Adam and Eve and Human Evolution
A neuroscientific theory illuminates the Genesis story
This is the text of an episode from my Christian Realist podcast. I think it can be found on iTunes and some kind of Google thing, but I’m not great at technical stuff and I’m not 100% positive.
I have this link for for the audio.
Hello, and welcome to the first episode in this series on Bridging the Left/Right Divide with Stories from Genesis and a Fresh Perspective on Human Evolution. Okay, so that title is a little convoluted, I admit. But I hope the idea will become clearer with each segment in this series. What I would say, as far as, “Why should you listen to this?” is that the level of hostility between people on the left and right, politically, is spiraling out of control. So, I want to strengthen and encourage you, who are listening to this now, as a bridge builder and a peacemaker. And I want to share some of the very most helpful ideas and insights that I have learned from others in this regard, and how these same themes come up in the book of Genesis. Because the stories at the beginning of Genesis are very much about the evolution of human society. Which is to say, these stories are about politics. And I think you’ll agree as we go along here that the wisdom of these ancient texts is startlingly relevant to current events.
So, today we’re going to talk about, first, how the political “left” and “right” seem to represent the left and right hemispheres of the brain. And then we will consider the story of Adam and Eve with reference to this left/right divide, and finally, we’ll consider the implications for our personal lives.
So, first, how the left/right divide seems to be related to our two-part brain structure:
This is stolen from a neuroscientific researcher named Iain McGilchrist, whom I’ve mentioned before — but of course, this is just my own, highly inexpert take on the idea, so if you want to hear it from someone who actually has credentials and years of research to back him up, you can go straight to reading McGilchrist yourself. But my understanding is roughly like this:
The two hemispheres of the brain seem to represent two radically different ways of knowing or of being in the world.
The left hemisphere is more control-oriented. It usually controls the right hand, and even in left-handed people, the use of tools and implements is still coded in the left hemisphere. The left hemisphere tries to create order by creating an abstracted, over-simplified version of reality — like a map — which is very useful for manipulating and otherwise exerting control over things. And it tends to respond to opposition with anger, condemnation, and rationalizations.
So, part of McGilchrist’s theory is that the dominance of the left hemisphere, culturally and politically, leads to overreliance on rules and procedures in society. So, we can broadly associate the left hemisphere with authoritarianism and at its extreme, totalitarianism.
The right hemisphere, by contrast, is more able to see things as they are, without judgement. It’s more present, and it seems to be what we’re accessing with mindfulness meditation and other spiritual practices. Instead of generalizations, it looks at specifics and appreciates the uniqueness of individuals.
So, politically, the right hemisphere would be less rule-oriented, and more favorable toward context-based decisions. “You do what’s right for you, I’ll do what’s right for me.” We might associate it with libertarianism and, as an extreme, with anarchism: the least amount of government control.
Left hemisphere: high level of control — socialism, communism.
Right hemisphere, low level of control: libertarianism, anarchism.
Now, in the U.S. it gets a little complicated because there are authoritarian tendencies in both our major parties. But we do have a few libertarians that truly represent the political right, and the Republicans are in some ways their allies.
So, now we’re going to look to the Bible for some wisdom on this situation, because it is problematic that we have this divide, politically, which seems to be related to the divide within the human brain itself.
I want to tell you what has been for me, the most helpful interpretation of Adam and Eve eating the forbidden fruit. This comes from Karl Barth as well as Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German pastor who was executed for opposing the Nazis.
The idea is that before Adam and Eve ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they ALREADY knew good and evil through their relationship with God — they knew that obeying God was right and disobeying God was wrong. When they ate of the fruit, they came to know good and evil, in the manner that GOD KNOWS good and evil, which is to say, they became the ARBITERS of good and evil. So, instead of remaining in a humble position as merely part of God’s creation, and servants of God, they were now sitting in judgement over the world, meting out condemnation and approval according to their own ideas, their own rules.
So, to me, this interpretation was so powerful from the first time I read it, because to me this described a huge, dramatic contrast between two ways of being. And it’s the same difference that I recognize in Iain McGilchrist’s theory of the left- and right-hemispheres.
