[Author's note: this is a more developed, better researched version of my initial thoughts, found here.]
On “Functional Neuroimaging of Belief, Disbelief, and Uncertainty”:
An Epistemological Review and Application
This is the first time I’ve actually enjoyed reading one of the cornerstones of the “new atheism,”[1] and what’s more surprising is that this time, the subject matter isn’t atheism. Sam Harris, author of The End of Faith and Letter to a Christian Nation, is well-known as an advocate of intellectual intolerance of all types of religious faith, whether “moderate” or “extreme” in nature.[2] While The End of Faith is rather broad in scope, a few peripheries within stand out beyond the writings of others in Harris’s camp – namely, epistemological questions and their relationship to science. This relationship is further explored in “Functional Neuroimaging of Belief, Disbelief, and Uncertainty,” co-authored by Harris, Sameer A. Sheth (MD, PhD) and Mark S. Cohen (PhD).[3] When considered through an epistemological lens, the findings, interpretation, and hopes for application reveal important issues in the epistemology of Sam Harris, his contemporaries, and atheists of the “new” variety around the world. Moreover, when applied by Christian apologists, the findings of Harris (et al) are helpful in responding to the arguments of, well, Harris.[4]
Research and Results
Harris’s research placed fourteen adults in an fMRI scanner, where they were provided with a variety of statements. Each of the statements was designed “to be clearly true, false, or undecidable,” and came from a variety of subjects, from math to religion.[5] While evaluating these statements, the fMRI ran scans of the subjects’ brains, recording activity in different areas of the prefrontal cortex, the limbic system, and the basal ganglia.[6] Interestingly, the fMRI scans revealed that for each category of response, different parts of the brain showed different levels of activity.[7] Some of these areas are thought responsible for other cognitive processes – emotional ones.
Assertions of truth were linked with the parts of the brain thought dedicated to pleasant smells and rewards, while assertions of falsity were linked to disgust. “Although many areas of higher cognition are likely involved in assessing the truth-value of linguistic propositions, the final acceptance of a statement as “true” or its rejection as “false” appears to rely on more primitive, hedonic processing in the medial prefrontal cortex and the anterior insula. Truth may be beauty, and beauty truth, in more than a metaphorical sense, and false propositions may actually disgust us.”[8]
Defining Our Terms
It may come as a surprise to see a prominent atheist present religious assertions alongside mathematical ones, thus granting the religious realm at least a cursory acceptance in the category of knowledge – all the more so because he terms both types of assertions as belief. So as to avoid confusion, for the purpose of this review “belief” is equivalent to “assertion,” and may or may not refer to an assertion concerning religious faith. This definition is central to Harris’s arguments in his books, as he argues that religion, as an area of inquiry like math, geography, or ethics, requires evidence to be justified.
The term “emotion” is also put in a specific context in “Functional Neuroimaging…” that could easily be overlooked. While his definition is normative, Harris views emotion as a cognitive function. For Harris, the problem represented in different worldviews isn’t the contamination of reason with emotion, but rather emotion that is formed over time apart from evidence, which thus directs further assertions apart from evidence.[9]
Faith as Knowledge
The lack of evidence involved is exactly why Harris presents religious faith alongside other “objective” (example: math) and “subjective” (ex: ethics) assertions, terming them all “belief.” The only thing that separates one belief from another, argues Harris, is the relationship of that belief to evidence. “Tell a devout Christian that his wife is cheating on him, or that frozen yogurt can make a man invisible, and he is likely to require as much evidence as anyone else, and to be persuaded only to the extent that you give it. Tell him that the book he keeps by his bed was written by an invisible deity who will punish him with fire for eternity if he fails to accept its every incredible claim about the universe, and he seems to require no evidence whatsoever.”[10] While this serves as an adequate prompt for people of religious faith everywhere to at least consider the relationship between evidence and faith in their lives, it is not without its own problems.
The first is a confusion between anthropology and theology.[11] In the example of the “devout Christian” above, the deity in question (and any subsequent statements said deity supposedly makes) is presented as a thing to have evidence for, much like the possibility of the man’s wife having an affair. The inquiry is not into the nature of the deity (theology), but into the method of the man (anthropology). At any rate, this approach would hardly be appreciated by the deity. Assuming our devout Christian is in fact devout, he likely sees himself as derivate of God. Harris may respond by saying, “But where is the evidence that you are derivative?” To which the Christian, in all fairness, could respond, “Where’s the evidence I’m not?” Evidence is the skin of a person’s worldview. The questions that determine the support for that skin lie beneath it. For Harris, evidence is seen in terms of anthropology – applied here as man’s ideas of God. For our devout Christian, evidence is seen in terms of theology – applied as his experience of God’s ideas of man and the world. Harris and the Christian may both see beauty in the skies, but they surely apply that beauty differently.
