Neuroscience, Faith, and a Search for the Soul
Starred review from June 1, 2017
Along the path carrying him from early years as an aimless druggie to professional maturity as an esteemed neurologist, Lombard has learned a great deal about the science of the brain. Surprisingly, he has also learned much about faith, especially as it manifests itself as a formative mental force. Challenging colleagues who regard the brain as merely a biochemical organ, Lombard insists that the brain yields up its profoundest secrets only to those who recognize it as the seat of metaphysical realitiesthe divinely forged soul and the soul-engendered emotions of hope and love. As readers contemplate the mystery of human consciousness, they realize that neurochemistry alone cannot explain our subjective experience when we seek the meaning of life and death. Though he admits that our neural makeup leaves us free to choose unbelief, he adduces evidence that the creative right hemisphere of our brain is innately primed for faith in a cosmos governed by God. Readers indeed see how such faith turns the otherwise-opaque riddles of memory, dreams, and personal identity into windows opening onto a sublime vista of immortalityand redemption. Contextualizing scientific precepts with humanizing personal accounts of psychiatric patientsand family membersLombard erects a much-needed bridge between science and faith.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)