Date: 2003-08-26

Nobel Laureate Finds "Neuro-Theology" Unconvincing. He
Responds to Theory That Desire for God Is Only in the
Genes.

ROME, AUG. 26, 2003 (Zenit.org).- 

Religions cannot be reduced to chemical variations of
the brain's gray matter, a Nobel Prize recipient and
theologian says in response to theses proposed by an
advocate of "neurotheology." 

In a book just published in France, entitled "La
biologie de Dieu" (The Biology of God), science
journalist Patrick JeanBaptiste states that the need
for God experienced by every person is genetically
programmed. 

The book aims to affirm that biology on its own can
explain religious phenomena. According to the author,
illnesses such as epilepsy can explain the intensity
of some people's religious life. 

But Renato Dulbecco, a 1975 Nobel Prize winner in
medicine, and one of the promoters of the human genome
project, doesn't think the book's conclusions are
scientific. 

"Given that all or almost all human societies have
imagined a God, we could then say that this idea is
within us," Dulbecco told the Roman newspaper Il
Messaggero. "We would have a brain directed toward a
supreme being, and it could not be otherwise, as it is
a creation of his. Although it is possible, it is also
possible that it is not like that." 

"It is an economical solution, as it involves less
effort," he said. "But it must be demonstrated, if one
is speaking of science." 

Monsignor Mauro Cozzoli, professor of moral theology
at the Lateran University, said: "Undoubtedly, a
biological substratum is necessary for spiritual
manifestations." 

"However, we cannot reduce the spiritual to the
neurological," he noted. "The spirit is not reduced to
the neuronal; rather, it transcends it. Otherwise, it
would be no more than a physiological prolongation. 

"Just as one thinks and believes with the body, one
also enters into relation with God with the body," he
added. But he said this does not mean that the
religious experience can be reduced simply to a
biological experience.




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