Memory and Sexuality
- Codey Cline
- Jun 6, 2023
- 24 min read
This is the research topic for my PhD. I wanted to post it for those who have been asking to learn more about it.
Introduction
What is the soul? If scientific advances present in the modern day display the complexity of the human body, accounting for all the physiological processes which take place, of what account is the soul necessary? Such questions highlight the bias of the one asking, for scientists readily admit the need for further research and exploratory studies.[1] There is a growing acceptance of scientism in Western culture, which J. P. Moreland describes:
If something does not square with currently well-established scientific beliefs, if it is not within the domain of entities appropriate for scientific investigation, or it is amenable to scientific methodology, then it is not true or rational. Everything outside of science is a matter of mere belief and subjective opinion, of which rational assessment is impossible. Science, exclusively and ideally, is our model of intellectual excellence.[2]
Indeed, this assumption seems to be the heart behind Yuval Harari’s purview of the soul in modern research: “Over the last century, as scientists opened up the Sapiens black box, they discovered there neither soul, nor free will, nor ‘self’ – but only genes, hormones, and neurons that obey the same physical and chemical laws governing the rest of reality.”[3] Harari states that the soul is “a hollow term empty of any discernable meaning.”[4]
Tragically, this bias has begun to infiltrate centers of Christian higher education also. Joel Green states, “The slowly accumulating evidence from natural scientists is rewriting what and how we think about ourselves.”[5] Nancey Murphy has been a leading voice for Christian physicalism.[6] Moreland, in defending the soul’s existence, has sought to showcase the inability of modern neuroscience to explain human composition: “In general, neuroscience is wonderful for providing information about the neurobiological aspects of mental functioning and the self’s actions, but it is of no help whatsoever in telling us what mental states and the self are.”[7] He argues that “cognitive neuroscience, which is rooted in empirical data, offers very little help” in determining the reality and function of the soul.[8]
Respecting Moreland’s position from a philosophical standpoint, theological research could benefit from engaging with neuroscientific evidence. Specifically, present studies into the formation and storage of memory within the brain offer a strong defense for substance dualism. As it will be discussed below, evidence being uncovered through neurocognitive studies today are confirming theories held in church history, most notably by Thomas Aquinas. Furthermore, the current sexual revolution presses the insufficiency of scientism in engaging with evidence for the biological structure of sexual preference. Starting from theology, it is possible that the growing neurocognitive evidence being discovered can shine a further light on what it means to sin against the body in sexual immorality (1 Cor. 6:18). Sexual expression appears to have a physical reality within the brain through several processes within the hippocampus, a chief component in learning and memory. It is the opinion of this author that this evidence – from Scripture, neuroscientific studies, and the writings of Thomas Aquinas – makes the substance dualist position on the soul stronger than ever before.
The Nature of the Problem
This research is being undertaken to study the effects of sexual sin upon the brain through memory, because this author seeks to witness how the immaterial soul and material body interact and support one another considering modern scientific evidence, to help the reader understand the physical destruction of sexual sin and to respond to arguments supporting the sexual revolution with theology and empirical science. This undertaking is properly understood as pure research, for it “addresses a conceptual problem that does not bear directly on any practical situation in the world.”[9]
The various disciplines that need consideration are intricate. Moreland, defending substance dualism in the present day, has sounded the call for Christians to engage with science while not succumbing to the pressures of empiricism.[10] Mark Noll, in criticizing the evangelical church for an anti-intellectual spirit, writes,
To grasp ‘the whole counsel of God,’ nothing in fact can replace advanced linguistic expertise, careful investigation of ancient Near Eastern cultures, some awareness of how others in far distant times and places have interpreted the text, and the intellectual give-and-take of scholarship at its best. With that kind of carefully honed expertise, the Bible’s riches really do unfold.[11]
Noll’s advice can be heeded without abandoning orthodox teaching. Weighing the evidence presented by empirical studies does not assume the need to abandon trust in the inerrancy and sufficiency of Scripture. Using Noll’s own thoughts, the supremacy of Scripture will show itself evident over against the contrary thoughts of man, even in the challenges presented to Christians today.
One figure in church history whose work will assist this research is Thomas Aquinas. While his arguments will be discussed below, it suffices to say now that much of the evidence present in research today was available to Aquinas during his lifetime. While advancing a Christian light upon the many writings of Aristotle, it is striking to read Aquinas’ positions alongside the contemporary research that was outside of his reach. The recent discoveries of engrams, synaptic plasticity, and how the hippocampus plays an integral role in the functions of memory and sexual expression fit easily into Aquinas’ philosophy. Without the help of advanced technology, Aquinas grasped much of what could not be discovered through empirical science until recently.
