Emmanuel Church Northstowe kindly gave me a 3 month sabbatical over summer 2023. Alongside some rest, a family wedding, and revising my Hebrew, I read a few neuroscience/ psychology books.
Some Christians might wonder why any Christian or pastor would read neuroscience or psychology. These disciplines are secular disciplines carried out without any acknowledgement of God as creator or the Bible as God’s word. Other Christians might wonder why there’s any hesitation about reading neuroscience or psychology. These are scientific methods that tell us about how the human brain and mind work.
As with all areas of human study there will be both value in reading these sources, and also things that are not helpful. Only the Bible is the authoritative and reliable word of God. But by God’s common grace all sorts of human fields of endeavour will reveal truth about the world and us. The Bible is sufficient to teach us about salvation and godliness, but it doesn’t tell us how to change a car’s oil. Likewise the Bible gives us godly principles for general human living in God’s world and with God, but does not tell us exactly how the human brain functions, nor how different disorders may affect the human brain.
So here are four possibilities for how neuroscience/psychology relate to Christian faith.
1) Neuroscience/Psychology shows the underlying brain and mind structures that explain why the Bible tells us to do certain things. It does not change what we do as we live out the Bible but shows an additional reason why it works.
2) Neuroscience/Psychology gives us wisdom to know how to apply the principles that the Bible gives us, perhaps opening up new possibilities or practical applications. This is particularly helpful with people with mental health issues, but can also apply to normal human living.
3) Neuroscience/Psychology causes us to question our understanding of what the Bible is teaching, helping us to look again and perhaps see biblical truths that we had missed. We may see when we look again that perhaps we had applied God’s word without nuance or wisdom.
4) Neuroscience/Psychology operates from non-Christian foundations which causes it at points to have erroneous conclusions going against the clear teaching of scripture and needing to be resisted. Or perhaps the current research points in a direction that contradicts the Bible, and in that case we expect that further research will show flaws in the current research.
A single book may show all 4 possibilities.
So I read a range of neuroscience books over my Sabbatical, and I found much helpful wisdom and areas to think about more, as I teach the Bible, pastor individuals, and help lead a growing church.
Jots and Scribbles 
Are comments along the lines of “are they ‘four principles’ or ‘4 possibilities’?” helpful (because you’d welcome the opportunity to edit these posts into a more polished form) or annoying pedantry (because you want to focus on writing the next thing)?
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Possibly helpful- certainly it would annoy Karuna less if I quickly edited any mistakes. But don’t be offended if I ignore the editing in the busyness of life.
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(‘Are they’ should be ‘are there’ – a fine beginning to a pendantic correction )
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