at Fuller Theological Seminary in California, is actively involved in neuropsychological research. He brought his understanding of neurology and his research findings to discuss the implications the brain has on theology.

Co-author with Fuller Seminary colleague Nancey Murphy of Did My Neurons Make Me Do It? (Short answer: no; long answer takes many years and a working understanding of the brain), Brown is familiar with the theological debate surrounding the brain and the mind. Brown doesn’t think it’s fruitful to posit “the mind,” as the actions performed by the brain typically attributed to “the mind” are more what the brain does rather than a separate entity. Take from this your own understanding of the soul and whether it can be disembodied, Brown thinks, “running eschatology [thoughts of the end times] out of anthropology is a bad idea.”

It may just be that theology can’t be perfectly integrated with neurology. Brown is OK with that — he is looking for resonance than integration — but many participants seem to still be wrestling with the idea.

The parts of Brown’s lecture that spurred for this conversation were based around research done on brain function and empathy, fairness, regret, moral decision-making, centering prayer, and meditation (done by people like Michael Spezio, Antonio Damasio, Andrew Newberg, and others). When “the mind” is communicating with God, evidence of brain stimulation occurs. So does that mean there is no mind separate from the brain or that the mind just can’t be measured?

Brown’s research also has implications on free will, a very important point of discussion for open theists.

Because of the way the brain is structured, we are not completely free in the usual sense of the word. Neural pathways are based on previous experience, and therefore we become conditioned to react to certain situations based on previous experience. So the neural systems of the brain constrain the actions that one will take. To open theists, this sounds like determinism. To Brown, it’s fine because “it’s irrational that we’d choose from anything outside our previous experience. Free will is not a decision to do or not to do. It’s the criteria by which the action/feedback loops are judged.”