The Significance of This Study
The present moment provides a need for clear, Christian explanations for human composition. Rather than backing away from scholarly efforts, this research seeks to engage contemporary evidence alongside a trust in the inerrancy and sufficiency of Scripture. Ken Ham has explained, “Science is both a fabulous body of knowledge and a fantastic method of investigation. However, scientific discoveries are subject to interpretation.”[12] In other words, researchers always interpret raw data through a lens of bias. Christians also interpret data through a lens, but it appears that Christian scholarship is the only bias that is openly honest about doing so. The dominant view of evolutionary, physicalist positions on human structure presently enjoys freedom from these accusations.
In researching the effects of sexual sin upon the body, Scripture provides a foundation for explaining empirical data. Namely, 1 Corinthians 6:18 commands, “Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body.”[13] Paul writes in Romans 1:28 that for sinners, “God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.” The most explicit actions described in Romans 1 of those with a debased mind highlight sexually immoral behavior.[14] Paul will later encourage the Roman church in Romans 12:2 to “be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” Paul instructs Christians to think and consider what is the godly way – a process which includes the use of the brain rather than the spirit alone. Furthermore, Paul will write in 1 Corinthians 2:16 that Christians “have the mind of Christ.” From these passages, it is safe to assume that Christians alone, trusting in the inerrancy and sufficiency of Scripture, possess the knowledge necessary to understand the human person. Denying the immaterial aspect of humanity is ignoring an integral factor.
Additionally, the assumptions of scientism cannot respect the present sexual revolution without denying biological reality. Sexual neurosteroids, newly discovered to be present in the hippocampus (rather than the gonads alone), are dramatically different in the two sexes.[15] Even with removing the specific sexual organs as given through creation and suppressing gender-specific hormones, the hippocampus, playing a major function within the central nervous system, continues to operate as designed by God in specific ways through gender differences.[16] Furthermore, it is admitted by some scientists – even those promoting LGBTQ+ values – that sexual behavior and preference is shaped by past engagement with such ideas and activities.[17] Empirical science now points to the possibility that sexuality is learned and solidified through neuroplastic processes contra predisposition at birth.[18] Is it coincidental that the primary region of the brain which orchestrates learning, memory formation, and memory retrieval – the hippocampus – is also a primary actor in the brain for sexual function?
It is apparent that the need for Christian scholarship in these areas is vital. Memory was not lost upon Aquinas, and his contributions are essential in accurately seeing the immaterial soul relate to the material body. It is the hope of this author that engaging with the emerging neuroscience behind memory from a Thomistic dualist position will display the effects of sexual sin.
Sources
While few sources are engaging with modern neuroscience on memory from a Thomistic perspective, there is hope that additional research is on the way. Aquinas is being noticed in other research disciplines. Psychologist Guiseppe Butera writes, “Aquinas, for all the limitations of the science of his day, offers such a fundamental insight into the underlying structure of the human psyche.”[19] Neuroscientist Adriana Gini states with Denis Larrivee: “Aquinas’ insistence on rational deliberation as the necessary, conscious precursor to normative assignments intrinsic to virtuous behavior, is receiving renewed neuroscientific interest.”[20] However, many of the sources for this research will come from those holding to atheistic and evolutionary biases. Butera, while endorsing Aquinas, opines, “Even though Aquinas was first and last a theologian, the psychology he developed is able to stand on its own, independent of his theological commitments.”[21] The sources below are an attempt to glean from the latest research on the hippocampus, engrams, and the Thomistic view of the soul.
