“Things Counter, Original, Spare, Strange”: Developing a Postfoundational Transversal Model for Science/Religion Dialogue

Abstract

This second of three articles outlining the development and practice of a different approach to neurotheology discusses the construction of a suitable methodology for the project based on the work of J. Wentzel van Huyssteen. It explores the origin and contours of his concept of postfoundational rationality, its potential as a locus for epistemological parity between science and religion and the distinctive and unique transversal space model for interdisciplinary dialogue which he builds on these. It then proposes a further development of the model which has the potential to produce a very different type of additional and original dialogical outcome. While such "transversal" outputs may initially seem counter and strange they not only flow naturally from the models' own inherent dynamics but also open up the possibility of a distinctively different form of neurotheology.

“Landscape Plotted and Pieced”: Exploring the Contours of Engagement Between (Neuro)science and Theology

“…The ramifications of such questions are particularly acute for any effort to develop a coherent account of what form neurotheology might take. However, as I will subsequently argue and then demonstrate in the second and third articles of this set (Bennett , ), conceiving this in terms of a transversal venture and allying the construct to a suitable methodology, provides one way of negotiating these various difficulties. It also, as I will discuss in the second article, opens up the possibility of a new way of integrating theological and scientific insights to generate a discourse that is both coherently and distinctively neurotheological.…”

“…Ashbrook's project is essentially one of integration giving the human brain privileged status as an analogical expression of God (Ashbrook , 65–81), and fashioning a holistic understanding of the spiritual, psychological, and neurological dimensions of personal and spiritual life (Albright , 480). Some elements of the way he approaches this task would actually sit very comfortably within the postfoundational dynamics that I will be setting out in the next article (Bennett ), for example, his engagement with an eclectic mix of sources, and the imaginative leaps he makes in connecting these up and drawing out inferences. However, these are also a source of some of the difficulties into which his project runs—partly because of the nature of the neuroscientific data he draws on and partly because of the way in which he then builds on these.…”

“…While Newberg's own preferences for areas of research such as spiritual experience are clear, exactly how to identify suitable loci in all this potential territory is never clearly specified—though the implicit heuristic seems to be something akin to Mary Midgley's (, 112–14) multiple maps metaphor. In the light of the opening comments about the imbalances between excessive knowledge production and our ability to assimilate or utilize it, what seems to be urgently required is some mechanism for identifying those areas that offer the combination of potential usefulness and possible dialogical fruitfulness, at which to coordinate and concentrate engagement—something that I will address in the second article of this set (Bennett ).…”

“…My interest here is not just in finding a way of negotiating the difficulties in interfacing either science/religion generally or neuroscience and theology specifically but also, as part of a larger project, in whether and how we can address the issues raised at the beginning of this article regarding the increasing and increasingly disconnected quanta of knowledge now being generated. I will therefore conclude this first article by briefly sketching an alternative vision for how neurotheological exploration might be conceived and executed, which I will then explore in the next article (Bennett ). By clearly identifying both purpose and locus of engagement, and through adopting a robust methodological approach and generating a distinctive discourse, this approach seeks to address some of the issues highlighted above as problems in Ashbrook and Newberg's projects.…”

“…Set against the background of some of the tensions alluded to above, it explores the shape and results of the connections established thus far and asks whether a different approach to dialogue might result in the generation of more complex and textured understandings of aspects of humanness—one to which both science and theology can contribute as equal partners. The second paper (Bennett ) deals with a proposed methodology for enabling and supporting such a dialogue; the final one (Bennett ) gives a brief account of its employment to explore—through a series of engagements between theology, cognitive neuroscience, and psychoneuroimmunology (hereafter PNI)—whether the experience of human relationality can directly moderate immune function and thus affect health outcomes.…”