Jesus Instinct?

William James wrote a seminal work on psychology, Principles of Psychology, a generation after Darwin’s legendary Origin of the Species. James attempted to explain human nature as a product of our evolutionary history.

Some commentators see humans as unique amongst the animals because we appear to be ruled by our reason, not instinct. James disagreed. For James the distinctiveness of humans was to be ascribed to having more instincts not less. An instinct is a “software programme” that has been developed by natural selection in a species to cope with a particular reality. Humans have the finest and most complex system of instincts, which makes our decisions more subtle and dextrous.

Evolutionary Psychologists refer to this problem as “instinct blindness”. Our instincts work so well for us, so effortlessly, that it is difficult to imagine that things could work any other way.

Several studies are drawing attention to the fact that much of religious experience is located quite precisely in certain parts of the brain and organised around certain chemical reactions. It is also becoming clear that certain types of people are prone to religious experience – have an aptitude for it. We have a religious instinct – some more than others.

This is also true of social change, which has its origin in the individual revolutionary’s psychology. Just as religion is a corporate, outward expression of an internal psychology, so social change begins with some psychological process. Feedback and “cross-pollination” enhances or dampens the experience, changing it and developing it.

Religion and social change are my bread and butter. The question I am living with at the moment is how an evolutionary psychological point of view affects me as an instructor of religion. Fascinating!