The Hippocampus
The hippocampus is a seahorse-shaped portion of the cerebral cortex in the temporal lobe.[22] Despite being recognized as a single unit, the hippocampus is two separate entities present in both hemispheres of the brain.[23] Extensive research has demonstrated that the hippocampus plays a significant role in the functions of memory and learning.[24] To summarize, “[The] Limbic system is considered to be the ‘primitive brain,’ deep with-in brain. It is concerned with hunger, motivation, sex drive, mood, pain, pleasure, appetite, and memory etc. The hippocampus is the posterior part of the limbic lobe while the frontal part is the amygdala.”[25] Broken up into several regions (Cornu ammonis, dentate gyrus, subiculum, and entorhinal area), it is now possible to see new neurons created (i.e., neurogenesis) and their communication (i.e., by connecting through synapses) within the hippocampus. It appears to be settled scientifically that the hippocampus is an integral part of learning and recalling memory, for “damage to the hippocampus impairs episodic memory.”[26] Further, “It is the earliest and most severely affected structure in several neuropsychiatric disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease, epilepsy, etc.”[27]
Current research into hippocampal function is now shining a light into sexual aspects. One recent study showcases that sexual experience “enhances cell proliferation [i.e., doubling], adult neurogenesis, and the number of dendritic spines in the dentate gyrus of adult male rats.”[28][29] This neurogenesis in the hippocampus can alter previous memory through new information, and can even break from heteronormativity. James Woodson relates, “There is an important and perhaps necessary role for experience at many developmental stages, and it appears that sexual learning mechanisms are potent enough to override a heterosexual predisposition under certain circumstances.”[30] The concrete elements necessary for such an overhaul come through sex hormones such as estrogen. Research shows, “Estrogens can modulate hippocampal neuroplasticity by upregulating adult hippocampal neurogenesis and synaptic protein levels.”[31] In layman’s terms, the hippocampus’ ability to alter the previous memory of an individual in other subjects is now being applied to sexual behaviors. As it will be addressed when turning to Aquinas below, behaviors cannot be limited to merely physical interactions. This research opens the door to the theory that sexual sins can be understood as good, right, and true, with the sinful soul using the hippocampus as a means for completion.
Engrams and Memory
Beginning in 1904, Richard Semon was the first to theorize that memories left a visible and locatable entity within the central nervous system.[32] These theories would not be taken seriously until the rise of advanced technology present in recent times. Neuroscientist Susumu Tonegawa writes, “Semon’s conceptualizations of the memory process were novel at his time and were remarkably predictive of our contemporary state of memory research.”[33] Combining neurobiology with Semon’s theories, Tonegawa summarizes,
“Engram” refers to the enduring physical and/or chemical changes that were elicited by learning and underlie the newly formed memory associations. “Engram cells” are a population of neurons that are activated by learning, have endured cellular changes as a consequence of learning, and whose reactivation by a part of the original stimuli delivered during learning results in memory recall.[34]
Research such as loss of function, gain of function, and observational studies using the most modern technologies (c-Fos-tTa, CREB, etc.) further highlight how the hippocampus functions in preserving and recalling memory.[35]
At the core of connecting this research with substance dualism is that the physical aspect of memory, so far as empirical science can show in present time, is a chemical and weight change within the neuron. These changes within the neuron(s) are solidified through the strengthening (long-term potentiation) or weakening (long-term depression) of synaptic connections.[36] This strengthening or weakening of synaptic connection is what neuroscientists call synaptic plasticity.[37] Arvind Govindarajan explains, “At the single cell level, an LTM [long-term memory] engram is thought to be composed of a pattern of synapses with stable synaptic weight changes.”[38]
It is beyond the scope of this paper to explain all the various parts of a neuron. However, it is sufficient to explain that neurons communicate through the synapse(s). Synapses exchange chemicals (i.e., neurotransmitters) from one neuron to the next. Synaptic plasticity, therefore, “is the process by which the numbers and strengths of synapses are changed as a consequence of their use. Thus, after a synaptic plasticity process has occurred, the neurons involved, and thus the networks they constitute, are altered.”[39] Neuroscientist Wendy Herrera-Morales goes on to state, “Synaptic plasticity is widely considered to be the likely principle mechanism underlying learning because it transforms the way a stimulus is processed and, consequently, can produce behavioral change.”[40] Synaptic plasticity is the muscle memory of neuronal communication; the strength grows as the muscle is repeatedly used. This memory is either growing stronger or weakening over time; neuroscience has shown that engrams are altered even into adulthood through new experiences.
There is one key aspect of memory which must be discussed: memory can be incorrect. Tonegawa writes, “Cognitive studies in humans have reported robust activity in the hippocampus during the recall of both false and genuine memories.”[41] Even from an evolutionary bias, Tonegawa admits, “One possible cause of episodic false memory is that the memory of a past experience becomes associated with a current external event of high valence.”[42] In other words, a memory of something good, right, or true, could actually be bad, wrong, or false, in reality. This is possible when one’s conscious or unconscious thoughts modify such memories through synaptic plasticity. Where does the impetus for such change come from? Without the reality of an immaterial soul driving the material brain, empiricism cannot adequately explain this phenomenon outside of pure chance.
