The God-Shaped Brain

How Changing Your View of God Transforms Your Life

Timothy R. Jennings

• Publisher: IVP
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9780830844951
• eBook ISBN: 9780830892358
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion & Science

What you believe about God actually changes your brain.Brain research in neuroscience has found that our thoughts and beliefs affect our physical, mental, and spiritual health. Mind and body are interrelated, and we are designed for healthy relationships of love and trust. When we understand God as good and loving, we flourish. Unfortunately, many of us have distorted images of God and mostly think of him in fearful, punitive ways. This leads us into unhealthy patterns of self-defeating behaviors and toxic relationships. But our lives can change when God renews our minds with a truer picture of him.Psychiatrist Tim Jennings unveils how our brains and bodies thrive when we have a healthy understanding of who God is. He dispels common misconceptions about God and shows how different God concepts affect the brain differently. Our brains can adapt, change, and rewire with redeemed thinking that frees us from unnecessary pain and suffering. Discover how neuroscience and Scripture come together to bring healing and transformation to our lives.This expanded edition now includes a study guide for individual reflection or group discussion, with questions for learning from Scripture, science and nature, and experience.

SECTION II

The Battle Between the
Conflicting Views About God

5

Love Strikes Back

Love has nothing to do
with what you are expecting to get;
it’s what you are expected to give
—which is everything.

Anonymous

She was only nineteen and suffering, in terrible pain, when I met her. Her body was broken, but she was lucky to be alive. Sam, short for Samantha, was the talk of the hospital, a miracle of sorts. She had joined the U.S. Army right after high school and enlisted for Special Forces training and military jump school at Fort Bragg.

Soon after completing basic training, she arrived at Fort Bragg for the grueling preparation of a paratrooper. She learned how to pack her own chute, properly load her equipment and safely exit a plane. She was taught how to cut away a faulty chute and deploy her reserve in case of emergency. She practiced the proper way to land, crumple and roll. She completed all of her training jumps without any difficulty and was proud of her accomplishment when graduation day finally arrived.

The families of the graduates were invited to a ceremony unlike any other in the country. Graduates at Fort Bragg don’t walk down the aisle in robe and mortar board with an orchestra playing “Pomp and Circumstance,” but instead, they float down by parachute in full combat dress to the roar of Hercules C-130s flying by. With the stands full of excited family members, the planes began to pass overhead and chute after chute opened, decorating the sky with little green soldiers dancing in the wind. The graduates landed on the parade field in front of the bleachers from where their families watched.

Suddenly, a gasp rose from the audience as one chute failed to open. With all eyes riveted to the soldier streaming through the sky, the anxious crowd watched as the tangled chute was cut away and the emergency chute was deployed. But then screams filled the parade ground as the emergency chute also tangled and failed to open. Sam’s parents had no idea that she was the soldier whose chute had failed to deploy. Mom and Dad watched in stunned silence, praying for the unknown soldier whom they would later learn was their daughter.

Sam followed her training; when she hit the ground, she crumpled and rolled. The force of the impact broke both legs, her pelvis and caused some damage to her sacral spine. But, amazingly, she survived.

I remember the buzz around the hospital. “What a miracle; God must really have a purpose for her life,” said one nurse. But she was quickly challenged by another who said, “If God were going to perform a miracle, why didn’t he just have the parachute work? No, I wonder what she did to offend God that he would do this to her.”

I thought about Sam and why she got injured. Did the “good” God intervene to save her? Did the “bad” god intervene to punish her? Did the “ugly” god not care?

Natural Law

I knew that if Sam happened to receive the chute she herself had packed, her parents wouldn’t hate her for failing to pack her chute correctly. That’s when it struck me: God doesn’t hate humankind for falling into sin. What Sam’s parents hated was that Sam had jumped out of a plane with a parachute that didn’t work. Why? Because it resulted in pain and suffering to the one they loved.

Again, assuming Sam received the chute she packed, no one had to inflict punishment on her for failing to pack it correctly. Even though the Army had given Sam explicit instructions on how to pack a chute, if she failed to comply with those rules, the government did not have to inflict punishment on her in order to be just. Instead, the government intervened to stop what justly should occur when one jumps from an airplane without a working parachute. As soon as she hit the ground, the same government that told her how to avoid damage bent its resources on healing the damage done.

