Has Science Displaced the Soul?: Debating Love and Happiness

Kevin Sharpe · Rebecca Bryant Bryant

Apr 2005 · Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

About this eBook

Can science explain powerful human emotions such as love and happiness? Or, are these emotions something more than the action of biochemicals and electrical impulses? Science is constantly uncovering the mysteries of our nature, but we are uneasy about submitting our most intimate feelings to its scrutiny. Religion tells us that God is love but neuroscience counters with love as a well-timed trickle of transmitters and hormones. In the 21st century, is it necessary to discard our traditional beliefs of a loving God in favor of dopamine? With doctorates in both mathematics and theology, Kevin Sharpe explores these notions and asks the question, Has Science Displaced the Soul?

Unflinching in facing these issues, Sharpe provides a clear and current summary of the discoveries of science and what our spiritual traditions still have to offer in the ongoing effort to understand our deepest urges. He confronts serious unanswered questions. How can the Divine direct a random process like evolution? How can we reconcile the big bang with creation out of nothing? Does it make sense to claim that the non-biological Divine shares in human purposes and desires? Sharpe's solution is controversial since it requires that we demolish and reconstruct some of our most trusted conceptions. By examining the ways in which scientific and religious claims can be harmonized, he offers a radical and powerful interpretation of love and happiness in the divine context.

About the author

Kevin Sharpe is a professor in the Graduate College of Union Institute and University in Cincinnati, Ohio. He is a member of the Harris Manchester College, Oxford University, and co-directs the Oxford Institute for Science and Spirit. Originally from New Zealand, he now splits his time between Harrington Park, New Jersey, and Oxford, England.