This directs us to the (related) second problem in Harris’s view of faith as knowledge, a category error regarding epistemology. The above conflict between Harris and the devout Christian has moved from the realm of evidence to the realm of epistemological method. In The End of Faith, Harris argues for evidence to take its proper place in the inquiry of religious faith. His constant call thus is not evidenced in the same way as an affair or yogurt is, of course – it is his method of knowing that directs all subsequent inquiries.
Epistemology is rarely presented as itself in this kind of discussion. Rather it is assumed, and debate partners beat each other over the head with their own methods, oblivious to the problem. Assuming religious faith prescribes a certain method of knowing (as Christianity does), this sets epistemological method a step previous to evidence. Would Harris set aside his worldview in order to consider evidence? He could not (and may argue, should not) – as his recent study shows. At the very least, to ponder doing so would produce a feeling of revulsion to wash over him. The emotions involved in cognitive deliberations are formed over years of thought patterns and the experiences they produce. How much more epistemology is a determinative factor in discussion – from the framing of questions to the application of evidence. It is not the same thing as the possibility of magic yogurt lurking in my freezer, and in the case of Christianity, neither then is the God who serves as the center to that epistemology.
The Subjectivity of Belief
The results of “Functional Neuroimaging…” introduce subjectivity into the new atheist’s theory of knowledge by way of emotion. Even assuming that emotion is formed over time as a perfect reflection of reality, the knower still considers something other than the object (namely, himself) in making a determination about the object. At the very least, this evidence as interpreted by Harris can prove very helpful in the popular discussion of God in the twenty-first century – the discussion has been moved (by an atheist) from the “objective” atheist and the “subjective” Christian to a discussion about method and the level of subjectivity in knowing.[12] This does a fair amount of damage to the “myth of neutrality” around which much religious debate is centered. If emotion is involved in the handling of any specific object of evidence, and that emotion is built outside that object of evidence, “neutrality” can hardly be claimed. Parallel to this, different epistemologies are competing, each with their own perspective on the nature and application of evidence.
Harris has his own ways that he thinks lead him out of this subjectivity, though some of them have proven unhelpful for modern atheists. As previously noted, Harris continually argues for the preeminence of evidence, and evidence is applied according to method. For Harris, evidence influences and is influenced by his theory of knowledge (which is similar to the role of the emotions as a cognitive function), but it has no direct contact in the critique of his theory of knowledge.[13]
For example, Time.com ran a story on “Functional Neuroimaging…” upon its publication that inadvertently explored the relationship between reality and our ideas about reality. “Although more complex assertions may get analyzed in so-called ‘higher’areas of the brain, all seem to get their final stamp of ‘belief’ or disbelief in ‘primitive’ locales traditionally associated with emotions or taste and odor. Even ‘2 + 2 = 4,’ on some level, is a question of taste.”[14] Here, the fact as it is in the subject’s mind is identified with the object itself. “2 + 2 = 4” is presented as “on some level” subjective in and of itself.
Of course, Harris would not make this identification, nor would he apply it this way. In his attempts to get beyond subjectivity, he does seek to arrive at the point where the fact in the subject’s mind is identified with the object – and yet, the identity here is “2 + 2 = 4” and not “‘2 + 2 = 4’ is subjective.” His handling of his findings is applied in a way consistent with his method of knowing, and not in a way that demands that he rethink the nature of reality and his relationship to it. It is assumed that evidence provides the way out of subjectivity – not that evidence proves the subjectivity of reality. This brings us to some of the most important questions for the Christian in apologetic discussion – what is the relationship between ideas and assertions about ideas? What is the relationship between reality and ideas about reality? If they are identified, how is that done, and how is the identity between them applied? How does one move from subjectivity to objectivity?
Harris’s second way out of subjectivity is quite a bit more problematic for other new atheists. In The End of Faith, Harris asserts the reality of “spiritual” and “mystical” experiences that need to be divorced from religious contexts:
“A variety of techniques, ranging from the practice of meditation to the use of psychedelic drugs, attest to the scope and plasticity of human experience. For millennia, contemplatives have known that ordinary people can divest themselves of the feeling that they call ‘I’ and thereby relinquish the sense that they are separate from the rest of the universe…They also reveal a far deeper connection between ourselves and the rest of the universe than is suggested by the ordinary confines of our subjectivity…A truly rational approach to this dimension of our lives would allow us to explore the heights of our subjectivity with an open mind, while shedding the provincialism and dogmatism of our religious traditions in favor of free and rigorous inquiry.”[15]
For those among the new atheists unwilling to go along with Harris on this point (and they are many – Harris amended The End of Faith in part to address such complaints in an afterward), we are left with the problem of subjectivity Harris introduces: the interpretation of evidence is necessarily subjective, and evidence is the only way beyond that subjectivity.