Ground emergency responders, ambulances, medics, doctors, nurses, physical therapists—all the governmental resources necessary to save and heal Sam—were immediately mobilized. Even before she slammed into the ground, the government’s interventions began. Emergency responders were already moving to meet her at the point of impact.

Thinking about this modern scene, I imagined the shrieks of horror resounding throughout heaven as the angels watched Adam and Eve believe the lies of the serpent, partake of the fruit and plummet toward their eternal demise. But God was already moving, before they landed in sin, to meet their urgent need. Jesus, the “Lamb who was slain from the creation of the world” (Rev 13:8) was already there to catch them in his arms of love.

Every agency in God’s government leapt into action in order to heal and save, not only Adam and Eve, but you and me as well. Lies believed broke the circle of love and trust. But, praise be to God, Love would not let go. Love struck back. Jesus stepped in. The human race—of which we are all members—would be saved!

Love’s Intercession

Love could not abandon us. God could not turn his back on us. He would rather die than let us go. Even though lies were believed, even though the human brain was no longer loving but fearful and selfish, even though death was stalking humanity, God was instantly pouring himself out to save and heal.

As soon as our first parents believed lies about God, broke the circle of love and trust, and corrupted themselves with the me-first principle, Love reached down from heaven and began intercession. God stepped in; he put himself between us and sin’s cancerous assault. He intervenes to cure humanity, to save us from eternal death.

God intercedes in three ways:

1. He opposes the principalities and powers of darkness by holding evil forces in check. The Bible says he sends his angels to restrain the four winds (Rev 7:1) and places a hedge of protection around his people, deterring satanic agencies (2 Kings 6:17; Job 1:10; Ps 91:11).
2. God also intercedes in our hearts and minds. He sends his Spirit to work in our brains to enlighten with truth, to convict, to draw, to woo, to place a desire for good—a longing for love into our hearts (Gen 3:15; Jn 16:8). Ever since the fall of Adam and Eve, Love has been warring with evil, obstructing its deadly intent while simultaneously fighting to eradicate the infection of fear and selfishness from the human heart.
3. Jesus interceded in the course of sinfulness itself. He became sin for us (2 Cor 5:21). He took on himself our terminal condition in order to conquer, overcome and cure. “Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows” (Is 53:4 NIV 1984). Yes, Jesus became one of us in order to reverse all the damage sin has done to his creation and to restore us, his children, back to unity with God. Jesus came to crush the serpent’s head (Gen 3:15)—to destroy Satan and eradicate the sin infection from this world (Heb 2:14).

Because of God’s intercession, there are now two antagonistic principles at war on planet Earth—love and survival of the fittest. God’s principle of love was summed up by Jesus laying down his life for us (Jn 15:13). This means, “I love you so much that I will do whatever I have to for your health, welfare and good, including if necessary, giving my life that you might live.” Such godly love is at war with the survival-of-the-fittest principle, which says, “I love myself so much I will do whatever I have to in order to protect, advance and exalt myself including, if necessary, killing you that I might live.” Give my life that you might live, or kill you that I might live. These are the two principles at war in each of our hearts.

Knowing the Truth

God is working, via his Spirit, to enlighten, heal and restore. Jesus said, “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (Jn 8:32).

Truth enters the mind through the circuits of the prefrontal cortex. But the enemy not only tries to confuse our thinking with lies, he also inflames our limbic systems. “When tempted, no one should say, ‘God is tempting me.’ For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death” (Jas 1:13-15). Our evil desires arise from our limbic systems, our own centers of emotion and desire.

God is constantly working to heal and restore perfect love in our hearts, using only his methods of truth, love and freedom. Satan, the polar opposite of love, is working to destroy. The father of lies twists, distorts and misrepresents all God’s interventions of love because, as we’ve learned, lies believed break the circle of love and trust and keep us afraid of God. When we respond to God’s love and practice his methods, our higher brain regions grow stronger. But when we choose selfishness, our limbic systems grow stronger, guilt increases and prefrontal-cortex function is impaired. It is only by coming back into a trusting relationship with God that our brains can be healed and our characters purified.

A Remote Village

Imagine a remote village in Africa. No modern Westerner has ever set foot there. The natives live off the land, using the same ancient methods and tools as their forefathers used for the last thousand years. They know nothing of modern science, technology or medicine.

One day a group of medical missionaries comes to this village to provide whatever health care might be needed. The day they arrive they meet a child writhing in pain near the edge of the encampment. Examining the child, they quickly diagnose acute appendicitis. Without emergency surgery he will die.

