C:\My Documents\Sociobiology\SB35.doc 02 January 2003
AGAPE
AND OXYTOCIN
Kevin
Sharpe and Rebecca Bryant
Certain biochemicals occur with particular animal, including human, behaviors, according to recent research in neurochemistry. Parental and filial love, for example, correlate with the presence of oxytocin and vasopressin in the brain, and they in turn induce the symptoms of loving. Love is, in part, an adaptive trait that functions with hormones. In the Christian view, God is – or exhibits – love, the same sort of love. Tradition speaks of a God who loves us as parents love their children, and scripture urges us to return that love (to our fellow humans as well as to God) in kind.
A tension therefore exists between neuroscience and spiritual thought, a tension that calls for a rethink of the spiritual doctrine of divine love. We hardly expect God to possess veins with oxytocin running through them. Further, if we believe with Saint John that love comes from God, then we need to understand how love can derive from both biology and the Divine.
Difficult questions arise. Is it, for example, reasonable to include loving as a prerequisite for a person’s salvation if that individual is missing the part of the brain for moral conduct? By tackling these kinds of issues head on, it may be possible to arrive at a new understanding of agape and divine love, an understanding that respects the insights of both science and religion.
Insel, T.R. 1997. A Neurobiological Basis of Social Attachment. American Journal of Psychiatry 154(6), 726-35.
Uvnäs-Moberg, K. 1997. Physiological and Endocrine Effects of Social Contact. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 807, 146-63.