Pressing into the reality of false memories will be crucial for defending substance dualism. Psychologist Daniel Schacter, attempting to answer from an evolutionary bias, suggests seven ‘sins’ of memory: transience, absent-mindedness, blocking, misattribution, suggestibility, and bias.[43] Schacter’s research is essential for grasping how the memory can be flawed. There is great promise for advancing Schacter’s theories from a Christian perspective. As it relates to sexuality, Schacter’s theories of suggestibility and bias show the greatest potential.
For suggestibility, a recent study upon a college campus in 2015 has shown that “a potent suggestive procedure drawing on visualization and social pressure induced 70% of their college student sample to develop a false memory of committing a crime as an adolescent, which greatly exceeded the proportion of false memories previously produced in similar paradigms.”[44][45] This study demonstrates the power of societal pressure to conform one’s memory to be found satisfactory; a process which can be observed through plastic changes within engrams. Schacter highlights, “the high proportion of false beliefs in this study nonetheless highlights the vulnerability of memory reports to corruption from suggestive influence.”[46]
Consistency bias, as Schacter defines it, is “where people rewrite the past to make it consistent with their current knowledge, beliefs, and feelings.”[47] Schacter highlights recent studies in the realm of political opinions to demonstrate how one’s leanings play a decisive role in determining whether perceived enemies’ actions or statements were remembered as having actually happened.[48] He writes, “These findings are not only relevant to current political divisions in the United States, where the nature and even existence of ‘truth’ has become a partisan issue, but also highlight a novel role for consistency bias in shaping the emergence of false memories.”[49] Is it possible that this false memory function could take place within sexuality also? Given that a large connection between memory, learning, and sexuality take place within the hippocampus, the empirical evidence in favor appears strong.
Working alongside neuroscientists Donna Rose Addis and Randy Buckner, Schacter shows the potency of memory for future behavior: “The medial temporal lobe [i.e. hippocampus], which has long been considered to be crucial for remembering the past, might actually gain adaptive value through its ability to provide details that serve as building blocks of future event simulation.”[50] Strikingly, they conclude, “A crucial function of memory is to make information available for the simulation of future events.”[51] If memory serves largely to interpret future happenings, how could this serve in judging sexual immorality to be good, right, and true?
The absence of further arguments from this topic rises from the absence of Christian engagement with the evidence. Moreland, a leading voice in defending substance dualism, has endeavored to answer physicalism from philosophy and theology. Memory research is now focused on where to locate long-term memories in the brain as they are not permanently stored in the hippocampus.[52] Holding to substance dualism requires merging several disciplines into one study, as man is created with immaterial aspects which cannot be observed, and material aspects which can be subjected to empirical science. It is now time to turn to one who has demonstrated this well in church history.
Aquinas on the Soul, Memory, and Neuroplasticity
Proponents of physicalism have cited evidence from neuroscience to state that the brain is now known to produce all the functions which the soul was believed to control. In defending substance dualism, Moreland writes, “This data allow neuroscientists to make more precise the different correlations, causal dependencies, and functional relations between conscious and brain states than were available when Aquinas and other people before him noted that damage to the brain not only disrupts but also, in some serious cases, entirely inhibits thinking.”[53] He concludes, “Neuroscientific empirical data are metaphysically neutral and the empirical study of the brain and goings-on within it are blind with respect to the existence and nature of consciousness and the self. And in moments of honesty, most (if not all) neuroscientists admit this case.”[54] Moreland appears content to let neuroscience be in defending the soul. However, this defense begs the question: if Aquinas was able to conclude so extensively based on the evidence available to him in defending and defining the soul, what can be made of the further evidence available now?
