Neurotheology and evolutionary theology: Reflections on The Mystical Mind

Eugene d'Aquili and Andrew B. Newberg in their book The Mystical Mind sugge st that their neurotheology is both a metatheology and a megatheology. In t his commentary I question whether neurotheology is comprehensive enough and suggest that it needs to and possibly can take into account the moral and social dimensions of religion. I then propose an alternative metatheology a nd megatheology: evolutionary theology grounded in the science of biocultur al evolution and focusing on ultimate reality as creatively immanent in nat ural and human history. Neurotheology and evolutionary theology may complem ent one another. Evolutionary theology accounts for both the neurology of t he brain and culturally evolved ideas and practices of particular religions and their theologies. Hence it seems more comprehensive than neurotheology . However, because ultimate reality in evolutionary theology is immanent in the world of space and time, of baseline experience, it cannot account for the mystic experience of absolute unitary being. In accounting for this tr anscendent experience and its reality, neurotheology is more comprehensive. However, neither theology can account for how transcendent ultimate realit y, experienced by the mystic as absolute unitary being, gives rise to the c hanging world experienced as baseline reality.