Because, to me, it feels like a difference of life and death. Sitting in judgement of the world feels destructive and unhealthy. Whereas an attitude of humble obedience toward God feels like life itself — it feels joyful and peaceful.
But what Gilchrist really adds to my understanding is a clue as to why so many other people do not experience this the same way. For many people, “obedience to God” is just another left-hemisphere abstraction that sounds like, just another form of authoritarianism.
Whereas for people like me, the idea of “obedience to God” actually helps us access that right-hemisphere, non-judgemental, mindful, reality-based frame of mind.
So, to me, McGilchrist’s theory provides this super-useful new terminology and frame of reference. So, I can say that, in trying to talk about this right-hemisphere/left-hemisphere contrast, Christians will use the terms worldly versus spiritual, or living according to the Law, which brings death versus the Spirit which gives life. Or we talk about works-based righteousness versus being saved by grace, through faith. These are all ways of trying to describe these two radically different ways of being, and if you’ve experienced the difference, it’s a dramatic contrast. But it can be difficult to communicate to others who haven’t experienced the same thing, or haven’t experienced it in the same way, or through the same means.
So, here’s how this seems to be related to human evolution and politics:
The expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden is widely regarded as symbolizing the shift from a nomadic way of life, to a farming lifestyle — which led to the creation of cities, greater social complexity and — here it is: increased reliance on the rule of law. So, we’ll talk more about this next time, but you do see this shift in the “curse” that is pronounced after the humans eat the fruit they weren’t supposed to, that the man will now have to earn his food by the sweat of his brow. And the woman will have increased pain in bearing children — which people often think is about the physical pain of childbirth — which it could be — but there are also scholars who say that it’s about the grief mothers feel when their children are either perpetrators or victims of violence, like Cain and Abel, respectively, in the next chapter. So, that could actually be a reference to the breakdown in social bonds that results from increasing urbanization.
Anyway, I don’t know for sure about all of this, but it sounds very plausible to me that the story of the expulsion from Eden points toward the increasing dominance of the left-hemisphere way of knowing, which goes hand-in-hand with the shift to farming and urbanization, and increasingly authoritarian, bureaucratic social structures.
So, now, let’s move on to discuss what this means for us, and for our personal lives today.
Well, for one thing, if the political left/right divide does, in fact, reflect the two part structure of the human brain, and two distinct ways of knowing or of being in the world that the left and right hemispheres represent, then we might work on bridging the divide within ourselves, to equip us in bridging the divide in society.
Well, for most, we could probably benefit from strengthening our spiritual practice, or meditative practice. And I actually requested a song for Brandon to sing today that really, for me, speaks deeply to the experience of — what I think of as “being in a right relationship with God” — but other people could call it mindfulness or being present — but the song is called Hallelujahs by Chris Rice, it reads like a poem, about the awe and wonder that one feels in nature. Y’know, not every feels wonder and inspiration when reading Karl Barth, but you’d be hard pressed to find someone that was totally unmoved in the presence of a breaching whale or a shooting star, as the song mentions.
So, anyway, being out in nature is definitely a worthwhile spiritual practice for probably anyone. And for me, Christian worship. And obviously, other religions have their own methods.
So, there’s that. Which is very general, obviously.
And I’d like to make a more specific suggestion as well.
So, I want to suggest something you can remember when you’re getting upset about politics.
So, first, I invite you to bring to mind a political policy you disagree with. What is something that others advocate for and you believe is just wrong?
Now try telling yourself, “That policy violates MY IDEAS about right and wrong.” Because it absolutely does. It violates your ideas. Then take a step back from those ideas. Remember that your ideas are in your head. The real world extends beyond you, beyond your mind. And you can practice trying to set aside your ideas about what the world ought to be, and try to see the world simply as it is. And to do this well requires honesty. And humility. So it’s something we all need to practice — and like I said, that’s what spiritual practice is for. But again, this is a way that you can remind yourself in the moment, when you’re upset about politics — and ask yourself, “If I looked beyond my ideas, what would I see?” So, anyway, you can modify that to work for you, or whatever, but just a suggestion in case you might find it helpful.
End of podcast transcript