Aquinas was a large proponent of Aristotle, writing commentaries for thirteen of the Philosopher’s writings. Outside of these, Aquinas has left behind an exhaustive list of writings, commentaries on Scripture, and rebuttals to adverse opinions on numerous subjects. As it regards the soul, it is rare to find Aquinas in disagreement with Aristotle’s view. Aquinas summarizes, “the soul is defined as the first principle of life of those things which live: for we call living things ‘animate,’ and those things which have no life ‘inanimate.’”[55] Keeping in mind Aristotle’s distinctions between form and matter, Aquinas views the soul as form and the body matter. The soul gives life to the body; without the soul, the body dies. Aquinas writes, “Now, though a body may be a principle of life, or to be a living thing, as the heart is a principle of life in an animal, yet nothing corporeal can be the first principle of life.”[56] This belief is rooted in Aquinas’ commitment to theology. As God is the Creator, and does not have a body, so the first principle of life in man cannot be from the body. Rooting his answer from John 4:24, Aquinas explains, “It is impossible for a body to be the most noble of beings; for a body must be either animate or inanimate; and an animate body is manifestly nobler than any inanimate body.”[57] God is only form and does not exist in matter like man.[58] While “God is the same as His essence or nature,”[59] for man, “it must necessarily be allowed that the principle of intellectual operation which we call the soul, is a principle both incorporeal and subsistent.”[60]
Stemming from Aristotle, Aquinas understands the soul to make itself evident through specific powers or faculties. Aristotle lists them as “the vegetative, the appetitive, the sensitive, the locomotion, and the intellectual.”[61] In agreeing with Aristotle in assigning the intellect as a power of the soul rather than the soul’s essence, Aquinas defines the intellect as “its chief power.”[62] While the other powers of the soul are expressed through specific body parts, the intellect does not. For example, the sensitive power is expressed through the five senses of hearing, seeing, smelling, tasting, and touching.[63]
It is important to establish that Aquinas’ view of the soul hinges on whether the intellect is purely immaterial and does not express itself through a specific body part, for this will be crucial in engaging with neuroscientific evidence. Adam Wood believes that Aquinas’ arguments for the immateriality of the intellect “must demonstrate that intellectual operations cannot be explained in terms of coordination between body parts, states, and processes, together with their efficient causal inputs and teleological outputs.”[64] Memory can now serve as a litmus test for Aquinas’ theories. In the case of memory, Aquinas appears less than confident on whether it is properly understood within the intellectual power or the sensitive power. He writes, “If we take memory only for the power of retaining species, we must say that it is in the intellectual part. But if in the notion of memory we include its object as something past, then memory is not in the intellectual, but only in the sensitive part, which apprehends individual things.”[65] However, Aquinas also writes, “it is clear that memory is not a distinct power from the intellect: for it belongs to the nature of a passive power to retain as well as to receive.”[66] The determinant factor for Aquinas appears to be whether the ability to remember is within humanity alone and not within animals also (i.e. “retaining species”). Cognitive studies on memory in animals has answered this question for Aquinas.[67]
Aristotle’s theory behind the active and passive intellect guides Aquinas’ thoughts. Aristotle summarizes, “The perceptual part [active intellect] does not exist without a body, whereas the understanding [passive intellect] is separable.”[68] Commenting on this section, Aquinas writes, “We only know the intellect through our knowledge that we are using it.”[69] Aristotle claims that all knowledge is passive until it is understood with the perceptual power of the soul, at which knowledge then becomes active. In layman’s terms, there is knowledge that a human being is unaware of at any given time, but possible to learn or recall in a moment. Memory serves to bring a reality or item to the perceptual power of the soul. Aristotle believes that this act of perception owes itself to a specific body part.[70] Aquinas, too, writes, “The memorative power is the act of some organ.”[71] Thus, memory does not belong solely to the intellect and can possess a material reality. All other powers (or faculties) of the soul are actualized through the material body, but the intellect must be immaterial.
One possible explanation for how to differentiate memory from understanding is by looking at how the appetitive power of the soul interacts with the sensitive power. Paul Gondreau states,
We must bear in mind that the sexual inclination is again expressive of a natural ontological appetite for sex or natural sex drive, and that the natural appetite provides the ontological source for two ensuing ‘psychological’ appetites, appetites that allow for a ‘reaching out’ by way of elicited desire for particular objects.[72]
In other words, the appetitive power of the soul naturally craves sex and sets out to find satisfaction. If memory is of the sensitive power, as Aristotle and Aquinas claim, the appetite could be expected to trace what has been sensed as right, good, and true in the past. This does not have to be a physical experience alone, but any sensed expression such as what has been heard or seen. The soul can recall memory through the hippocampus when the appetite is awakened.
