If you are curious about how our brains work and the theological implications of the latest discoveries in neuroscience, then you will enjoy this podcast interview with Dr. Robert Burton the author of “On Being Certain: Believing You Are Right Even When You’re Not”. The author is interviewed by Dr. Ginger Campbell. She runs the BrainSciencePodcast.com and helps make this a very accessible interview despite the complex topic.

Dr. Burton’s assertion is that neuroscience is showing how what we call “knowing” is actually more of a feeling rather than a rational unemotional thought. When we say we know something, we are feeling that we know it in the same way we have other feelings and emotions (love, anger, pain, sadness, etc.). Our ability to know is never perfect, and frequently mistaken. This brings up interesting implications for Epistemology (The study of how we know what we know).

“Thoughts require sensory information (including circuits that tell us when we are thinking a thought). We “know” the nature and quality of our thoughts via feelings not reason. Feelings such as certainty, conviction, rightness, wrongness, clarity, and faith arise out of involuntary mental sensory systems that are integral and inseparable from the thoughts they qualify. The findings of neuroscience challenge our notions of reason and objectivity"

“Certainty is not a biologically justifiable state of mind. There is no such thing as an isolated circuit in the brain that can engage in thought free from involuntary or undetectable influences. We cannot do objective thought.” - Dr. Robert Burton

This is important information for our theological discussions because the myth of an autonomous rational mind is as misguided as the myth of a totally disembodied thinking soul. We are holistic beings of integrated bodies and brains. In other words, we only know how to know things by interpreting them through our senses and our relative perspectives. This is precisely why our own narratives play such large roles in individual positions.

If you would like more information, Dr. Campbell has a detailed review of this book in another podcast episode. I’m fast becoming hooked on her Brain Science Podcast as I work my way though 2 years worth of archived episodes.