Fortunately, the medical missionaries have a mobile surgical suite and all the necessary equipment to perform this life-saving operation. They pick up the child, kicking and screaming, and begin the emergency intervention. As the medical team works furiously to save the child’s life, three other children watch intensely from a nearby hiding place. The medical personnel hold the child while a nurse sticks a needle in his arm and infuses fluids. The terrified patient squirms violently until medicine is injected and he quickly becomes unresponsive. The three children are frightened as they watch a masked man take a sharp knife and cut open their friend’s abdomen. In terror they run to their village, screaming that invaders are coming to capture them, put them on a table and carve them up like pigs.

The entire village is aroused. The children, the elderly, the weak and the frightened quickly begin an evacuation, running from this terrible threat. The warriors begin devising plans to fight against this hostile invader. When the medical missionaries finally approach the village, they are attacked and driven away. No one in that community is going to be foolish enough to let these barbarians near.

What could the medical team do to engender trust? If they had called in soldiers and taken the village by force, would trust be restored? If only the missionaries had a member of that tribe, someone who knew the people and spoke their language, to go ahead of them and tell the villagers the truth. If only someone from that health-care team could be born into that village, grow up among them, and reveal they were friends and not enemies.

This is how it is with God and the human race ever since our first parents broke the circle of love and trust. We are sick and dying. God has been working to save and heal, to restore us to trust so we will let him cure us. But our darkened minds, like those of the villagers, have all too often misunderstood what God is trying to do. We have viewed God as terrifying or hostile and, as a result, have rejected his messengers, attacked his prophets and driven away his representatives. “Darkness covers the earth and thick darkness is over the peoples” (Is 60:2). Therefore, God sent us his Son, the “true light, which enlightens everyone” (Jn 1:9 NRSV) to reveal God’s true character in order to win us back to trust, to connect us back to the circle of love. But sadly, though “the light shines in the darkness, . . . the darkness has not understood it” (Jn 1:5 NIV 1984). Until we understand the light—the truth about God as revealed in Jesus—our minds cannot be healed. Why? Because lies believed inflame the limbic system and damage the prefrontal cortex, obstructing the flow of love in our being. The truth, on the other hand, destroys lies, restores trust and, as we build that trust relationship with God, his lifesaving love begins to flow through us again. It is that love flowing through us that heals the brain and transforms the soul.

The first step in the healing process is coming to the truth about God.

The Battle in the Converted Brain

It is truth about God that destroys lies and wins us back to trust. In trust we open our hearts and experience God’s love, which overcome fear and enable us to give rather than constantly seek to get. This is conversion, the experience of a fundamental switch in the primary motive of the heart—from our inherent survival-of-the-fittest selfishness to other-centered love.

Although we can experience conversion in a moment (the thief on the cross next to Christ, Saul on the road to Damascus), God’s healing transformation of our lives occurs gradually, steadily, progressively. It takes time for unhealthy neural circuits to degrade and healthy ones to form.

Consider being infected with anthrax. Without treatment, you will die. The infection has already caused significant damage by the time you go to the doctor. The doctor provides an antibiotic that will cure your condition, but you have to trust the doctor and follow his treatment plan. The moment you take your first dose of antibiotic, you have left the path of death and entered life. This would be analogous to conversion. But will all of your symptoms be resolved that day? Or will there be a gradual healing process?

Likewise, we were all born dead in trespasses and sin—a terminal condition of selfishness (Ps 51:5; Eph 2:1). But when we see the truth about God, we enter at conversion into a trust relationship with Jesus Christ and accept his treatment for our lives; we leave the path of death and enter into eternal life. It is in this saving relationship that God’s healing power begins working in our lives. However, until Christ returns, the healing of our minds, the transformation of our characters, the rewiring of our brains is an ongoing battle as old neural circuits are degraded and healthy pathways are formed.

This is what Paul was describing in Romans 7. I have paraphrased what I believe Paul is saying, inserting some insights regarding brain physiology:

What shall we say then? Is t...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Contents
• Diagram of the human brain
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• SECTION I: God, the Brain and What Went Wrong
• SECTION II: The Battle Between the Conflicting Views About God
• SECTION III: Embracing the Goodness of God
• Addendum: Putting It All Together—Simple Steps to a Healthier Brain
• Study Guide
• Glossary
• Notes
• Questions and Comments
• Praise for The God-Shaped Brain
• About the Author
• More Titles from InterVarsity Press
• Copyright