Supplying a solid understanding as to what Aquinas understands by the soul’s immateriality will be crucial in answering critics who believe Aristotle was an early physicalist. Joel Green has argued that, correctly understood, Aristotle’s writings do not require the reality of a distinct soul apart from the body.[73] He writes, “for many moderns, Aristotle’s position has been transformed, by Descartes, from theoretical psychology into epistemology, and thus from talk to ‘soul’ to the category of ‘mind.’”[74] However, Green does not engage Aquinas in his defense of physicalism, opting to counter the arguments of Cartesian dualism. Despite both being labeled under dualism, Aquinas and Descartes present differing options. In describing Thomistic philosophy, Guiseppe Butera acknowledges,
We must be careful not to take him for a proto-Cartesian, dividing the human person into two independently existing substances or entities bound together, somehow, to form a complex whole. Rather, for him, the entire human person, body and soul, is a single substance in which the body does not exist independently of the soul but in and through it. In this way, he preserves the existential unity of the human person, avoiding many of the problems that have dogged Cartesian dualism from its earliest days.[75]
Approaching the subject from a theological perspective, it is easy to see why Aquinas advocated for an intimate connection between the body and soul. God created man to live eternally embodied. When sin entered the world, death was introduced, and separation from the body after death became the course of all mankind. Despite a regular encounter with souls leaving the body as loved ones and acquaintances die, it must be remembered that death is the true aberration in creation, not the reality of an immaterial soul. This is why, at the return of Christ and the final resurrection, all those who have believed in the Gospel will be given transformed bodies. The uneasiness surrounding Aquinas’ theory of the soul appears to come from the dominant importance of empiricism in modern times. Scripture testifies to the reality of beings which cannot presently be sensed by humans.[76]
Unresolved Questions and Research Contribution
One of the greatest unresolved questions that arises from this research is understanding how Aquinas’ view of memory matches and counters that of other major figures in church history such as Augustine. John Cooper believes, “Thomas uses Aristotle to emphasize the unity of human nature and to account for the intimate correlativity of the soul and body on every level of existence. But he remains with Augustine in affirming that the soul is a distinct substance which can survive biological death.”[77] Aquinas ‘using’ Aristotle may be too simple of an explanation for the author’s intent, given how often Aquinas wrote on Aristotle’s work. This opinion also counters the claims of Butera cited above. Did Aquinas see his work primarily as tying the past of Christian scholarship together or as advancing the narrative? Is there necessarily a distinction between the two?
In viewing the neuroscientific aspect of this research, engram studies are in the frontier stage. Behind the desire to understand memory is the hope of finding where long-term memories are stored and, if possible, locating cells which house not only memory, but knowledge itself. Aquinas locates knowledge within the intellect, because knowledge originates in God and necessarily must be immaterial.[78] If neurons possessing synaptic changes in response to experience are counted as the physical existence of memory, it is possible that neuroscientists could claim that neurons with synaptic changes to new information could also be deemed physical representation of knowledge. A large portion of this research will have to respond to the validity of these assumptions from a biblical stance. Aquinas presents the most acceptable position for modern-day empiricism without succumbing to the pressures of scientism.
In contributing to neuroscience from theology, is it possible that having a proper understanding of dualism can contribute to ongoing studies of sexuality and addiction? Catholic philosopher Miguel Endara has theorized, “Once we break the right ordering of our human nature, the individual features of our being begin to act against one another. What does this mean? The acts that lack something they are to have foster inner turmoil, alienation from oneself, or fragmentation.”[79] Neuroscientist Donald Hilton shows in the case of pornography use, “Support for the existence of process addictions, though, has increased with our understanding of synaptic and dendritic plasticity.”[80] Can fragmentation and addiction be products of synaptic plasticity as directed by the soul? This seems to align closely with Schacter’s theory that memory is largely constructive and used to steer future decisions.[81]
In conclusion, this author hopes the research into memory of sexual desire from a Thomistic dualist approach will spark further engagement with neuroscience from a Christian perspective. Rather than simply defending the validity of dualism, Christian researchers ought to engage with all the evidence provided through general and special revelation to highlight the superiority of biblical anthropology. This engagement can serve to defend the inerrancy and sufficiency of Scripture, not only to an unbelieving world, but also to those who bear the name of Christ. Scientism is close to achieving a strong majority in Western culture both inside and outside of the church. This research is a small step in pursuing the glory of God through engagement with the latest of what He has revealed through exploration into the brain, hippocampus, and engram cells.
Footnotes
[1] As it pertains to the scientific studies reviewed throughout this research on memory, engrams, and synaptic plasticity, much is yet to be discovered. Researchers Clara Ortega and Tomas Ryan state, “The long-term storage of memory information is still ultimately a mystery.” Clara Ortega-de San Luis and Tomas J. Ryan, “Understanding the physical basis of memory: Molecular mechanisms of the engram,” Journal of Biological Chemistry 298, no. 5 (2022), 1018-1066. [2] J. P. Moreland, Christianity and the Nature of Science: A Philosophical Investigation (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House Company, 1989), 104. [3] Yuval Noah Harari, Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow (London, UK: Vintage, 2017), 328. [4] Ibid., 329. [5] Joel B. Green, Body, Soul, and Human Life: The Nature of Humanity in the Bible (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2008), 36. [6] See Nancey Murphy, Bodies and Souls, or Spirited Bodies? (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2006). She summarizes, “Science has provided a massive amount of evidence suggesting that we need not postulate the existence of an entity such as a soul or mind in order to explain life and consciousness.” See Nancey Murphy, “Human Nature: Historical, Scientific and Religious Issues,” in Whatever Happened to the Soul?, eds. Warren S. Brown, Nancey Murphy, and H. Newton Malony (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 1998). [7] J. P. Moreland, The Soul: How We Know It’s Real and Why It Matters (Chicago, IL: Moody Publishers, 2014), 35. [8] J. P. Moreland, “The Fundamental Limitations of Cognitive Neuroscience for Stating and Solving the Ubiquitous Metaphysical Issues in Philosophy of Mind,” Philosophia Christi 20, no. 1 (2018): 43.