The Usefulness of Evidence
As already demonstrated, Harris’s results provide a helpful reference in discussion with friends of the new atheist variety. As applied, perhaps the most helpful is the idea that on his own, the atheist is stuck in the subjectivity for which he holds other worldviews in disdain. Real progress in dialogue can commence when this is put out on the table by Harris, one of their own.
The usefulness of Harris says something important about the role of evidence in worldview debate. We can use it to further express and illustrate our epistemology, and, provided the other worldview makes the convenient demands for evidence that Harris does in The End of Faith, we can hand his demands right back. Ultimately, Harris’s findings aren’t true because his worldview works (nor are they untrue because his worldview fails to work), but rather they belong to the God of truth, who directs our thought with His own. Hopefully thus applied, the discussion of evidence can get beyond the question of evolution, and to the meaning and application of evidence within a worldview.[16]
Christians would do well to exercise caution and recognize the developmental stages in atheistic epistemology as Harris’s findings are applied. At some points, it is entirely fair within his method to look forward to future tests and results (for instance, into the nature of varying types of belief); we should not pretend that this evidence is the final product that defines secular humanism or naturalism for all time. Rather, his work in both “Functional Neuroimaging…” and The End of Faith introduces him as an important and thoughtful public figure in the new atheism. We ought to continue to read his books and articles and interact with his exciting inquiry into the nature of belief.
[1] “New Atheists” is a term widely applied to Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens. They’ve presented video interviews together, labeled on at least one site as “The Four Horseman”
[2] In The End of Faith, Harris classifies religious persons under these categories. Moderates, it’s argued, are free from extremism by way of ignorance or infidelity to the central revelation of their faith. This distinction is meant to generally line up with, for example, the liberal/conservative distinction within Christianity (though this also illustrates the limits of the terms – according to Harris, theonomy would represent conservative Christianity [p 18]).
[3] Harris, Sam, Sheth, AD, and
[4] Though my own epistemological viewpoint is perhaps best represented by the late Greg Bahnsen in Van Til’s Apologetic (pp 144-260), many other Christians should be able to appropriate Harris’s research well enough, provided they account for the noetic effects of sin in their own models. Keller’s The Reasons for God and Plantiga’s Warranted Christian Belief are positive examples in this regard.
[5] Harris, Sam, et al. “Functional Neuroimaging…”pp 142-143. Sample assertions included, "Mathematical: (2 + 6) + 8 = 16; 62 can be evenly divided by 9; 1.257 = 32608.5153. Geographical:
[6] Sachs, Oliver and Joy Hirsch. “A Neurology of Belief” in Annals of Neurology, 2008: Vol 63: pp 129-130.
[7] Ibid. 129.
[8] Harris, Sam, et al. “Functional Neuroimaging…” p 141.
[9] Harris, Sam. The End of Faith, p 29.
[10] Ibid. 19.
[11] Within certain spheres of Christianity, this confusion is seen as a denial of the Creator/creature distinction. If Harris requires this denial of Christians in order that they consider evidence as he does, he has asked them to deny the foundation of their knowledge. Harris takes great pains to show relate the content of a given religious system to its claims (particularly in his rebuke of moderates). In asserting his method over another without “evidence” for his method, and without resorting to violence, a case could be made that Harris is acting as a “moderate” secularist.
[12] Ibid. 40-41. “That is not to say that sensory experience offers us no indication of reality at large; it is merely that, as a matter of experience, nothing arises in consciousness that has not first been structured, edited, or amplified by the nervous system. While this gives rise to a few philosophical problems concerning the foundations of our knowledge, it also offers us a remarkable opportunity to deliberately transform the character of our experience" (emphasis added).
[13] It may be fairer to say that in his mind, the concept and content of evidence demand nothing in the form of a critique of his epistemology. Interestingly enough, this is exactly what he requires of Christianity.
[14] Van Biema, David. “What Your Brain Looks Like on Faith”.
[15] Ibid. 40-41.
[16] As previously mentioned, Harris links moderate Christianity to ignorance or infidelity to the Scriptures. Moderate Christianity, he claims, agrees in principle with evidence because it does not conform to the Scriptures. No doubt he’d be confused by the apparent agreement on the concept of evolution he’d find with such non-moderate Christians as Fesko, Keller, and Kline.
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