[9] Wayne C. Booth et al., The Craft of Research, 4th ed. (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 2016), 57. [10] See J. P. Moreland, Love God with All Your Mind: The Role of Reason in the Life of the Soul. 2nd ed. (Colorado Springs, CO: Navpress, 2012). [11] Mark A. Noll, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2022), xii.
[12] Ken Ham, “Evidence for Creation,” AnswersInGenesis.org, https://answersingenesis.org/evidence-for-creation/.
[13] Unless otherwise specific, all Bible references in this paper are to the English Standard Version, Updated Version (ESV) (Wheaton: Crossway, 2016). [14] For an in-depth review of Paul’s anthropology in Romans, see Craig S. Keener, “Body, Mind, and Passions in Romans: Paul’s Alternative View within His Philosophical and Religious Context,” The Biblical Annals 12, no. 2 (2022), 255-277. See also Craig S. Keener, The Mind of the Spirit (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2016).
[15] Lars Fester and Gabriele M. Rune, “Sexual Neurosteroids and Synaptic Plasticity in the Hippocampus,” Brain Research 1621, no. 1 (2015), 165. [16] Christine Heberden, “Sex Steroids and Neurogenesis,” Biochemical Pharmacology 141, no. 1 (2017), 59. [17] Gerben B. Ruesink and Janniko R. Georgiadis, “Brain Imaging of Human Sexual Response: Recent Developments and Future Directions,” Current Sexual Health Reports 9, no. 4 (2017), 189. [18] James C. Woodson, “Including ‘Learned Sexuality’ in the Organization of Sexual Behavior,” Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews 26, no. 1 (2002), 77.
[19] Guiseppe Butera, “Thomas Aquinas and Cognitive Therapy: An Exploration of the Promise of Thomistic Psychology,” Philosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology 17, no. 4 (2010), 348-349. [20] Denis Larrivee and Adriana Gini, “Is the philosophical construct of ‘habitus operativus bonus’ compatible with the modern neuroscience concept of human flourishing through neuroplasticity? A consideration of prudence as a multidimensional regulator of virtue,” Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 8, no. 1 (2014), 51. [21] Butera, 348. [22] Kuljeet Singh Anand and Vikas Dhikav, “Hippocampus in Health and Disease: An Overview,” Annals of Indian Academy of Neurology 15, no. 4 (2012), 239. [23] Ibid. [24] Ibid.
[25] Ibid. [26] Steve Ramirez et al., “Creating a False Memory in the Hippocampus,” Science 341, no. 1 (2013), 387. [27] Ahand and Dhikay, 239. [28] Benedetta Leuner, Erica R. Glasper, and Elizabeth Gould, “Sexual Experience Promotes Adult Neurogenesis in the Hippocampus Despite an Initial Elevation in Stress Hormones,” PLoS ONE 5, no. 7 (Jul 2010), 6. [29] Ethical concerns limit the use of neurobiological studies on humans. Human subjects of neural injections have been on terminally ill patients and others with psychotic brain diseases such as schizophrenia. In one such experiment, neuroscientists Claudia Lieberwirth and Zuoxin Wang report, “It should be noted that as ethical concerns were raised regarding BrdU administrations in humans, subsequent studies primarily used endogenous cell proliferation markers to examine human adult neurogenesis.” Changing the method of investigation did not change the results, which mirrored those used previously with lab rats. Claudia Lieberwirth and Zuoxin Wang, “The social environment and neurogenesis in the adult mammalian brain,” Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 6, no. 1 (May 2012), 70-88.
[30] Woodson, 77. [31] Wendy Veronica Herrera-Morales, Andrea Herrera-Solis, and Luis Nunez-Jaramillo, “Sexual Behavior and Synaptic Plasticity,” Archives of Sexual Behavior 48, no. 8 (2019), 2619. [32] Two books authored by Semon serve as the foundation of engram theory today, written in 1904 and 1909, respectively. These works were later translated into English and published in 1921 and 1923, respectively. Richard Semon, Die Mneme als erhaltendes Prinzip im Wechsel des organischen Geschehens (Leipzig, DE: Wilhelm Engelmann, 1904). Richard Semon, Die nmemischen Empfindungen (Leipzig, DE: Wilhelm Engelmann, 1909). Richard Semon, The Mneme (London, UK: George Allen & Unwin Limited, 1921). Richard Semon, Mnemic Philosophy (London, UK: George Allen & Unwin Limited, 1923). [33] Susumu Tonegawa et al., “Memory Engram Cells Have Come of Age,” Neuron 87, no. 5 (2015), 918.
[34] Ibid. [35] Ibid., 921. [36] Ibid., 923. [37] The theory of synaptic plasticity was first developed by Donald Hebb in 1949. See Donald Hebb, The Organization of Behavior (New York, NY: Wiley & Sons, 1949). [38] Arvind Govindarajan, Raymond J. Kelleher, and Susumu Tonegawa, “A Clustered Plasticity Model of Long-Term Memory Engrams,” Nature Reviews: Neuroscience 7, no. 7 (2006), 575.
[39] Herrera-Morales, “Sexual Behavior and Synaptic Plasticity,” 2617. [40] Ibid. [41] Tonegawa et al., “Memory Engrams have Come of Age,” 925. [42] Ibid.
[43] Schacter initially wrote The Seven Sins of Memory in 2001. An updated version has recently been published. See Daniel L. Schacter, The Seven Sins of Memory: How the Mind Forgets and Remembers, 2nd ed. (Boston, MA: Mariner Books, 2021). [44] Daniel L. Schacter, “The Seven Sins of Memory: An Update,” Memory 30, no. 1 (2022), 39. [45] Julia Shaw and Stephen Porter, “Constructing Rich False Memories of Committing Crime,” Psychological Science 26, no. 3 (2015), 291-301. [46] Schacter, “Update,” 39. [47] Ibid., 40. [48] Gillian Murphy et al., “False Memories for Fake News During Ireland’s Abortion Referendum,” Psychological Science 30, no. 10 (2019), 1449-1459. [49] Schacter, “Update,” 40. [50] Daniel L. Schacter, Donna Rose Addis, and Randy L. Buckner, “Remembering the Past to Imagine the Future: The Prospective Brain,” Nature Reviews: Neuroscience 8, no. 9 (2007), 659. [51] Ibid. [52] Scott D. Slotnick, “The Hippocampus and Long-Term Memory,” Cognitive Neuroscience 13, nos. 3-4 (2022) 113-114.
[55] Thomas Aquinas, The Summa Theologica 75.1. [56] Ibid. [57] Aquinas, ST 3.1. [58] Ibid. [59] Ibid., 3.3. [60] Ibid., 75.2. [61] Aristotle, De Anima II.3. [62] Aquinas, ST 79.1. [63] Ibid., 78.3. [64] Adam Wood, Thomas Aquinas on the Immateriality of the Human Intellect (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2020), 193. [65] Aquinas, ST 79.6. [66] Ibid., 79.7. [67] See footnote 29 for the ethical limits of neuroscientific studies on humans and the subsequent use of animals. [68] Aristotle, De Anima III.4. [69] Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Aristotle’s ‘De Anima’ IX.725. [70] Aristotle, De Anima III.4. [71] Aquinas, ST 79.6.
[72] Paul Gondreau, “Thomas Aquinas on Sexual Difference: The Metaphysical Biology and Moral Significance of Human Sexuality,” Pro Ecclesia 30, no. 2 (2020), 202. [73] Green, Body, Soul, and Human Life, 56. [74] Ibid. [75] Butera, 350.
[76] Deuteronomy 29:29 creates two categories: things hidden, and things revealed. A biblical worldview must place all things in either of these two categories. Man must be content to understand that not all things can be understood. [77] John W. Cooper, Body, Soul, & Life Everlasting: Biblical Anthropology and the Monism-Dualism Debate (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1989), 11.
[78] See Summa Theologica 14.1.: “In God there exists the most perfect knowledge. To prove this, we must note that intelligent beings are distinguished from non-intelligent beings in that the latter possess only their own form; whereas the intelligent being is naturally adapted to have also the form of some other thing; for the idea of the thing known is in the knower.” [79] Miguel Angel Endara, “Augustine on Sex and the Neurochemistry of Attachment,” The National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 20, no. 4 (2020), 701.
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